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!
Tag: writing
Teaser Tuesday 9/10/2013: “Deadland”
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.
Random Acceptance: Mindmares, “Rush Hour”
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 6/18/13: Haunted House
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.
Teaser Tuesday 12/11/2012: “Tears in Rain”
This month my free book from Amazon is Tears in Rain by Rosa Montero. The astute reader may recognize “tears in rain” as part of Rutger Hauer’s epic Famous Last Words in the film “Blade Runner”, appearing here as listed on Wikipedia:
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. [laughs] Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like [coughs] tears in rain. Time to die.”
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Teaser Tuesday 11/20/2012: “The Half-Made World”
Well I finally paid for another book, The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman. Why, you ask? Two reasons:
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Teaser Tuesday 10/23/2012: “Bad Juju and Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem”
So my quest to save money continues this week with Bad Juju and Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem, a collection of short stories by Jonathan Woods. It’s sort of like what you might get if Joe R. Lansdale, Elmore Leonard, and Carl Hiaasen spent the night together drinking and trying to top each other with crazy stories about life in an unnamed Caribbean republic. For some reason, the setting keeps making me think of a much, much seedier version of Catalina Island, probably because that’s the only island I visit on any sort of regular basis.
As Ariel’s hands grabbed my throat, I kneed him in the jewels as hard as I could. The next instant he was writhing on the floor like a dying insect.
Oh, ouch. I’ve got nothing to add to that one!
And, of course, here is this week’s excerpt from The War of the Ravels, my current work in progress:
The sun lay very near the horizon now, thick and red, coloring the sky with swirls of angry color. The bottom of the chasm became obscured by a thick layer of luminous fog that oozed up from the sea, as if someone had dumped a massive quantity of dry ice into the water and then lit it from below with flood lamps.
Hmm, that can’t be good …
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: 8/7/2012
This week’s teaser is from The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, which I just started reading the other day. Boy vs. girl in the World Series of magic, as Prince (almost) said once.
Viscosity 