Seed of Evil by Edmund Plante

Imagine taking a guy home from a bar to a quiet apartment where, once sex begins, he turns into a hideous creature whose penis becomes so big that it begins ripping apart your insides, a sudden cold ejaculation mixing with the warm blood that oozes within. Then imagine waking up in a hospital and finding out that the police have nothing to go on, the man / beast having somehow disappeared from the apartment without a trace. Then imagine realizing you were pregnant and that the growing child is the result of that horrible night. What would you do?

Patty Thompson, a divorced mother of two, decides to keep the baby, her catholic upbringing and disgust with abortion pretty much making the decision for her. Protests are made, the most adamant coming from her own mother who, having seen the man beast ravaging her daughter, fears what the child could be. Patty doesn’t give in, however, and soon delivers a seemingly healthy normal baby boy. Normal the baby is not, however, and right away Patty realizes she will never be able to love him. It isn’t just the memories of his conception that plague her. Something about the baby isn’t right. It is his eyes. Every time he looks at her Patty can sense intelligence in them. She also always feels an odd love and warmth oozing from him when she holds him, but a cold rage and bitterness directed toward her whenever she has him taken away. Never before has she experienced anything like this with a newborn. Even so her determination to be a mother to the baby eventually overcomes the fear she harbors, and amid the continued protests from her mother she brings him home to be part of the family.

Richard is the baby’s name and within him a war rages. On one side is the evil of his father who was obviously not human; on the other is the kindness and compassion of his mother. Unfortunately this inner war has consequences, especially when someone triggers a rage within Richard that gives power to the evil side. When this happens people get hurt and sometimes, if Richard is unable to get control back, die. In some households this easily triggered rage wouldn’t be a problem due to the love and compassion everyone treats each other with. In the Thomson household it is a problem, the open hostility shown toward Richard by his grandmother and older brother constantly providing the fuel the evil side needs. It also spurs a desire to find his father, so at the age of five Richard leaves his mother’s family behind. Eight years later he returns, a decision on the life he wants to live having been made. The question is will his mother’s family be able to provide him with what he craves or will they once again cause the rage to boil over to the point where Richard can not control his actions?

Seed of Evil by Edmund Plante is one of the best horror novels I read this year. Its brutal yet gripping tale never let up and kept one guessing as to what the eventual conclusion of the story would be. The characters also felt real. With Patty you could constantly sense the struggle taking place inside of her on whether or not she wanted to love Richard, the horror of his birth and of the events that unfold around him butting up against the fact that he is her son and should have a mother’s love. Equally compelling is the struggle Richard faces, especially after returning from living with his horrible father for eight years. His character could so easily have been cliché, yet Edmund Plante gives him such depth that it is impossible not to feel empathy toward him. At one point I even began hoping that things would work out despite all the horror he had caused. The reason for this was my realization that he wasn’t to blame for his state of being. One also couldn’t really put blame on Patty for the turmoil she felt toward him, not after what she went through during his conception, though one does have to ask why she never considered setting him up for adoption. Had she done this all the terror her family faced might have been adverted. Or maybe it wouldn’t have been. Maybe Richard would still have found his way to them, his desire to be loved by the mother that gave birth to him guiding his actions.

Now, lastly, I would like to set something straight concerning this book and Edmund Plante’s later book Garden of Evil, which I read last month. Given the two titles one can’t help but wonder if the two books are connected in someway, especially if one reads Garden of Evil first because there are many questions one may have as to the origins of things within the book that are never answered within it. Doing a search online gives the answer of YES thanks to several websites that list the two books as belonging to a two book series, the order being Seed of Evil followed by Garden of Evil. Unfortantly these sites are incorrect. The two books are not connected in any way and anyone who lists them as being connected obviously didn’t bother to read them and just concluded it based on the titles.

My Haunted Apartment - Footsteps

As many of you may know the various events that used to spook me within my apartment in DeKalb seemed to have stopped a while back, something which made me wonder if the haunting here had ended. Things were so quiet for so long that I actually didn’t even think about it all that much, my mind only drifting that way when my friends or blog followers would ask me questions about it, or when I was awakened in the middle of the night by something that I couldn’t put my finger on. Last night this all changed. My downstairs neighbors were the reason for this. They knew I was gone for a week, my empty parking spot in the house driveway proof of this. What they didn’t know were the details of my time away, our paths not crossing enough for me to tell them what my plans were going to be on a daily basis. While I was gone, however, things had occurred at my place that caused them to ask me a question upon my return, that question being whether or not I had had someone staying at my apartment during my absense, someone that would have been watching my cats for me. My answer was no, I had brought the cats with me to my parents house. Hearing this they asked me if everything was as I had left it, meaning, had I been robbed while gone. Again the answer was no, I hadn’t been robbed. Everything was as I had left it. “Well, that’s weird,” they finally said, “because someone was up there while you were gone.”

For those of you who don’t know, my apartment is in an old house that was divided up into apartments. Each floor is its own apartment. Such setups are pretty common in college towns. My neighbors live on the first floor, and I live on the second floor. When home we can hear each other pretty well because there isn’t much separating us when it comes to the floor beneath my feet (in normal apartment buildings there is usually some attempt at creating a setup that will muffle sound, but not in houses that were built before World War II). Anyway, almost every night while I was away my neighbors heard someone walking around in my apartment. Sometimes these footsteps woke them up even, which made them curious on whether or not someone was actually staying there with the cats or just coming and going at odd times -- their car apparently parked somewhere unseen. Upon hearing all this I informed them that the cats had come with me to my parent’s house for the holidays so there was no reason for anyone to be up there. Naturally this left them speechless.

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. After I moved in last year the people that lived downstairs at the time told me that I was right, my cats could be pretty noisy at night when playing because they had heard them several times, their tiny paws running back and forth across the floor. The thing was the cats were still living at my parent’s house at that time because I wasn’t going to be bringing them into the house until my weekends away for that reenacting season were complete (I had informed them of the potential for noise, however, just so they would know). Making that even creepier was that these noises of something running back and forth across the floor had occurred while I was sleeping, which meant something may have been walking around within reach of my bed. Anyone who claims not to be chilled when in such a situation is lying.

Silent Night, Bloody Night (1973)

Watching a new holiday themed horror flick in the days leading up to Christmas has become a new tradition in the Malmborg household, though one that only two to three members of the family actually take part in. Normally this movie watching event takes place sometime between the twentieth and twenty-second because on the twenty-third the family watches a special episode of The X-Files. This year the horror movie had to follow the viewing of The X-Files due to it only having arrived that morning. Silent Night, Bloody Night, released in 1973, was the movie of choice. My little brother and I stumbled upon it while browsing websites last week, our realization that we were not going to be able to find a copy of Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) or Don’t Open Till Christmas (1984) in time having spurred us into a holiday horror movie seeking frenzy (we really want to see those two movies for some reason, but completely struck out this year). From what we read about Silent Night, Bloody Night, it was supposed to be a pretty good little holiday horror flick -- a forgotten horror gem is what many said on the various ‘buy it here’ websites -- one that had a impenetrable mystery and creepy vide throughout. Both terms were pretty accurate, and could honestly have made for a great viewing if it weren’t for the ridiculous plot twist at the end, and the expressionless voicing of the lines by several of the actors.

Silent Night, Bloody Night is the tale of a house that has a dark past, one whose mysterious owner wants to sell to the town officials so they can finally wipe the landscape clear of the horrid structure. The owner’s name is Jeffery Butler. He is the grandson of a man who was burned to death many years earlier after returning to the house after an odd absence that no one fully understood. Having never actually seen the house, and not really wanting anything to do with it it, Jeffery sends a lawyer to sell the place on his behalf, his asking price incredibly low so that the town will hopefully take it without much thought. Even with the low price, however, the town officials hesitate, a strange unspoken concern about the place obviously present within them. Waiting for their reply the lawyer and his girlfriend go stay at the house, their lives quickly cut short by an ax carrying stranger who was already within the house. After that the town officials are lured to the house one by one by a mysterious caller from within, one who seems to want vengeance on these officials, the motive unknown. For some reason Jeffery also decides to head to the house despite his desire to sell it through a lawyer. Hooked up with a girl whose house he pretty much walked into, the two start to investigate the strange events taking place at the house, the reasons behind them quickly coming to light as Jeffery reads the diary of his grandfather. With that everything comes together and the final bit of horror is unleashed.

Ridiculous plot twist and expressionless acting aside, the movie did have a creepy unsettling vibe running throughout it. Sadly this wasn’t enough to make the movie a worthwhile viewing. It was just too slow, and watching the actors go through their lines made it feel like one was viewing a simple read through of the script rather than the final product. Seriously, there was no expression whatsoever when it came to the dialogue between the characters. Everyone just talked at each other while staring straight ahead, which, while creepy, was also annoying. Another creepy, yet annoying feature was what my brother called the ‘wax museum’ scenes. These moments were found throughout the film and featured actors who didn’t move at all, almost as if the audience was looking at a photograph rather than actual film. Now, I’ve heard some reviewers compliment his because it added a level of madness to the people, one that went well with the twist in the story. To me, though, the twist was so ridiculous and unbelievable, that it made those ‘wax museum’ scenes pointless. In the end this is a movie I would only recommend to those who want to see everything that is out there in terms of holiday horror, one that I hope they won’t spend too much money on because it most likely won’t be something that will be watched over and over again.

The Last Man on Earth (1964)

Ever since reading I AM LEGEND by Richard Matheson I have always wanted to see what it looked like on screen. This desire comes from my love of apocalyptic films, especially those that show someone living in an empty world. I have no idea why such images intrigue me, but they do. I also know I’m not alone in this. A part of me would love to live in such a world to, though not for the long term. It’s more of a ‘try it out’ thing just to see what it would be like. Same thing with living on a deserted island like Tom Hanks in Castaway, just, um, come and get me after a couple months please. Anyway, back then I had no idea film adaptations had already been created, the use of search engines like Google still a thing of the future. I then pushed the book to the back of my mind as other books filled my head, my mind not really thinking about it in any detail until the 2007 Will Smith I Am Legend movie came out. At first I enjoyed the film, but then, once the cgi vampires / zombies appeared I shook my head. The change to the story and why he was considered a legend also irritated me.

Several years passed and I read the book again, my familiarity with the story having faded to the point where it felt fresh during the second experience. Afterward I wrote about the book on this webpage and voiced my thoughts about the 2007 movie. Well, what do you know, some of my wonderful readers informed me that a few adaptations had been made, ones that stayed a bit truer to the book. The Last Man on Earth released in 1964 and starring Vincent Price was the one I sought out. Eventually I will also grab a copy of The Omega Man, which many said it loosely based on the book, but that will be a future viewing and post.

At this moment in time, since I don’t have the Internet at home and can’t go in search of the answer, I have no idea why the film didn’t use the I Am Legend title, but feel using The Last Man on Earth worked just as well given the subject matter. Does anyone know the answer to this? Was there even a reason? If I were to speculate on this based on what I saw during the opening credits, it didn’t seem like the film made a big push to show audiences what the storyline source material was. In fact, looking at the credits, it seems the filmmakers made the statement about the film being based on the novel needlessly small, especially when compared to the other credits. I have no idea if this really means anything, but if so it would be interesting to know.

The movie itself was pretty faithful to the book and seemed to follow the narrative flow of the source material really well -- up until the ending where things were changed up slightly. For those who are unfamiliar with the storyline, the book and this movie are about a man who lives in world where the population has been destroyed by a virus, a vampire virus. Our main character, Robert Neville (book), Robert Morgan (movie) is immune from the virus, his theory being that a bite from a vampire bat in South America having caused this. No one else is, that he knows of, and slowly but surely everyone is wiped out, their bodies systematically destroyed in a giant burning pit by the authorities due to the fear that they will rise up after death. Robert doesn’t believe in the rising up part until his wife, who he buries illegally, comes back to be with him. After that he knows the importance of destroyed the bodies of the dead, and continues the process long after civilization has fallen. Being a scientist he also tries to find a cure for the vampire virus, one that he might be able to use on the infected who torment him nightly so that he will no longer be the last man on earth. Such a discovery is his only real reason for living. Will he be successful?

For the most part I enjoyed the movie The Last Man on Earth up until the ending which somehow felt rushed yet dragged out. In the book there was a nice flow and balance to everything, but with the movie the people who want to kill him appear suddenly and you get the sense that the spy sent in to learn about him served no purpose whatsoever since they were going to attack that night anyway. In the book the spy was there to learn about him and eventually report back. That was the rushed part. The chase then dragged on and on, but maybe this is because I knew how it was going to end. Another aspect that kind of left me hanging was the vampires themselves. They didn’t seem all that menacing in the film, their bodies incredibly slow and unable to do much. Because of this Robert didn’t need to do that much to secure his house, a few boards over the windows, a single board across the door, some garlic and a mirror. In the book his work to protect the house, and his generator, seemed much more impressive and necessary. I also was disappointed that the use of the stopped watch never played role. That was one of the best parts of the book, in my opinion, but it was dropped from the movie. Even with these disappointments the movie was still good, especially if one was looking for a pretty faithful adaptation from the book.

Scraping the Bone: Ten Dark Tales - Now Available

My short story collection Scraping the Bone: Ten Dark Tales is now available as Amazon Kindle Ebook. Priced at only $0.99, this would be a perfect introduction to the types of fiction I write. Everything from ghosts, to serial killers, to zombies can be found within, along with several little unclassifiable oddities. Included in that bunch is a story titled "Sunburn" that actually caused some drama in a creative writing group I used to read stories too. Never before had I realized how upset some people could become from the descriptions I penned. I also never dreamed that a fellow writer would try to get restrictions put in place on what I was allowed to read to the group. Thankfully they were overruled by the rest of the group. Other tales included "Red Pickup" which was my first ever published story, "Jacob's Gift" which may spawn a series, and "Code Blue" which fictionalized some of my experiences living with Crohn's Disease and a wife waiting for a lung transplant.

House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Okay, I’ll admit it; this movie scared me when I was younger. I don’t remember exactly how old I was when I saw it, but do remember getting a chill while viewing it in my parent’s bedroom with my mom (anyone familiar with this blog will know that several of my first horror movie experiences occurred in that bedroom due to my dad laying claim to the house’s main TV). I think it was the black and white haunted house atmosphere that got me, along with the knowledge that it was a “horror movie” we were watching. Such elements had the ability to terrify me back then. Watching it during October as Halloween drew near also played a part. I don’t know why, but back then the Halloween season always seemed creepy to me, and added a level of terror to the things I watched. Of course this isn’t to say I didn’t get a chuckle or two out of the film. To this day I can still hear my mother and me laughing at how ridiculous the witch lady in the basement looked as she supposedly floated across the floor while locked in an angry snarl, both of us knowing she was simply rolled or pulled across the floor by the movie people. Terror, however, was the dominating emotion when viewing the film and thus is one of the reasons I look upon the movie with such fondness as an adult.

House on Haunted Hill, directed by William Castle, is the story of five strangers who are invited to stay overnight in a supposedly haunted house by millionaire Fredrick Loren and his wife Annabelle. Played by Vincent Price, Frederick Loren is the perfect host for such a party -- rich and eccentric -- but any sense of control one would project into him over the situation is quickly dismissed as the evening hours settle in. Watson Pritchard, owner of the house, is certain that the ghosts are on the hunt and that they have chosen one of the guests, Nora Manning, to join them. Ruth Bridgers, a newspaper writer, has also been marked by the ghosts, blood having fallen on her from the continuously dripping stain that appears in a hallway. It is Nora, however, who seems to be the main focus, first while in cellar, and then in her room. In the first incident a witch like figure appears to her in a doorway and then again floating right next to her. In the second incident the decapitated head of a past victim of the house is found in her room. Naturally it disappears before anyone else can see it. Not long after that Annabelle is found hanging in the stairway. Thinking a murderer is amongst them, the guests all agree to stay in their own rooms with the guns provided them by Fredrick and Annabelle. Once again Nora is targeted, this time by the ghost of Annabelle who appears outside her window, the rope she was hanging from slowly slithering into the room. This incident pushes the fragile young woman over the edge and she hurries from the room and goes into the cellar, a location where the final showdown between the evil within the house and some of the guests unfolds.

As an adult I laugh frequently when watching this film, and never experience any terror or chills, yet still enjoy my viewings of it. Nostalgia plays a big part in this, as does the terror it once created. I also love Vincent Price. I’m not sure what it is about him but his appearance on screen always keeps me in a chair, my eyes glued to the screen. It doesn’t matter how silly or ridiculous the role or movie, I will watch it and like it. The same is true of William Castle films. The history of his career as a director is great. All the gimmicks he played on audiences, and the way he advertised his films fascinates me. The fact that he was also a pretty good filmmaker adds to the enjoyment. Sure, the movies are often severely dated, both in storyline and special effects, but they have a sense of flow that engages the mind. The overly elaborate scenarios that are featured in many of his films, House on Haunted Hill being an example, add to the fun. I mean, seriously, a house that locks itself down every night that also just happens to have a huge acid pit in the cellar? And how about the skeleton that sports an acid proof wire that can only be seen clearly after the drama has concluded or the rope that comes into the window to wrap around Nora’s legs that is proven to be non-supernatural once the story unfolds? Stuff like this would never happen or work in a real life, yet for me, doesn’t mare the film at all despite how critical I am of such unrealistic events in most films.

Amazon Kindle And The Estimated Print Length of Ebooks

I have no idea how long Amazon has been posting an estimated print length for the books that are only available as Kindle downloads, but noticed that my novel JIMMY is now displaying a print length on its page. Not TEXT MESSAGE though. Having seen this I’m curious how Amazon goes about making this estimate. My guess is that they base it on 300 words per page standard since JIMMY was just shy of 90,000 words. If so that would mean the estimated print length of TEXT MESSAGE should be somewhere around 350 pages given that is word count was about 106,000 and that SCRAPING THE BONE (being released this Wednesday) would be at 66 pages given its word count of 20,000.

Now for those of you who are curious the manuscript page numbers for these novels were as follows: JIMMY - 444, TEXT MESSAGE - 565, and SCRAPING THE BONE - 104. Also the page number total that seems to be most agreed upon these days by publishers when labeling something as a novel seems to 80,000 words. Anything below that is often considered a short novel, though this isn’t always the case and can vary from publisher to publisher. The original length of JIMMY when I submitted it to Dorchester Publishing in 2009 was somewhere around 70,000. In the summer of 2010 Dorchester’s Editor Don D’Auria wrote back asking for rewrites and a word count increase so that the novel would be at least 80,000 words. Obviously I went over this word count goal because there were some parts of the story that really blossomed during the rewrite, most specifically the drama between the Tina character and her mother, and some of the escape attempts that one kidnapped character engages in. On the flipside of this I have heard some first time novelists who were asked to cut down their novels so that they were below 100,000 words, the reason often being due to the shelf space the novel would be given at the bookstores. Simply, if the novel was too big it will be given less shelf space because each copy would take up more space. The opposite fear is true when a novel is too small because its narrow spine might not be as easily seen by customers (I read that this was one of the reasons Clive Barker’s Books of Blood was originally released in thee volumes all at once rather than each volume separately, so that it would be given the perfect amount of space on the shelf). None of this marketing strategy really applies to Amazon Kindle books, however, because there seems to be an unlimited amount of space for such items.

Personally, I think it’s good that Amazon is putting up these estimated print lengths because, given some of the customer feedback I have seen on other titles, I don’t think people really are really paying attention to the file size that is displayed. Several times I have seen people voice a complaint at how short a story was, which means they didn’t realize they were buying a short story or novella despite being able to see the file size of the item being purchased. Now I just wish those estimates could come in right away on things. For instance, when uploading a novel or collection or short story to the Amazon, Kindle authors should either have to put in a word count into the form or Amazon should count it themselves so that it is there from the beginning. This way, when buying a short novel that is priced the same as a full length novel people might not feel like they were misled into thinking it was a longer piece of fiction. With my work one of the ways I was going to combat this was with a difference in price. Novels would always be priced higher than collections and novellas, the latter two being priced on their length. I also would have a standard that said any of my novels that was over 80,000 words would automatically fall into the 2.99 to 4.99 price range (I’m starting this after Christmas for JIMMY and TEXT MESSAGE) and that novellas in the 50,000 to 80,000 range would be 1.99 to 2.99 (depending on what I eventually do set the novels at), and anything below that would be 0.99 to 1.99 (again depending on what the novellas are at). To me this sees fair. I would hate for someone to have to pay the same price on SCRAPING THE BONE that they pay on JIMMY or TEXT MESSAGE even if the price is still lower than what retailers would be charging. It just doesn’t seem right to me.

TEXT MESSAGE - The Blizzard -- I’m Not a Very Good Weatherman

Anyone who has read my new novel TEXT MESSAGE might realize that it kind of takes place today (December 17, 2011). I say ‘kind of’ because no date is ever really mentioned in the novel (at least I don’t think one is -- sometimes writers grow fuzzy on their own works despite how recently it was written), but it is noted several times that it takes place during the last shopping weekend before Christmas. Helping to triangulate the date is the mention of an epic February blizzard that the Chicago area saw earlier that year, and the inner thoughts of a character who is hoping that the speculation that the world will end the following year comes true. Also, while writing it earlier this year, I pretty much always visualized this weekend as being the date for the novel, though for some reason I never really realized that I was incorrect in marking it as the final shopping weekend before Christmas, not if one considered Christmas Eve, which falls on a Saturday this year, as a shopping day. Personally, I don’t (Christmas Eve if for family gatherings in my book), which is why it never occurred to me. Anyway, none of this really explains why I claim myself to be a terrible weatherman. The reason for this is simple: during the novel TEXT MESSAGE the Chicago area gets hit by a record breaking blizzard, one which pretty much shuts down the fictional mall that the novel takes place in. Those living in the Chicago area for real, however, will notice that we didn’t get any snow today, nor have we gotten any significant snowfall at all during this new winter season despite the promise from the weather people that this would be one of our snowiest years ever. Oops. Such is one of the risks of setting a novel in the near future, especially when the weather plays a part -- not a huge part, but still a significant enough part that it affects the characters, and shapes certain elements within the novel. Hopefully readers will forgive my inability to clearly see the weather of the future. If not, I promise to try harder next time. I have several books on the occult that I’m sure will help me get a better idea of what the weather will be like for the characters within my story, as well as any really big news stories that may be talked about amongst the characters. Also, having to see into the future won’t be an issue for the next book because it takes place during the late summer and early fall of 2011 -- in the DeKalb area actually, which, readers may note, had somewhat of a significant roll in TEXT MESSAGE. Not that the novels are connected in a ‘read this one and then that one’ way, just in a ‘characters from that novel were from this area and mentioned some of the events that are talked about now’ way. As a reader I used to always love it when authors did such things, so it is only natural that similar things happen within my different pieces of fiction.

UPDATE: Well, I wrote this piece yesterday and set it to post today -- no Internet at home so I sometimes schedule things to update a day or two in advance if the posts are ready. At the time of writing this there was absolutely no snow forecasted for the Chicago area (that I know of). In fact, I was joking around with a friend last night who read TEXT MESSAGE a few weeks ago about the lack of snow. His answer to it was: what if it does snow, wouldn’t that be spooky. Well, sure enough, the land was all white upon my waking this morning. How crazy is that? Now the question is will a freak blizzard hit later today?

One Cover, Two Books?

Readers of this blog might recall a post I made a while back that featured my thoughts on a book I had just finished titled Garden of Evil by Edmund Plante. At various points within the ‘review’ I posted a question / speculation on whether or not the book was actually a sequel to the book noted on the cover, one that bore the title Seed of Evil. The reason for this was twofold. First, I felt like something was missing within the story, something that was hinted at within the prologue and various back-story segments, but not really displayed in detail. Second, having noted that I felt something was missing, I thought about the title Seed of Evil being promoted on the cover, and, given that it had obviously come before Garden of Evil, theorized that it might have told a story that was further played out in Garden of Evil. Seemingly cementing this theory was the sharing of a link by Will Errickson from the Too Much Horror Fiction site that listed the two books as being the first and second within a two volume series. Now, however, having just gotten the book in the mail, I’m pretty certain that listing the books like this was a mistake by whoever added the listings to that website. Nothing about the detailed description on the back leads me to think the two books are connected. Instead it just looks like they each tell separate stories, the only connection being the link one could mistakenly create given the similar titles and idea that the word ‘Seed’ could easily be a precursor to the word ‘Garden’. Not that I’m disappointed by this; Seed of Evil sounds pretty good, better than Garden of Evil, actually. Speculating on this before reading the book is not my reason for posting though. Instead it was my viewing of the cover. Anyone recognize it? A few weeks ago I posted an entry on this blog titled Surprise - Six Horror Paperbacks. Garden of Evil was one of those six books. Another was one called Deadly Friend by Keith Ferrario. Both were published by Dorchester; Seed of Evil bearing their Leisure imprint, and Deadly Friend bearing the name Book Margins, Inc, which, I’m guessing was either an imprint of Dorchester or a paperback house that leased titles from them. Both also, I believe, shared the same cover artist. Now the question is, did any other books from this company get dressed with this cover? Also, will the cover image actually play a part in both these novels, or was it more a case of ‘we need a horror cover and since people love creepy kids let’s use this?’ Each book does hint at the possibility of an evil child. Descriptions can be misleading, though (remember my post on Daddy’s Little Girl by Daniel Ransom), so only reading the books themselves will answer the question.

The School by Ed Kelleher & Harriette Vidal

Have you ever started reading a book that was incredibly exciting, the story completely engaging you as the first hundred pages flew by, only to have it dry out and wither during the second half, your mind forced to continue out of sheer determination to finish rather than a desire to see what eventually unfolds? This pretty much sums up what happened to me with The School. I don’t know why, but the first half of the book absorbed me completely, my fascination with the strange school and the characters that were enrolled within pushing me forward. I enjoyed just about everything that unfolded during that part, the only exception being the seemingly insatiable drug and alcohol use by the girls at the Hanley School. Now, I am not ignorant to the fact that drug and alcohol use occurs with minors, and that no school, no matter how strict or how prominent, will have issues with such things, but to have just about every student consuming such things repeatedly . . . well that just didn’t ring true to me. At first, however, I was able to let this slide, my mind thinking the authors, like most adults looking at the latest generation of kids, probably read too much into the sensationalized incidents of such things that plague the media. But then the drug and alcohol use started to increase, the justification being that the evil school was driving the students to behave this way. Again, I could understand this. What I couldn’t understand was the need to beat the drug and alcohol use into the reader. Every couple of pages we were again brought into a scene where some of the female girls were mixing drinks, snorting cocaine, smoking ‘marijuana cigarettes’, or popping Quaaludes. Sometimes everything was mixed together too. It just got so old, and every time a scene like this began to unfold I wanted to reach across space and time to the authors as they worked on the manuscript and say, “Okay, I get it, the evil school has taken whatever addiction the girls suffer, or whatever fear they harbor, or whatever odd sexual tendency they have, and increased it to the breaking point, but instead of focusing on that over and over again can we get a layered reasoning of why the school is doing this?”

Reasoning did come eventually, but it was so cliché and so sudden, that it wasn’t worth the continued buildup that was seen in the ever increasing delinquent behavior of the students. Also unnecessary was the gradual shift of the drama teacher from a conservative and always modestly dressed young lady to sex crazed hooker-dressed individual. The explanation for this was that she had been chosen as the future caretaker of the Hanley School by the current Satan worshipping caretakers, both of whom knew the school had been built on ground chosen by Satan. Why Satan would chose a New England setting when for most of human history the area was unpopulated and therefore free of the mental destruction and blood it always craved was a mystery that went without explanation. Also unclear was why the story kept pointing toward a climax that would occur during the school play, one that had been written in 1931 by a student named Lisa King who then went on to murder the headmaster and the two students he was sleeping with after its opening night. All through the book it felt as if everything was pointing toward the opening night, and something that would occur with the leading lady who was also the main character of the story. But then, without warning, the drama teacher was brought down and forced to perform a sexual satanic ceremony that made her the new caretaker of the school the night before the play. Disgusted with herself, she jumped from the top of the school, at which point the leading lady, Vanessa, became Lisa King and went and killed the headmaster and the two girls he was sleeping with, just like Lisa King had done in the prologue. It was then told to readers that the drama teacher had been the chosen one, but that Vanessa had saved the day at the last minute by taking on the role of Lisa King and serving up the required blood. WHAT? If the drama teacher had been the chosen one all along then why was Vanessa seeing things all throughout the semester and always encouraged by her boyfriend Dennis (also a member of the satanic group) to stay until opening night? And why was opening night so important if everything was going to happen the day before. Had some odd and unforeseen circumstances forced the ceremony to be a day early then I would have accepted this, but in the eyes of the caretakers it appeared as if this was how everything had been planned out from the beginning.

All in all, despite how enjoyable and intriguing the first hundred pages were, this was not a very good read and one that I wouldn’t really recommend. It just wasn’t structured well, the misguided focus on the drug and alcohol use being at fault, as well as the sudden and out of place ending that occurred. The worst part of all, however, was how much potential there was within this novel. All the elements were there for a fantastic little horror story, but never got used, or, at least, they weren’t used properly. Of course my thoughts on the matter might not be shared with the majority out there, and I respect that. If anyone enjoyed this novel I would love to hear from them. Also, are their any novels by these two authors that you would recommend to me? I rarely ever give up on reading an author after just one book, and would love to hear some suggestions. If not I will probably just go with Madonna or The Breeder given that those are the only two titles I saw mentioned on the cover of The School.

Scraping the Bone - Coming Soon!

Scraping the Bone - Ten Dark Tales. My first short story collection will be released shortly before Christmas as an Amazon Kindle Book. I don't have the exact date yet since I'm still awaiting word from my editor, but rest be assured it will be ready soon. The stories chosen for the collection span my entire writing career; the earliest story being my first ever published piece "Red Pickup" which was written in 2002 and appeared in Black Petals Magazine in 2003, the latest being "The Other Side" which sees publication for the first time.

More information, including pricing, will follow. Also, for those interested, my next novel will be titled Nikki's Secret, and should hopefully be ready for publication this spring.

As always, special thanks to the artist Eric Kiszenia of Phobic Photography Creations for creating such a beautiful cover. His work on this and on Text Message is simply spectacular.

Garden of Evil by Edmund Plante

The seeds had been planted - the harvest would be hell. Seeing the cover and reading this blurb I couldn’t wait to get started on this 1988 novel by Edmund Plante. The description on the back only added to my excitement. An innocent nine year old and her family, a huge seventeen century house, black magic, evil seeds, and a garden of terror -- how could someone like me pass this up? Finding old out of print horror paperbacks like this is what I live for, not because I’m a collector of books (though I do display them), but because I love getting beneath the surface of what the bookstores and publishers tell us to buy. Sure, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Dan Simmons, Clive Barker, F. Paul Wilson, and Brian Lumley (to name a handful of bookstore regulars) are great, and I’ll pretty much gobble up everything they ever write, but it isn’t all that’s out there. For every bestselling title there are hundreds of other lesser known works, some of which are good, some of which are bad, all of which help make up the genre we love. It’s only right that each is given a fair chance by a reader like me. Plus discovering an amazing author that never really got discovered by the public at large yet published dozens of books during their career as a mid-list writer is always fun. It also makes one often wonder how, when the writing is so well done, could an author go unnoticed while others reach celebrity status?

Now I know what you’re probably asking: is Edmund Plante such a great storyteller that he should be ranked amongst the greats I named above? My answer: I don’t know. One book isn’t enough to decide this in my opinion. What I do know is the book kept me entertained throughout and therefore Edmund Plante is an author I would like to read more of. I’m also curious to know if this book was connected to the other advertised title Seed of Evil or was it a stand alone story? Either way I will be taking a look at Seed of Evil as soon as I can get my hands on it, which, naturally, means I will once again be at the mercy of my mailman. Tormenting me without book deliveries is his specialty, but I won’t get into that now. Instead let’s take a little look at Garden of Evil.

Molly Ludden is a smart, but quiet, nine year old, her deafness making her shy due to the cruel jokes fellow school children make at her expense -- jokes that she can’t hear with her ears, but can read upon their lips with her eyes. Actually, Molly is so good at reading lips that her mother, Lana Ludden, often has to look around just to make sure Molly isn’t watching if she ever wants to communicate something in private to her husband Steve. Happy and successful, the family enjoys their life together until one fateful day when Steve learns from his estranged sister Shelly that their mother is dying. Knowing he needs to be at her side for this, Steve takes the family to his childhood home. There his mother informs him that she is leaving the house to both her children, a decision that causes turmoil because Lana and Shelly get in a pissing match over the place. Had it just been Steve he would have sold his half to Shelly without any questions, his hated of the house, and the long commute from it to the restaurant he owns, making the decision a no brainer. Lana wants it, however, and, wanting to make her happy, Steve agrees to stay. In the midst of all this Molly has planted four gardens from a box of odd seeds she discovered in the basement. Unfortunately Molly doesn’t realize the horror she and her family will face because of this. The first victim is her cat, but it won’t be the last. An evil greater than anything nature could ever create was lying dormant within those seeds and now that it is free it will do everything within its power to survive.

A fast and easy read, Garden of Evil by Edmund Plante is a novel I would recommend to horror fans, though only to the type who don’t require a full and detailed explanation for why certain things happen. The reason I say this is because several little things occur with the various flowers that seem important at the time, but then just kind of get left behind once the final horror of the garden is revealed. With that final horror there is a brief explanation as to why everything was happening, but it still left several questions unanswered. For instance why did ravenous maggot-like insects appear in one garden? Why did the overwhelming aroma from another garden’s flowers cause some people to hallucinate that they were being killed? Why and how did a plant subdue a person enough to suck blood from their face? Why did some flowers grant wishes at night? And why, by god, did each garden grow at a different time, almost as if each one was a step toward the final garden unleashing its ultimate horror? If there was a reason for this I would have liked to have known what it was, because without an explanation, or a real solid connection, it kind of felt like a cheap filler to beef up the total page number of the novel. Like I said, though, it was still entertaining. It also kept me guessing. For those that can’t enjoy something that doesn’t have a full explanation, however, this probably wouldn’t be a good choice. Last but not least, if you don’t like a book that depicts a seemingly smart woman making really stupid decisions that puts her family in jeopardy -- even after realizing something horrible and unexplainable is going on -- then this wouldn’t be a good selection. At one point I actually tossed the book onto the coffee table in disgust because of this woman, the words what an idiot leaving my lips.

Oh, one last thing before I close. Does anyone know if the novel Seed of Evil is some sort of prequel to this book, or if the two are connected in anyway? Nothing on or in this edition of the book suggests that, but given the two titles, and the sense that there could have been a bigger back story to the evil, I feel the possibility of this being the case is pretty strong. If so this wouldn’t be the first time a publisher has failed to note this with books I have read despite the greater level of understanding that would have been had if the books were read in the correct order. Any insight into this would be much appreciated.

TEXT MESSAGE - Book Cover Changes

The other day my book cover artist, Eric Kiszenia, made some small changes to the TEXT MESSAGE cover. These changes came about as I was discussing ideas with him via Facebook on what the cover of my newest writing project SCRAPING THE BONE would look like. Together we decided the title of TEXT MESSAGE and my name needed to be closer together. He also went ahead and made both bigger in size and added some white beneath the letters of TEXT MESSAGE to make it look like the title was being projected outward a bit. All in all I think the changes look really good and hopefully will be a bit more eye catching as readers browse the Amazon horror and suspense sections. Of course this isn't to say I was unhappy with the original cover -- I was actually blown away with how good it was when the first draft was sent to me back in November -- but the more I looked at it the more I felt something was a bit off. Now, I don't feel that way. It looks perfect to me. What do you all think?

OLD COVER                                                                        NEW COVER

Now, for anyone that is interested in TEXT MESSAGE it is the tale of a girl named Mallory who goes to a Chicago area mall with her little sister a few days before Christmas for some last minute boyfriend shopping. Not long into the shopping Mallory gets a text from her little sisters phone that reads: I HAVE YOUR SISTER. DO EXACTLY AS I SAY OR I’LL KILL HER. After that Mallory must do everything within her power to find her sister, a task that grows more and more dangerous as the day turns to night and the mall's closing time gets closer and closer. The question is will the "game" continue after the mall shuts down and if so how will Mallory go about being unnoticed by security as she attempts to hide herself within?

Guest Post: Stephen King’s Most Frightening Book: The Long Walk

What’s the most frightening book Stephen King has ever written? I posted this question a while back as a possible “Guest Post” topic, my feeling being that if thirty people were asked it wouldn’t be unreasonable to think thirty different book titles could be offered up. Here is what Michele, the writer behind the wonderful site The Girl Who Loves Horror had to say:

I can't count how many times I've heard this response from people when I've disclosed the fact that Stephen King is my favorite author: "Oh, I don't like reading him. He's too scary!" I usually either just scoff and tell that person that he or she is a weenie, or fruitlessly try to explain that King's work is really more character-driven than most believe. But it seems like King will never be able to escape his fame as an author who only writes about "scary stuff."
Of the 30+ King novels I've read - not to mention countless short stories - I must admit that I've never been truly frightened or scared by the scenarios he has created. It's more difficult to create true terror in me from a book rather than a movie, where you have visuals and sound to heighten the tension. However, there is one book of King's that seems to have amazing power over me, and just what book that is might be a surprise.

Maybe authors don't like to hear that they wrote their best work several decades ago, but I am convinced that King's most fascinating book is the very first novel he ever wrote. No, not Carrie - years before that was published, King had written another novel while he was a freshman at college. Published in 1979 under King's pseudonym Richard Bachman, The Long Walk is a tale unlike any other.

Though the story of The Long Walk is a simple one, and the pain endured by the characters is far less than what people in King's other works have endured, for some reason this book always gets to me. I believe this might be because that while reading The Long Walk, you can't help but put yourself in the characters' shoes and therefore you feel every ounce of their pain.

The book takes place during an unknown period of time where the government has instituted a horrendous competition known as The Long Walk. One hundred teenage boys participate in the event where the objective is simply to out-walk all the others until there is only one winner. The winner receives The Prize - whatever you want for the rest of your life. There are rules in The Long Walk, though. You must walk at a rate of at least 4 miles per hour. Drop below 4 mph and you receive a warning. Receive three warnings within an hour and you are eliminated from The Long Walk. Elimination, however, comes in the form of death - being shot dead by military personnel following the walkers on halftracks.

The Long Walk can be seen as one of King's most frightening books, at least to me, because the enemy that these teenagers face is not external but internal. Their fear is not the soldiers with high-powered rifles per se but themselves, for it is their ability to go on and continue walking that can save their lives. But that feat is not as easy at it sounds. The difference between life and death for them is as simple and as difficult as putting one foot in front of the other. By the end of the novel, the remaining competitors have walked hundreds of miles - from Maine near the US/Canadian border to 40 miles outside of Boston - over a period of about five days. Five days of continuous walking with no breaks for sleep. Think about the last time you walked for any long period of time. I recently traveled to New York City where walking everywhere is what New Yorkers are used to, but not me! After the first day I had blisters on my feet and was thoroughly worn out. But I could stop and rest any time I wanted to without fear that that short period of relief would have the consequence of a bullet in my head.

The main character of the book is "Maine's Own" Ray Garraty, number 47. It is his thoughts and feelings that we are most privy too, although the descriptions of the actions of other characters also gives examples of the mental and physical anguish that is a result of The Long Walk. Several boys go insane after their minds become so disconnected from their bodies and the unbearable pain they are in. One main character, Barkovitch, has probably the most violent death when he goes crazy and rips out his own throat. Most succumb to the extreme physical conditions caused by the walking and being exposed to the elements all day and night - cramps and charley horses, fatigue, sunstroke, convulsions, pneumonia, diarrhea, and even appendicitis.

Every time I read this book I can’t help but imagine that instead of just sitting on my butt the whole time reading that I am actually walking with boys. I wonder just how long I could last in a competition like that. After a certain point there would no doubt be immense pain and fatigue, but could my mind overcome all that so that I could keep going and survive? The truth is probably not. I wouldn't even choose to participate in The Long Walk to start with, no matter how big the prize. It is rumored among the walkers that most of those who win The Long Walk don't survive for too long after the event anyway.

Another frightening thing about the competition is the fact that it even exists. It is no clandestine operation by the government - thousands of people show up to watch the event and billions of dollars are exchanged betting on who the winner will be. But what could the overall purpose of this event be? And, knowing the slim probability of survival, who would volunteer to participate? That is the issue that most of the walkers struggle with. Some admit that they didn't believe that "buying your ticket" really meant death, while Stebbins (Garraty's biggest competitor) is convinced that all of the boys have a subconscious death wish, and that's why they entered. Can things really be so bad in the world of this book that sixteen-year-olds would want to die? If that thought isn't enough to convince you how frightening this book is, then I don't know what is.

No other book invokes more feelings of sympathy for the characters for me than The Long Walk. The situation that these young men are in is one that absolutely terrifies me because I know that there is no way I would be able to push myself that hard, even if it meant my own survival. Being in control of your own demise is harder than it being in the control of others because it relies on your own strength as a person. I think many people would admit that they are perhaps not as strong as some of the boys in this book.

A Quick Thought by William: Anyone else surprised by the choice? I was, initially. I read the book back in high school and didn’t really think much of it (not in a bad way, just an ‘okay, another King book under my belt way’ since I was gobbling them up like candy at the time). Now, having just read Michele’s thoughts, I want to go back and look at the book again because she described it in a way that brought to light many things I didn’t really notice the first time around, things that I believe will make me appreciate the book more.

My Amazon Kindle Publishing Experience: November 2011

I must say, this little Amazon Kindle experiment of mine has turned out to be one of the best writing decisions I have ever made. As they did in October, sales of my novel JIMMY continued to grow, each week’s total topping the previous week’s total. The only exception to this was during the final week of November, which saw sales matching the previous week’s sales (I’d like to think Thanksgiving played a part, but really have no way of knowing why). Making this outcome even more satisfying was that I did raise the price of the novel from $0.99 to $1.99 on November first, a decision that came after several days of careful thought and calculation. Fear that such an increase in price would kill the upward momentum of sales the novel was experiencing was present during this decision making process, but it didn’t last very long once November got started. Not only did sales continue to grow, they actually doubled. This in turn kept JIMMY near the 5,000 sales ranking for most of the month. Every now and then it would even dip down into the 3,000 rankings, which, needless to say, always brought excitement to my mind. Now I can’t help but wonder if the novel will not only dip lower than the 3,000 ranking at some point, but have a monthly average ranking that stays below 5,000. Only time will tell.

November also saw the release of my second novel TEXT MESSAGE. Originally when publishing JIMMY on the Amazon Kindle I wasn’t sure if this would be something I did with future novels or if JIMMY would be a one time thing. The reason for publishing JIMMY was simple; I was tired of submitting it to publishers that told me they loved it but never ended up publishing it due to the subject matter (a years worth of time usually having gone by during this process). The final straw (kind of) was my experience with Dorchester Publishing. Not only did they love it, they wanted it; though only after having me rewrite over a third of the novel (which, in hindsight, was the right thing to do). By the time these rewrites were finished Dorchester’s editing staff had been let go and the company looked like it was on the verge of bankruptcy. Had JIMMY not been my first novel I might have been able to shift publishing companies easily, but once again JIMMY started to get the ‘we love it but can’t publish it responses’, so, after nearly another year of this, I decided to upload it myself just to see what would happen. INSTANT BESTSELLER! Well, no. JIMMY didn’t meet with immediate success; however, it didn’t take a nose dive either. Instead it just sold a few copies everyday, the number steadily increasing as one month turned into two months and then into three months. Once October came around it was up to about 80 to 90 sales a week, and the feedback was mostly positive (every now and then a negative review would be posted somewhere, but that is always bound to happen). Because of this I decided my next novel TEXT MESSAGE, which was finished in late September, would go straight to Kindle. I also started to toy around with the idea of releasing a short story collection of previously published and original stories, but didn’t want to seriously focus on that until I had everything ready to go on TEXT MESSAGE (book cover, layout, editors feedback, first reader feedback, etc).

Now, given the success that JIMMY has been experiencing I thought TEXT MESSAGE might start off a little better, but like with JIMMY, its first few weeks were slow, but steady. The feedback, however, has been pretty impressive -- it even got a 5 star customer review its first weekend, which blew me away -- so I’m pretty confident the novel will succeed. I’m also pretty confident that keeping the novels as e-books only, and not printing paperback versions myself for purchase is the right things to do because it keeps the possibility of a future printing deal with a traditional publisher intact. Making such a deal is my ultimate goal and something I am going to start looking into once the short story collection is released.