Forgive Me, Alex by Lane Diamond
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book is gruesome and emotional right out of the gate. The main character, Tony, goes through some monumental losses throughout the story. These aren’t the kind of losses that you can just blow off as insignificant because Lane’s writing makes you really care about these people and what’s going on. Lane excels in this area of sympathetic characters. Continue reading
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I recently came across a uniquely innovative publishing model that combines the benefits of the teamwork present in traditional publishing with the freedom to choose your team found in self-publishing: Libboo.com. I’m calling it a publishing community because these guys have set up an amagalmation akin to Smashwords mixed with Eharmony for writers. They have a patent pending method of rating books and services that tracks reader behaviors like reading cover-to-cover or sharing the book with others. Getting involved at the early stages of this community means you get a head start on building your rankings as an artist and a reviewer. Enjoy the podcast, and head over to Libboo.com to see what opportunities await. Continue reading
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Today’s episode is part two of three interviews I’ve done with Michell Plested. This time we talked about some good news he had from World Fantasy Con, some things he’s learned editing his 3 Rivers book, Mik Murdoch: Boy Superhero, some info on his Boy Scouts of the Apocalypse zombie story and upcoming anthology, and then some general encouragement related to NaNoWriMo. I should have part 3 up in a couple days. I may try a schedule of posting every other day so that this site stays active. Thank you to everyone that has been stopping by of late, it’s been very encouraging. Continue reading
The difference between my status as a writer going into 2011 and its conclusion is a leap I’m very proud of, and one which makes me very confident that my writing will one day become a career. Going into 2011, my writing portfolio included two novel first drafts and a ton of unfinished novel ideas. Actually, I finished that second novel’s first draft in the second week of January, but that’s all I really had at this time last year.
Going into 2012, I have a lot more going for me, and it’s really exciting. I give credit to hard work, persistence, and taking advantage of opportunities. I also made some executive decisions about what to work on so that my efforts were most efficient. Continue reading
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Today’s episode is an interview with Georgina Kamsika, author of The Sulphur Diaries. She has a fascinating concept for this story that you won’t want to miss, as well as a chilling reading from the book. I will be giving away a Kindle copy of The Sulphur Diaries, which you can win by utilizing the Rafflecopter Giveaway below (contest has ended).
My Saturday Spotlight post this week will be for you to check out Georgina and Matthew’s stuff. Matthew was interviewed in the last episode and has a free web series called, The Day the Sun Stopped Shining, which is also really good, and worth your time to check out. Continue reading
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Today’s AudioTim podcast interview is with Matthew C. Wood, author of the Apocalyptic Science Fiction Web Series, The Day the Sun Stopped Shining, which you can read for free on his website. We talk about the setting and the unique hook about what would happen if the sun stopped shining, the protagonist being an unlikely hero, some of the science involved in setting the story 70 years into the future, and he even reads us a tantalizing sample from the beginning of the story. Georgina Kamsika, author of The Sulphur Diaries, joins us on the interview. I broke the interview in two, so that this episode focuses on Matthew, and the next episode will be us interviewing her. Continue reading
Rachel and I last Christmas. Go figure, I'm wearing a Browns shirt this year too.
This Saturday Spotlight is cast on Ed Kurtz for his short story, “Pearls,” which is published in Dark Moon Digest: Issue 5. (Thanks to Rob Smales for sending me a copy as part of the Coffin Hop blog tour.)
What stuck out immediately from this gross little tale is that Ed has come up with a very unique twist on apocalyptic cannibalism. These are humans, not zombies, and their ability to deceive makes them more frightening. Ed starts the story off with a guy checking a lump under his skin. The way this places the reader into a familiar situation, and then progresses as most of us would as he excises the lump, creates empathetic fear that plays on the base drive for survival in such a way that any of us could transform in the same way. 
Continue reading
Talking, running, smart zombies? Sparkly vampires? Magician’s apprentices? Magical swords? One of my recent comments about zombies reciting Shakespeare made me wonder what you guys think about genre tropes. Zombies are my genre of preference, but I’m curious which direction the common tropes are going in your favorite genre and what you think about it.
What genre tropes are you most sick of? Continue reading
I had a dream last night that woke me up it was so terrifying. Of course, describing it here won’t do it justice, but there were some elements that I’m going to jot down to explore in my zombie fiction. In this dream, the zombies were out there, but they were not the biggest threat. They were so scattered, that people could still come and go to prepare before the zombies took over. The biggest threat was human scavengers. They were shooting people in alleys behind houses, breaking in wherever they saw people were hiding, killing them and taking their stuff. In my dream we had to keep the lights off and hide in our houses when scavenger parties walked by our windows.
What creeps you out most about the zombie apocalypse? Continue reading
