Day: September 26, 2007

Stories Available At Amazon.com

~ James Viscosi ~ Leave a comment

I now have two short stories for sale at Amazon.com. Stories at Amazon retail for 49 cents and are split 60/40, which is a much better deal than authors usually get, at least the ones who aren’t famous (yet).  Check them out — you can buy two for the price of an iTunes track, and they’ll take longer to read than it will to play a song.

One story, “Cuffs”, is about a couple of thugs who attempt the world’s strangest carjacking. To check it out, click here.

The other story is “The Crying Room”.  This is a ghost story in the tradition of some recent, popular Japanese horror movie imports like “The Ring” and “Dark Water” (okay, “Dark Water” was hardly popular here, but still …) I wrote it years ago, before such movies started appearing. Hollywood finally caught up to me, I guess.  Buy “The Crying Room” here.

“Night Watchman” Available

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

My novel NIGHT WATCHMAN is now available for purchase at Pair-A-Dice games in Vista, California. Pair-A-Dice has a terrific selection of board, collectible card, and role-playing games, as well as comics, miniatures, and, of course, my book. I encourage everyone in the area to stop in and see what they have to offer. Directions to the store can be found here.

I may be doing a signing there soon. An announcement will follow when this is firmed up.

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Singletrack

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

“Singletrack” appeared in Greg Gifune’s magazine The Edge in May of 1999. I used to do a lot of mountain biking in the Adirondack Mountains, and the terrain is based on that (specifically, the trail around Moss Lake). I never encountered any wildlife larger than a squirrel, but the poor souls in this story are not so fortunate.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: In mountain biking terminology, singletrack denotes a trail—usually difficult to ride—that consists of one narrow cleared path.

The big downhill gave Jackson a momentum boost that carried him up the next rise with only a minor loss in speed, so he was still racing fast when he spotted the shelf of rock protruding from the path. He jerked up hard on the front wheel, but the ridge was too high to hop. He rammed it head-on, flying over the handlebars and into the spindly brambles that grew alongside the trail. They snapped and splintered like thin dry bones.

Jackson hauled himself out of the tangle of foliage. He grabbed his bike and dragged it over the spiny stone, then mounted it and began to ride. The bike wobbled and he fell again. He checked the front wheel; its rim was bent out of true.

He looked back up the trail. They were coming, coming through the trees; the wipeout had cost him precious yards, he was still miles from civilization, and now his bike was unrideable.

How on earth was he going to get away now?

Continue reading “Singletrack” →

The Exclusive

~ James Viscosi ~ Leave a comment

“The Exclusive” originally appeared in the webzine Rage Machine in March 1999. It was voted the winner of the “Chucks Award” by the readers of Rage Machine. The award was a small statue with big feet, and I kept it on my desk until the cat knocked it over and broke it. Bad, bad cat.

“Anne Mowry.”

A newspaper flopped onto Nick Greeley’s desk. He looked up at Art, his boss, who had thrown it there. “What’d you say?”

“You heard me,” Art said. “Take a look.”

Nick examined the paper, a slim rag from a nowhere town up the highway. “What the hell are you doing with this? There’s nothing up there but cows and rednecks cornholing each other.”

“My wife’s from there,” Art said after a moment. “She likes to keep up on hometown events. Now are you gonna look at the fucking picture, or do you wanna maybe step into my office and get a taste of cornholing first-hand?”

Continue reading “The Exclusive” →

The Short Route

~ James Viscosi ~ 2 Comments

“The Short Route” is one of the first stories I ever had published; it appeared in Vampire Dan’s Story Emporium in Spring of 1998. Of all my short stories, this is still the one that inspires the largest number of “this should be a movie” comments.

It was the third night out from the ranch, and Charlie still couldn’t get over the stars. There were so many up there, he’d have sworn he saw every star there could possibly be. He tried to count them every night, but never got very far before he couldn’t remember if he had counted that particular one or this particular one; and tonight was no different.

Charlie gave up counting and concentrated on relieving himself and then headed back to camp, still staring into the sky. As he got closer to the fire, the stars began to fade, until all he could see were the brightest ones, just like back in the city.

Chase’s sharp voice interrupted Charlie’s mooning. “Watch your feet, New York!” He looked down and saw he was about to put his foot into a frying pan full of grease. As he stepped over it, Chase—it wasn’t his real name, but he liked you to call him that and got ornery if you didn’t—added, with real concern in his voice: “Don’t go slipping and breaking your neck, New York. Gonna need every man we got tomorrow.”

Charlie sat on the ground next to Chase and picked up a tin cup. The old guy grunted and filled it with evil-looking black stuff that glistened in the firelight. Charlie took a sip, made a face. Tasted like Chase had started with a barrel full of coffee and boiled it down to this. Chase saw his expression and chuckled. “Too strong for your New York tongue, tenderfoot?”

Charlie knew better than to let Chase think anything of the sort. “Not strong enough,” he said. Then: “Is something gonna happen tomorrow?”

“Not if we’re lucky,” Chase said.
Continue reading “The Short Route” →

Hi There

~ James Viscosi ~ Leave a comment

Okay, so this is my new WordPress site … I’m currently working for an IT consulting company and we were looking into content management systems for a client, and one of the ones I reviewed was WordPress. I was so impressed with it that I decided to migrate over my existing site. I haven’t gotten very far yet, which is why there’s virtually nothing here, but I did just start on it. Things will start appearing soon, I promise. In the meantime you can see my current site here.