Review of Mark Justice and David T. Wilbank’s “Dead Earth: The Vengeance Road”
I have not read what I understand to be a novella that started the Dead Earth Series, entitled “Dead Earth: The Green Dawn”, but the authors did a commendable job bringing me up to speed with what happened in the first story through much of this novel, without any need for a prologue. What that translates to for someone who does forgo the first book is an immediate jump into the action with a story filled with zombies controlled by an alien invasion force dubbed “Necros” (short for Necromancers), by the few surviving humans who remain.
There are two groups of survivors at the outset of this tale. One group is made up of bikers running free and trying to avoid getting eaten while roaming around the Mexican desert in Baja California. Lead by Luther Kemp, there is friction between him and another member of this ragtag gang, whose nickname is Mother…and he is one big Mother, that is for sure. Mother only wants company because there is safety in numbers, while Kemp has bigger plans. The other group is led by a former sheriff’s deputy from New Mexico named Jubal Slate. Jubal is bound and determined to make his way up to Area 51 in Nevada, where the aliens apparently broke through into our dimension, started changing the atmosphere, and raising the dead to help in the take over of humanity.
It seems that those who have survived have some immunity from turning into zombies-they can be bit and survive, though if allowed to die, they too turn in the end. It is an interesting slant, and allows for a few gruesome scenes where I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.
Not long into the story, Luther Kemp is bequeathed a gift from one of the Necros, who fly in glider-type machines, as his band of renegades is surrounded by a zombie horde. A metallic band that adheres to his head, giving him power over the undead and the ability to read the minds of the living, as long as he follows the commands of these New Lords over the Dead Earth. That is about the time that Mother realizes that he wants nothing to do with Luther or his little band of devotees, as Kemp decides that he is pretty tickled to serve his new alien masters, as long as he is given power over both the dead and the living humans.
The two groups clash throughout the rest of the story, with both sides making the trek north from Mexico up to Nevada. There is plenty of gory zombie action and interesting variations on that due to the alien influence on the story. The near future time frame add little hints about the earth technology left behind, and we get a big dose of it from one of the secondary characters, who has the ability to tap into the ever diminishing world wide web through a chip implanted in his head. I enjoyed the pacing of the story-it was a fun and easy read. My criticisms of it are mostly tied to whether or not this book is the final chapter in this saga or not. My belief is that based on a very revealing chapter near the end, when a lot of divulged about the aliens and their plans for earth, that this series will continue. Also, without providing a spoiler, I felt that one character’s departure from the story was rather anticlimactic and my guess is that they will return in a future installment. If, however, this is where it all ends, I would be disappointed that there isn’t more to be revealed. My guess is that isn’t the case, though the authors certainly hit a dramatic stopping point which would allow them to leave things as is if that is the route they choose to go.
I felt that the three main characters in this story were all fairly well developed. Jubal taking the fight to aliens and undead was a refreshing change from what we typically see-there is rarely a main target to focus on during the zombie apocalypse, so seeing someone willing to do whatever it takes to undo the undead and the enemies of man was enjoyable to see-he was on his own personal Jihad. I liked the morphing Luther Kemp, as the necro technology he is gifted with starts changing and empowering him in twisted and devious ways. He goes from being a run of the mill sociopath to someone with an almost religious zeal and devotion to his new masters that is frightening. And my favorite character is Mother, the scarred, imperfect, reluctant hero that goes through hell and comes out of it looking for vengeance. He was the most developed and complex of the three, and also the most human of the bunch.
I do look forward to seeing where the Dead Earth series goes, and hope to hear about the promise of another installment from the authors somewhere in the not so distant future.
Dead Earth: The Vengeance Road can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Earth-Vengeance-Mark-Justice/dp/1934861561/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291266382&sr=1-1
Zombiality, another anthology my work appears in, is now available on Amazon!
I had mentioned this book a while back and posted the cover art for it. It is now available on Amazon, so check it out. I am very proud to be a part of this one and hope that many of the folks out there read this one. One of my favorite short stories that I have written is in it, “Humans Being Human.”
Hit the picture and it will take you over to Amazon. Thanks!
Cover revealed for “Daily Bites of Flesh 2011”
Another anthology that one of my stories will be appearing in is being released shortly. In fact, it should be available at the publisher’s website, www.pillhillpress.com tomorrow. It should be on Amazon within a week. This is a compendium of 365 Flash Fiction horror stories. Flash fiction are stories that are less than 500 words each. Essentially, these are short flashes of terror, without all the extras that come with short stories and novels. The challenge is to create an environment and fill it with characters and a plot in a very short period of time. My flash, “Compulsion,” is one of the April stories, and one I am quite proud of.
If you are a fan of horror, this is a great way to get a huge dose of it-365 different stories to freak you out, and each in nice little bite sized pieces.
Check out the cover by the same artist who has done my books, Philip R. Rogers. It is beautiful. More details as the book becomes available, which will be very soon!
Review of Lori Titus’s “Lazarus”
Luella Pembry can speak to the dead. Ghosts are all around her, and ask that she do their bidding. She is called to a place called Lazarus, where others have magical talents of their own, and the dead tend to rise, though this type of dead are zombies, and they seek to destroy the living.
Lazarus is a tightly written novella that immerses the reader in the old west, with a twilight zone bent to it. Its mix of magic and the grit of the old west keeps the reader intrigued page after page. Lori Titus certainly knows how to spin a tale that kept me wondering what was next. I guess it sounds trite to say, but this is a story with a little bit of something for everyone: mystery, romance, horror, adventure, a strong leading woman and man, deception, and solid, compelling characters.
I don’t think I’ve read a story that combined ghosts and zombies and layered on top of that mysticism before. Lori does an excellent job of combining those elements and making the story flow well from start to finish. Again, this is a novella, so perhaps my only complaint is that this isn’t a full fledged novel with more story to it-I would have liked to seen more of this little town in California and the people who inhabit it. So I guess the brevity of this tale isn’t really a complaint at all-Lori Titus has me craving more.
Lazarus can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Lazarus-Lori-Titus/dp/1453775722/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1290699294&sr=1-1
Review of L.A. Taylor’s “Morgue of the Dead”
Morgue of the Dead sort of reminds me of the movie “Let Sleeping Corpses Lie”, which is also known as “The Living Dead from Manchester Morgue”…at least at the outset of this tale. We are introduced to a small, innocent village in England that has experienced a violent bank robbery, but while that serves as a lead in to the main story, it seems to disappear as a plot point as the rest of this tale is related. Where this story reminds me of the previously mentioned movie is with the introduction of the living dead-they come about from a potent fertilizer mix that is being tested in this farm community, which is somewhat similar to how the dead begin to rise in the movie. This fertilizer saturates the ground and brings the buried dead back to life. From there on out, mayhem ensues on this quiet little village.
The author provides his audience with plenty of gruesome zombie thrills and a few attempts at creating a joke or two where the zombies retain some semblance of intelligence and can scribble notes or even dance along to Michael Jackson’s Thriller, though I though those aspects of the story served more as a distraction than as real humorous asides. I believe that the author does have the fundamentals of an interesting zombie tale here, though there were some editing issues that made certain parts of the story challenging for me. The dialog didn’t flow all that smoothly from person to person, and some of the conversations were a bit jumpy and confusing. Another aspect of this story that served as a significant distraction was the classic “show vs. tell” that every writer struggles with from time to time. This story unfolds with a lot of telling the reader every last detail about each character, about what they are thinking, how they feel, their background, and so forth, whether they are a main character or a bit player, rather that showing the reader how the characters react, letting their actions and dialog tell us the story and let us form our own perceptions about everything else. It felt as if the story was overloaded in that regard-I could have done with less detail on everything going on with every character-sometimes discovering things for yourself as a reader is the most satisfying part of reading a story. Even if your perception of a particular character is different than that of the author.
I don’t want to give the impression that this story didn’t have entertainment value, because I feel that it does. The author isn’t bashful about providing us with plenty of gore and violent action that will keep fans of zombie stories on their toes from scene to scene. As a zombie fan, I can appreciate a story like this, but I always feel it is only fair to point out where I feel things could have been improved in the telling of the tale.
Morgue of the Dead can be found at: http://www.amazon.com/M-D-MORGUE-DEAD-L-TAYLOR/dp/1445735989/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1290400740&sr=1-1
Houdini Gut Punch is now on Amazon!
For those folks who prefer to get their books from Amazon instead of Createspace, I am happy to announce that Houdini Gut Punch is available on Amazon!
So check it out. My story, “Consumer’s Paradise” appears amongst it pages. If you dig bizarro, don’t miss this tome of disturbing stories and odd tales.
Hit the picture to go straight to Amazon so you can pick up a copy today.
Review of Robert R. Best’s “Ashton Memorial”
Ashton Memorial starts off where Lakewood Memorial left off, with Angie, her two kids, and Parker, the man they met at the hospital in the first book, on the run as the zombie apocalypse has begun. Robert Best continues to heap plenty of action onto this saga, with rarely a page going by without some sort of zombie mayhem taking place. Maylee and Dalton, the two kids in this tale, have learned how to deal with the undead-particularly Maylee, who has become somewhat of an expert with the use of a baseball bat.
The quartet make their way to Ashton, a larger city where Park’s twin teenage daughters live with their mom and step dad. They figure out upon their arrival that the girls have made their way to the Ashton Memorial Zoo, where Gregory, the step dad of the girls, works. The story works well as an study of how people react to intense situations and start to crumble under pressure and fear. I do think that perhaps a few of the folks were a bit over the top in how zealous they were and how devolved they were in the face of the horrible situation they faced, but still this was a intriguing journey for the main characters with how they dealt with the undead, the living, and the animals, which have gone berserk as the dead have risen. The changes in the animals was the most interesting part of the book for me. They aren’t infected, or so it seems, and they don’t have any interest in the undead, but they want to kill the living human beings, as if they blame them for what has happened to their world. It would be interesting to see if that plays a part in the third book or not, but I thought it was a highly interesting and creative approach to involving the rest of the animal kingdom in the zombocalypse.
Mr. Best has also done an interesting job of embracing swearing in both books in this trilogy. I know there are some authors out there, and plenty of readers, who would prefer that there be no swearing or cussing in their stories, but Robert has gone the opposite route, making an effort to have his characters become master vulgarians. It serves as comic relief, in my humble opinion, as you read the story. Certainly, I think the story could have been done with less cursing, but some of the verbal combinations are so creative they are actually impressive. So I guess the key is to note that the cursing is ample here and just embrace it.
Overall, this book, like the last one, are fun, gory, action-packed zombie apocalypse novels filled with mayhem and chaos aplenty. The author has no fear of killing people off, and does toss in some good surprises for the reader along the way. Again, I think there were perhaps a few overreactions by some folks in terms of how desperate they become and how willingly violent they are just a couple days into the zombocalypse, but I certainly wouldn’t put it past some folks out there to go completely bonkers within a few hours of seeing the dead rise. Beside that minor gripe, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to the final chapter in the Memorial trilogy.
Ashton Memorial can be found at: http://www.amazon.com/Ashton-Memorial-Book-Zombie-Trilogy/dp/145365268X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1290014638&sr=1-1
HorrorHound Cincinnati 2010 Wrap Up
I spent this last weekend with several good friends over at HorrorHound, promoting my book: Comes The Dark and the soon to be released sequel, Into The Dark. It was fun mingling with a wide cross-section of horror fans, chat about my books, and have the chance to spend time with Ben Rogers, author of Faith And The Undead, Beth LaFond, Publicist for The Library of the Living Dead, Rich Dalzatto, who runs Horror Realm up in Pittsburgh, and Dr. Pus, aka Mike West, who owns The Library of the Living Dead. I helped my fellow table dwellers sell some of their books and they did the same for me, and we had a good chance to hang out together not only at the show, but at Coco Key’s water park on Saturday night, which is attached to the hotel where the convention took place. I was able to bring my wife and kids along to that event and we had a blast.
I also had the privilege of being interviewed for two podcasts while at the show-stay tuned for links as they are passed long to me. It is always fun to promote my stories and the folks at Night of the Living Podcast and The Creepture Feature Horror Show were great to talk with.
I didn’t take a lot of pictures at the show, but suffice it to say, the crowds were great and things were hopping. I sold a pretty good amount of my books and even met some folks who had already purchased it and had some great conversations with them. Here a few pictures I took when my wife and kids showed up on Saturday.
From left to right: Rich Dalzatto, Dr. Pus, my son Zack, me, my daughter Ali, and Ben Rogers…and Zeb, the zombie that lives in the shed out behind Ben’s house
Me and the kids at my table
Dr. Pus, Zack, me, Ali, and Ben
Horror Hound in Cincinnati this weekend!
If you are in Cincinnati this weekend and would like to check out some really cool horror related stuff, meet some celebrities like Malcolm McDowell, and have a chance to get a copy of Comes The Dark signed by yours truly, or a copy of Faith and the Undead signed by Ben Rogers, stop on by! Our publisher, the illustrious Dr. Pus will also be in attendance, which will give you a chance to check out a wide selection of anthologies and other horror novels put out by The Library of the Living Dead and its other imprints. It will be a blast, so check it out.
Hit the link below to get all the details.
Cover for a new anthology I will be in revealed: Zombiality
Another anthology that I have a story in has a cover that has been revealed, and it is an antho that I am quite proud that I made the cut for. There are a lot of zombie anthologies out there that have given me the chance to stretch my capabilities as a novice writer, but I think that writing something for this anthology forced me to really think about what I was writing, who I was writing for, and what message I wanted to present with my story. I think the results are something I can be proud of and the editor seemed to be quite pleased with my story, and said that he liked its message. I hope that folks out there will give this one a shot and check it out-I realize that there will be folks who won’t, for many reasons, and that is okay. But for me, the bottom line is that I am proud to be a part of this anthology and do hope that my friends, family, and those of you who have enjoyed anything else I have written give this one a look see. Thanks!
Here is the cover art for it:
New Anthology I will be in-Strange Tales of Horror-cover revealed!
I had the privilege of being a part of May December’s first anthology release and I get that same privilege with NorGus, which is releasing Strange Tales of Horror and have revealed a rough of the cover art and the Table of Contents. My story, “VRZ” is in this book and I couldn’t be more excited about it. This is a anthology that covers a wide spectrum of strange horror tales and I am looking forward to checking out everyone else’s offerings.
Here is the cover:
Here is the Table of Contents:
Forward by Jeff Angus
Review of Tony Monchinski’s “I Kill Monsters: Fury”
I have read Tony Monchinski’s take on zombies in his Eden books and was intrigued by the opportunity given to me to check out his particular slant on vampires with his new series, ‘I Kill Monsters’, of which Fury is the first book. Tony is apparently confident that he will be writing this series for a while, because he has nine titles listed in total on the list of books he has written at the front of this novel. I have no doubt that Tony will complete these other books and credit him for having the vision to have them all lined up and titled already.
Fury is urban fantasy, with all the monsters of myth coming to life on the page, although the focus on this novel is the vampire. While other monster archetypes are hinted at, including Furies among others, a Genie out of its bottle is the only other creature we get to see in this tale. Most of the world doesn’t know about these strange creatures, as they remain hidden, although they are definitely a part of every day life in the world Tony has created here. This story takes place in New York City, and the author has a knack for working in that environment and breathing life into the characters that inhabit the city. I admire his skill at creating dialog that feels natural and unforced and is unique to the Big Apple. This story starts out with a group of thieves that work the vampires of the city-stealing blood from one clan and selling it to another. Though they are dealing with vampires, these guys are just like any other thieves you might meet-they do their jobs and then fade into the background, until the next job comes along. All except Boone, who is the muscle for the squad, and a guy who everyone wonders about-even other members of his crew. He doesn’t seem to have any restraints-he is a hardcore drug user, including steroids, which have turned him into a rage machine. The crew boss likes having him around, while just about everyone else doesn’t. Boone presents the reader with a great anti-hero. He is sort of like having a wild animal as a pet-they behave because you feed them, but you never know when their disposition may change. Boone is articulately drawn, intriguing, and fierce.
Tony has done what I believe he set out to do, which was to pushing vampires back into the darkness, making them the despised, wretched leaches on humanity that they actually are, versus the sweet, loving, romantic figures they have become in popular culture these days. Whether or not future installments in this series remains focused on vampires or stretches things to include other creatures of darkness remains to be seen, but I am anxious to see what Tony has in store for us next.
My only grumble here is that we are left hanging, with only hints at what Boone is to become. Given his personality and the name of the series, we can guess where things are headed, but I think we are in for some significant twists as he discovers his path in life.
You can find I Kill Monsters: Fury at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/I-Kill-Monsters-Tony-Monchinski/dp/1453677437/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1288218294&sr=8-1
Book Signing this Saturday
Ben Rogers and I will be taking part in the Books of the Dead Signings at That Book Place in Madison, Indiana. It is located at 337 Clifty Drive and will run from 12-3. There will also be an opportunity for customers to dress up as zombies for this event, so it should be a real blast! I will be signing copies of my book, Comes The Dark, and Ben will be signing his book, Faith and The Undead.
You can check out That Book Place on the web, and become their fan on Facebook, at http://www.thatbookplace.com/. They did an interview with me back in July, which is posted on their website, and they do a lot of other great interviews and reviews of books. Please help support independent book stores like this one, because they bring you a lot of great books and authors that bigger chains seem to pass over.
Thanks!
Book Signing this weekend in Dayton!
It is great to have friends who are willing to let you tag along with them! I get the opportunity to be at the Halloween Express up in Dayton, Ohio this Saturday with my good friend Ben Rogers, thanks to Beth LaFond, his publicist, who always sees if I am available for anything they plan in the area. Many thanks to Beth and Ben for allowing me to take part in this event.
We will be selling and signing copies of our books. I have reviewed Ben’s Faith and the Undead here on my blog not so long ago, so check that out, and if you live in the Dayton/Cincinnati area and haven’t had the chance to pick up a copy of either Ben’s book or mine, stop by! Even if you have already and want to get us to sign your copy, we would love to do so. It should be a lot of fun, so check it out!
Here is the posting that Halloween Express made for this event on their Facebook page:
Halloween Express/Dayton/Columbus Benjamin Rogers, author of “Faith and the Undead” and Patrick D’Orazio author of “Comes the Dark” will be at our Beavercreek location on Saturday October 16th for book signings. 2750 suite B. N. Fairfield Rd. Beavercreek Ohio 45431
So definitely check it out! We will be there officially from 11-4, but ya never know, we might just stick around after that
Review of Ben Rogers “Faith & The Undead”
Good and evil have done battle down through time with mankind as it pawns. This time, Satan has decided to play for keeps., having grown weary of all the jabs and feints of these minor battles that came before and decides to go for broke. So through the helpful hands of a twisted scientist, he unleashes hell on earth in the form of the living dead. They will swarm the living and turn them all into Satan’s dark minions, insuring his victory over God. But there is something that Satan has not foreseen, and that is that only those without faith can be turned into the empty, soulless shells that crave human flesh. Others with faith who are bitten simply die. And thus the battle for supremacy over the earth begins.
Frank Payens gets introduced to the reader as the start of the apocalypse is occurring. He is a man who has been on a quest to find something called The Home, which is rumored to be a place where ex-military can come to and find peace after absorbing a lifetime of psychological and physical scars in battle. Frank is a former Navy SEAL who doesn’t realize that he has been chosen to become a leader at The Home, which is not just a place where veterans go to forget, but go to prepare for the final cataclysm.
That is the basic overview of the novel, Faith & The Undead, at least at the start. This is not your traditional zombie apocalypse novel, though it has been written by someone who is a devoted fan of traditional Romero zombies, which shines through in this novel. As the minions of Satan, the undead in this book are bound to do his bidding, but other than that, they are your traditional slow-moving flesh eaters from the grave. A few other authors, such as Kim Paffenroth, Mark Rogers, and perhaps even Brian Keene have brought in religious overtones to their zombie novels (Keene might be considered a stretch, but his zombies are in fact demons from beyond the void, so I will include them here), so it is not as if Faith & The Undead stands alone in that regard, but I haven’t seen such a clear depiction of the battle between God and Satan on display in any other zombie books I have read before. In most zombie novels, the main and secondary characters will spend time questioning their faith, questioning whether God has abandoned or cursed them, and even the best amongst them will have ample reason to act in evil and selfish ways as it suits them during the atrocities occurring all around them during the apocalypse. That does not appear to be something that will crop up here. The lines in Faith & The Undead are very well defined between good and evil, and while evil has the upper hand on earth, good is not backing down, as it tends to do in most zombie novels. The Home is prepared for war and I believe we shall see a hell of a war (pardon the pun) in the second and third installments in this trilogy. While I do love the conflicts that tend to occur among survivors in most zombie novels-the tormented characters who struggle to do what is right but tend to lose their humanity by inches as they do, I like the idea of humanity not being such pushovers, which is what this story offers. It will be fun to watch as Humanity, or what remains of it, stands united in the fight against the Devil and his dark followers.
As I always do, I think it only fair to point out what I am critical about with each particular book I read, and so here it is with Faith & The Undead. I think for the first part of the book, the author was working hard to set things up for the trilogy and it seemed somewhat forced in places. I felt that there needed to be more about Frank Payens and his personal struggles before arriving at The Home, and more skepticism on his part about The Home upon his arrival. It takes very little prodding for him to essentially commit the rest of his life to these people he barely knows without so much as batting an eye. Perhaps that is in his nature, but because of the lack of background on him that the reader is given, it seems too abrupt. I do realize that more shall be revealed of Frank with the second and third novels in this trilogy, but I would have liked to have gotten to know him better before things got cooking here. Even if the assumption is that he does accept this path, the internal struggles and the dynamic of that would have been intriguing to see more of. But as the book rolled on, I started forget about this minor quibble as the apocalypse went into high gear and the author seemed to get down to business. The action sequences were tight and there were solid introductions to interesting characters, such as Karen, who is a refugee trying to find her way to The Home, which has opened its doors to anyone who can make it there alive.
There is plenty to like in this novel, and a lot of it has to do with the promise of what is to come in the second and third installments, when the battle for humanity gets into full swing. This is a good start to a promising trilogy, and I am very interested to see what Mr. Rogers comes up with next.
Faith & The Undead can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Faith-Undead-Benjamin-Rogers/dp/1452869820/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1285870690&sr=1-1
Review of Jason S. Hornsby’s “Eleven Twenty-Three”
Layne Prescott is an expatriate returning home to Lilly’s End, Florida from his teaching post in China for the funeral of his father. As he and his girlfriend Tara sit waiting in the airport for their plane that will take them across the Pacific, they meet up with a Mr. Scott, who has a briefcase attached to his wrist by a handcuff in an airport bar. After they land in Florida and meet up with old friends, Layne discovers the same briefcase stuffed inside his luggage. From there, things get dangerously strange, as the world falls apart at 11:23, every twelve hours all over Lilly’s End. People go mad, tearing each other apart, and then killing themselves when there is no one else left to assault. The town is shut off by the government and lies about a smallpox outbreak keep the outside world at bay. All the while, everyone still alive inside of Lilly’s End is rapidly going mad, taking things into their own hands, while Layne and a few of his friends attempt to understand what is behind all of this and try to figure out what they can do to escape it.
That is the glossy overview of this story. Underneath that, this 300 page novel is thick with conspiracy, generation why angst, and a constant flow of confusion, deception, and things for the reader to ponder. I have read Jason Hornsby’s previous novel, Every Sigh, The End, and for a long stretch of that book I despised the main character for his self absorbed approach to life, which takes a radical turn as truths about the world are revealed around him. In many ways, I can say that there are parallels between that book and this one, although Hornsby’s writing has definitely matured with this book. It is clear that this is a Hornsby book-I could have picked it out blindfolded after reading several chapters. As another reviewer has put it, no one creates young, disaffected characters quite like this author. They are disagreeable, argumentative, self-absorbed, and irresistibly fascinating. It is hard to describe effectively, but while it is hard to feel much pity for the characters throughout a great swath of this book, in the end their misery is tangible, palpable, real, and you feel it along with them. Layne is one of those characters who would constantly confound you, but if you peeled away most of his facade, he would seem to be one of the most vulnerable people you might ever know. At least that was the sense I got.
I think after reading my first Hornsby book, I got the sense that the author and I would have very little in common, very little that would connect us. My presumption was that he was much like the characters he wrote. I had the chance to meet the author at a Horror Convention recently and I realized then that this was far from the truth. Hornsby just has a knack for writing characters that make you feel like you are biting down on tinfoil. He has a talent for that.
I will readily admit that I am not much of a conspiracy theorist, and as such, I probably don’t rate as someone who is a judge of the conspiracies that Hornsby presents in this novel, but I will say this-I felt pretty damn squeamish as more and more was revealed in this story, as my imagination was sparked and I tried to comprehend how deep and dark the rabbit hole the author had created was. Mr. Hornsby has created a novel that provides the disaffected youth he writes about with a nightmarish world that is even worse than they could ever imagine, which is quite a trick to pull off. This story was creative, wild, and forces you to pay attention to it at every step. But even if you do, there is more than meets the eye, and will give you something to think about long after you put the book down.
Eleven Twenty-Three can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Eleven-Twenty-Three-Jason-S-Hornsby/dp/1934861340/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1285374627&sr=1-1
Cover for “Eye Witness: Zombie” Anthology
I am quite excited about this anthology from May December Publications. It is being released soon and contains a story of mine that is derived from the same world as Comes The Dark. I won’t reveal the connection, but suffice it to say, there are a couple of characters that appear in my trilogy that also appear in my story, “A Soldier’s Lament.”
This one should be out in the next month or so, and my copy is on its way from the publisher. I can’t wait to get my hands on it!
Cover for “Doomology”, another anthology I will be in soon!
Another anthology that I am excited to be a part of, Doomology, from the Library of Science Fiction and Fantasy, has produced it’s cover and I am thrilled by this. My story, “You Only Die Twice” appears in it. Another one to check out once it is on the shelves. More details to come once it is available.
Cover of the “No More Heroes” anthology released
Another anthology that I will be appearing in, this one filled with superheroes and villains, will be coming out later this year. The cover art was just released and I am thrilled with it. I am excited about being involved in this one, as it gave me a chance to stretch my wings and write in a completely different genre. My hope is that this anthology will do well so that there is an opportunity to continue some of the stories that have been developed with this new world of good and evil.
So check out this cover. This one is going to be cool!
Review of Stephen North’s Dead Tide Rising
Dead Tide Rising is the sequel to Stephen North’s Dead Tide, which maps out the zombie apocalypse from the perspective of a wide array of citizens of the Tampa Bay area of Florida. The unique geography of the area played a significant part of the first story and does as well in this follow up, boxing in the characters on every side but one with water, forcing them to cope with the undead with virtually no place to escape to. Stephen’s unique storytelling spin also provides the reader with a different way of looking at the zombie apocalypse, with him thrusting you directly into the action, face first, in the present tense.
Dead Tide blew me away with its intense pace, harrowing action, and myriad of compelling characters. I knew there was no way Stephen North would be able to maintain such a heated pace in a sequel, and I was right. Dead Tide 2 is even more of a whirlwind of adrenaline fueled zombie terror than its predecessor. The author doesn’t take his foot off the gas pedal for even one second in this intense sequel that outdoes the original.
We return to the stories of the characters who we got to know in the first installment in the trilogy. Characters like Hadley, Bronte, Talaski, Janicea, Trish, and Jacobs among others who are trying to cope with each other and the undead, but we are also introduced to an intriguing new character, Johnny, who wanders in and out of this story like a ghost, offering a unique perspective based on the fact that in some ways, he looks like one of the walking dead despite being very much alive. He promises to play an even bigger role in the third act of this story, though the second book ends much as the first did, with many unanswered questions about all of the characters, including Johnny, and who will and won’t survive from one scene to the next.
Present tense narrative and having a wide range of characters filled the complaints about the first installation in this trilogy, and those complaints will likely remain for those who aren’t fond of a story told with this much immediacy and with so many characters to focus on. There is little I can say to convince someone that they will enjoy this book if they are adamant about either aspect of the first book, except that Stephen North is a hell of a story teller, and it’s a shame if you don’t give his spin on the zombie apocalypse a shot. While present tense is non-traditional, I feel that it works well in action heavy stories like this one, where the reader is plopped right into a scene and gets to feel everything going on in it. There is an immediacy, an urgency about it that I really like. No, it doesn’t work all the time and some stories would suffer for it, but Steve North’s vision of the zombie apocalypse works exceptionally well because of it.
Dead Tide Rising can be found on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Tide-Rising-Stephen-North/dp/1453731423/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283382138&sr=1-1
A Plug for Horror Realm
I will be attending the Horror Realm Convention in a couple of weeks. Horror Realm is one of the premier convention for horror fans, and in particular zombie fans, and is held every year in Pittsburgh, PA, the birthplace of the modern zombie, when George A. Romero filmed Night of the Living Dead there over forty years ago. I haven’t had the opportunity to attend this event in the past, but I am very excited to not only having the chance to be going as a visitor, but also as a member of the Library of the Living Dead’s group of authors who will have tables at the convention. I will be selling and signing my book, Comes The Dark, and sharing space with a large group of other fantastic authors. In addition, I will have the opportunity to read from my novel on Sunday afternoon in one of the Author Panels and will be sharing the stage with Jake Bible, Robert Cordray, and Steve North. It will be a blast hanging out with these great group of writers. I just hope I have the opportunity to check out some of the other panels that are running all weekend long, which include both film and book panels, but I will promoting my book as much as I can, so I may be glued to my table most of the time. Not that I’m complaining-I can hardly wait to have the chance to meet and greet other horror fans like myself and talk up my book.
The Convention runs from September 17th-19th at the Crowne Plaza, Pittsburgh South. Check out the website: http://www.horrorrealmcon.com/ for all the information you’ll need to get tickets, find out who is going to be in attendance, and the schedule of events. That weekend will be jammed packed with a huge array of events that every horror fan will love. I am really looking forward to the costume party on Saturday night. Given that I will be getting all gussied up for a video spot being done a couple of hours before that for the Library of the Living Dead, I will fit in perfectly!
So if you live in the region and have the opportunity, head on over to Horror Realm the weekend of September 17th-19th and check it out. And if you can’t make it, check back here after that weekend to see what pictures I post and the stories I will have to tell about having the chance to meet all these fantastic people involved in writing horror novels and staring in horror films. I’m just hoping I don’t act like a total goofball when I get the chance to meet these people…but there is little doubt that I will.
Patrick D'Orazio's Blog 