There’s little point in reiterating the massive impact STAR WARS had on pop culture post-1977—but rest assured, it changed everything. And on a very minor level, it kicked open the floodgates for everyone and their brothers to spit out low-budget space operas of every persuasion. Among these lower-rent clones was the Roger Corman-distributed Italian knockoff STARCRASH, a weird, impoverished but very cool bit of camp that had the cult cast of the decade: former child preacher Marjoe Gortner, future KNIGHT RIDER David Hasselhoff, MANIAC-to-be Joe Spinell and a very tasty Caroline Munro (pictured) as laser-gun-wielding galactic goddess and space smuggler Stella Star.

SLAVIS, an e-book by author and screenwriter Garry Charles (pictured) that hits the web next week, is an enigmatic mystery involving clashing personalities and horrific supernatural beings. It involves a group of strangers who inadvertently find themselves confronting the end of the world, contending with an army of flesheating monsters.

Oh, the things men do to torture themselves. BURLESQUE PARAPHERNALIA AND SIDE DEGREE SPECIALTIES AND COSTUMES is an amazing flashback to a time before the Internet, television, radio, movies and pretty much every other form of entertainment.

In INSATIABLE, THE PRINCESS DIARIES author Meg Cabot (pictured) has left princesses behind and brought the Prince of Darkness out to play. Sick of vampires, you say? Well, so is INSATIABLE’s main character, Meena Harper.

VAMPIRES IN DEVIL TOWN (out August 31 from Grindhouse Press) delves into the forbidden underbelly of a small town, which holds all of its dark secrets. This is a gripping read, from start to finish, by first-time author Wayne Hixon.

Over the years, Garrison Keillor’s A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION has become a salute to a world that once was. It has delighted millions of listeners as they huddle around the radio, much like they imagine their grandparents did, and hear his soothing voice describe the comings and goings of the mythical town of Lake Wobegon in rural Minnesota. The town is populated by a number of iconic figures, and the show has become sort of an aural Norman Rockwell—nostalgic, heartwarming, and the kind of place folks wish was still around. Now, in the tradition of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES and ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER comes THE ZOMBIES OF LAKE WOEBEGOTTEN by “Harrison Geillor,” coming September 1 from Night Shade Books.

THE GIRLS WITH GAMES OF BLOOD, by Alex Bledsoe (pictured) and now out from Tor Books, is an uncanny tale of twin sisters and their neverending thirst for revenge. It’s set in 1975 Memphis, Tennessee, where a gang of vampires struggle to blend in with the rest of humanity.