Review: The Venom of Vipers by K.C. May

Rating: 4.6 out of 5

Science fiction many times comes down to en exploration of what it means to be human. When done well, it serves as an organic metaphor, breaking down the societal systems we exist within and revealing, through conflict, the best and worst of us. Sometimes it shows how far we’ve fallen, how our creations have ended up stealing a bit of our souls, bringing us to the brink of becoming slaves to that which we’ve created or, worst of all, regressing into a form of pre-humanity that is both untrustworthy and violent. In other instances, these works allow humanity to rise above, to demonstrate the goodness and ingenuity we all know is possible. And then, we have those works of literature that accomplishes both. It takes a talented author to break through this final barrier, to approach their concepts with an innate balance that shows good and bad, hurtful and helpful, and brings us out on the other side with at least a modicum of hope.

With The Venom of Vipers, K.C. May has proven herself to be in that rare class.

This is the story of humanity on the brink of extinction. A terrible new plague has gripped the globe, called moliomyositis (or molio for short). It is a disease for which there is no cure, and science has, in a way, resigned itself to the possibility that humans will cease to exist over the span of only a few short decades. To combat this, they have created a new human subspecies by splicing human and reptilian DNA. The resulting life-forms, dubbed Saphers, are immune to the virus, but they offer no magical solution to the outbreak. One might ask, if there is no help to be found from them, why did we create them in the first place and why are we keeping them alive? The answer to this I found most interesting, and philosophically poignant: to bring about a species that will carry on after we’re gone, to have the memory of our existence, our legacy, live on through them and, just maybe, they’ll progress enough to bring humanity – regular humanity – back some day.

There is one problem with this theory, however. The Saphers can’t breed on their own. When they try, the females’ bodies reject the fetus before seven weeks is up. For a genus designed to carry on our legacy, this is obviously a huge problem.

Enter Katie Marsh, the daughter of the man behind the creation of the Saphers. As the story opens, she is returning to the center she grew up in. She is now a reproductive scientist, and she’s been added to the team in hopes of finding a solution to the Sapher reproduction “problem”. Her presence inside the facility is a tension builder in and of itself, for Saphers aren’t considered viable people by the government, and she’s had a lifelong relationship with one of them – albeit (mostly) plutonic. The character in question is a hotheaded yet supremely bright and protective Sapher male named Ryder Storm. (Ignore the soap opera name. It might be clunky at first, but after a while it grows on you.) Their relationship, revealed expertly through tiny bits of flashback and simple character interaction, drive the story. This is a pair you can root for, even if Katie doesn’t seem to realize at first how much they mean to each other.

There are so many conflicting plot points in this book. You have the disease wiping out the globe. You have the issue of failed reproduction. Yet even greater than that are the conflicts that occur outside the written word – we’re told about them, but don’t necessarily see examples until the very end. There are two warring factions fighting over the imprisoned Saphers. One is the Freedom for All Peoples, an organization much like PETA, who wants science to stop experimenting on the poor saphers and grant them human rights. The other is the Human Purification Initiative, a bunch of nearsighted bastards who want nothing more than to see these “perversions of science” wiped off the face of the earth. The opposing groups are examples of extremism. The fact is, both sides have a point, but they’re too obsessive to look at what’s going on around them with any sort of clarity. There needs to be a balance in all ideas, and May does a fantastic job of showing how unbalanced – and henceforth unstable – these people are.

Add to this a plot point where some of the guards at the center, who themselves have fallen to be less than human, scheme behind the scenes and pull off some rather perverse (actually, downright evil) acts, and you have a story so rife with drama and conflict that you want to hurry up and get to the next page, just to see if any of it gets resolved.

This book is such a satisfying read. It was emotional at times – especially when it comes to Ryder and his daughter – and the way author May delves deep into the subjects of sensuality, doubt, and survival instinct are fantastic. The characters – especially Katie and the chief guard, Nelson – are wonderfully fleshed out and believable. Ryder, who is a man of thirty who’s never been outside the walls of the foundation he grew up in and desires the freedom that’s been preached to him but never delivered, is successfully not presented as a cartoonish good guy. The way the author inserts snippets of morose metaphysical ponderings in to the text (Does humanity deserve to be saved? Do we have the right to play God? Are we fooling ourselves to think we’ve risen above our most base animal instincts?) is fantastic. I found myself wondering much the same things as I was reading, and I realized that the Saphers, themselves, were almost mirror for the people who cared for them. They feel the pain of losing a child, while their human captors treat them as just another failed experiment. To the guards, they’re annoyances and sexual playthings, while they experience every moment of hurt and torment levied upon them.

Humanity is the monster, and humanity’s creation is more human than we are. It’s a common thread in science fiction, and here it’s done beautifully.

I had only a couple problems with this book, and they’re small, at that. One was the dialogue. At the beginning, it’s stilted, as if the author couldn’t get a grasp on a free-flowing conversation. This ends after a very short time, however, and doesn’t miss a beat again for the rest of the book. The other is the (SPOILER ALERT) solution to the reproduction problem. It comes about by the end, but I didn’t understand the explanation for how it was accomplished. This may simply be my own problem, however, so I won’t let it hurt the rating much at all, and it shouldn’t effect anyone’s enjoyment of the story.

In all, I had a very, very good time with The Venom of Vipers. It’s a poignant and fast-paced melding of science fiction, drama, and mystery. KC May solidifies herself as a writer to look out for in the future. She has something to say, she’s not afraid to say it, and she’s damn good at telling her story.

I highly, highly recommend it.

Plot - 9

Characters - 10

Voice - 9

Execution - 8

Personal Enjoyment – 10

Overall – 46/50 (4.6/5)

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SampleSunday! - The Gatekeeper

Author and indie promoter Dave Wisehart has started a twitter movement called Sample Sunday. Below is the first story from my short story collection, The Gate: 13 Dark & Odd Tales. Enjoy!

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THE GATEKEEPER

The monk plummeted. His robes looked like a bat’s flapping wings. Even from a distance, the expression on his face was clear; he appeared serene, with his neck tilted, slanted eyes open and staring, and jaw slack. His falling body passed behind a row of trees and disappeared.

Johnny Pazarelli watched him descend, intrigued. He did not feel shocked by the sight; Johnny was a man who’d seen much in his forty years on earth, every sort of atrocity one man could inflict on himself or others. It wasn’t uncommon in his line of work.

He heard a rustling in the rainforest. Johnny stepped out of his Jeep and approached the trees. He took out his knife, pushed aside a tangle of vines, and peered through. Someone approached from the shadows. The figure walked like an individual at peace with all around him; feet dancing lightly on the ground, head held high, arms loosely dangling. He entered the light.

It was the monk.

Johnny stepped back and allowed the man to exit the brush. The monk stood at least a foot shorter than he and appeared to be in his early thirties. His flawless skin and shaved head gleamed in the sunlight. After falling at least two hundred feet, he had not a mark on his body. He offered a bow when he stepped onto the dirt path and then turned away. His red and yellow robes swished behind him. Johnny watched him leave and shook his head.

There could have been many explanations for what he’d just seen. Only three years prior he had watched the puddle jumpers of Puerto Rico in action. These odd men leapt from fifty-foot cliffs into shallow pools only inches deep. They would bend their backs and strike the water, skim across the surface, and land on their feet on the other side. It was a remarkable feat, one he was sure a version of which these particular monks perfected. He assumed that were he to follow the path the monk had just emerged from, he would find a similar setup – shallow water, curved, smooth rocks, and a pocket of jetting carbon.

There was no time to find out for sure, however, for Johnny Pazarelli was on the job, and the job always came first.

Johnny found people. It’s what he was good at. Folks would show up at his office in Chicago with a picture of a child, spouse, or friend, tell their sob story, hand over the relevant information, and then he’d be off. He always found his quarry, sometimes still alive, many times not. This seemingly preternatural ability to fit together pieces of a puzzle most folks would think unrelated made him a very rich man. He didn’t understand his ability, didn’t comprehend the voices that whispered in his head or his brain’s compass that always pointed the way towards the missing, but that was okay. He took pride in his successes, and relished the fact he was the only one that could pull them off.

All of which made his current case all the more maddening.

Two months ago a man named Albert Mueller approached him. Albert, an investment banker from Germany, said his sixteen-year-old son Julius had run off with a religious cult. He’d been trying to track the boy for the better part of six months, and now Johnny was his last hope. The grieving father handed over the prerequisite box full of pictures, ticket stubs, credit card receipts, journal entries, and other items possibly meaningful to the investigation. (“Bring everything, because you never know” had been Johnny’s motto for years; in fact, they were the first words printed on his website.) Then he told the man goodbye and booked a flight to Hamburg, the last known whereabouts of Julius Mueller.

From there, Johnny trekked halfway around the world and back again, from Sweden to Zaire to Australia to Bali. Every lead was a dead end. His internal compass swiveled around and around, trying to gain direction but never coming close to doing so. It seemed those who abducted young Julius – a group calling themselves the Homun Jan – either never existed or dropped from the face of the earth. For the first time in his life, Johnny was ready to give up.

Thankfully, while standing in a rinky-dink airport in Tanzania, he caught a break.

A woman named Zeta Lumberger, a long-time associate of the Mueller family, stopped him from boarding the plane. She told him she’d traveled from Austria, hoping to reach him before he left for home.

“There is news,” she said.

“What kind of news?”

“A package arrived.”

She handed him a yellow envelope. It was addressed to the Mueller Estate, with no return address and Chinese postage. He tore it open, tipped it over, and into his hand fell a small medallion. It was made of copper, oval, the size of a half-dollar coin. On its face were raised markings shaped like a crescent moon and on its rear, engraved sunrays. The medallion itself was nothing much to look at – he’d seen more intricate designs on cereal boxes – but the feel of it, the way its surface trembled against his skin…

His internal compass kicked into high gear and Johnny changed his flight plans. He knew exactly where he had to go.

Thailand.

Johnny sighed and climbed back into his jeep. The sun was high in the sky. Sweat poured off him in buckets. He turned the key. The rickety motor slowly kicked into gear. Proceeding with caution, he followed behind the monk, keeping him a hazy stick figure in the distance. He didn’t want to get too close, didn’t want to spook the man. He had no clue who the man was, nor what religious order he belonged to. The customs out here, at least a hundred miles from civilization, were a mystery. From what he could gather, none of the locals even knew of the place. All he did know was this road had been impossibly hard to find and the tingling in his head told him Julius Mueller was close. He had to proceed with caution, because if that were the case, the Homun Jan wouldn’t be far behind.

The monk stepped off the dirt road after an hour of steady, no-breaks walking, turned to face him, nodded, and entered the trees. Johnny stepped on the gas. When he reached the area he thought the man had disappeared through, he jumped out of the driver’s seat and hit the ground running. There was something about the nature of the man’s nod that seemed strange, as if he were trying to let him in on a secret. His heart picked up its pace and the buzzing in his head intensified. It was a sensation he felt often, and it signaled the approaching end of his journey.

He leapt through the brush and followed not the monk, but the internal compass he so greatly relied on.

Before long the rainforest opened up. He stood in a clearing. At the rear of the clearing was the base of another rocky outcropping. At the base of this cliff was a stone temple. He stepped cautiously forward, searching for signs of humanity. The monk seemed to have disappeared – either that or he’d run at a dead sprint and taken up refuge in the temple. Johnny didn’t think that to be likely, though in his line of work he’d learned to never say never.

The temple appeared to be in fantastic shape, despite its obvious age. The archway over the entrance had crumbled slightly, but other than that, and the thick layer of moss covering the stones, it was immaculate. He stepped inside and reached for his gun.

He entered a huge room. Torches blazed, lighting the space. There was a throne opposite him, a face carved into the rock behind it. He walked to the center of the room and gazed up. On the ceiling was the only other decoration the place had to offer – a monstrous, unblinking eye. Getting nervous, he removed his gun from its holster and held it with both hands.

“Nice to see you’ve made it, Mr. Pazarelli.”

Johnny wheeled around. His heart leapt into his throat. In front of the entrance, silhouetted by the sun’s rays, were twenty monks. How they’d gotten in without him hearing, he didn’t know. They all stood with hands clasped and heads down, chanting. From behind them walked a man – a white man.

Albert Mueller.

“What…” began Johnny, but the lump in his throat wouldn’t allow any more.

The distinguished German businessman approached him. One of the monks – the young one he’d seen jump from the cliff – followed. When they stood only a few feet away they stopped. Albert didn’t reach out to greet him. Instead, he rolled a large gold coin between his fingers.

“I see you have found Julius,” Albert said.

Johnny stared straight ahead, dumbfounded. He shook his head.

Albert laughed. “Yes, you are right. There is no Julius. I am sorry to have deceived you, Mr. Pazarelli. I needed to have you as exhausted as possible, to test your abilities, to see if you could find this place with only the slightest of clues.”

Finally, Johnny’s throat responded to his demands. “And what place is this?” he asked.

Albert spread out his arms and twirled around. “The home of the Homun Jan.”

Johnny stepped back. He lifted the gun and pointed it at Albert. The older man didn’t cower from him, however; he simply kept twirling that damned coin between his fingers.

“What’s going on here?” he asked. “And what kind of organization is this, anyway?”

Albert laughed. It sounded heartfelt, without malice. “The Homun Jan is not an organization. It is a man.” He jabbed his thumb behind him, at the young monk. “He is the Homun Jan.”

“Then who are the guys by the door?”

“I suppose you could say they are his…protectors.”

“Protectors? Protecting him from what?”

“From his nature. From his duty. From himself.”

“And you?”

Again, Albert laughed. “I am nothing. Simply a liaison. I find things for them.”

Johnny pulled back the hammer. “And where do I fit into this, Albert?”

The older man started pacing. “Well, it seems our friend here is tired. Believe it or not, he has been caring for his responsibility for almost three hundred years. He wishes to be released from his responsibility. In order to do so, we needed to find a replacement. One with certain…talents. And that is you, Mr. Pazarelli. Only those endowed with ti-chan can fill the roll of Homun Jan. These are gifts you possess.”

“What? I have no gifts. Clients pay me to find people, and that’s it. You got the wrong guy.”

“No,” said Albert, shaking his head. “You proved it by finding the temple. Very few can discern its location. One or two a century, at most.”

Anger brewed in his gut. “And what if I don’t want this ‘gift’?”

“Unfortunately,” the man said with a grimace, “the choice is not yours. Some things in this world are more important than your personal freedom. One man might not be able to save the world, after all, but one man is certainly able to protect it.”

At that, Albert stepped aside. The young monk walked forward. Johnny backed up, his eyes bulging from their sockets. He pulled the trigger and emptied three rounds into the monk’s chest. The slugs pierced his robes, but he didn’t go down.

Instead, he opened his mouth.

The monk’s neck bulged and streams of viscous fluid erupted in a geyser, followed by pinkish, fleshy tubes. These tubes crawled from the young man’s throat like worms, expanding and contracting as their numbers, and their length, grew. They climbed upwards toward the ceiling, gathering into a cloud of living, writhing matter. The sounds of voices filled the air; thousands of them, or millions, begging, pleading, screaming.

Johnny couldn’t understand what was happening. His mind went blank with panic. He tried to drop the gun and scurry away, but his feet were frozen to the ground. He couldn’t take his eyes off the squirming mass above his head. The sight disgusted and enthralled him at the same time.

Albert’s voice rose above the clatter.

“Over time, the barriers between worlds have thinned,” he said. “The dimensions of man and the those of chaos are perilously close to one another, as they have been for centuries. It is up to one man, to the Homun Jan, to keep these barriers strong. Inside this man is the ability to mend, to find order in the chaos and weave it into a web of living intellect. Through this our world, and the others, remain safe. That man is you, Johnny. It is an honor. You can live forever if you like, or you can pass the mantle to your successor, should your lieges find one. However, you may never leave this mountain. Otherwise, the covenant is broken and all is lost.”

Johnny dropped his gaze. Albert stared at him, his eyes glimmering with compassion. The young monk who had vomited the twisting swarm of flesh was gone; in his place, a dusty pile of bones.

“I can’t do this!” he screamed. He still couldn’t move his feet. “I have a life of my own! I have my rights!”

Albert shook his head. “Unfortunately, they don’t matter now,” he said.

The cloud descended on Johnny. The fleshy tubes became tentacles that reached out for him, prying his mouth open. He choked on them as they slithered down his throat. He tried to grasp them, to pull them out, but his hands slipped from their greasy hides. His air cut off, he felt close to passing out. His vision grew hazy.

“Do not fight it!” he heard Albert scream. “You will pass from the realm of man into the realm of legend! You will no longer be bound by place, bound by time! You will be as a god, the gatekeeper, able to access all worlds at once!”

Johnny choked on the entities invading his body. They kept on coming, miles of them, as if they’d never end. He started to fall backward. Albert and the other monks rushed forward. They clasped his arms, supported his back, kept him upright.

“Just give in,” Albert whispered into his ear. “It will all be worth it.”

“When the worlds open up to you,” said a voice in his head, “there will be no end to what you can see...”

If you like what you've just read, click here to visit the Amazon product page for The Gate!

Review: Lessons by Michael Crane

Rating: 5 out of 5

When you have a collection of twenty-five stories, and they're all exactly one hundred words long, it's not really practical to give a full five-part breakdown of them. Mainly because, if a story is that short, it either grabs you or it doesn't. There's really no other way to judge them.

Lessons by Michael Crane is a wonderfully campy, disgusting, funny, and ironic collection of the aforementioned 100-word "drabbles". They snag you by the title and by the time you reach the last sentence, you excitedly turn to the next page, where even more snippets of horror goodness awaits you.

Every...single...one...of these short tales are fantastic. Some rise above others - such as the hilarious Grim, the darkly ominous Spoiled, the masterfully ironic Haunted, and finally the masterful and creepy slice-of-regret Simple, which might well be the best piece of microfiction I've ever read. But all of them are fantastic. There is not a lacking tale to be found.

This is a great - and brisk - little collection, folks. It's well worth the dollar you'll spend on it. I highly recommend it to any lover of horror out there. They'll grab you by the throat, shake you around a bit, and then spit you out wanting more.

Good times. Seriously.

Purchase Lessons by clicking the link below:

Interview with David McAfee

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The following interview with author David McAfee was conducted over the span of 4 days via email. David is the author of five books - 33AD, Saying Goodbye to the Sun, Grubs, The Lake and 17 Other Stories, and A Pound of Flash. You can read more about Mr. McAfee by visiting his website, McAfee Land.

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Journal Of Always: Hello, Mr. McAfee, and welcome to the Journal! I'd like to start off by asking you to expound a bit on your journey into the realm of independent publishing. Was this a decision that came about easily, or were you hesitant? Was there a specific event that directly led to you going this route?

David McAfee: Depends on the timeframe you are asking. It was a difficult decision to start self publishing, but once I did it became an easy decision to keep doing it. I toiled for years trying to land an agent or a publisher with zero success, but with the new ease of ePublishing, I discovered I don’t need either anymore. Not that I wouldn’t accept a contract from a big publisher, mind you, but I’m much happier letting my work roam the internet and bring in readers than I was when the only people who read it were friends and family.

There were a lot of events that added up to make me self publish, but the straw that broke the camel’s back came when Ghostwriter Publications decided they didn’t have to pay me for any of my work, regardless of contract. I don’t want to go into specifics here, because it would take up thirty pages or so, but anyone interested in knowing the whole story can read all about Ghostwriter and my experience with them on my blog, mcafeeland.wordpress.com. After that fiasco, I decided I was better off doing things myself, and so far I’ve been right.

JOA: What advice would you give writers who are considering going this route?

DM: First, make sure you have a quality product. By that I mean, don't slap together a story and say, "This is good enough," and then shove it online. Believe me, if it's a first draft, it ISN'T good enough. Part of the problem is people don't want to wait. They want their work out there earning money and fame and accolades NOW. But if you care at all about the quality of your work, then give your story the patience it deserves. Write it. Then edit it. Then edit it again. Then again. And again. Then send it to beta readers for their opinions. Then revise the book again.

Sound like a lot of work? It is. But work is how you get better. It's how you improve your craft. And it's how you win over readers. If you don't care enough about your book to put in the work, why should readers care enough about it to read it when you release it? So before you go and publish that masterpiece, make sure it's as good as it can possibly be, then edit it again and make it better. :)

JOA: I agree completely. I've heard many a writer complain about the editing process, but it is entirely necessary for the construction of a solid piece of literature.

On that note, there is a stigma in the publishing world that self-published novels are "below standard". What do you think we, as independents, can do to help change that image? Do you see the problem as being one of holding on to old prejudices in this new age of marketing, or are we as authors to blame?

DM: Absolutely. There is definitely a stigma against indie (or self-published) authors in the reading community. I'm not going to win a lot of points for saying this, but it's not entirely undeserved, either. Like I said above, one of the things that people should do before self-publishing is to make sure they are bringing a quality work to the marketplace. LOTS of indies do not do that, or they don't do enough to ensure their work is on par with the work of some of the traditionally published authors. Oh, you hear a lot of arguments like "Well, Dan Brown sucks as a writer and he's huge," or "I find typos in traditionally published books all the time." And both of those may be true (depending on your opinion of Dan Brown - personally I think he's awesome!), but it's NO EXCUSE. And when people delude themselves into thinking that publishing work that has been improperly edited and revised is all right, well, that's where the stigma comes from.

To be fair, there is a LOT of quality indie fiction out there, written by authors who actually want to succeed and who care about what their readers think of their work. But there is also a lot of crap, and the readers are the ones who have to wade through that crap to find the good books. That is there the stigma comes from, and the only way to eliminate it is for more people to take their craft seriously. I'm getting preachy here and I don't mean to, but I could literally spend hours talking about this one topic.

JOA: The way others approach writing intrigues me. What is your process, from inception to final product? Do you outline, or let the story roam free?

DM: I usually start with an idea and go from there. I’ve never outlined anything, preferring to let the story evolve on its own. In that way I’m often surprised by directions the characters take when I write. For example, there is a character in 33 A.D. that turns traitor. That wasn’t planned. I had no idea it was going to happen. I was just writing the scene and when it came to the end the character surprised me by doing something he shouldn’t have done. If I’d been working from an outline, I don’t think that would have occurred. That's the type of thing that makes writing fun to me.

JOA: I've read and reviewed 33AD, and found it to be a fantastic read. (read the review here) The storyline is original, and also, dare I say, a bit brave. To take the story of the crucifixion (or any religious event) and use it as a backdrop for a work of fiction is walking a bit of a metaphysical tightrope. You open yourself up to criticism from both sides of the fence. What was your inspiration for the story? Did you in any way want to say something profound, or just tell an entertaining story?

DM: Thank you. I was thrilled that you enjoyed it.

I read a book back in 2007 called Violent Sands, by Sean Young. Violent Sands takes place in Biblical Jerusalem and follows the activities of Barabbas, about whom little is mentioned. Young's work was so thoroghly researched and so brilliantly well written that it took me back in time to those dusty streets. I could see everything, smell everything, and hear the constant din of Passover in first century Jerusalem.

Of course, I found myself wondering what the vampires of the day might have thought of all the hooplah surrounding the young rabbi from Galilee, and that's how the idea came about. The rough draft took me 5 weeks to write, and two years to fine tune into the book it is today. :)

I really wasn't trying to do anything more than tell a story, but quite a few people have told me they found something of import within the texts of 33 A.D. I'd love to say that is intentional, but it isn't. In my case, I think if there is anything profound to be gleaned from the story it is less a case of masterful authorship and more a case of art imitating life. To put it simply, I'm just not that clever. :)

JOA: The response to 33 AD has been overwhelmingly positive. Many are screaming for a sequel. Is there one in the works?

DM: Yes, there is. I am about 1/3 of the way through the rough draft. I had hoped to have the rough draft completed by now, but my wife and I are expecting our first child. Add those new duties to my 50 hour a week day job and the fact that the Holidays have once again crept up on us with all the stealth of a panther, and you can see how much time gets eaten up with non writing things. However, I AM working on it, and I hope to have it out to my readers no later than this spring.

JOA: You have four other books - Saying Goodbye to the Sun, Grubs, The Lake and 17 Other Stories, and A Pound of Flash. Please tell us a little about each and why we should care about them.

DM: Saying Goodbye to the Sun will always be my baby. 33 A.D. gets all the attention and all the reviews, and it is a fine book, but SGTTS was my first novel. That will always have a special place in my heart. I started writing it in 1997, when I was in a very dark place in my personal life, and it became a type of therapy. I did everything I could in that book to break the main character, Vincent, and twist him into my vision of what a vampire should be. I think I did a pretty good job.

GRUBS was written as a short pulpy horror piece for my former publisher, who requested just that sort of work. I'd never done anything like it before, and I wasn't sure that I could. But once I got the ball rolling, it was a lot of fun. I mean, come on...mind-bending grubs that turn the dead into walking servants and the living into slaves? Guts and gore splattered on almost every page with a bizarre love triangle and a sick, twisted pervert thrown into the mix? Who could resist? GRUBS is a fun, quick read that doesn't try to be anything more than entertainment. If you're looking for deeper meaning, you might wanna look somewhere else. But if you're looking to get lost in the woods of northern Maine and be chased by nightmares that only a very unstable mind could create, then GRUBS is for you. I can't give any better endorsement than this: Amanda Hocking liked it. A lot. 'Nuff said. :)

The Lake and 17 Other Stories, as well as its follow up A Pound Of Flash, are short collections of horror fiction that I put out for 99 cents as kind of an intro to my work. Some of the stories are sick and twisted, some are gory, some are funny, and some are just plain odd, but all of them are fun. As a bonus, each features guest stories by some of my indie friends like David Dalglish , Daniel Arenson and Mike Crane. Good stuff in there, and definitely worth the price of admission. One last note on these is they contain quite a few pieces of microfiction. These are horror stories that are told in exactly 100 words – not 99, not 101, but 100, including the title. I can't begin to tell you what a challenge it is to compose a complete story in only 100 words, but it's brutal. Word choice is everything! They were so much fun to write that I'm thinking of doing a third collection, just because I enjoy them. I also enjoy showing off just how warped my mind can get.

JOA: You say your mind's warped, eh? What's the craziest idea you've ever had for a story - and was it ever written?

DM: Heh. I've had some pretty off the wall stories, and there are plenty that you will never know about. :) The weirdest one that I'll publicly admit to involved a former SS Officer who traveled back in time to assassinate Hitler but didn't make it because he was bitten by a poisonous snake. Turned out the snake was planted by a group of profiteering gun runners who didn't want Hitler killed because they were making too much money off the war. there migh have been a few paranormal elements, like a ghost Captain who tried to warn the officer and possibly even a time traveling vampire Nazi that let the gun runners know what was going on, but I won't say for sure. Told ya it was odd. And nope. I never even bothered to write it down.

JOA: You've made no secret you're a huge Cowboys fan, David. How do you explain the fact they haven't won a playoff game in almost 17 years?

DM: I am a HUGE Dallas Cowboys fan. Even when they are doing poorly I still wear my Cowboys gear every chance I get. I have autographs, figures, pictures, shirts, bags, ticket stubs, helmets, and a million other items of Dallas Cowboy love cluttering my house. My wife says I'm obsessed, but I'm not so sure...

But what team are YOU talking about? It can't be the Dallas Cowboys, who won the Wild Card round of the playoffs just last year by stomping the crap out of the Philadelphia Eagles. 17 years? Try last season, Rob. ;)

JOA: Oh, jeez. My bad. That’s a little embarrassing. I think I'm looking at the world through my Pats-colored glasses and ignoring everything else. That being said, sports opinion time! I loved watching Barry Sanders run the ball. Every handoff was an event. What football player - any team - have you enjoyed watching most over the years?

DM: *sigh* you had to ask. You are going to make me admit a deep, dark secret, Rob. I LOVED watching Emmit Smith play. mostly because he was on the Cowboys, I'll admit. And I really enjoy Tony Romo's game when he's hot, not so much when he's cold. But if I'm being honest, in terms of sheer excitement and how much (grudging) fun it is to watch an individual player, I have to admit that Tom Brady is easily the most exciting player I've ever seen play the game, and that's coming from a Brady hater. I don't like him at all, but Dear God that man can play. Pisses me off.

JOA: Thanks for taking the time to do this interview, David. It's much appreciated.

DM: No problem, Rob. Thanks for having me back. It's always a good time.

Review: The Shadows of Grace by David Dalglish

Rating: 4.7 out of 5

Would you sacrifice your child for the world?

Questions. Life, many times, comes down to having the strength to ask oneself the correct ones, leaving the answers almost secondary. In literature, we judge characters, especially those who’ve fallen from grace, by their actions. And yet those actions are often a direct reflection of not having the intestinal fortitude to look past the shiny veneer of their unfortunate circumstances and ask, “Is what has happened to me my own fault?” A great example of this would be Humbert Humbert from Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. He is a character who is obsessed with an underage girl, and throughout the novel he questions not what depravity lies within himself that causes him to fall for (and run off with) this “nymphette”, but the societal pressures and breakdowns that force him to do so. He hates his life and his actions yet takes no action to remedy – or understand – them. In the end, he dies the same way he lived – ignorant and afraid of asking the right questions.

In The Shadows of Grace, the fourth book in David Dalglish’s fantastic and captivating Half-Orc series, the questions come to the forefront. No longer are the brothers and heart of the story, Harruq and Qurrah, slogging through life letting events guide their actions. They make choices, they contemplate their place in the world. Qurrah, for his part, finally begins asking questions of himself – only he’s not asking the right ones. The line at the beginning of this review is his. However, he has it all wrong. For any parent, for any being living in any form of society, the real question should be “Would I sacrifice myself for my child?” However, the simple fact that he asks that question shows a change in his character. He’s learning, pondering his station in life and looking inward rather than reacting to the horrors that have always surrounded him, for the first time.

Harruq is on a different path. He’s asking the right questions for someone in his situation. He’s led his people, folks he’s learned to love and appreciate, to safety. And yet he fights the inner battle of regret. He had a chance to kill his brother in the past and couldn’t do it. Should he have? Is the price of his love for his brother worth the thousands who’ve died by his hand, not the least of which being his own beloved daughter? Is Qurrah worthy of forgiveness for his sins? Does that even matter?

The answer to this is complicated. It’s both a resounding NO and a heartfelt YES! The brothers are a metaphor for choice and faith in one’s abilities. They are a fable of sorts. Think of two inner-city siblings, raised in a culture of violence and fear. One overcomes his upbringing, goes off to school, and becomes a productive and admirable member of society. The other takes the easy way out. He falls prey to the corruption that surrounds him, joins gangs, lives a life of aggression and brutality. The first example we put on a pedestal, idolizing for his ability to rise above. The latter is vilified, looked at as a lost cause and written off. Should he be? If we are able to commend the successful brother for overcoming the trials and tribulations of a rough childhood, shouldn’t we also feel pity for those who aren’t able to triumph? Shouldn’t we try to place ourselves in his situation and ask, “If that were me, would I have the strength to be the better man?” Most times, we don’t. Just look at the headlines of any local newspaper if you require proof of this. Are they worthy of redemption? Some would say no. But they are. It’s hard to look at the horrors they’ve committed and see a soul worth saving. It is the great among us, those with an almost mystical amount of compassion, who have the ability to forgive. Not forget, forgive. And in this particular book, it is Harruq who encapsulates this. He has no reason to forgive his brother. Qurrah has given him nothing but pain. And yet he does. He sees through the veneer of hatred and revenge and bestows upon his brother the greatest gift he can – a clean slate. It’s a beautiful occurrence, and the scene at the end of the book where this happens is a stunning piece of writing.

The Shadows of Grace is a very, very deep book. Besides the aforementioned plotlines involving Harruq and Qurrah’s path to redemption, there is political intrigue, huge battles, and emotional threads that run throughout most every word on the page. We are reunited with old friends, watch some of these friends give up their lives for the greater good, and are given a fresh perspective on matters of faith and self-sacrifice. Harruq and the Eschaton, along with King Antonil, lead the survivors from Velderan into the city of Mordeina, where they find peace and rest after heading off to warn neighboring towns of the approaching armies of orc and undead. Ultimately, truces are made between warring factions and battles are fought. Long-held prejudices are put aside. Before too long, we end up back in Mordeina, where a siege of the great city is under way. The war demons brought through the portal held open by Qurrah and Velixar are ready to exterminate all life. This scene, in particular, is written spectacularly. It delves even further into Harruq’s growing sense of honor and grace (there’s that word again) and the violence that follows his epiphany on the state of his life and faith is almost a foregone conclusion…though there is a particularly unexpected occurrence that helps swing the almost impossible odds against our heroes back in their favor. I won’t discuss it much, because it’s a bit of a spoiler, but I will say that some might find it to be a deus ex machina. It’s not. If you sit back and think about the plot, of where Dalglish is taking this tale, it makes perfect sense.

These points are interesting, but this book really finds its legs in the aforesaid growth of Harruq and Qurrah and the overall message I think the author has presented to us. And it is this message, the parable that the storyline of all the books have combined to now reveal, that is the most wonderful aspect of all.

What we have here is an allegory – or a critique, if you will – of Christianity. It’s brilliant, and I never thought of it, never noticed the events occurring could be discerned in this way before. There are three factions at odds with each other, in the form of the gods the author has created: Karak, Ashhur and Celestia. Karak is the personification of the Old Testament; demanding of obedience and order, self-sacrifice, and complete devotion. Ashhur reflects the New Testament; he demands only love and forgiveness, and all who worship him hold the promise that they will one day be blessed by a lifetime in the golden afterlife. Celestia is the universe itself, a deity devoted to balance. She refuses to let the scales tip too far in one direction or the other – in other words, cause and effect, or every action has an equal or opposite reaction. The three of them combine to form its own holy trinity of sorts, the three-become-one. I might think that if all the particulars sat down and thought about it for a second, they might find that they’ve been fighting the wrong war all along.

Just like the gods, the major characters have biblical counterparts. Qurrah is Abraham, the man asked to forgo everything, even his beloved child, for the sake of a God that seems outwardly cruel and remorseless. His faith is constantly tested, and just as often as not, he fails those tests. Harruq is Saint Peter, the loyal ruffian who denied Jesus yet, in the end, was the one charged with bringing His church to the people. And Tessanna, Qurrah’s lover, is paganism made flesh, all blood magic, sacred runes, and without a singular frame of reference to base her sanity upon. They form their own trinity, as well, and I have no doubt that, come the fifth and final book, it will be the interplay between these six differing yet similar characters that will form the crux of both the outcome and its message.

This was a fantastic book. It was my favorite of the author’s, actually, until the last fifty or so pages. There, I had two issues. One is with a character that emerges toward that point, a great servant of Karak named Melorak. The way he came into being seemed…convoluted somehow. It was hard for me to relate to or care about him. Secondly, after the battle of Mordeina, Dalglish seemed to rush the proceedings, as if he couldn’t wait to get to the final confrontation. I can’t blame him, as that concluding scene is beautifully written, possibly the greatest of the entire series, full of both sorrow and a morose sort of joy. If I’m being honest, it didn’t really bother me – the story is too good to be thrown off by something such as this – but still feel I must mention it, and it did prevent me from placing this tome ahead of its only emotional equal, The Cost of Betrayal.

That being said, this is a special story. All of the threads Dalglish has created are coming to a head. There is a battle brewing in the future, and the soul of everyone in Neldar is at stake. Come take the journey, get lost in it. Cry with the characters, feel their joy and pain, let them into your heart.

You’ll be glad you did. Trust me on this.

Plot - 10

Characters - 8

Voice - 10

Execution - 9

Personal Enjoyment – 10

Overall – 47/50 (4.7/5)

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Review: The Gift of Fury by Richard Jackson

Rating: 3.3 out of 5

Every once in a while, I run across a book that I can’t help but think, “If there had been just this much more work put into it (or perhaps a little more), it could have been special.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Gift of Fury by Richard Jackson.

The setup of the book is as follows – Count Albritton (that’s his name, not his title…weird, I know, but it works) is a paranormal investigator working out of New York City. He and his friends (a pair of wizards, a vampire of some sort, and an immortal warrior) run up against a man named Jack Meredith, a wealthy entrepreneur who desires more than simply predicting how to work the stock market in his favor.

It seems that Mr. Meredith has gone to great lengths to awaken the Seven, a powerful group of beings harkening from the “Old Days” of magic. And it turns out that our beloved Count, who holds a special relationship with a magical ring called the Bloodstone, is the only one who can stop him.

I so, so wanted to love this book. The author has a fantastic voice, telling the tale from Count’s viewpoint. He goes in-depth about the workings of the magical world that exists just beneath our own “real” world, explaining things such as the Witching Hour, different types of vampires, and the differentiations of various forms of magical practices. It was honestly quite entertaining to read. Jackson paints a vision of New York that is mysterious as well as mundane, and he takes some well-known (and not so well-known) locations and makes them shine anew. Great job there.

The characters who surround the fabulously sarcastic Count, also have their own distinct voices. Highest on this list is Hagan, the eternal warrior. He’s gruff and strangely carefree, the type of braggart that can’t wait to let everyone around him know of his exploits, whether he should or not. Also intriguing was Scott Dorward, one of the two sorcerers Count associates with. He is wonderfully quirky and straightforward. The few scenes he appears in are some of the best in the whole book.

As for the plot…it’s simple but it works. When it all gets boiled down, this is an adventure story. Its aim is to present a new world and entertain you. The only real theme I could find would be find yourself, young man, as Count doesn’t understand the power he possesses and must constantly work to harness. As I said, it’s simple but enjoyable.

And then we have the problems, which are many. I usually don’t make a huge deal of the editing in books – a few typos don’t bother me – but this one is rife with so many errors it became distracting. Also, it is told in first-person present tense – which is a difficult style to pull off effectively – and even the flashbacks are presented in this way. It completely interrupts the flow of the story. Every time this happened, I had to scroll back to see if what I was reading happened now or then. Change the tense, man!

On the subject of those flashbacks, there were at least two too many. We could’ve done without discovering how Count found the Bloodstone or first met Hagan. These facts could have easily been disclosed organically through conversation or informative snippets, without exposition.

These aspects of the novel came close to ruining it for me. Close, but not quite. I still had a good time with it, and I thought the world author Jackson created seemed fresh and new. It’s too bad there are so many irritants, because were those facets not there, this could’ve been something special.

As presently constructed, it’s a fun rough draft, not a final product.

Which is a shame.

Plot - 7

Characters - 9

Voice - 8

Execution - 3

Personal Enjoyment – 6

Overall – 33/50 (3.3/5)

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Review - Erich's Plea by Tracey Alley

Rating: 2.2 out of 5

Reviewing can be a frustrating game.

You dive into a book. You want to love it. You get to know the author, and they’re a super-nice person. And yet sometimes the reading experience lags behind your expectations. You don’t want to be mean, but you owe it to everyone – yourself, your readers, hell even the writer themselves – to be honest.

That’s where I found myself with Erich’s Plea by Tracey Alley.

In its premise, the book is hopeful. Slade, the son of a king, has abdicated his rights to the throne in order to become a druid. He is eventually thrown in prison for nefarious reasons. He dreams of his father, who’s been captured (or killed), and is left instructions on how he should go about plotting his escape. He eventually does, with the help of the typical rogue’s galley of fantasy characters. And in the background of all this, there is the intrigue of a plot to take over the world by a singular dark entity with seemingly unlimited power.

There were a few problems I ran into with the story. First of all, for a main character, Slade is, honestly, not very interesting. He has no charisma, no charm. It’s almost as if he’s simply there. Secondly, the majority of the plot revolves around the big prison escape, which like Slade isn’t very exciting. The reading is quick, but the action scenes are lacking. The head-hopping between characters can be confusing, and the characters themselves are oftentimes clichéd. There reached a point where I wanted to say, “all right, get out of the prison already!” It drags on through the length of the novel, and I begged this particular storyline to end.

This is where I come to the most frustrating aspect of all in this book. Whereas the main story arc, the prison break, is mundane and tiresome, the peripheral occurrences show so much promise, so much thought. The main protagonist in these (too short) sections is Lord Michael Strong. He, along with the grand wizard (or necromancer – I couldn’t figure out which exactly) Lord Nexus are having clandestine meetings to figure out ways in which they can reunite the different kingdoms that always seem to be at odds with each other, under the poisonous eyes of The Dark One, the seemingly all-powerful evil presence.

Through their conversations, Lords Michael and Nexus reveal the history of the world author Alley has built, and it is wonderful. It is a mirror to our own, in which the xenophobia and racism that exists between the warring factions brings down what had the potential to be an almost utopian society. I greatly appreciated these aspects of the book, along with the descriptions of the different types of magic. I found these threads to be original and inventive, and well worth expanding upon.

However, the author doesn’t, and instead we’re thrust back into the boring escape plan.

There’s something else amiss with the work, however, and this has everything to do with The Dark One, himself. He’s painted as an omnipresent figure, one who knows everything that happens around him, who is tyrannical in his rule. And yet we meet him, face-to-face (first mistake), and he’s more like a caricature than a well-fleshed-out villain. Also, for someone so all-powerful, he’s surrounded by spies (second mistake). This lessens his effectiveness and turns the character into a joke. How could such a dominant being with the power of mind-reading and witchcraft at his disposal not know all these characters in his tight inner circle are plotting against him? It simply doesn’t make sense and, although this is strange to say about a work of fantasy, makes the story much less believable.

The writing style the author uses is brisk, but there is something off about it, as well. The comma usage is all over the place. Many of the sentences are run-ons. There is information that is contradictory or unnecessary to the action. Here are a couple prime examples:

As it always did, on those rare occasions that Luca came to this section of the prison, he found the utter silence unnerving, although, at least it masked the screams of the prisoners.

They could all do with some better supplies Slade knew, apart from Lara, Tares and Darzan, who appeared fully equipped, the rest of them carried only arms and equipment purloined from the dead guards.

(Perhaps these represent differences between Australian and American English...I'm not entirely sure)

Not only this, but the author has a tendency to repeat names over and over and over again when a simple “he” or “she” would suffice. This is distracting and more than a little bit maddening, as well.

And yet, all this aside, I would probably read another of Alley’s work if given the opportunity. She does have a playfulness to her tone that I find intriguing. Some of her characters are inventive and break their tropes. She has a good head for societal themes and world-building. It’s simply not present in this book as much as it should be.

I know there are more novels the series. Perhaps she has matured as a writer since this one was written, perhaps not. But if it doesn’t improve, that would be it for me.

As for Erich’s Plea…I found it middling, at best.

Plot - 3

Characters - 5

Voice - 5

Execution - 4

Personal Enjoyment – 5

Overall – 22/50 (2.2/5)

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