Category: Excerpts

Scene-Of-The-Month: June 2009

~ James Viscosi ~ 2 Comments

The results of voting are in and once again Dragon Stones is the readers’ choice for a scene of the month!  Taking the book off the shelf and flipping to a random page got me this scene, which is quite near the beginning and, once again, involves some misfortune befalling poor Adaran.  There really is a dragon in this book, honest — in fact, in this scene, Adaran and his companions have just returned from a raid on her lair.  I just haven’t pulled any scenes yet in which the dragon actually appears.  But if Dragon Stones keeps winning the polls, I’m sure she will turn up here eventually.

Just a reminder:  The Dragon Stones PDF file can be found here.

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Scene-Of-The-Month: May 2009

~ James Viscosi ~ 6 Comments

The poll results are in, and this month it’s a blowout — 81% for an excerpt from Dragon Stones.  It looks like my advice to “vote early, vote often” was really taken to heart by readers in April!  So, without further ado, here is a randomly-selected scene from Dragon Stones:

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Scene-Of-The-Month: April 2009

~ James Viscosi ~ 3 Comments

The votes are in and the readers’ choice for a “scene of the month” is A Flock of Crows is Called a Murder, which squeaked in ahead of Dragon Stones by one vote.  Pulling down a copy of Crows off the shelf and flipping through it to a random page, I now present not one scene, but two, back-to-back; because that’s how we roll around here.

Together, these two scenes form the pivotal section of Crows that could be described as “the part where everything starts going straight to hell”.

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New Feature: Scene-Of-The-Month

~ James Viscosi ~ 7 Comments

This is a feature that my wife suggested a while ago:  Putting up a few random paragraphs from my books once a month or so.  She also suggested putting up a poll so readers can choose which book they want to see excerpted.  My wife is so smart!  Here’s the poll:

The books are tagged (broadly) by genre:  “F” for Fantasy, “H” for Horror, and “DF” for Dark Fantasy (essentially fantasy with a strong horror element, or horror with a strong fantasy element).  At the end of the month, I will choose a scene at random from the book with the most votes and put it into a post.  I won’t choose scenes that give away major plot twists, but other than that, pretty much anything will go.

I’ve decided to start with the prologue from my nowhere-near-finished werewolf novel (unimaginative working title:  The Wolf).  It’s a very short scene, but I like it.

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A Flock of Crows: The Missing Epilogue

~ James Viscosi ~ 3 Comments

As originally written, “A Flock Of Crows” had a brief epilogue. Because of length considerations, the publisher cut a lot of material, including the epilogue. At least one reviewer then mentioned that he thought the book would have benefited from the inclusion of an epilogue (and I was like, “See, DarkTales?”) Now, through the magic of the Internet, you can read the missing epilogue and decide for yourself if it improves the ending.

*** SPOILER ALERT ***
This epilogue will reveal a great deal about the fate of several major characters. If you haven’t read the whole book and don’t want to be spoiled, DON’T READ THE EPILOGUE.

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Night Watchman

~ James Viscosi ~ 5 Comments

NIGHT WATCHMAN was my first horror novel sale, to Hard Shell Word Factory, an e-book and print-on-demand publisher. After accidentally signing up to give a reading at the 1997 World Horror Convention in Niagara Falls (hey, the forms were confusing, okay?), I had to call back to my office and have a friend fax me over some pages of NIGHT WATCHMAN and my story “The Short Route” so that I would have something to read from. The readings did help lead to the eventual publication of my second novel, A FLOCK OF CROWS IS CALLED A MURDER, so it all worked out in the end. night_watchman

Mrs. Barrett rises. “You don’t believe in it,” she says in a whisper, “but be careful. Listen to me! Beware the power of Satan.”

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” Nate says. “We’re pure of heart and noble of purpose. Right, Frank?”

“Maybe you are,” Frank says.

They go back into the hallway. Mrs. Barrett shuts the door behind them and locks it four different ways as they head for the stairs. The air is just as rank on the fourth-floor landing as it was on the first, and doesn’t improve much as they climb. “Do you think we need backup?” asks Nate as they ascend the last flight to the rooftop door.

“Nah. For a bunch of kids? They got knives, we got guns.”

“But what about the power of Satan?”

Frank points to his groin. “I got the power of Satan right here. Now c’mon, or we’ll miss the Black Mass.”

A Flock of Crows Is Called A Murder

~ James Viscosi ~ 4 Comments

Not merely the answer to a trivia question, this was the first novel I had published. It was actually the third horror novel that I wrote, after an unpublished (but still good!) vampire novel and the infamous (in some circles — very, very small ones) NIGHT WATCHMAN. Currently out of print, CROWS will soon be reissued by Amazon.com’s BookSurge imprint.


 

Crows Cover

 

 

He plowed into her, bore her backwards onto the bed. He was trying to kiss her; his lips, dry and cold and leathery, brushed hers, then mashed against them. She squirmed beneath him, trying to break the contact, but his hands shot up and gripped her head like the edges of a vise.

His mouth opened, forcing hers to open, too. She felt the first clammy, sticky bubbles of slime coming out of his throat, dribbling into hers. Salty mucous, gunk. She couldn’t breathe; he had gummed up her nose with snot, her mouth was full of it.

He wanted her to swallow, that was it; swallow, and breathe, and be like him …