“Do you want to design your own pet? Change the stripes on the fish in your aquarium? Or sell your eggs and sperm online for thousands of dollars? Did you know one fifth of all your genes are owned by someone else?” HarperCollins said in a press release. “This is not just the world of the future. It’s the world right now! Most of the events in this book have already happened. And the rest are just around the corner. Get used to it.”

This sounds like a very good book. I’ve enjoyed Crichton’s other novels (Jurassic Park, Disclosure, and Sphere), but have yet to read them all. Next will be available in bookstores on November 28.

I read this book when it came out about a decade ago. The only story I can remember is the one where a cop goes to the cemetery to talk to his dead wife. The first story in this mini-series stars William Hurt, who plays the part of Jason Renshaw, a professional hitman who knocks off the CEO of a prominent toy company.

Shortly after the knockoff, Renshaw receives a package from the toy company and finds himself embroiled in the battle of his life. The screenshots on the TNT website are typical of a King movie.

This miniseries is scheduled to run from Wednesday, July 12 through August 2. Mark your calendars!

“A smoothly engineered supernatural entertainment in the more rambunctious American style of Stephen King.”– New York Times Book Review

“Scott Nicholson is my favorite new horror author. His books are entertaining, well-written, and most importantly, scary. I’m a huge fan. Nicholson, like Stephen King, has a true talent for terror.”–Bentley Little, author of The Resort

“Scott Nicholson is one of the new breed of horror writers who have taken up the mantle of King and Koontz with his modern day gothic horror thrillers that are chillingly filled with things not of this world visiting our realm with malicious intent.–Baryon Online

“Offers plenty of faith-challenging questions as the tale moves briskly to its unexpected conclusion.”– Publishers Weekly on “The Home”

“Scott Nicholson is on his way to the front rank of genre writers, but don’t be surprised if he–like Koontz and King before him–becomes a genre unto himself.”–Page Horrific

“Nicholson proves himself to be a legitimate voice in the horror field, combining sympathetic characters and a compelling story with enough nerve-numbing moments to keep any horror fan happy.”–The Horror Channel

Synopsis

Katy Logan wasn’t quite sure why she left her finance career in the big city to marry religion professor Gordon Smith and move to the tiny Appalachian community of Solom.

Maybe she just wanted to get her 12-year-old daughter Jett away from the drugs and bad influences. Maybe she wanted to escape from the memories of her first husband. Or perhaps she was enchanted by the promise of an idyllic life on the farm that has been in Gordon’s family for 150 years.

But the move has been anything but stress-free, because the man she married seems more interested in the region’s rural Baptist sects than in his new wife. The Smith family secrets run deep: Gordon teases Katy and Jett with a story about a wicked scarecrow that comes in from the fields at night to slake an unnatural thirst. Gordon’s great-grandfather was a horseback preacher who mysteriously disappeared while on a mission one wintry night, and some say a rival preacher did him in.

Gordon’s first wife Rebecca died under equally mysterious circumstances, and Katy’s starting to believe Rebecca’s spirit is still in the house. The scent of lilacs drifts across the kitchen, doors slam shut with no one else home, and the kitchen curtains flutter even when the windows are closed. Katy becomes obsessed with Rebecca’s recipes and clothes, and she finds herself driven to find out more about Rebecca to emulate her and therefore please Gordon. To make matters worse, Gordon’s herd of goats watches Katy every time she leaves the house, fixing their rectangular pupils on her as if waiting for some silent command.

Jett is worried about Mom, but she has worries of her own. A Goth girl in a rural elementary school, she gets teased for being different. She misses her dad, and feels guilty because her drug abuse forced Mom to enter a hasty marriage with Gordon. The pressure leads her back to drugs despite her promise to Mom. Now she fears the drugs are blowing her mind. She’s starting to hallucinate, and the goats, scarecrows, and a strange man in a black hat are all part of her madness.

But the residents of Solom know all about the man in the black hat. They whisper the legends around the pot-bellied stove at the general store, they pray for protection from him in their little white churches, they think about him as they gather hay, harvest corn, and work their gardens. The brave ones talk about him, believing him dead and buried, but nobody dares to utter his name.

The Reverend Harmon Smith has come back more than century after his last missionary trip, and he has unfinished business. But first Katy and Jett must be brought into the family, and the farm must be prepared to welcome him home. Gordon has been denying his heritage, but now it’s time to choose sides. Does he protect the ones he loves, or surrender to the ancestral urge for revenge?

Read the excerpt of The Farm.

The title of this book caught my eye immediately, but unfortunately Amazon doesn’t have a description of this anthology, which is due out on October 3, 2006. So this prompted me to do some research.

Here are the titles of the stories in this anthology, courtesy of P.N. Elrod’s blog:

L.E. Banks - “Spellbound”
Jim Butcher - “Something Borrowed”
Rachel Caine - “Dead Man’s Chest”
P.N. Elrod - “All Shook Up”
Esther M. Friesner - “The Wedding of Wylda Serene”
Lori Handeland - “Charmed by the Moon”
Charlaine Harris - “Tacky”
Sherrilyn Kenyon - “A Hard Day’s Night-Searcher”
Susan Krinard - “…Or Forever Hold Your Peace”

From the sounds of these titles, My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding promises to be morbidly hilarious and fun!