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.
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.
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 …
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 7/30/2013: “Reversion: The Inevitable Horror””
This week’s Teaser Tuesday is from Haunted House, by J.A. Konrath and Jack Kilborn (who, despite having different names, are in fact the same person, unlike, say, “Simon & Simon”, who had the same name but were different people). The setup is that a number of characters from previous books by the same author have been brought together in a house where, apparently, everything is trying to kill them. If that sounds a bit “Saw”-ish to you then, well, I’ll have to take your word for it, because I have never seen a “Saw” movie. But it does sort of sound like what I imagine a “Saw” movie might involve.
Since last week I featured a rejection letter from Tom Piccirilli’s old magazine “Pirate Writings”, I was inspired to get around to reading his book The Last Kind Words (currently available for the Kindle for $0.99). I haven’t read any of Tom Piccirilli’s work since A Choir of Ill Children, which is one of my favorite book names, though All Heads Turn When The Hunt Goes By still holds the position of Best Title Ever. But I digress.
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 6/11/13: “The Last Kind Words””
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””
Another month, another free book from the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library! This week it’s Bottled Abyss by Benjamin Kane Ethridge, in which a bottle containing the waters of the River Styx finds its way into mortal hands. Needless to say, hilarity ensues.
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 3/12/2013: “Bottled Abyss””
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?
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 2/26/2013: “Ghosts of Rosewood Asylum””
So I’ve been a bit remiss the last couple of weeks with Teaser Tuesday posts. Busy busy busy, you know, plus the stuff I’ve been reading has been mostly freebie Halloween short stories that I downloaded toward the end of October, and not really conducive to teaserification. But this month I have another real, live book, Apocalpyse Z. Hmm, what could a book with a title like that be about?
In some refugee camps in neighboring republics, they’re reporting new cases of what they insist is an especially virulent strain of the West Nile virus. But media sources are calling it Ebola.
Hmm. West Nile, Ebola; potato, rotten tomato that oozes nasty red juice all over everything. But hey, whatever gets you the most clicks, media sources! Interestingly, this book is translated from the Spanish and takes place in Spain, making it the first foreign zombie novel I’ve read. (Although I’ve seen one or two Italian zombie movies, and sort of wish I hadn’t.)
And, of course, here’s today’s teaser from The War of the Ravels. I’m rewriting this part of it pretty much completely, so it’s been rather slow going, but things are shaping up!
She soon realized she was wandering through unfamiliar territory, and moved closer to the buildings on the left—which, she thought, was the direction in which the harbor gate would be found—hoping to spot a building she recognized, or maybe find a sign or a person to tell her which way to go. Not that she had much hope of either; no one was out on this sinister night, and as far as she could tell, Abacar did not believe in “You Are Here” kiosks.
Just imagine how much easier going the mines of Moria would have been with “You Are Here” kiosks scattered around! Or, even better, “You Are Here And The Balrog Is There” …
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.
Viscosity 