Posted on by ajbrown

Autumn Christian’s A Gentle Hell and Other Notes

A Gentle Hell is comprised of four dark speculative stories of quiet tension and uncomfortable nostalgia, written for deformed children and girls that dream of demons.

What People Are Saying About A Gentle Hell

Christian’s writing is melancholy and sorrowful and full of depth, like rich soil that grows strange, poisonous flowers… Highly recommended.

Christian’s writing is enigmatic, yet crystal-clear. I suppose the best way to describe it would be “poetic”. Her images are unusually constructed, but they are never nebulous. Her horror is definitely unsettling, but not necessarily gory. The horror in these stories comes from within the characters; a quiet desperation at the numb bare facts of human existence.

Autumn Christian has the voice of one intelligent and colorful author… This is thought provoking stuff. Stories about relationships and the inner workings of character’s heads make up these tales… Christian’s horror comes in more like an after thought, as something that is just part of these characters’ lives now and they just have to adapt to it… She’s the Pinhead of writing: articulate and restrained, but powerful.

Christian’s work reads almost like prose poetry. The imagery is lush, the metaphors subtle, and the atmosphere of dread constructed with skill and flair. These stories will stand a second reading, a third, a fourth, as readers peel back each layer of meaning. This is the Thinking Person’s Horror at its finest.

About Autumn Christian

Autumn Christian is a horror writer who lives in the dark woods of the southern United States with poisonous blue flowers in her backyard and a set of polished cow skulls on her mantel.

Excerpt from They Promised Dreamless Death one of the tales within <IA Gentle Hell

My brother continued to stand at the foot of my bed advertising for the machines in the hours when he used to sleep.

“Come and join us,” he said, like some phantom whispering fang-seductive from the other side of the living dead railroad tracks. “We have several easy payment plans for your evisceration. We take all major credit cards. All your friends are doing it. What do you really have to offer the world in your consciousness anyways? Nobody will miss you. Why is it so difficult for you to acquiesce, sir? Are you following some self-righteous religious creed, sir? Is that why you can’t suck it up, lie back, and blow your head out of the water, sir?”

I think that while the world is sleeping a new entity will enter our universe, like a thief in the night, creep over our head fog, and take away our bodies and our space, infiltrate our energy and our nightmarescapes. If the world ever wakes, I don’t think it will ever know what it used to be.

Want more?

Why wouldn’t you?

You can find A Gentle Hell at Amazon, HERE

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Also, you can get Autumn’s book, The Crooked God Machine, described as a dystopian horror novel, HERE.

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Charles lives on the black planet, a place where plague machines terrorize citizens with swarms of locusts and rivers of blood, salesmen sell sleep in the form of brain implants, and God appears on the television every night to warn of the upcoming apocalypse. When Charles meets Leda, a woman who claims to have escaped from hell, he begins to suspect that the black planet is not at all what it appears to be. After Leda disappears, Charles sets out to find her with help from his stripper ex-girlfriend, the deadhead Jeanine. Along the way he will uncover the truth of the origins of the black planet, and discover the source of the mysterious voice that calls to Leda from the ocean waves.

Interviews and Whatnots

Say Hello to Autumn Christian

Author Spotlight with Autumn Christian

Autumn Christian Talks About A Gentle Hell and Other Things

How We Suffer Autumn Christian at Dark Continents Publishing

Some Difficulties in Being a Female Horror Writer Guest Blog at Exquisite Corpse

Autumn’s Blog: I Wasn’t Dreaming

Autumn at Twitter: @autumnxtian

Autumn at Facebook: Autumn Christian

Posted on by ajbrown

Suzanne Robb’s Were-wolves, Apocalypses and Genetic Mutations, Oh My! and Other Notes

In Suzanne Robb’s three story collection, Were-wolves, Apocalypses, and Genetic Mutation, Oh My! you get three tales with elements of sci-fi, horror, comedy, and one giant cannibalistic squirrel, among other creatures…

What People Are Saying about Were-wolves, Apocalypses, and Genetic Mutation, Oh My!

Suzanne has a knack for realistic dialogue that allows you to get comfortable inside her characters’ skins… All three tales were fun and shocking in places…

If the words clever, diverse, well-written and funny appeal to you in a story, buy this book… I laughed out loud often, and escaped quite happily into the imagination of this wonderful writer. Money is well-spent on this collection!

The three pieces each have Robb’s easy-going writing style which is great to lose yourself in straight off the bat, yet the stories have very differing directions…

Welcome To The Future was definitely a five star story, and one that every sci-fi fan should read. I would love to see a movie made based on this tale…

If you don’t already have “Were-wolves, Apocalypses, and Genetic Mutation, Oh My!” on your Kindle, then you need to go buy it. Now. Right this second. It’s a ridiculously quick and witty read that will have you thinking about it well after you’ve finished… Once again Robb shines with her ability to portray humanity accurately… creates realistic characters who act just like real people. They make mistakes, they have epiphanies, and they feel a wide range of emotions. It is a true testament to her abilities as an author that Robb can do all of this in so few pages.

Suzanne’s characters are quirky and fun… I laughed out loud at points in all of the stories…

Suzanne Robb seems to have a clear goal in mind with Werewolves, Apocalypses, and Genetic Mutations, Oh My!, taking things we’re all used to and mixing them up in ways no one yet has, adding new life to them… had not heard of Robb before this collection but upon reading it, I can’t wait to read what else this very talented author has done…

You can tell that Robb had a lot of fun writing these stories, and that sense of fun is infectious. Imaginative and fast-paced (giant carnivorous squirrels, anyone?), this is a collection for readers who like a generous helping of humor with their horror.

About Suzanne Robb

Suzanne Robb is the author of Z-Boat, released by Twisted Library Press, and Were-wolves, Apocalypses, and Genetic Mutation, Oh My! published by Dark Continents.. She has over 4 dozen stories in current and upcoming anthologies with various publishers. She is also a contributing editor at Hidden Thoughts Press. In March Wicked East Press will be releasing Read the End First, an apocalyptic anthology she edited with Adrian Chamberlin. In her free time she reads, watches movies, plays with her dog, and enjoys chocolate and LEGO’s.

Excerpt from Were-wolves, Apocalypses, and Genetic Mutation, Oh My!

For the rest of the month, Jimmy showered Mary with gifts. All the while, he noticed his chest and arm hair growing uncontrollably. He’d had more wax jobs than a sixty-five corvette, and it didn’t help one bit. More and more dogs followed him, and at one point, several humped his leg.

One night out of the blue, he got an urge to run. He needed to be free. Jimmy lied to Mary, telling her he was heading into work to cover a shift for a friend. He raced to the park. Seconds after sunset, a pain like no other spread throughout his body.

He used what little bit of energy he had to fling himself behind a bush as he felt bones snap and heard skin tear. Across from him, he saw a wolf, a bit of its ear gone. The animal howled in pain as its fur separated and revealed a human rib cage forming.

Jimmy felt his mouth elongate and cried out when fangs grew through the roof of his mouth. The wolf howled when its hind legs elongated to five times their normal length and all its fur fell off in a bloody mess.

When his tail grew in, Jimmy tried to ignore the discomfort. He stared at the man across from him, with a chunk missing from his ear. He knew it was the wolf that bit him, but it didn’t make sense.

The man hobbled around the ground like a baby, seeming unsure how to walk upright. The noises it made were pathetic, but when Jimmy opened his mouth to try and calm it down, a deep growl emanated from somewhere deep within him.

The man wolf stopped moving and sneered. The pathetic whimper which came out did nothing to scare Jimmy. The two circled one another. Jimmy focused his thoughts. There was a squirrel a few feet away, a rabbit about twenty feet to his left, and a dead bird lay somewhere nearby causing him to crinkle his nose at the nasty smell.

A strange mumbling to his right caused him to back up into the bushes. The wolf-man stayed beside him.

Want more?

You know you do.

To pick up a copy of Were-wolves, Apocalypses, and Genetic Mutation, Oh My! head on over to Amazon, HERE

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You can pick up Z-Boat by following the highlighted link.

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Also, check out Suzanne’s blog, Ramblings of An Anxiety Ridden Mind to find out what’s new in her world.

Suzanne Robb on Facebook

Follow her on Twitter: @srobb76

Interviews

A Few Moments with Suzanne Robb at This is My World

A Peek Inside the Chaotic Mind of Coral Moore with Suzanne Robb

Suzanne Robb at The Writers Block Party

Posted on by ajbrown

Matthew Tait’s Slander Hall and Other Notes

Fifteen years ago the affluent gated-community of Slander Hall was the setting of the largest mass suicide in U.S history, dozens of men and women committing the ultimate sacrifice and embracing the covenant of their leader to shed their bodies for a life in outer space. Now a modern ghost town, it boasts only the decaying and derelict phantoms of a withered populace. Cedar Jarrell, sole survivor of the holocaust that claimed so many, returns to the dark heart of Slander Hall on a final pilgrimage where not all who take the journey will survive…

What people are saying about Slander Hall

Dropping directly into the meat of the novella, Matthew Tait wastes no time bringing his readers completely up to speed within a few paragraphs… ‘Slander Hall’ has a cinematic feel to it; eagerly grasping the reader by the hand, it’s like watching an intense movie unfold.

Crafted like a cross between a classic ghost story and twist on Silent Hill, this haunting and well-written tale takes you to the edges of the madness in your own mind… Well-written and pacy, the story will haunt you for many days (or even weeks) after you read it.

… a great turn of phrase, a literary frolic and a grotesque elegance. Yes, despite the more artistic delivery in places, many splatter writers should sit up and take notice…

… stirs in some thoughtful social commentary on the subjects of suicide and doomsday cults, and serves up a tasty and satisfying dish….

About Matthew Tait

Matthew Tait was born in Australia in 1977. Like many writers he has held far too many jobs, including co-managing a video store. And although it seems a prerequisite for any writer, he’s played rhythm guitar in a few bands as well.

From 2005 until its closure in 2011, Matthew was an assistant editor for the award-winning Australian news and literary criticism zine, HORRORSCOPE. He currently writes for HELLNOTES.

The first story in his collection Ghosts In a Desert World was awarded a recommendation from the Australian Horror Writers Association.

Among his influences are Clive Barker, and the late, great Richard Laymon.

Tait’s new novel, Slander Hall, was published in January of 2012 by Dark Continents Publishing.

Excerpt From Slander Hall

Cedar felt cold. He had not expected developments this early in the game.

Sephera asked: ‘Are you people seeing this?’

Now fully within the glare of his torch, a humanoid figure walked implacably toward them. Then it stopped. It scrutinized the group through eyes that didn’t appear to be human, twin ovals that were slanted and black. It stood on skinny posterior legs that arched slightly, enough to give it a semblance of humanity. A bulbous head stood atop a naked torso and midriff with flesh the color of yellow cheese.

Time canted for the briefest of moments, as if the five of them were mere models encased in a paperweight scene and being shaken. The space between this creature and his little group could be no more than fifty meters, yet Cedar could feel from that meager distance a bubble of air as thick and palpable as fluid. Whatever this thing was, it had presence… a malignancy that started in its eyes and radiated through the tainted air.

He tried to speak, but found no speech forthcoming.

‘We should back away,’ Sephera whispered, saving him the trouble. ‘Something’s not right. Everybody move toward the right. That small lane that angles between the fence.’

Gordana let out a little whimper. ‘Something’s definitely not right. That thing isn’t even human.’

‘What is it?’ Philip said.

As if the creature had heard the question and felt the need to respond, it suddenly sprang into a lurching gait, fixing them with its huge eyes. Closing the already short distance, Cedar could see they were haunted – almost predatory. When it moved, its body made a writhing motion utterly out of proportion to its anatomy, and it was this more than anything that finally got them moving. With Cedar taking the lead, they began to back away by slow degrees toward the skinny lane. Philip was no longer transfixed; turning his back on the creature, he broke into a full-tilt run.

Want more?

Sure you do. You can pick up Slander Hall at Amazon: HERE

If you’d like to follow Matthew Tait, I’ve done the stalking for you:

Twitter: @MatthewStait
Blog: Different Masks
Facebook: Matthew Tate

Other Works

Ghosts In a Desert World

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