So last week I was reading a book called That Frequent Visitor, by K. Hari Kumar.
Continue reading “Teaser (Sort Of) Tuesday 2/16/2016: “That Frequent Visitor””
Teaser (Sort Of) Tuesday 2/16/2016: “That Frequent Visitor”
Tag: ghosts
Two Rejections And A Funeral. I Mean An Acceptance**.
So it’s been a while since I reached into my huge stack of rejection letters to pull out one of my old “You Suck” letters, and since I’m partway through my third “meh” BookBub book in a row and don’t really feel like giving it the Teaser Tuesday treatment, and we haven’t really seen any interesting movies lately (read: Movies that caused my wife to say humorous things about them), I thought it was time to dust the old feature off. So herewith is our first Random Rejection in quite some time: From Eternal Twilight, for my short story “Customs”:
Continue reading “Two Rejections And A Funeral. I Mean An Acceptance**.”
Teaser Tuesday 7/7/2015: “Suicide Forest”
So this week I’m reading Suicide Forest, a horror novel (possibly involving ghosts) by Jeremy Bates, in which a group of hikers, whose plan to scale Mount Fuji has been thwarted by weather, decide to go camp in Japan’s Aokigahara forest.
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 7/7/2015: “Suicide Forest””
Not A Review Of “Just Like Heaven”
So having in recent weeks subjected my wife to “Snowpiercer” (“What kind of train has an aquarium and a nightclub in it?”) and “Ender’s Game” (“All I’ve figured out so far is it’s a bunch of kids playing video games.”), I decided we needed something she might actually pay attention to. Enter “Just Like Heaven“, AKA the romantic comedy where the ghost of Tracy Flick meets the Incredible Hulk, with an assist from Napoleon Dynamite. Or something like that.
Random Rejection: Pirate Writings, “Graveyard Apples after Midnight”
This week instead of Teaser Tuesday, I decided to reach into the big pile of ancient rejection letters and see what I would find. What I came up with this old slip, from a magazine called Pirate Writings, from none other than Tom Piccirilli, author of such atmospheric horror novels as A Choir of Ill Children and the on-my-Kindle, not-yet-read The Last Kind Words, currently on sale for $0.99 for the Kindle edition. (Marked down from $15. Really, Random House? $15 for an eBook?)
Continue reading “Random Rejection: Pirate Writings, “Graveyard Apples after Midnight””
Teaser Tuesday 2/26/2013: “Ghosts of Rosewood Asylum”
This week’s freebie book is Ghosts of Rosewood Asylum, a novel that I would (so far) characterize as “Grave Encounters” meets The Little Stranger meets my own Night Watchman (though without the gore). Two teams of ghost hunters — one of which is led by a man who has his own ghost following him around — investigate a Chicago-area haunted asylum, site of numerous suspicious arson fires and wandering apparitions. What could possibly go wrong?
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Teaser Tuesday 9/18/2012: More “Ghosts: The Complete Series”
Still reading “Ghosts: The Complete Series” by Amy Cross. At this rate, I’ll be finishing it up just in time to become eligible to borrow another book from the Kindle Lending Library. After spending all my book money for, oh, the next year or so on car repairs last month, this is a good thing. Long books FTW!
“Just tell me,” I say. “Don’t say I can’t handle the truth.”
And in case you were wondering, she is not talking to Jack Nicholson.
And of course, here’s this week’s teaser from “The War of the Ravels”!
In effect, she would be using herself as the battery to power Daras-Drûm’s prison. That might work for a while, but the way everyone talked about this entity, she didn’t think she’d be able to contain it for very long; you didn’t get to be nicknamed “the death-wind” without having some kick.
Indeed, one way to get nicknamed “the death-wind” is to be a demonic entity with a group of necromantic priests as followers commanding legions of the dead; another is to be Tucker the Vizsla. Guess which one Daras-Drûm is …
Teaser Tuesday 9/11/2012: “Ghosts: The Complete Series”
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 8/21/2012: Alive in Necropolis
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 …
Teaser Tuesday: 8/14/2012
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.
Viscosity 