I am hosting Alexander Nader here today in honour of his Beasts of Burdin blog tour. I have asked him to compile a list of forms of media (books, television shows, plays, movies or anything else he could think of) which are among his favourites that contain demons or demon hunters. He was only able to come up with seven, so here is his sevens list:
* Exorcism of Emily Rose: I’m going to be completely honest with you guys here, I don’t watch a lot of horror movies. I think they rely too much on gore and not enough on suspense. It’s all show, no thrill. That being said, Exorcism of Emily Rose was probably the last enjoyable horror movie I watched. It was creepy in all the right ways, especially the part at the end when the girl keeps counting the names of the demons inside her. Yeah, you know the part I’m talking about. Oh, you haven’t seen it? Well, then I guess you can’t know what part I’m talking about then. Go watch it and we can talk about it later.
* Exorcist: Okay, let’s just get the exorcist movies out of the way right out of the gate. The Exorcist. It’s a classic. If you haven’t watched it or at the very least seen the scene of the girl spewing soup you’re not human. I think random scenes from this movie are ingrained in all small infants. I’m really surprised more kids’ first words aren’t “The power of Christ compels you”.
* Fallen: Denzel Washington plus demon equals pretty not-bad. Another truth: I’ve never actually watched this whole movie in one sitting. I think I’ve seen most of it in bits and pieces on TNT or whatever channel replays the crap out of movies, you know the one. Yeah, that one. So anyway what I’ve watched of this one is good and now I have the song ‘Time is on my side’ stuck in my head.
* Supernatural: You know this show. It’s spent like twenty-seven years on that network with all the beautiful young people doing whatever it is young beautiful people do. (Argue?) In reality I watched this show pretty religiously (Pun intended) for the first five-or-so seasons. I don’t remember when I quit watching, but I can definitely vouch for those first five seasons. It’s a good show of young beautiful people killing sometimes beautiful, sometimes hideous, demons, beautifully.
* It: Holy crap It scared the freaking heck out of me when I was a kid. (Feel free to replace crap, freaking, and heck with their four letter counterparts if so inclined, I would) I haven’t read the book, but the movie haunted my childhood and I didn’t even know there was a second tape (Yes, tape. Shut up.) until I was like 20. Demon clown, and I’m not even afraid of clowns. Well, other than Pennywise. Obviously.
* Sandman Slim: Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim book series is about a magician who escapes hell where he was made to fight demons like it was ancient Rome. It’s got a very noir detective feel, with some hellions sprinkled in for good measure. Good enough that I don’t really have anything witty to say about this one.
* Constantine: A Keanu Reeves movie where he doesn’t play a surfer-bro that doesn’t suck. I had really low expectations for this one and it really blew me away. It’s a good movie about a demon-hunter in a trench-coat. No, Keanu was not really an inspiration for my character Ty Burdin, but man, they could get along together pretty well I think.
There you have it. That’s my list. I really wish I had more books to add to it, but I haven’t really read many demon books. Feel free to drop a comment telling me what I missed.
* Exorcism of Emily Rose: I’m going to be completely honest with you guys here, I don’t watch a lot of horror movies. I think they rely too much on gore and not enough on suspense. It’s all show, no thrill. That being said, Exorcism of Emily Rose was probably the last enjoyable horror movie I watched. It was creepy in all the right ways, especially the part at the end when the girl keeps counting the names of the demons inside her. Yeah, you know the part I’m talking about. Oh, you haven’t seen it? Well, then I guess you can’t know what part I’m talking about then. Go watch it and we can talk about it later.
* Exorcist: Okay, let’s just get the exorcist movies out of the way right out of the gate. The Exorcist. It’s a classic. If you haven’t watched it or at the very least seen the scene of the girl spewing soup you’re not human. I think random scenes from this movie are ingrained in all small infants. I’m really surprised more kids’ first words aren’t “The power of Christ compels you”.
* Fallen: Denzel Washington plus demon equals pretty not-bad. Another truth: I’ve never actually watched this whole movie in one sitting. I think I’ve seen most of it in bits and pieces on TNT or whatever channel replays the crap out of movies, you know the one. Yeah, that one. So anyway what I’ve watched of this one is good and now I have the song ‘Time is on my side’ stuck in my head.
* Supernatural: You know this show. It’s spent like twenty-seven years on that network with all the beautiful young people doing whatever it is young beautiful people do. (Argue?) In reality I watched this show pretty religiously (Pun intended) for the first five-or-so seasons. I don’t remember when I quit watching, but I can definitely vouch for those first five seasons. It’s a good show of young beautiful people killing sometimes beautiful, sometimes hideous, demons, beautifully.
* It: Holy crap It scared the freaking heck out of me when I was a kid. (Feel free to replace crap, freaking, and heck with their four letter counterparts if so inclined, I would) I haven’t read the book, but the movie haunted my childhood and I didn’t even know there was a second tape (Yes, tape. Shut up.) until I was like 20. Demon clown, and I’m not even afraid of clowns. Well, other than Pennywise. Obviously.
* Sandman Slim: Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim book series is about a magician who escapes hell where he was made to fight demons like it was ancient Rome. It’s got a very noir detective feel, with some hellions sprinkled in for good measure. Good enough that I don’t really have anything witty to say about this one.
* Constantine: A Keanu Reeves movie where he doesn’t play a surfer-bro that doesn’t suck. I had really low expectations for this one and it really blew me away. It’s a good movie about a demon-hunter in a trench-coat. No, Keanu was not really an inspiration for my character Ty Burdin, but man, they could get along together pretty well I think.
There you have it. That’s my list. I really wish I had more books to add to it, but I haven’t really read many demon books. Feel free to drop a comment telling me what I missed.
Beasts of Burdin
by Alexander Nader
Release Date: February 10, 2014
Target Reader: Adult
Keywords: Urban Fantasy
Description
Demon hunter Ty Burdin hung up his guns, knife, trench coat and fedora a year ago. Bags packed, hands washed of all demon politics, he’s done. Forever.
In fact, to get far far away, he dragged Nora, his rockabilly secretary, from Miami to the Tennessee mountains where he’s lived a life of peace—if peace can be defined as drowning in scotch and taking private eye jobs to keep the lights on. Jobs for real people. Not demons.
No demons.
He’s retired from that. Remember?
Demon hunters aren’t a dime a dozen, though, and when Ty’s brother asks him for a favor—just one—what’s a brother to do? Agreeing to take down one hillbilly demon shouldn’t take that long. In. Decapitate. Out. Favor complete. Back to the office where Nora and his bottle of whiskey are waiting.
Unfortunately for Ty, staying retired doesn’t seem to be in the cards, and an avalanche of bad luck draws him right back to an agency he despises and the career that nearly cost him his sanity.
This time, Ty has no way out and will have to face his own demons just to survive.
Purchase Links:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Kobo
by Alexander Nader
Release Date: February 10, 2014
Target Reader: Adult
Keywords: Urban Fantasy
Description
Demon hunter Ty Burdin hung up his guns, knife, trench coat and fedora a year ago. Bags packed, hands washed of all demon politics, he’s done. Forever.
In fact, to get far far away, he dragged Nora, his rockabilly secretary, from Miami to the Tennessee mountains where he’s lived a life of peace—if peace can be defined as drowning in scotch and taking private eye jobs to keep the lights on. Jobs for real people. Not demons.
No demons.
He’s retired from that. Remember?
Demon hunters aren’t a dime a dozen, though, and when Ty’s brother asks him for a favor—just one—what’s a brother to do? Agreeing to take down one hillbilly demon shouldn’t take that long. In. Decapitate. Out. Favor complete. Back to the office where Nora and his bottle of whiskey are waiting.
Unfortunately for Ty, staying retired doesn’t seem to be in the cards, and an avalanche of bad luck draws him right back to an agency he despises and the career that nearly cost him his sanity.
This time, Ty has no way out and will have to face his own demons just to survive.
Purchase Links:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Kobo
Alex lives in the tourist infested hills of east Tennessee with his amazing wife/muse and three superb children. He would tell you more about how awesome they are, but you probably wouldn’t believe him. When he’s not hanging out with them he’s making pizzas. When he’s not doing that he’s working at a bookstore and occasionally he jots a few words down. He’s a big fan of good music, good storytelling, and mixed martial arts.
He once wrote a short story about pirates to his wife via text message that blossomed into a full length novel and never stopped after that.
He once wrote a short story about pirates to his wife via text message that blossomed into a full length novel and never stopped after that.