Category: Writing

Teaser Tuesday 8/26/14: We’re Still On “Hallowed Ground”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

So this week I’m about halfway through Hallowed Ground, and at this point authors Steven Savile and David Niall Wilson have sufficiently muddied the waters that I’m not entirely sure who the bad guys are.  Is it The Deacon and his band of revival/freak show misfits?  Is it the mysterious traveling snake oil purveyor Balthazar?  Is it both?  Hmm, I bet it’s both.  Oh, and there seem to be people around who can turn into crows.

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Teaser Tuesday 8/12/2014: “Hallowed Ground”

~ James Viscosi ~ 2 Comments

So this week I’m reading Hallowed Ground by Steven Savile and David Niall Wilson, in which a questionable (is there any other kind?) old West preacher called the Deacon sets up a revival tent in a gulch outside the little town of Rookwood.

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“That was the end of Grogan… the man who killed my father, raped and murdered my sister, burned my ranch, shot my dog, and stole my Bible!”

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Random Contract: Vampire Dan’s Story Emporium, “The Short Route”

~ James Viscosi ~ 6 Comments

So this week I reached into my big folder full of rejections (and the occasional acceptance) and pulled out something new: A contract! Arriving as it did in November of 1997, this was, if I remember correctly, my first-ever contract, for a story called “The Short Route” (AKA “My Cousin Susan’s Favorite Story Of Mine Ever”), in which a tenderfoot from Back East discovers that there’s more than just cattle on his first cattle drive. The story appeared in “Vampire Dan’s Story Emporium” a tiny regional magazine published in Syracuse that ran from 1997 to 2001.

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Teaser Tuesday 7/1/2014: “Once Upon A Curse”

~ James Viscosi ~ 3 Comments

So at the moment I’m reading (unusually for me) a couple of books: And Another Thing by Douglas Adams Eoin Colfer, which is book six in the “Hitchhiker’s Guide” trilogy, and Once Upon A Curse, a short story collection that contains retellings of various famous fairy tale scenarios, including back to back revisions of “Sleeping Beauty”, from different points of view than the originals (no Maleficent so far though). I picked it up over a year ago because it was on sale for $0.99, plus it has a Peter S. Beagle story in it. You may have heard of him.

last_unicorn
Not to be confused with “My Little Pony”

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Teaser Tuesday: “Arisen, Book One: Fortress Britain”

~ James Viscosi ~ 2 Comments

So this week I’m reading Fortress Britain, by Glynn James and Michael Stephen Fuchs, which mostly follows the activities of an elite military strike force in Britain as they attempt to deal with the aftermath of a (you guessed it) zombie apocalypse.

"Fortress Britain" Cover Art
“Send more Special Forces.”

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Four Questions And A Few Coincidences

~ James Viscosi ~ 6 Comments

So this week we interrupt our usual parade of “Teaser Tuesday”, “Random Rejection”, and “Let’s Try To Figure Out If My Wife Is Actually Paying Attention To Battlestar Galactica Or Not”* posts to answer a few quick questions posed to me by Donna over at Donna and the Dogs. Like me, Donna is a writer, but the parallels do not stop there!

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Teaser Tuesday 6/3/2014: Infected (Click Your Poison)

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

This week’s “Teaser Tuesday” comes from a book that’s a little bit different from most! Readers of “a certain age” may remember the old “Choose Your Own Adventure” such as The Cave of Time, the first in the series. Rather than being linearly structured, these books presented a series of scenes, at the end of which the protagonist (you) had to make a decision, then turn to the indicated page to see how things worked out for you. Pretty often that would be like this:

But then every once in a while it be like this:

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Teaser Tuesday 5/20/2014: “Jazz Funeral”

~ James Viscosi ~ 2 Comments

So this week I’m reading Jazz Funeral, by Julie Smith, a murder mystery set in New Orleans. This is book #3 in a series featuring detective Skip Langdon. Since I got it for free off the BookBub mailing list, I didn’t have the luxury of going back and starting at book #1, but so far that doesn’t seem like a big deal.

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Teaser Tuesday 5/13/2014: “The God King”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

This week’s teaser comes from The God King by James A. West. The God King and The Golden Queen are no relation, despite having similar names.

"Shire? ... Baggins?"
“Shire? … Baggins?”

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Teaser Tuesday 5/6/2014: “The Golden Queen”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

So this week I’m reading The Golden Queen by Dave Wolverton, which starts out looking like a whimsical Irish fantasy novel before turning into a galaxy-spanning science fiction epic in which several adventurers and a talking bear (because why not?) with a name like a vacuum cleaner attempt to drive the conquering alien insectoid race known as the Dronon out of human space.

"This isn't the Hundred Acre Wood."
“This isn’t the Hundred Acre Wood …”

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