April 23

Slaughter by Marcus F. Griffin

If E.B. White and Roald Dahl wrote an adult novel together, it might end up looking something like Slaughter by Marcus F. Griffin.

It’s 1941 and the rural farms of Indiana and Kentucky are abuzz with the story of Slaughter, the colt favored to win the Kentucky Derby — perhaps even the Triple Crown. But to down-on-his-luck farmer Harold, Slaughter’s race is more. To begin with, it’ll decide whether he keeps his farm or loses it to the bank. There’s a lot more going on at the farm than Slaughter’s race though. Two entwined tales of personal spirals into madness are linked into one novel about how the past – and lives around us we often don’t even see – haunt us…Read the full review at Dark Scribe Magazine.

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April 20

Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder

Reviewed for Monster Librarian. com

Harlequin, 2010

ISBN: 978-0373210060

Available: New after April 1, 2010

In Trella’s world, things are black and white. She is Inside. Outside is a mythical place that doesn’t exist, a tool used to control her and her fellow Lowers, scrubs who are jam packed into large dorms, fed slop, and endlessly doing the most menial jobs. Above them are the Uppers, people the Lowers aren’t allowed to interact with, who live comfortable lives in families that serve as overseers of Inside. Trella is Queen of the Pipes, a pipe cleaner who finds more of a home in the maze of heating and air ducts than with her fellow scrubs. It’s this reputation that draws her into a plot by Broken Man, a paralyzed prophet from the Uppers. Trella doesn’t believe him, until she finds the discs he smuggled from the computer systems, discs that hold the location to the Gateway, the way Outside.

Inside Out is a very well-spun science fiction tale, in the spirit of Bradbury, Huxley and Orwell. Snyder creates an uncomfortable, overcrowded, paranoid and repressed society with far too many questions than answers and plenty of conspiracy. This is no ordinary YA Harlequin novel, rather, it’s a new dystopian tale for a new generation of readers. Inside Out walks a razor’s edge between stifling readers with its dystopian elements and offering hope of change, and answers to all the questions it raises. There is a love story, but it is by far not the focus of the story. The weight of Inside Out is on the people themselves, the crew of rebels and faceless scrubs, with their surprising depth and drive.

Inside Out is absolutely a must read for speculative fiction fans, a valuable addition to public and private collections and easily has wide spread appeal for capturing adult and teen audiences. Easy to digest, modern and designed to appeal to teens, Inside Out would also be an excellent tool in classrooms to teach the concepts traditionally learned through books like Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, and 1984.

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April 16

More writing news

‘

And the Table of Contents in case you missed it:

“Black Hole Sun” by Alethea Kontis & Kelli Dunlap
“For Restful Death I Cry” by Geoffrey Girard
“Tasting Green Grass” by Elaine Blose
“Endangered” by Robby Sparks
“Nostalgia” by Gene O’Neill
“Beautiful Girl” by Angeline Hawkes
“Father’s Flesh, Mother’s Blood” by Aliette De Bodard
“Terra Tango 3″ by James Reilly
“Love Kills” by Gill Ainsworth
“Memories of Hope City” by Maggie Jamison
“Do You Want That in Blonde, Brunette, or Auburn” by Glenn Lewis Gillette
“Marketing Proposal” by Sarah M. Harvey
“The Monastery of the Seven Hands” by Natania Barron
“A Futile Gesture Toward Truth” by Paul Jessup
“Hydraulic” by Ekaterina Sedia
“Alien Spaces” by Deb Taber
“Virtual Babies” by Maurice Broaddus
“Personal Jesus” by Jennifer Pelland
“Meat World” by Michele Lee

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April 15

Writing News

#1

I sold my short story “Men in the Moon” to the Greek magazine 9. This of course means I can stop embarrassing myself and amusing editors with the unfortunately uncommon submission typo “Men in the Mood”.

#2

Art and full table of contents for Horror Library volume 4 has been announced. I’m very pleased to be part of this one.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Into The After – Kurt Dinan

Ghosts Under Glass – Tracie McBride

Ash Wednesday – Lorne Dixon

Santa Maria – Jeff Cercone

Dreamcatcher – Nate Kenyon

Sporting the Waters of the Bermuda Triangle – Greggard Penance

To Judge the Quick – Hank Schwaeble

Driving Deep into the Night – Harrison Howe

In The Red – Charles Colyott

Skin – Kim Despins

Drain Bamage – Jeff Strand

Guardians – Tom Brennan

God’s Work – Matt Bain

Sleepless Eyes – Tim Waggoner

Flicker – Lee Thomas

Jammers – Bentley Little

The Fishing of Dahlia – Ennis Drake

What Once Was a Man – Michele Lee

Mourning with the Bones of the Dead – Gerard Houarner

Final Draft – Mark Worthen

I Am Vision, I Am Death – Erik Williams

The Healing Hands of Reverend Wainwright – Geoffrey L. Mudge

Testaville, Ohio – M. Alan Ford

Stone – Catherine MacLeod

Campbell’s Pond – Brian Knight

All Dead – JG Faherty

Exegesis of the Insecta Apocrypha – Colleen Anderson

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April 14

Hell Fire by Ann Aguirre

Corine Solomon Book #2

ISBN: 9780451463241

I bought this book.

It’s no secret that science fiction and fantasy often strives to be socially relevant, to a make a point about our future, our society or just the human penchant for quests and underdogs. Often slipping through the cracks of those books deemed of literary merit, urban fantasy at its worst is considered a pornographic bestiary with a bitchy female lead. At its best though urban fantasy is becoming a microcosm, where the rest of the genre is a wide angled view, focusing on how people deal with tragedy, often amplified by supernatural complications to the already dark nature of the world.

On the surface Ann Aguirre’s latest UF novel, Hell Fire (book two in her Corine Solomon series) is the story of a woman torn between two men who travels home to find the truth about her mother’s tragic death. Underneath it’s a story about being unable to go home again and trying to face down trauma and emotions themselves in an effort to gain justice at best, and control at the least. The complication of Hell Fire is that Corine isn’t just trying to figure out what evil lurks in the small (and, mysteriously, completely unknown) town she grew up in, she’s trying to fight her own overwhelming emotional tempest when it comes to her mother’s murder and her upraising. There’s also the fact that literally everything in Kilmer is working against Corine and her crew, and she starts the book so far out of the loop of the plot that for a while she has to grab at strings and bear through grim and vague warnings instead of proper clues.

Compared to the break neck speed of the mystery in many urban fantasies, and the heavy traditional romantic tone to others, readers stuck in a rut that demands a speedy, linear, clues-falling-into-the-hero’s-lap plot and a resolution to the romance right now will find less enjoyment in Corine’s stories than others. Readers should also be prepared for some heavy horror influences, in the form of creepy lost-in-the-woods scenes and a more sinister monster than today’s vampires and werewolves offer. But if you love in urban fantasy why I do, the tales of ordinary and not-so-ordinary people dealing with both personal tragedy and a world spiraling out of control under the influence of the unpredictable addition of magic and magical beasties, then you’ll find Hell Fire emotional, dark, heroic and an excellent read.

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