Search

Darkly Dreaming Demographic.

Where weird shit hits bizarre fans.

Open Search
Month

February 2017

Well here we are again folks, more good news, more beautiful art curtesy of my friend Michael Pagdon at Pagdon Illustration.

As you can see the cover has gone through some teething problems me and the good Doctor Pagdon have been working out to his great frustration no doubt haha. What can I say I like to get my monies worth and if it’s not right it’s not right. You dont get another chance to make a first impression and all those cliche’s haha. It has to be perfect and I think we’re getting close to that. It’s eyecatching but it needed a little something extra to centre the image so we added the tattoo/shirt design, playing with title and my name a little.

But hey I hope you people out there like it.

Ok so the free ebooks went out today for all those people on my mailing list and if you want to get yourself a copy and you’re not on that list I added a new form as a page on my site so you can sign up there and I’ll send you out a copy.

But the main focus of today is getting those review copies out so I have some reviews coming out on launch, which I still can’t put a date on because of the issues with the cover, but rest assure it is SOON.

If you want an advance review copy of GS just go to the contact page and talk to me via email or twitter or facebook, whatever you prefer.

Anyway peace out, hope you have a good day and checkout some of the alternate covers below for shits and giggles and all dat ass haha.

 

0

American Revenant; Settlers and Sorrow – Review

Just wanted to start this review by saying, I know this guy on facebook and he’s a really nice guy, who I’ve spoken to back and forth a few times over a number of months, a fellow traveller in the land of zombies and indie publishing. I picked up his books a while back and for whatever reason life got in my way when I came to read them for the purposes of reviewing them. (Yeah incase you were wondering, gonna leave this part out when I post this review to amazon haha)
But I finally got some time to myself and finished the first one and now I think I can paint an accurate picture of what I liked and didn’t like about it.

My first impression when I picked this book up was literally like ‘ten times better than the walking dead novels’ haha. I don’t know what it is with Jay Bonansinga or however his name is spelt, fuck how do you pronounce that shit, what is that polish? Anyway, I love the walking dead comics, I think Kirkman is a great writer but I can’t stand most if not all the walking dead novels, they’re just not right in my opinion. The first two were somewhat readable but they just didn’t work for me and I recently picked up the two parter fall of the governor or whatever it was called and I read like two pages and put it down. I just couldn’t take it, I hate his characters, all the relationships are boring and miserable. It’s just a depressing slog and it’s not really the case in the comics. In the comics it’s like the world is covered in shit but there are flowers of happiness blossoming out of that shit slowly but surely and that’s what I think John captures in his work a lot better than Bonansinga.

Yes the world is messed, yes people die and yes it’s sad but I think his characters despite all that, still like eachother and want to be happy or atleast believe that one day they can be happy or can steal happiness away in small bites here and there. And that’s what makes American Revenant so readable, it’s that the characters actually like eachother or failing that actually love eachother. I think it speaks to the writer himself in that he must really love his own family to portray the familial bonds in the way he does in his book. I mean it’s dripping with it, you can feel the love Gordy and the other parents have for their kids and loved ones, it’s avoidable and there are a lot of moments in the book I found myself as someone who never had a father getting quite emotional reading it.

My critcisms are it’s a little rough, I know talking to John, he told me he didn’t have it professionally edited and despite that it’s quite a good result. If I didn’t have an editor and spellcheck I would be legally retarded haha. So he’s done a good job there. I think some of the writing and some of the description is a little stick, there are some rough edges there, again; editor. Maybe there are a few too many characters who are little too undefined, I found some characters blurring together or I forgot some of their names, maybe that’s just me and I’m shit at remembering names haha.

The action is great, the start of the book is strong and emphemeral and also really gritty and realistic. The end of the book sort of brings back that tension and grit. The gun porn is pretty top notch haha.

Overall I think it has everything you want from the zombie book checklist. Likeable, believable characters, drama, some smoltz, action and gore and a few laughs, what more do you want a fucking marching band or zombie mark twain? Oh wait the last thing was in actually.  So go buy a copy!

Here’s the link to do just that haha.

American Revenant

 

0

GREEN SUNDAY Chapter 16 ‘Kill Too Hard’

Hello again my dedicated stalkers, all the handful of you haha.

Back again with more of that good literary shit.
Had a few people take me up on the review copy shenanigans since yesterday, gonna keep rolling out that train today with some shameless spamming.

Oh yeah almost forgot, got an update on the cover, realising now as I’m writing this and remembering it in real time I’m going to make it the header image to this very blog haha. So now that you’ve looked up at the image you undoubtedly clicked to get you on this page, pray tell what do you think. That’s real art folks, not some copy pasted clip art shit done on photoshop, that’s real paint with real brush strokes from a genuine artist. Original artwork paid for by yours truly haha.
I think it’s turned out really great, sort of cartoony but it captures the grindhouse feel I wanted, getting hyped about launch now and not so much feeling the crushing doubt that’s been gripping me for the past couple of weeks in which I’ve sworn never to do nano again haha.
Why you ask? Because it, yes not me, ruined what could have been a career affirming life changing book for me. After getting completely shit on for The one that came back in the reviews the consensus seems to be it’s kind of boring and I blame myself for rushing it to fit into the nano time frame. Or in other words I blame nano haha.
But joking aside, I’m just gonna have to shell out of the nose to have it properly content edited, I’m sure its salveagable, it’s just gonna take a lot of time/money/effort, things I seem to have in great abundance these days for whatever reason (pact with cthulhu).

Ok moving on, still giving away free e-copies of my novella which wasn’t rushed and is really fucking good btw haha. And I’m still giving out review copies of Green Sunday, so get some of those and if you join my mailing list and let me know you want a review copy you will be getting two free ebooks for only the price of your soul and maybe a toe. A small toe.

If you want a review copy just message me on twitter  or facebook or minds through my contact page.

Ok here’s chapter 16 ‘Kill Too Hard‘ for your reviewing pleasure haha.

See you space gender non-conforming squid people.

~

On a ratty-looking desk, an old-fashioned touch-tone phone rang.

The small, messy office filled with the tinny analogue ringing sound.

Mojang clung to the grenade launcher, the wooden sawn-off stock poking his ribs. He ducked behind the desk, taking the small phone with him.

He took the receiver out of the cradle with a plastic clicking sound. He pressed it to his greasy-looking ear.

“Hey, boss!” A cheery voice chirped.

“Bernie, you double crossing pinche puto!”

“Come on, it’s not just me.”

“What are you talking about, you fat, lousy fuck?” Mojang spat into the receiver.

“It’s the fans, man.”

“The fans?”

“They’re bored, Mo. We’re winning too much. We make it look easy. There’s no drama, no suspense. Long story short, they’re replacing you.”

“What the fuck? With who?”

“Ahem.”

“You? Your fat ass is replacing me? No way! Put me through to the top guy. There’s no way they can do this. This is our last game. We’re out. We’re clean. They promised- “

“Sorry, Mo, this comes from the top. Our approval ratings are tanking. They thought they needed to shake things up.”

“No, you motherfucker, you put him on no- “

Click.

The phone went dead. Mojang bit down on the receiver. Snapping it in half over the desk, he threw the rest of the phone to the floor.

He cracked open the grenade launcher and saw there was a hot grenade still in the chamber. He clapped it closed and stiffened his lip. “Fffuck!” He threw the heavy grenade launcher across the desk and hurried over to the window. Barred, it was covered in a heavy mesh, impossible to remove. There was no way he was getting out. He clanged the cage mesh, looking like a kid in a playpen. His face welled up with sweat and nervous tears. “FUCK ME! FUCK ME!”

A clatter outside hushed him. He ducked behind his desk again. He scrabbled for the grenade launcher on the desk.

“No, please, no. I’ll suck dick. I’ll suck your dick,” a muffled woman’s voice said from behind his door. An angry banging. “FUCK, MOJANG! LET ME IN, YOU LIMP DICK MOTHERFUCKER!”

The noise quickly stopped after a brief gurgling sound. An ominous silence fell on the garage, not a croak or a death rattle to be heard. All the blood was already on the floor.

Then a dull banging noise started against the thin door, accompanied by stifled whimpering noises. The noises got quieter as the dull banging got wetter. Each bang was accompanied by sloppy slapping noises.

The pathetic bolt lock popped off. The screws popped out and rolled on the concrete floor. The door swung open on just one hinge.

Mojang peeked over the desk and saw the doorway was empty. The flimsy door itself was plastered in blood and brain matter and there was a big crack down the centre. Strands of long hair stuck out of it.

Mojang recoiled as a mass was slung hard across the desk, like a deer hitting the hood of an SUV. His face was splattered with blood and brains. The girl’s limp limbs twisted in every direction. Her head had caved in. Using it to open a door would do that.

Mojang winced. He used the barrel of the grenade launcher to turn her face around, and his other hand to move her hair aside. Her eyes were half open; they rolled loosely around in her head like dolls’ eyes. He swallowed and closed them, feeling bad for a minute before he remembered he had locked her out.

The lancer stepped inside. His feet made a metal stiletto sound. They were covered in skin -tight metal sandals. On the concrete floor, they sounded like tap shoes or a dog with long nails on a hardwood floor.

“We can talk about this. I’ve brought in a lot of business. We’re the best. We win. We can do better. Fuck, man, we can do whatever you want. I’ll learn to fucking juggle if that’s what you wa- “

“Sorry, you’re cancelled,” the lancer said, a cold chill riding his words all the way down Mojang’s spine.

Mojang fingered the grenade launcher, with its wood inlays, as he looked at the girl sprawled across his desk like a tiger skin rug.

He took a deep breath and scrunched up his face, ringing out vicious tears from his one good eye.

“Fffuck you, silver surfing faggot!” He lifted the grenade launcher and turned his body so he was pointing it at the lancer, with one arm outstretched. His face twisted into his death mask: what would be left of it.

The lancer let out a breathy laugh and gave a wicked smile with those strange eyes. He dropped into a pounce and closed the gap between them with murderous intention.

Mojang fell back, his heart leaping to meet the challenge. He stumbled over a broken phone cord. His finger squeezed the trigger and he proceeded to make an even stupider face.

The building popped open like a giant soda can. The sheet metal peeled back and curled up, licked by flames. The explosion was viewed by an indifferent drone flying overhead, the flames reflected in its ambivalent lens.

0

FREE review copies GREEN SUNDAY

Howdy folks, it’s come time for me to ask you, my meagre audience to give something back in the form of words and time, of course not money, who could have a use for any of that junk right? We’ve all converted to photosynthesis at this point or died a paupers death buried an inch deep in potter’s field.

Just looking for some launch day reviews, that’s all, not your souls, not your first born child, I mean I’ll take them, I won’t be rude, I don’t really know what I’ll do with them but I won’t stop you.

Just waiting on the cover to be finalized and we should be launching the book next month, gonna be on a few podcasts in the mean time just to shoot the shit and verbally shill.

Oh and good news, I got bored last week and I was sick of writing that story about the serial killer art contest in a panopticon, it was kinda just dragging me down. I needed to write something light and fun so I started writing book of Green Sunday and it’s cheered my up already. It’s just so much fun to write, it’s like a break from all the shit of the world just to write something this fucking fun and crazy, it’s liberating.

Anyway as usual gonna post just a quick excerpt from an edited chapter for reasons and you can look at that and I’ll provide links to it on inkitt so you can read it in full there but shit if you want to get a free pdf copy all you need to do is message me and I’ll fucking send you one for free so you don’t have to bother with this inkitt shit.

Hit me up on twitter or minds @CallMeRyk if you want a copy.

 

5

TOTCB Chapter 4 ‘Brother my Cup is Empty’

Sup people,

Ok so news news news, the cover is almost done as you can see in the last post. Been really busy just spamming the free ebook which is cool, the subs to my mailing list are growing slowly but surely. Got a few podcast appearances lined up so hopefully that’ll help get me more subs/clicks/happythoughts.

I was thinking of giving away some early review copies of Green Sunday so I can have some reviews on release day, not sure how I’ll go about that.

I’m gonna be wrapping up what I was writing recently and I think it’s time to barrel ahead with book two of GS. Seeing some advice online, it seems best to get cracking on the series, strike while the iron is hot and keeping going til I run out of steam and then hopscotch to another series. Which is great news for me, because I kept giving myself excuses why it wasn’t right to start all the while chomping at the bit to do exactly that.

The free ebook is ready and it’ll be virtually shipping at the end of the month, what else?
No I think that’s it, oh no yeah, still going ahead with The one that came back as a standalone. Series’ apparently make more money but I still want to get traditionally published for a standalone title. I’m not ready as of yet to religate myself to permanent indie author status.

In the words of the immutable Kanye West; “You reach for the stars, if you fall you land on a cloud”. Or something like that.

Anyway here’s the next chapter , you can find it on inkitt of course with this link. Probably having this edited soon too before I start pitching it.

Brother my cup is empty

~

It was early, downtown Austin was quiet and heating up slow.

A red dodge pick up pulled up outside an irish pub on 204 east sixth street. The sign on the side was a picture of two merry Irishmen leaning on eachother and it read ‘The Gingerman’.

It was a grand old building. Three stories tall with a couple of red birch trees sticking out of the sidewalk out front. White stone in long columns that looked like it came straight off of mount Olympus. Tall brown doors. The floors above were apartments with tall thin windows that made for high ceilings but not a lot else. It was penned in by an Italian restaurant called ‘Gino’s’ on the right and some kind of science centre for kids on the left. A weird place to put it since almost the entire strip was just littered with dives and billiard halls.

Porter parked deliberately too close to a red striped mini cooper that was parked outside. He got out and went inside.

He passed over the tiled entrance. Passing framed adverts for Paddy’s irish whiskey and Cork Distilleries. Harkening back to some grand irish renaissance in the fifties, or something like that. It was kitch and it made him sick. He stopped to put his keys back in his pocket. He lifted his eyes to the Notre Dame sign with the fighting irish leprechaun. It was facing out hanging from an antique cabinet Patrick had decided to put right in the entrance for some reason. He shook his head and went into the pub proper.

The smell of dried cork and wood soaked in whiskey hit him as soon as he got inside. Real wood, real old wood. It was a classic irish pub with all that comes with that. Small round wooden tables with small round wooden stools that were as uncomfortable as they looked dotted very little floor space.

There were some square tables in the corner which had chairs with backs and cushions for when this place pretended to be a restaurant. Which usually involved Patrick grilling something that was once alive.

The walls were a warm orange and of course were covered with classic Guinness adverts and memorabilia of all sorts. Anything vaguely irish, leprachauns and whiskey were a key theme. There was space for one Texas flag that just had a silhouette of a steers head on it and the word ‘Texas’.

There were old black and white portraits of irish writers and musicians. There were shelves decorated with little kitch porcelain figures and old clocks. Dusty books, violins, ships anchors and mini ship wheels.

The bar was long and mahogany and was so shiney it almost glowed in the texas morning cast off. It curved around and went down almost the entire length of the bar but was sectioned off into little mini bars catering to different drinks. It was all tiled around the first foot out from the bar, the rest of the floor was wood, the same colour as the bar. Porter took a seat on the end at the elbow of the bar and grazed the bar with his eyes. Passing over more Guinness signs. A four leaf clover drawn on a chalk board with their specials until he reached the flat screen tv that hung at a jaunty angle on the corner of the bar.

It was a snooker game.

“Top’o the mornin’ to yah, what can I do’ya fer? A man with strawberry blond hair entered the corner of his eye as he tried to follow the snooker.

“Any calls?”

~

0

New cover sketches for Green Sunday.

Hola mi amigos.

Thanks again to the new subs, just finishing up the proof read of LCYE and it will be on it’s way to you by the end of the month guaranteed (Cos I already finished the proofread and turned it into a pdf but I’m holding out for even more subs on my mailing list haha). Trust me it’ll be worth the wait.

Really excited this week because I already got back some of the revised sketches for the GS cover (which will be posted below) and paid the first half of the money and as soon as that is done I’ll launch that SOB, for money this time haha. See how that works out. Then it’s faffing about with more marketing, maybe go on some podcasts and stuff, that should be fun, take it to a kids book reading haha. Traumatize the little shits.

Ok well enough of that.

16558384_1336829376374687_2112261670_n

I’ll leave which one I chose a surprise for now haha.

If you wanna check out the artist, maybe throw some shekels at him or send him some nudes (no seriously he needs models), shoot on over to Pagdon.

See you spacecowpeople…

0

After Shattered By Samantha Newburg

(Yes I’m too lazy to look for an actual header image so instead have given you all my gratuitous dick pic haha)

Ok so, at this the point the obligatory claus here is that I’m not the intended audience, I can’t really say what the intended audience of this would be. Probably woman, can’t say much more than that other than I would never choose to read this from the description or genre. I dont go near romance and I won’t touch drama unless it has ‘crime’ in front of it. So that’s just to tell you where I’m at with this and I’ll try to be as objective as possible.
As a first chapter goes, it’s boring, no two ways about it. I don’t know if any of the stuff in the first chapter is relevant to the story overall but it’s just tiresome exposition with some dialogue and a meeting in it. Nothing interesting happens unless hearing you have a new boss is some great revelation to you. You have to put the interesting stuff in the first chapter to force people to read the next chapter and if that’s the most interesting stuff to happen in this book then god help you.
This stuff might be all really relevent but it should be relegated to the second or third chapter not the first, you get one chance to make a first impression and my eyes glazed over with boredom. There’s way too much spoonfeeding, show don’t tell.
The story isn’t established in the first chapter, so I can’t say there is one, the characters are watered down, no one person really stands out. The dialogue is ok, but the first chapter just sort of ends.
I can’t tell if this is intentionally boring to justify what happens next in the book like american psycho or if this is just the bottom line throughout. I’m not going to know because I can’t read the rest of the book, I can only give you my first impressions of what I see.
I don’t know what to say other than it reads more like a diary than a novel and no one wants to read your diary except you (unless you’re a psyborg stripper from mars with machine gun for tits haha).
I don’t think it’s trash, it’s salvageably, just needs maybe some chopping and changing, revamping the first chapter to get a hook in the reader from the start. The rest of the book could be pure genius but no one is going to read past that first chapter unless you give them a reason to.

If you wanna check out the story for yourself you can by following this link.

After Shattered

0

LCYE Chapter 13 ‘Confinement’

Just gonna be a quick update because I’m up to my neck in stage hand work right now for this grand show I put on for you kind people.

Again another shout out to my new subs on my mailing list, thank you very much for paying attention to this fucking train wreck haha.
I’m really busy, I got the edit back for LCYE and I’m just proofreading it again and making the changes as well still spamming for more subs haha. But it’s coming together. I just wanted to go over it with a fine tooth comb to make sure it’s at it’s best when I convert it into a pdf/epub and send it to you lovely people.

As far as my writing is going, it’s going haha. I’m writing something a little sillier as a break. I was trying this new diet which I had to rework because I felt like a zombie and it put a kink in my weight lifting but it’s all good now. I thought I had writers block but it turned out I was just dying haha.

I dunno, this novella I’m working on is a little wet, just wanted to keep myself busy til I’m psyched up enough for GS two, or something new. It’s just not jelling as well, it’s a blast from the past, it’s sort of silly and stilted and doesn’t really represent the growth and the scope of my newer work.

But enough of me rambling incoherently.

Here’s chapter 13 of LCYE that is being proofread and will be in the inbox of hopefully everyone reading this blog within the month.

Without further ado here is Confinement

~

He fell into consciousness wide eyed and drenched in sweat. His breathe burning in his chest. He strained against plastic ties which bound his arms to the black metal struts of what seemed to be a weightlifting bench.

Was it a room?

It smelled dank, rotting wood and coppery smells of rust. It was too dark to tell.

He was lying in what felt like a dentist’s chair, his arms held down at his sides. He was restrained not only at the wrists but it felt like all the way up his arms and his legs. He had zero mobility in any of his limbs. His head equally was held in place by what felt like plastic wrap, wound tightly around his forehead. It was sticky and forming a lot of sweat but none of which allowed him any more mobility.

He felt powerless, his heart beat out of his chest for what felt like an hour of blackness and panic. Finally, when he’d given up hope of his limbs proving useful for escape he faded into despair. Taking deep breathes getting gradually shallower and more quiet until he heard someone else breathing.

A generator sprang into life, humming and coughing behind his head. A bright unshaded bulb was born cutting through the thick dark dank of what he now knew was a boxcar probably deep in the railyard. In a place no one could hear them.

An unseen scratching, and then music started to play.

“How much is that doggie in the window (arf, arf)

The one with the waggley tail”

As the record was started, James felt a sharp tugging and a shifting in his seat. A feeling of falling as the hydraulics in the chair dropped him lower and then bolted him almost upright. Instantly he was made aware of what he was supposed to see.

In front of him were two rows of something obscured by a tan hide tarp. They were spaced out as if they were seats on a train and behind them there was something hanging on the wall. Something that looked like an animal.

He heard breathing getting closer to his ear and then a voice he thought he knew.

“James, it’s good to see you. Are you resting comfortably?”

~

0

Jenna and the Professor by Jenna Snap – Review

(The header image is just because I was too lazy to google new header images haha)

This surprised me.

The last story I reviewed was another erotic novel and I have to say again, I am the last person on earth that should be reviewing erotic novels. I am not the intended audience, not even close. And the last one was sort of aimed at a younger like twilight tumblr crowd and it lost me. I’m not a fan of erotic novels, I’m not some soccer mom, if I want porn I’ll watch real porn haha.
But I have to say everything wrong with the last one I reviewed is right about this. What do I mean by that? The last one I read was a porno trying to be an erotic novel, it tried to start slow and develop the characters but it was obviously just a quick canter to get to the sexy stuff, which it then didn’t deliver. Which is a problem for me, in my opinion you either go all in or all out. You can’t have the best of both either you go in hard or not at all and you went in as hard and as strong as you possibly could.
I have to liken it to horror/thriller novel because that’s what I’m accustomed to and in those novels, you have to have something big happen in the first chapter and then take the time to set up the characters. If you start trying to set up the characters in the first chapter, you’ll rush it or you’ll bore your readers because they don’t want to learn so and so’s life history before they’ve decided whether there’s a story worth reading in the book. You have one chance to hook them and if you can’t do that in the first chapter, fuck even the first paragraph you’re screwed and I think you did that well.
You started as hot and heavy as you could and that will hook your audience who will then want to get to know Jenna and the professor more as the book goes on. They come for the sex and if the characters are good they’ll stay for story and the development. I think you really showed your strength right from the get go with and that will pay off in the long run.
The plot is simple but effective, the sex was hot. I like the chased feel to it despite the fact they fuck in the first chapter it still feels almost like nothing happened. There were a few mistakes but that seems almost worthless to mention, a good edit will smooth out any creases.
The writing style is good, the dialogue was a little cringey and I think less is more when it comes to dirty talk. it did sound like a bit of a porno in some of the dialogue and what’s with referring to her pussy as her ‘sex’. I thought that was a little weird, why not go the whole hog on the filthiness and just call it her ‘cunt’ haha?
Some perspective changes were bad, I thought it broke the flow a little bit going from her perspective to his. Keep it from her perspective unless there’s a chapter change. It’s jarring going from one perspective to the other mid-scene.
Otherwise, it works really well, it’s hot, it’s well written. All I can say is that I was pleasantly surprised. I think that’s the best you’re gonna get from someone that doesn’t read these kind of books haha.

Check it out for yourself here.
Jenna and the Professor

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑