Category: Writing

Teaser Tuesday 9/11/2012: “Ghosts: The Complete Series”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

This week I’m reading “Ghosts: The Complete Series” by Amy Cross.  It’s a set of eight books—actually more like novellas—that, together, add up to about 150,000 words, or about the same length as “Shards” and “The War of the Ravels” put together.  I borrowed it for free from the Kindle lending library.  So far I like it much better than the last book I borrowed.  The premise of “Ghosts” is that God and Satan, as part of a bet with each other, erase their memories and come to a small town in Texas to try living as humans, and an angel comes to find them and bring them back where they belong — or, as the angel might put it, “Beings that would correspond to your ideas of God and Satan are in town and I, a being who would correspond to your idea of an angel, am here to retrieve them.”  Weasel words aside, it’s a quick, amusing read so far.  And now for the teaser!

“He smuggled pure adrenalin into the execution chamber, injected his own heart moments before the governor was about to give the order to kill him.  Everyone was very annoyed, as you can imagine.”

Or, as Steve Dallas once told Bill the Cat: “How would we look if we let you die in prison before we could execute you? Pretty damn silly, that’s how!”

And of course, here’s this week’s teaser from “The War of the Ravels”!

“Nobody’s doing any farmhouse-barricading,” Mercy said. “Doesn’t work in the movies, won’t work here.”

Oh dear. Barricading oneself in a farmhouse? That can only mean an impending zombie attack! Or something worse …

Teaser Tuesday: “The Bleeding Season”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

This week I picked up The Bleeding Season by Greg Gifune. At $2.99 for the Kindle edition (just like a certain other author’s books …) it was definitely the right price after a couple of expensive car repairs.

Some may remember that Greg Gifune was the editor of a magazine called “The Edge” that, way back when, published one of my short stories, “Singletrack“, in which wildlife is disturbed during a biking trip in the Adirondacks, to deleterious effect.

The pizza place downstairs didn’t open for another couple hours, so none of the smells that normally invaded the apartment (no matter what we did to try and cover them) had seeped up through the floor yet. I sat there groggily for a moment, noticed it was still overcast and cloudy but the rain had stopped and the apartment was quiet.

I’m still trying to figure out why one would want to cover up the smells of a pizza place. Meanwhile, here is this week’s supplemental teaser, from “The War of the Ravels”:

After a few moments of silence, Nebandalex said: “Surely whoever is responsible for making sure someone is sitting in the throne would understand if you told them you needed to save the city from ruin, and that their schedule would have to wait.”

“I see you are not familiar with the workings of a court,” Arran Blackhawk said.

Teaser Tuesday 8/21/2012: Alive in Necropolis

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

This week’s Teaser Tuesday comes from Alive in Necropolis, in which a young police officer patrols the city of Colma, where the dead outnumber the living, and spend a lot of time wandering around town. So far, it’s a little bit like “The Frighteners” meets “Two Days in the Valley” — which is a good thing.

He’s pretty sure, though, that you should never trust anyone who calls you friend over and over. He has a vague sense that this is something his father taught him when he was little.

This quote is in reference to a televangelist, but I don’t know yet if the preacher is to be trusted or not. Perhaps we’ll find out, or perhaps he will never appear again after the TV is switched off.

And, as usual, here’s this week’s two lines from The War of the Ravels:

As far as Bernard could tell, the barrel was full of bait in the form of small, wriggling, shiny freshwater fish. Cynidece wasn’t being careful with the filling or the drinking, so she must have been chugging down minnows as well.

Like boba! Only fish-flavored! You would be thirsty, too, after hanging out over a chasm by your wrists for a few days …

Spoiler Sunday: The Fingers of Death

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

As promised, here is the last (for now) post-Shards-cliffhanger excerpt from The War of the Ravels.  In this scene from very early in the book, we discover why, exactly, the villainous sorcerer Kihantroh has been trying so hard to get hold of the gems.  As before, beware — spoilers lie ahead!  But, of course, spoilers are what you came for, so read on.

Continue reading “Spoiler Sunday: The Fingers of Death” →

Teaser Tuesday: 8/14/2012

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This week’s Teaser Tuesday is from Ghost Stories of an Antiquary:  Part 2 by M.R. James.  James was writing stories of ghosts (and the occasional eldritch abomination) around the turn of the previous century, and has been cited as an influence by (among others) H.P. Lovecraft.  He also, as previously alluded, figures prominently in one of the Merrily Watkins books, which is what prompted me to pick up his stories.  The Kindle editions of Ghost Stories of an Antiquary are currently available for the quite reasonable price of $0.00.

Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday: 8/14/2012” →

Spoiler Sunday: The Catacombs

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

Last week I posted a (partial) tension-reliever as to the fate of Bernard and Nebandalex after the first cliffhanger at the end of Shards; this week, it’s Mercy’s turn, after things … how shall I put it? … go less than well for her during her second run-in with the villain of the piece.

As before, major spoilers lie ahead!

Continue reading “Spoiler Sunday: The Catacombs” →

Spoiler Sunday: The Sea Caves

~ James Viscosi ~ 4 Comments

As anyone who has read Shards knows, it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. (Okay, a huge cliffhanger. Two of them. Sorry about that.)

Now, it’s going to be a little while yet until The War of the Ravels will be available, so in the interest of preventing undue stress, I’ve decided to post the resolutions to the cliffhangers here — or at least, part of the resolutions. These are first drafts, so they are subject to change, but they are definitely the direction the story is going in part two. Unless I change my mind.

Obviously, major spoilers lie ahead. Proceed with caution!

Continue reading “Spoiler Sunday: The Sea Caves” →

Teaser Tuesday: 7/31/2012

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

It’s time for another Teaser Tuesday! I’m still in the middle of the Merrily Watkins mystery The Secrets of Pain. (I didn’t get a lot of reading done this week). Here, Merrily is visiting a bed and breakfast looking for clues to a mysterious death, as one does when one is the first female exorcist in England …

Liz took Merrily upstairs, where there were five bedrooms off the landing, the doors of all of them hanging open. A scent of fresh linen and a light musk from a dish of potpourri on a window sill.

At least it’s fresh linen rather than a face of crumpled linen this time.

And, of course, here’s todays bonus teaser from The War of the Ravels:

It was about the width of her hand, and taller than she was, with three horizontal openings at various spots along its length. If she could make herself thin enough, she could sidle through it, drop to the courtyard on the other side, and find her way out from there.

Like Wallis Simpson said, you can never be too rich or too thin. Especially when you’re trying to escape though an arrow slit.

Teaser Tuesday 7/24/2012

~ James Viscosi ~ Leave a comment

This week’s Teaser Tuesday is–wonder of wonders!–NOT from 1Q84, which I finally finished. (Huzzah!) It is, instead, from The Secrets of Pain, the 11th book in the Merrily Watkins series of subtly paranormal mysteries from Phil Rickman:

Her face was flushed, but only by the sun through the firework blaze of extreme stained glass. The new Thomas Traherne windows, four of them, were small and ferocious, with individual dominant colours: the almighty white, the crucifixion red, the pagan green.

And as always, this comes with a side helping of a couple of lines from the page I’m currently working on in The War of the Ravels.

When that faded, it grew very dark, then gradually lighter again, the illumination divided into separate pale pools. It took her a moment to spot cobwebbed arrow-slits in the left-hand wall, between the buttresses, high above her head.

Teaser Tuesday Twofer 7-12-2012

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It’s time for Teaser Tuesday again!  I’m still reading 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (this book is immense, but I’m almost finished!), so here’s another two sentences from it:

And he handed her the urn, feeling a little guilty, but honestly relieved.  I will probably never see these bones again, he thought.

And as before, here are two sentences from the current scene in part two of Shards that I’m working on.  I’m going to cheat a little and include two lines of dialog; it adds up to more than two sentences, but they’re very short ones!

“But death isn’t a thing. It’s the absence of a thing.”
“How do you know that?” she asked. “Have you died?”

That’s it for this week!