May 17, 2013 • No Comments
In honor of getting my this site moved onto new hosting, the kindle version of That Which is Nameless is going to be free this weekend the 18th and 19th! Here’s a short excerpt:
That is, until someone tripped one of my traps. Thankfully, it was nothing overly dangerous. I had set up proximity-triggered portals around the room I was staying in, arranged to prevent anyone other than me from finding my door. In theory, anyone who activated one of the portals should have been moved down the walkway by the width of one room, none the wiser. Somewhere in the process of writing out the phrasing I had screwed up. Instead of being moved one door farther down, they were moved one door farther back.
The poor soul spent an hour trying to get away from the door to my room before I found her. She had a downtrodden, frantic look that characterized many of the residents in this hotel. Her eyes were sunken into a gaunt face, and she was generally disheveled in appearance. If I had to make a guess as to her age, I would have said somewhere in her late twenties. I was reasonably sure she had not bathed or changed clothing in some time. She was sitting across the walkway from my door with her body pulled up into the fetal position. Tears were streaming down her face as she sat there, rocking back and forth in fear and desperation.
When she saw me opening the door she screamed and grabbed my legs, holding on for dear life. “I’m freaking out! Help me! I’m trapped here! Please help me!”
When you grab a copy, give me a shout-out either here or over on Twitter. Have fun!
Posted in That Which is Nameless, Writings - Fiction
Tags: Free Stuff, That Which is Nameless
May 10, 2013 • No Comments
Finally! I’ve made my way back through the first ten thousand words of The Erasable Man and have finally caught up with where I was when Teleport-Us derailed me. Now, how to get Zachary Artemas out of his little predicament … but you don’t know about that do you. Here’s a little snippet:
“Don’t worry your little head none about that. I’m not supposed to kill you unless you’re difficult,” said the little man. “He gave me a note to read to you. It says: Next time it will be you. What’s that supposed to mean? Next time it will …”
Something gurgled and collapsed with a heavy thud. I looked over my shoulder and saw my assailant on the ground, surrounded by dried blood. A zip-tie, pulled tight enough to have embedded itself into the man’s wrist, bound his hands in the small of his back. Next to the body was a pile of neatly folded skin and two skewered eyeballs sitting on a small ceramic dish pointed directly at me. The eyes had been placed so that they appeared to be looking into my own.
There was no need to check his pulse; the man had been dead for a long time, several hours if the Sun’s elevation could be trusted. The massive gap in my memory ached like a missing limb. How do you deal with someone who can immobilize you without warning, I thought to myself.
The plan is still to release this in an episodic form, with periodic role ups of several episodes. The main reason I haven’t pushed out some of the earlier episodes (read that as 2) is that I’m having trouble finishing them up in a timely manner. Once I can nail that down, and build up enough of a release backlog to have a spare episode or two waiting in the wings, The Erasable Man will hit the figurative presses.
Anyone have suggestions on a viable platform to publish episodic fiction?
Posted in Short Stories, The Erasable Man, Writings - Fiction
Tags: litreactor, Short Stories, The Erasable Man
April 15, 2013 • No Comments
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Fair warning: this is a dark, disturbing, and horrendously gruesome book. If you have a weak stomach, have difficulty with the idea of self inflicted violence in every conceivable form and fashion, or can’t imagine a world where death is not the worst thing that can happen then this is not a book for you. Otherwise, Chuck will not disappoint.
Haunted is written in a somewhat unusual, at least to me, style. There is an over arching story that frames a collection of short stories, each of which is preceded by a short about one of the characters. The short stories are meant act as a window into the past of each character in the framing story. For me, this style was a bit of a problem. The contextual switches between the short stories kept distracting me. That coupled with the text’s graphic content forced me to read the book much more slowly and in much smaller chunks than I would have liked.
My introduction to Haunted was an article on Chuck Palahniuk’s site, The Cult, titled The Guts Effect. Guts is the first of the short stories after the opening scenes of the framing story. It does a good job of setting the tone for the rest of the book and is by no means the worst of what lay within. I don’t know if I can convey to you how horrific this text is without giving too much away.
I’ll say it again, fair warning. This is not a book to read if you’re having even the slightest hint of stomach troubles.
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Posted in Reading - The Other Half of Writing
March 31, 2013 • No Comments
Late Saturday the 30th, almost the 31st, I finally finished reading the last entry to Teleport Us on LitReactor. Over the course of three months, I’ve read and commented on around 160 short stories. I’m not sure of the exact number as some of the stories were pulled after and some before I could get around to reading them.
There is a sense of elation and accomplishment that comes with completing a run like that, and some withdrawal pangs as you realized it’s all over. I can honestly say that this competition has devoured almost all of my free time since it was first announced back in January. Now that it’s finished, I will have to get to work on some of my own writing again and back to my sorely neglected reading list.
If you didn’t get around to reading entries before the April 1st deadline, don’t worry. Scare Us from last year is still online with all the entries and comments that went with them, and I’m certain that Teleport Us will be left up indefinitely as well. All you have to do is get an account on LitReactor to access all of those amazing and sometimes gruesome stories!
Here’s a short list of my favorites with quick links:
Yeah, way too long a list! There’s also my own entry, Implant, but it seems disingenuous to include it in a list of my favorites. Good luck to all those who entered! As I’ve said before, there were some down right amazing gems in this challenge! I wonder if any of my picks will win?
Posted in Reading - The Other Half of Writing, Writings - Fiction
Tags: Implant, litreactor, Scare Us, Short Stories, Teleport Us
February 15, 2013 • No Comments
It’s that time again! My novel That Which is Nameless will be free on Amazon March 1st and 2nd, and A Thousand Cuts, a “Creepy” short story I wrote for the Scare-Us event at LitReactor will be free March 1st.
Both of these texts have been part of the KDP Select program for the past ninety days and their enrollment is just about to run out. That means it’s use it or lose it time for their remaining “promotion days” and another give away for you!
If you do pick TWIN or ATC up, I’d really like to hear what you though of them. Be sure to drop a comment here, review over on Amazon, or get in touch with me via Good Reads.
Posted in Short Stories, That Which is Nameless, Writings - Fiction
Tags: A Thousand Cuts, Free Stuff, litreactor, Short Stories, That Which is Nameless
February 4, 2013 • No Comments
The guys over at LitReactor have done it again and wiped out another month of writing time. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m not writing, just that I’m working on a project related to their event Teleport Us rather than other things.
This is the second time I’ve gone through one of these and I have to say that the four thousand word limit is a killer! It really forces you to cut down things that aren’t core to a story. If you haven’t been by the site before, give a whirl. You can find my entry at:
Posted in Short Stories, Writings - Fiction
Tags: Implant, litreactor
January 15, 2013 • No Comments
Just a heads up. My novel That Which is Nameless and the short story A Thousand Cuts will be free all weekend. Yup, I’m giving the books away on the 19th and the 20th. If you don’t have a copy, go pick one up! Be sure to drop by here or over on Goodreads and let people know what you thought of them.
Posted in Short Stories, That Which is Nameless, Writings - Fiction
January 2, 2013 • No Comments
Happy New Year! Yesterday was the end of the old and today is the beginning of the new.
(Whoops! Make that the day before yesterday)
Posted in Random Thoughts
Tags: New Year
December 28, 2012 • No Comments
If you want a copy, grab it while you can!
http://www.amazon.com/A-Thousand-Cuts-ebook/dp/B00ARIC1GQ
Posted in Short Stories, Writings - Fiction
Tags: A Thousand Cuts
December 21, 2012 • No Comments
The Ant-Man of Malfen by D.P. Prior
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Very well written! The world of the Nameless dwarf has a great deal of depth and richness to it. Reading through this story has made me want to go hunt down other books in the Nameless Dwarf series just to explore the world Prior has put together. The forward also struck a cord with me as I’ve done a bit of role playing on in the past and often wondered about writing something based on an old character. One thing I will say for Prior, he is very good at describing combat and his Nameless dwarf does “Kill. A lot.” If you’re a fan of dungeon crawling definitely get a copy of this book.
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Posted in Reading - The Other Half of Writing
