ith a swanky Flash intro and a dark, stylish mix of news, reviews and horror-themed imagery, Visions of Terror may well live up to its claim of being one of the largest horror sites on the Net.
Visions is a fan site all the way: Its book reviews are short, written for the most part by site regulars, and cover everything from small press novels to Aliens tie-ins. There are film and game reviews, too, complete with cheats and spoilers in the latter case. The site forums are lively, with separate discussions on Horror Trivia, Scream Queens, Slashers and International Horror, to name just a few.
This Web page is nicely quiet in its appearance. Some online horror magazines are an endless nest of ads and e-commerce links, a constant sales pitch punctuated by gory film stills. While Visions of Terror certainly has its sponsors, it never lets them overwhelm the content. And there is plenty of it: a gallery of horror art, an archive of movie scripts, a history of horror films and an especially terrific interview section. The site also offers tons of downloads—everything from creepy fonts to scare-a-licious AIM icons—and is in the midst of developing a game for registered members. Finally, its hilarious Horror Survival Guide (a long
list of the lethal mistakes made by characters in horror movies) is not to be missed.
Packed with information and powered by true love of the genre, this site will not only whet a visitor's appetite for scary reads and spooky film experiences, it will offer them excellent pointers on how to feed that hunger.
— A.M. Dellamonica
Site of the Week—August 16, 2004
ike her writing, the official homepage of Ursula K. Le Guin exhibits a richness derived from a thoughtful, expansive simplicity. The first sight to greet the visitor is a pastel map of her world of Earthsea. Entering through this magical veil, the visitor next sees a warm and smiling portrait of the writer herself.
All the subsequent features are accessed simply by scrolling continuously downward for a long distance, clicking once on various buttons that appeal. No applets, no animation, no jumping all around: just good solid information and delights for her fans.
Readers will discover links to the upcoming Earthsea miniseries on the SCI FI Channel. They can catch up on recent reviews of Le Guin's work, as well as longer critical essays about her. Entire speeches and lectures given by the author at various functions are reproduced, including a digitized audio-visual record of one such occasion. Several of Le Guin's recent short stories are accessible, thanks to a link with the webzines Infinite Matrix and SciFiction, among others. Readers interested in Le Guin's poetic accomplishments will find satisfaction as well. Her translations of the poems of the Nobelist Gabriela Mistral are sampled here.
Le Guin even shares a rejection letter concerning her classic novel The Left Hand of Darkness. All these features radiate an empathetic bond with her readers, a humility and willingness to share that's impressive. As Le Guin says in "A Few Words to a Young Writer," the carefully chosen words of storytellers "make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper."
— Paul Di Filippo
Site of the Week—August 9, 2004
f the Dark Tower series is Stephen King's Jupiter—the single, massive literary planet that rules over the rest of his work—then DarkTower.net is his Io. Like that fiery moon, the Web site orbits King's creation, watching its turbulent surface and basking in its radiation.
The Web site dedicates itself to tracking every aspect of Stephen King's immense Dark Tower universe, and it begins that Herculean task with "Connections," a section that attempts to explain how the seven core books relate to the rest of King's work. It starts with what the author calls the "Central Canons," the three books Insomnia, Hearts in Atlantis and Black House, which actively expand the Dark Tower mythos. From there, the site ventures into other works—like The Stand and Bag of Bones—which have more tenuous associations with the Tower.
Elsewhere, the "Dark Tower Road Map" provides a visual guide to how the books interrelate, and gives newbies an idea of where to start reading. The "Timeline" attempts to put the events of the Dark Tower into chronological order, while "Booksearch" allows readers to search the text of the core and related books. It will not serve up the entire book, just the portion that contains the text readers searched for.
There is a fan art section that contains some very good work, a trivia contest that readers can use to test their understanding of the series, and even a downloadable, Windows-based application for keeping up with the site. Rounding out the site is a heavily trafficked forums
section and "Other Rolands," which discusses books and movies beyond King's that nonetheless are important to the series.
— Ken Newquist
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