WELCOME TO ZOMBIE BLOG HOP

 

WELCOME TO THE BLOG HOP OF ALL THINGS ZOMBIE!

THIS IS A ONE DAY ONLY BLOG HOP

My horror stories vary in theme, subject matter and types of monsters, but I have been known to spin a zombie tale once in a while.

To read my flash fiction story, "The Leftovers"--CLICK HERE.

To promote this blog hop, I am giving away a copy of my new ebook horror collection Silhouette of Darkness. Full details on how to enter are provided below.



Silhouette of Darkness Page, Buy Links

Silhouette of Darkness includes the zombie story "Now Playing."

It's 1980.

The last thing Gabe remembers is being quite tanked at a Halloween party. He wakes up in a coffin at a funeral home, assuming he is the victim of a sick practical joke.

As he leaves the building, he begins noticing some freaky things about himself and also soon learns it is now Election Night. What happened to those four nights in between?

The answers are shocking....





Those of you who follow this blog know David S. Pointer, a speculative genre poet who can always be relied on to contribute a piece on ay subject. Here is his contribution to the zombie hop, which also has a bit of holiday flavor added for good measure.

The No Zombie Poetry Zone

David S. Pointer

Zombie war protester,
ringing his bell alongside
a medical punk princess
working holidays with the
Salvation Army Corps
of Christmas volunteers,
about to read his zombie
redneck Christmas poem,
but the princess asks him
not to in the name of mad
medical science everywhere
and the old trench shotgun
in the trunk of her red car.

AND NOW---THE RULES OF THE CONTEST:

Anyone can enter the contest by doing two things:

1) Post a comment on the blog. You can leave me feedback on the blog itself, comment on your experience with the blog hop, or say something about our mutual friends--zombies!

2) Follow this blog by ENTERING YOUR EMAIL in the "FOLLOW BY EMAIL" BOX on the sidebar of the blog. If you are already a follower and/or a friend on Facebook, mention that in your blog comment.

The contest begins at Midnight, December 6, 2012 and ends at Midnight December 7, 2012. ONE DAY ONLY!

Please be sure to provide your email address in your comment so I can contact you.

Silhouette of Darkness is available in any ebook format or as a PDF.

 The winner will be announced on this blog and my facebook page no later than December 9, 2012.

This contest is fully funded and operated by me and not Precious Monsters or the Zombie Blog Hop.

Thanks for participating and good luck!

Also, a shout out to our gracious host, Precious Monsters!

CLICK ON ANY LINK BELOW TO CONTINUE HOPPING:

Do You Believe in Ghosts? Stories in my new book SILHOUETTE OF DARKNESS Explore this Universal Theme

It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.

-SAMUEL JOHNSON, The Life of Samuel Johnson

This quote is as true today as ever. Even though the show Ghost Hunters and its countless imitators has offered a certain level of proof spirits exist, most often that evidence is still not nearly enough to win over stanch skeptics.

Over two hundred more years have passed since Johnson wrote this—two hundred years of vast technological advancement—and still, this subject comes down to the simple notion of belief vs. disbelief.

Fiction provides an effective venue where this debate can be mediated in a safe environment. While readers entertain the notion that ghost smay exist, we are safe in this created world we can leave at any time, compared to a more extreme form of experiment, such as agreeing to attend a séance or serious session with a Ouija board.

In his book The Fantastic (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1975), Tsvetan Todorov offers one of the best explanations of how readers participate in a “gothic hesitation” to sort out this potentially disturbing subject.

The fantastic, we have seen, lasts only as long as a certain hesitation: a hesitation common to reader and character, who must decide whether or not what they perceive derives from reality as it exists in the common opinion. At the story's end, the reader makes a decision even if the character does not; he opts for one solution or the other, and thereby emerges from the fantastic. If he decides that the laws of reality remain intact and permit an explanation of the phenomena described, we say that the work belongs to another genre: the uncanny. If, on the contrary, he decides that new laws of nature must be entertained to account for the phenomena, we enter the genre of the marvelous.

I have had my own brushes with the uncanny and found there is always a frustration when trying to relay the experience to a friend later on. In the moment, I was positive I was faced with the “new laws of nature” Todorov presents, and that “all belief was for it,” but once I began explaining it to another person, the certainty became diminished with each passing word I tried to place upon it.

This is why ghost stories are so popular. We read the book, or watch the film, and can safely entertain the notion, in the guise of fiction, that we accept the supernatural as real. We are safe there. We wander the halls of The Overlook or Hill House expecting entertainment but also to enter the world of the what if, the Todorovian hesitation that allows for the real possibility that the spirit world is real.

My new collection, Silhouette of Darkness includes two ghost stories.

The Blues in A Minor

Since surviving a tragic accident, Mona is troubled by blackouts. Waking from one of these spells, she enters an eerie tenement and discovers Zach, a young man who plays blues guitar that speaks to her soul.

An Act of Naming
Norman wanders the streets after a night of drinking and meets Angela, a homeless amnesiac. The moment their eyes meet is the beginning of an evening of mystery.

These stories are not meant to frighten or disturb, as are most of the other selections in Silhouette of Darkness. Rather, they explore the classic themes at the heart of every ghost story—who are the ghosts and more importantly why are they spirits? What has trapped them in the region between life and whatever exists beyond death?

To read these ghost stories, and eleven other tales of horror and dark fantasy, check out Silhouette of Darkness, available in all electronic formats through Musa Publishing  here:

http://musapublishing.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=397