$400+ raised thanks to all you lovely people that donated (and continue to donate)!

Here's the final beardy photo and the aftermath.😚

Important Extra Life Update and GIVEAWAYS!!!!!

With just days to go to Extra Life day on Saturday, the last push to get a few extra dollars for the charity is on.

As regular readers may know (and if you're my Facebook friend or Twitter follower, you've already been spammed to death) rather than the usual 24 hour gaming marathon, I've opted to shave my beard for the charity. Originally the plan was to shave my goatee but I decided to go all out and grow a full beard then lose the lot.

Ginger beards FTW

As it turns out, not only has this turned me into a pariah in the local community and my own household, not to mention the constant itching, the growing of the beard has turned out to be a greater hardship than shaving off my goatee, so honestly I can't wait until Saturday!

So, to make it all worth while, I need your help. A small donation will help and the charity supports the Miracle Children's Hospital Network, raising money to help sick kids. It doesn't need to be a regular donation. Even a one off $5 will be greatly appreciated and make my suffering this last couple of months worth while.

As an added incentive for my gamer friends, there are a couple of giveaways I've offered through Twitter. If you comment on this blog to say you've donated, I'll add you to the draws for...

1. Steam Code for the brilliant Orcs Must Die 2

2. Beta code for Trove, an interesting looking new MMO from Trion.

and...Exclusive to this post

3. A $10 voucher code from Looney Labs, makers of chaotic card game, Fluxx

You have until 9am Saturday 25th October to donate and comment and increase your chances by retweeting my twitter posts to your own followers, oh and most importantly,

DONATE! It's for the kids!

Anne Rice Interview

Although not strictly Indie Horror, I couldn't pass up on reporting that Anne Rice, Author of 'Interview with a Vampire' and 'The Vampire Lestat' as well as a slew of other novels, is releasing a new chapter of the Vampire Chronicles, entitled 'Prince Lestat'

"The vampire world is in crisis – their kind has been proliferating out of control and, thanks to technologies undreamed of in previous centuries, they can communicate as never before. Roused from their earth-bound slumber, ancient ones are in thrall to the Voice: which commands that they burn fledgling vampires in cities from Paris to Mumbai, Hong Kong to Kyoto and San Francisco. Immolations, huge massacres, have commenced all over the world. Who – or what – is the Voice? What does it desire, and why? 

There is only one vampire, only one blood drinker, truly known to the entire world of the Undead. Will the dazzling hero-wanderer, the dangerous rebel-outlaw Lestat heed the call to unite the Children of Darkness as they face this new twilight? "

"Anne Rice’s epic, luxuriant, fiercely ambitious new novel brings together all the worlds and beings of the legendary Vampire Chronicles, from present-day New York and Ancient Egypt to fourth-century Carthage and Renaissance Venice; from Louis de Pointe du Lac; Armand the eternally young; Mekare and Maharet; to Pandora and Flavius; David Talbot, vampire and ultimate fixer from the Secret Talamasca; and Marius, the true child of the Millennia. It also introduces many other seductive supernatural creatures, and heralds significant new blood."

Ms. Rice was kind enough to answer a few questions for us...

Did you anticipate the phenomenon the Vampire Chronicles series would become?

I did not anticipate the Vampire Chronicles at all on any level when I wrote the first novel.Eight years passed before I attempted a sequel, The Vampire Lestat, and even then I did not know how many novels might follow. I took it one book at a time, exploring, developing the cosmology of vampires, getting deeper and deeper into the characters.

What inspired you to return to Lestat after more than a decade?

New ideas.New visions.New possibilities.At the time I retired from the Chronicles (2003) I really had no more to say with Lestat.I associated the Chronicles with some of the most painful parts of my life.But as the years passed, I kept thinking of Lestat, wondering what he would think about this or that cultural development, what he might have to say about this or that new film or book.He was alive for me, out there, in exile.Finally I went back and reread all of the books, and he was talking to me again, coming out of exile, out of his ‘depression’, wanting to live again.It was glorious.

Why do you think vampires continue to be such a popular phenomenon? What has changed in the genre while you’ve been writing?

I'm not surprised at all at the popularity of the vampire.The concept is so rich – the vampire is a metaphor for the outsider, the outcast, the artist, the addict, the alienated one. So of course writers would come along and do new and interesting things with such a rich concept.The vampire craze today is author driven.But the movement amongst some very popular authors is towards domesticating the vampire – the very opposite of my approach.We're seeing the vampire as the boy next door, the guy next to you in biology class in high school, or the handsome man you meet at the nearby tavern or bar.It's quite interesting.My vampires are mythic, tragic, larger than life.I'm kind of delighted by all the variations.

Prince Lestat hits a bookshop near you on 30th October, 2014.