Showing results by author "Kevin Candela" in All Categories

In search of the ferocious truth, some would call trying to channel the spirit of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson a fool’s errand. But these are desperate times. So settle in for this trilogy of uppers, downers, screamers, laughers from John Bruni (Tales of Questionable Taste), Kent Hill (Hercules with a Shotgun) and Kevin Candela (Weedeaters: The Complete Acropalypse) as they bring you just what the doctor ordered.

Styled like a classic drive-in double feature, this pair of tales strives to evoke that beloved era and its associated feelgood emotions while still thrilling and frightening those willing to take the rides. Both stories are family-style entertainment with little foul language and virtually no "adult situations" - in other words, sheer all-ages fun.

In Children of the Coming World, plant workers arrive one morning to the utterly bizarre sight of some form of cocoon, big as a bus, bonded to one of the huge towers. They quickly realize there's more than one...and what's inside them is coming out all too soon. Then in Mars One we find out just how much humanity's eager reach may be exceeding its grasp when "space boredom" drives one astronaut to what should have been a mere harmless prank....

The world teeters on the edge of catastrophe in the sixth and final saga in the Krakenstein series. But this time it’s not because of some nightmarish new city-smashing horror arriving on the scene. No, it’s our species on the attack. Well, a handful of humans, anyway. Fanatic extremists, Generals Blakemoor and Dilack, have taken over the United States’ military forces who in turn had stepped in to run the country after the devastating strike on Washington by Vampulon, the extraterrestrial horror.

Erno the vole is on a mission to beat the Gardener's brilliant series of tomato garden defenses. He may be the greatest vole thief and acrobat in...well...at least the neighborhood - but that doesn't mean he's up for the challenges ahead. He'll need all his wits, wisdom, strength, and stamina if he wants to take a bite out of those luscious pink-orange tomatoes tonight.

Rada Dunn is used to the solitary life of the arid valley north of the little town of Peace. Nothing much happens there, and her bean and wheat crops provide her with just enough to keep her away from the rest of her kind...which is how she's come to like it. But when she comes upon human remains that have recently been burned so intensely that they are merely sticky black bones, her serenity is shattered.

The creator of The Krakenstein Chronicles follows up his first two SF/fantasy/horror/comedy short story collections, A Year in the Borderlands and Playing with Reality, with a third heaping helping of generally freakish tales from the other side of existence. Wild narratives of mystery, horror, awe - and even some laughs - are assembled here together for the first time. Lost Radio brings you the timelessly eerie and thrilling stories of things that very well could be - whether you want them to exist or not.

Months have passed, the trail has grown cold, and ZC has all but given up when out of the blue, a back road diversion leads him to the mystical, but apparently not mythical Bizarre - a place where all kinds of beings want all kinds of things...and barter and gamble to get them. He's about to meet some utterly strange new friends, including a dogman named Ekos, a human-like woman with a nest of serpents for a head, and a gigantic bat-dragon that doesn't like being referred to as either.

Here, for the first time, is the complete saga of Krakenstein, the titanic mutant who's out to save the world, whether humanity likes it or not. Noble environmental scientist Dr. Max Shepperton's bizarre transformation from nerdy human being to a 300-foot-tall squid-headed monster seems a great tragedy, until the world realizes that his Godzilla-sized new form might be the one thing that can prevent the Earth's vengeance against greedy corporate profiteers from bringing about the extinction of Shepperton's former species - the human race.

The name actually means "greatest of sages," but let's face it: Sinbad is synonymous with adventure. His voyages are legendary, but only a few are really well-known. Here, then, are three consecutive tales brought to light for the first time, a trilogy of epic scope that spans not just the seven seas but the universe - and even time itself! Ride along with the sea captain as he heroically faces off against deadly sorcerers, fearsome creatures, and dark deities, most of them fiercely determined to either enslave humanity or destroy it.

Here it is: the blood-and-sap-splattered epic of gritty, wisecracking survivors turned mutant warriors in a global apocalypse against gigantic man-eating...dandelions. One sunny morning, the world awoke to the revenge of their own well-manicured lawns: Seeded by chemtrails and radiated by black-ops satellites, innocent little weeds swelled to massive size and uprooted themselves from the broken earth and raced off hungrily toward their new menu - mankind!

Nakedman Race Harleson runs for US president - and runs interference between scoffing, scared humanity and an intervening alien race of contractor/mercenaries who have clamped down on the plutocratic pharaohs of the modern age. In the thrilling conclusion of Volume One of Nakedman: Uncomfortable Tales of Epic Adventure, Race and Ellen both end up having to risk everything for a mere outside chance to save the world...and not just from alien invaders.

Time Weathers didn’t so much mind the car breakdown...just another hassle, albeit at an extremely inconvenient locale. But now reality itself is threatening to do the same, and she’s not quite as adaptable to that. Time was just minding her own business, ambling along on an old road under the blistering Nevada sun, hoping for the kind of road rescue help you aren’t typically going to find in the middle of the desert anyway, when the disconnected phone in the dusty booth outside the dilapidated gas station she was passing began to ring.

In his storied days, Sinbad travelled the world, charting its lands, experiencing the wonders, terrors, and treasures to be found across the Seven Seas. But there is an ocean that he has not yet touched, let alone explored: one so incredibly vast and daunting that to look upon its shores - as indeed he has done all his life - is to gaze into an infinity of possibility...and danger. In the wake of the cataclysmic Siege of Aderadad, having learned his father is alive “somewhere out there,” Sinbad is devoted to finding him.

From the creator of the Krakenstein Trilogy comes a tale of mounting terror fueled by scientific curiosity, government secrecy, and U-238: When a geology student stumbles upon a bizarre little cube that absorbs incoming energy and defies dissection and analysis, it's passed up through the university to government scientists who can't get any further with figuring it out either. Incapable of solving its mysteries, they decide to expose it to a nuclear fission reaction...which is exactly what it's been waiting for.

Gigantic centipedes born of genetic engineering and experimental pesticides and fertilizers storm a small farming community, running down and devouring everything on two legs, in this exciting new tale of suburban terror and mayhem.

Grayson Lone Feather loves to wander the woods behind his stepdad's property. He finds all kinds of things out there, chief among them typically being peace of mind. But when Gray comes upon a barrel-sized egg exposed by the collapse of a short limestone bluff, and what's inside it turns out to be alive and more than kicking, he finds himself at the center of action far beyond his wildest imaginings. Soon a gigantic "something" is roaming the Illinois skies, and Gray and his friend Jaleen are off to find it.

Mars One by Kevin Candela: What do you do when cabin fever of the outer space variety drives one of your four-person crew to prank your commander…to death…leaving you and said pranker to “work things out” on the last half of your eight-month pioneering mission to colonize Mars? Homecoming by Roma Gray: An alien race decides to “punish” humanity by sending all their ships and military home unharmed. Are they being nice, or have they figured something out?

On distant Gavelin, Roman and Nikala face the daunting prospect of taking on the consolidated powers of most of Gavelin’s Howling Wind-infected tyrants without the aid of their Dragon Child friend Chalice Rayne. Meanwhile here on Earth, renegade conservative mouthpiece Carl Morrow’s stolen super-stealth blimp is quickly running out of corners to hide in as “Charlie Tomorrow” and his high-tech rebels work to put together a plan to expose the true darkness that has all but overtaken their society. But Charlie and his crew have no idea how truly outmatched they are.

The sixth "drive-in double feature" in the Super SF Double Feature series spotlights alien invasion in both directions - coming and going - with two thrilling tales of science-fiction culture shock.