Ghosts! A haunted house! A dead serial killer! Unscrupulous real estate partners! And an Ancient Unnamed Evil who needs another victim! Throw in a creepy priest, a goofy cocktail waitress/ghost rights’ activist, a sick mother, denied health insurance claims, and some bleeding walls and you’ve got nice guy Richard Scarry’s problems in a nut shell, and the premise of The Selling, tonight’s Halloween feature, starring guests, writer/producer/actor Gabriel Diani and actor/producer Etta Devine.

It is hard not to think of this black and white bubbe meise while reviewing the most recent chapters in the battle over the future of the partially excavated, purportedly moribund Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in southwestern Nevada.

China Miéville is perhaps the most interesting and influential writer to emerge in science fiction, fantasy and horror (genres that he brings together under the title ‘weird fiction’) over the last fifteen years. His breakout book, Perdido Street Station blended fantasy, horror and science fictional elements, in its depiction of a corrupt and fantastical city, part London and part Buenos Aires, under threat from escaped ‘slakemoths.’ Its sequels, The Scar and Iron Council revisited this city and the world surrounding it. His recent book The City and the City, which brings together noir detective fiction and a very particular kind of fantasy, won the World Fantasy Award. The New York Times ran a good profile of Miéville a few weeks ago.