Teaser Tuesday 10/15/2013: “Where the Dead Talk”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

While still plodding along with finishing up part two of Shards, AKA The War of the Ravels Or Whatever I’m Going To Call It, I’m still managing to get in a little bit of reading done, mostly on free books I’ve accumulated from BookBub. This week I’m reading one called Where the Dead Talk, by Ken Davis, a horror novel set at the beginning of the American Revolution, in which an attempt to resurrect a young man recently killed in an accident by dumping him into a cursed lake goes badly, badly wrong. Call it Pet Sematary meets Last of the Mohicans meets … A Flock of Crows is Called a Murder.

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Teaser Tuesday 10/1/2013: “The Shadow of Black Wings”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

This week I’m still reading The Shadow of Black Wings by James Calbraith, from the BookBub mailing list.  I’m going to bend the rules a little bit this time in that this teaser quote from the book is not from the page I’m actually on, but it was simply too good not to use.  Here goes:

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Teaser Tuesday: “The Shadow of Black Wings”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

This week I’m reading The Shadow of Black Wings by James Calbraith, another book I got free from the BookBub mailing list. This one is sort of an alternate Victorian history/steampunk/fantasy mashup. Oh, and there are dragons. (T’Sian would, I think, eat them for lunch, but still, anything’s better with dragons right?) And now, on to the two-sentence quote!

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Teaser Tuesday 9/10/2013: “Deadland”

~ James Viscosi ~ 4 Comments

This week’s free book is Deadland: Untold Stories of Alice in Deadland, by Mainak Dhar, in which, apparently, Alice follows an undead rabbit (or something like that) down a hole and becomes a zombie-slaying machine. If this reminds you of American McGee’s “Alice”, you’re not alone.

American_McGee_Alice_cover
Alice and the Cheshire Cat would like a word with you.

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Teaser Tuesday 8/27/13: “Black Onyx”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

This week’s free book is Black Onyx (A Superhero Thriller), by Victor Methos. Evidently this involves a relic from a lost civilization, which appears to be a suit of super-powered armor, but I haven’t yet gotten to the point where the armor has actually been found, so I’m sort of guessing. But given that the book description calls it the “Black Onyx” suit, reveals that there are more than one of it lying around under the Antarctic ice, and gives away quite a bit of the villain’s activities in his attempt to get one of the suits for himself, it seems like a pretty good guess.

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Random Acceptance: Mindmares, “Rush Hour”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

Well it’s been a while since I reached into my vast trove of ancient publisher response letters, so I figured it was about time to do so again. And what did I find this time? An acceptance letter from the old ‘zine “Mindmares”, for my old story “Rush Hour”. (See, it’s not ALL rejection letters in there.) Nothing to do with Jackie Chan or Chris Tucker, this is the story of a man who is stuck in traffic, reading the paper, and failing to notice that there’s a Very Bad Thing heading his way. Whoops.

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Teaser Tuesday 8/13/13: “Starliner”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

This week’s book, from the Baen free library, is Starliner, by David Drake. This is about an interstellar passenger ship (the “starliner” of the title, natch) that gets dragged into a war between two planets along its route. At least, I assume it’s going to get dragged into the war. Otherwise there’s not going to be much going on, is there?

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Tuesday Edit: Before And After

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

The first one or two times I make editing passes on a book, scenes tend to get longer. This is because I’ve found that if I keep going back and fleshing out earlier scenes as I think of more stuff, the book never gets finished. Here is an example, from a scene that introduces a character new to the story in part two of Shards:  Brennendah, a scientifically-minded Rittandic whose job is to study the Æther, also known as the void, which is gradually consuming the region where the Rittandics live.  (This loss of territory, known as the Unraveling, is what gives the territory—the Ravels—its name.)  Here is the original paragraph, followed by the revised version:

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Teaser Tuesday 7/30/2013: “Reversion: The Inevitable Horror”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

This week I’m reading Reversion: The Inevitable Horror, by one J. Thorn, which purports to be for fans of Clive Barker, Stephen King’s story “The Langoliers”, or a previous Teaser Tuesday entry, Hugh Howey’s Wool.  I can sort of see the comparison to “The Langoliers” in that Reversion also takes place in a world (possibly a pocket dimension) that is in the process of disintegrating, but (so far, anyway) it is nothing like Wool or anything I’ve read by Clive Barker.  In fact I wouldn’t even categorize it as horror, despite the presence of hordes of zombies, who mostly stand around in large groups attempting to prevent Our Heroes from moving.  In that, they are not unlike all the drivers who clog the freeways around Southern California.  Hmm, perhaps it’s a horror novel after all …

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Teaser Tuesday 7/16/2013: “The Sirens of Titan”

~ James Viscosi ~ 1 Comment

Still reading The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut’s classic from 1959, this week. We’ve just gotten to the point of meeting the members of a new religion whose members handicap themselves by carrying heavy weights, dressing in ugly clothes, wearing bad makeup, etc.  Shades of “Harrison Bergeron“!  And by “shades” I do not mean “dark glasses worn to impair your eyesight and eliminate any advantage you may enjoy due to your superior vision.”

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