Showing posts with label monsters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label monsters. Show all posts

Thursday, December 6, 2012

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:





Monday, October 8, 2012

MONSTERS ABOUND IN MY NEW HORROR COLLECTION SILHOUETTE OF DARKNESS


My childhood was immersed in reruns of old monster movies and other creepy stuff from the Fifties and Sixties. I remember staying up late on Saturday nights (if I could stay awake) with my Dad, watching Bob Wilkins hosting “Creature Features” in the San Francisco Bay Area. Those great old films knew how to scare us without relying on gore and exploitation.


I write all kinds of horror but particularly like to create work that harkens back to those early days of monster cinema without overtly stealing their tropes. Readers of my fiction know I write very few vampires, werewolves, and other traditional monsters. While these creatures make an occasional appearance, I tend to create my own original monsters, or at least my own hybrids or mutations of what has come before.


Buy from Publisher in all e-book formats

In Silhouette of Darkness, my new e-book release from Musa Publishing, you will find these “Creature Features”:

Fatal Insomnia

The central idea of this story began with the characters, not the monster. I wanted to write a story in one setting, with a few characters who were isolated together for some time, and going slowly mad. I would pick up their story far down the road, on the night that everything went to Hell.

I wrote about three siblings and their best friend living in a farmhouse, and after sketching them a bit I decided that, for some still unknown reason, they were forced to stay awake all night and sleep during the day. Their normal circadian rhythms disrupted, this was the pressure that drove them to the breaking point.

The monster of this story, The Blight, took shape from this central idea. I wanted the creature to be a bizarre construction of unknown origin. The knowledge that one must stay awake all night to avoid being its victim came from experience with it, not because anyone understood exactly what was going on.

I hope you agree The Blight is worthy of comparison to some of the stranger monster movies of old, and perhaps even a nod to one of my favorite masters of the horror, H. P. Lovecraft.


Jerrod’s Brood

I remember being very creeped out by the film “Willard.” Watching it now, it seems a bit corny, but the whole notion of a loser like Willard communing with rats and becoming their master is still disturbing. I wanted to take another loser and “bless” him (or curse him, depending on your viewpoint) with a brood of his own, creatures that seem to appear from nowhere but bond to him immediately.

Read this story to find out where life takes this poor soul on this fateful night.

Ashton Howard’ Dark Process

Carnivals are fun but they can also be a bit scary, right? Whether it’s the Bradbury classic “Something Wicked this Way Comes,” the clown in “It,” or some of the characters in the B-movies exploiting the carnie life, at one time or another we have all mused about the possibility that all may not be as merry with carnivals and circuses as they appear on the surface.

I wanted to take the idea of the freak show and give it a bit of a horror twist. What if there are no actual “freaks of nature,” but instead an evil mad scientist is creating them?

Read this short story and learn secret behind the sideshow “Ashton Howard’s Tent of Oddities.”

These are just three of the creatures I created in the dark tales found in Silhouette of Darkness.



STILL CAN’T GET ENOUGH MONSTERS?

CHECK OUT MY FLASH FICTION ANTHOLOGY, MONSTER GALLERY

Buy from Amazon

As editor of this collection, I simply put out a call for flash fiction featuring monsters. No more specific conditions on content. I received hundreds of tales of wondrous and horrible creatures, some humorous, others poignant, many quite disturbing.

The end result is 93 flash fiction stories of every type of monster imaginable by these great writers.

Jeffrey Thomas, author of the Punktown series and many other stories and novels, provided a wonderful introduction on the subject at hand.
Check it out at the Amazon purchase link below the cover image.


So if you like monsters, you need look no further Silhouette of Darkness and Monster Gallery. What are you waiting for?

As always, if you check out either or both of these books, I would be most greateful if you left your thoughts in comments on Goodreads, Amazon, or any other review forum.

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