The Final Countdown

This is my last week at work. My last Monday. Very bittersweet. I have a lot to do and very little time to do it. I just hope this all works out in the end. At the end of the day on Friday I'll be freelance with no guarantee of work. I've reached out to several companies aside from DC and hope that some of them reach back.

Horror Stories: A Macabre Collection Out now for the KINDLE!

Look what's available for your Kindle…Horror Stories: A Macabre Collection

And please let me know what you think of the cover. I haven't heard from anyone yet.

Horror Stories: A Macabre Collection Book Cover

Hey Gang, here's a look at my latest endeavor… it's for a collection of some of my horror stories. I'll let yall know when it's available. Till then, maybe you can let me know what you think of the cover. I tried to make it more of a typical mainstream book cover. I'm still experimenting with what works and doesn't work as far as selling my books. Is this a good direction? A bad direction? Indifferent? Thanks, hope yall enjoy.

This morning's bus adventure

So this asshole sits next to me on the bus with some club music bumpin' in his ear buds. I thought I was in for a ride, but then he turned it down and I read for a bit, and then fell asleep. All was well.

Abandon All Sleep

Gone is the dream of a ghost

The ghost that solidifies in plain sight

Gone is the dream of a night

where sleep is peaceful and bloodless

Guilt is an alarm clock, incessantly beeping

In dreams my life shatters like empty bottles

I've done something terrible

the puzzle pieces painted in crimson still wet to the touch

The pillows accept my return with a resolve

a return to the night to set right the intangible wrongs

sleep won't take me, abandoned and restless

eyes turn to the ceiling for another restless night

Lakewood Memorial Book Review

I’d first become aware of Robert R. Best via his All Kinds of Things Kill podcast, and really enjoyed it. I had also been listening to The Library of the Living Dead Press for quite some time. So when the library put out his first novel, Lakewood Memorial, I was fairly stoked, although hesitant to shell out my cold hard cash. I also didn’t want to jump into what was being called a trilogy unless I knew for sure it would happen. So the follow up to Lakewood, Ashton Memorial became available a few months ago. I knew it was time. Then Christmas came and so did my Kindle. I downloaded a ton of samples, some I read through and some I couldn’t be bothered to finish. Needless to say I ran through Lakewood Memorial and wasn’t disappointed.

It was written with a break neck pacing and focused on the things I love about the horror, and more specifically zombie, end of fiction. It had action, plenty of bloodshed, some realistic scenarios, and a dosage of some unrealistic ones as well. I could relate to the characters. I could relate to being a kid, essentially alone at home, at being stuck with a sibling and a babysitter that wasn’t entirely necessary.

For a first time novelist, and this is barely a novel length wise, I thought Best did a great job with the characters and setting. The hospital could’ve ended up being cliché and flat, but really came through as far as setting the mood for the story. The plot was good, simple, but effective and more than sufficient to drive the story along.

There were some things I could’ve done with out; the bathroom escape comes to mind which really asked for a large suspension of disbelief, but I could go with it. The grammatical errors were fairly distracting but the single most detracting aspect of this book was it’s formatting. This may not be true for its print counterpart, but the download for my kindle was terrible. There were line breaks in between sentences throughout the book. There were rarely any indents, and paragraphs were smashed together. It was a mess, and for something so simple to fix I have to wonder if Best or the Library gave it a second glance before hitting the publish button. I do hope they upload a revised file and clean it up, because Lakewood Memorial is a really fun hell ride through zombie town. But oh, well, for the great price of 2.99 you can go ahead and buy and touch up the formatting on your own via whatever word processor you have. Its easy enough to do, and will really shine up this gem.

Regardless, I look forward to reading Ashton Memorial, and watching author Robert R. Best hone his craft. Lakewood Memorial is a great start to a zombie trilogy and I think he has the chops to come through on the follow up, I just hope the formatting can get straightened out. Hell, I’ll do it for them.