Lisa Knight's Blog, page 29
December 9, 2014
GUEST PUBLICATION SPOTLIGHT: Blackfriars Bestiary – 2.0 – Otona-Kawaii “love the world” by VOCODER starring Jacob Milnestein
—the ocean.
Immaculate black sand, immaculate crystal seas; immaculate white teeth.
“You took your time.”
She turned and realised abruptly how uncertain on her feet she was, her knuckles white as she clutched hold of the handles of her Louis Vuitton bag.
Ami jumped gracefully down from the rock upon which she had been sitting, smoothing down her skirt with her long fingers.
“This isn’t one of those cartoons you might have watched,” she chided, “there’s no big revelation here, no choice to make based on what you’ve learnt so far.”
She paused, hesitating for a moment, “Well, maybe not the big revelations and choices you were expecting, at any rate.” Yui stammered, an awkward sound rising from her throat, the words unforthcoming.
With disinterest, Ami strolled passed her, heels sinking down into the soft black sand as she passed, making each step more exaggerated than it should have been.
She reached the shore and crouched down, searching in the surf with her fingers.
“Y-You’re dead,” Yui finally said.
From the sea, Ami pulled out a small, smooth pebble.
“I know,” her former friend answered with a sigh, “crushed by a ton of shit when a robot fell on Nakano Broadway.” She pulled back her arm and tossed the stone, sending it skipping out across the calm waves.
“Sucks, huh?”
“W-Why am I here?” Yui stammered. “A-Am I dead too?”
Ami nodded.
“Spot on as always, Yui. Something just snuffed out the beat of your heart like the flickering flame of a candle.” She turned slowly to regard the older woman. “The difference is you don’t have to stay dead. I do.”
Do you want to read more? Follow this link for a FREE copy of Blackfriars Bestiary via Smashwords
GUEST POST: BENTO BOX 15 (PUBLISHED BY MYSTERIA PRESS)
Click HERE TO GET YOURSELF A FREE COPY OF THIS ANTHOLOGY
HAIRY HANDS by Josh Reynolds
THE WARRIOR FROM OUT OF THE SKY by Adrian J Watts
WOOLY FERN by Janie Cannarella
ALUAKI VS SMILODON by Matthew J Barbour
SNOW SHARKS by Zachary Houle
THE VISITOR by Matthew Wilson
GREEN WALLPAPER by DJ Tyrer
NEVER SEEK TO TELL THY LOVE by Geoffrey Parsons
MISSING by Sean P Chatterton
FIVE HUNDRED YEARS LATER By Guy T Martland
LUNA’S WAY- PART 2 by Louise M Hart
THE ROACH – BELOW THE BOTTOM: PART 3 by Robbie Lizhini
MAMMOTH: PART 5 by Jon Olson
ARIANA By E.N De Choudens
Click HERE TO GET YOURSELF A FREE COPY OF THIS ANTHOLOGY
POETRY: I TAKE THAT WANK BACK BY PAUL TRISTRAM
What the Hell did I ever see in you?
Love is blind, but Lust is ridiculous.
I am ashamed of myself…sickened.
I definitely need to learn some self-control.
Flattery is often sycophantic
and ignoring that is just stupid.
I wasn’t looking at your ass
through rose-tinted spectacles
they were massive ‘Fuck Off’ beer-goggles.
I feel like cutting off my own dick
and beating my crazy head with it.
You are vile inside, a predator
with a spiteful twist running through
your darkened soul like cancer.
‘Ych a fi, you dirty mochyn!’
as they say back home in Wales.
The next time I see you
I’m going to cringe, laugh and shake
my head… mostly at my ludicrous self.
Written by Paul Tristram
December 7, 2014
SPOTLIGHT: VOICES FROM A COMA – ISSUE TWO – SIPHON BY KERRY LIPP
YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT FOR FREE FROM SMASHWORDS
The Zombie Blackmailers of Panocadia Three by Dave Fragments
The Train Set by Matthew Wilson
The Chalice by Paul Melhuish
Sylvia’s Pictures by DJ Tyrer
Burned Toast by Michael McGlade
Mum’s the Word by Bryn Fortey
Siphon by Kerry Lipp
Edited by Shaun AJ Hamilton
Artwork by Iestyn Rhobet
“Miss Pieta. This is an emergency. I’ve never seen anything like this before, and you should be here or at least send someone. This is absolutely worth your time. This could change everything. I’m begging you, get here now.”
Penelope Pieta played the message three times before deciding that it was real. What had been discovered? She’d never heard anyone so frantic. She wouldn’t send one of her people. She would check it out herself.
She could be there in a few minutes.
***
One hour earlier
Shelly Venus pictured the figurative gun to her head and shuddered as she prepared for her first siphon session. Today was bigger than anything. More important than her first day of school or losing her virginity, which she’d done a long time ago and didn’t much like to think about. You were encouraged to lose it early these days. And any fantasies you had about that experience – or any others – got sapped early. You either lost it before your first siphon session, or they took it. Either way, it was no longer a big deal. She couldn’t write about it in her diary because common people, people like her, were no longer allowed to have such simple luxuries as a pen and paper.
In the new era everyone used a keyboard, and signed with a finger on a touch screen. Not only was all of the technology monitored, but so was the content. Pen and paper were harder to obtain than even the most potent new drugs, and anything she wrote with a keyboard was automatically broadcast to the world. Privacy was dead. The internet had come even farther and gotten even dirtier. There were several websites that thrived on the diaries of young girls, and Shelly wasn’t going to be a part of that. She kept it all bottled up inside. She couldn’t type anything without the government knowing or voyeur companies broadcasting. Welcome to 2066.
YOU CAN READ MORE ON SMASHWORDS
MORE ABOUT KERRY “SQUID” LIPP
Kerry teaches English at a community college by evening and writes horrible things by night. He hates the sun. His parents started reading his stories, and now he’s out of the will. Kerry’s work appears in several anthologies including DOA2 from Blood Bound Books and Attack of the B-Movie Monsters from Grinning Skull Press. His story “Smoke” pioneered The Wicked Library podcast’s explicit content warning. Currently, he’s shopping a bizarro novella and editing his first novel.
KGSL blogs at www.HorrorTree.com and will launch his own website: www.newworldhorror.com sometime before he dies.
His Amazon author page can be found at: www.amazon.com/Kerry-G.S.-Lipp
STEVE GILMORE’S MUSIC REVIEWS: SILVERTRAIN – EVER NEAR
You can listen to this artist on Soundclick
(reviewer squints blearily at his watch – however it may also just be a freckle – said reviewer being a bit the worse for wear) See what the time is?? End of the month already and no damn train yet….. Typical isn’t it? No wonder the country is going to the dogs. Wasn’t like that in my day. When they said there was going to be a train, there WOULD be a train. Of course, it slightly defeated the object of the exercise when it was discovered it was a train going to places where no sane person would go. Christchurch, for example, may well be such a case. However, I’ve never been there so I can’t say for sure if all its residents are a bit tonto or not, but I do know one of its residents who decidedly is….
Aaah, here’s the train now.
I refer, of course, to Silvertrain, otherwise known as Hampshire’s finest. Finest what is yet another of those fascinating debates we’ll skip this time. Ever Near is another of those John but not Ritchie tracks that have peppered my existence of the past couple of years, some good and (come on, be truthful) some a bit (waggles his hands), know what I mean? To be sure, the quality of the material is good enough, and anyway Silvertrain were always a shoo-in so far as songwriting went. Even so, it’s a bit like a race between the hare and the tortoise, John shooting off tunes like chinese firecrackers and Ritchie appearing once in a blue moon to dib his bit…. However, John’s work has taken a decidedly welcome direction since he started to realise he can make his own music and – as rough and ready as it is – it shows just how determined he is to get over the ‘studio’ logjam.
Ever Near is, to my ears anyway, a bit of a practice track in that respect, and introduces a more keyboard based style than anything we’ve heard from this source before. The intro certainly promises much, even as I was noticing the overall sound level was a bit too trebley for my tastes, and as the song develops it will be obvious that this is definitely John’s track. From the lazy, drum punctuated backing track, to the sweet (almost boy band) vocal, Ever Near shows that – despite its flaws – Silvertrain CAN produce something worthwhile outside of a very expensive environment. To be sure, it would help if you had a musical empathy with what I have described to really get enjoyment out of this track, but I think John can sit back with a certain amount of pride at this track. To my ears, a BIG step on the way to where he is going.
Soft, fluffy Silvertrain.
Written by Steve Gilmore
GUEST PUBLICATION SPOTLIGHT: Blackfriars Bestiary – 2.0 – Countdown to… An Echo of the Way You Knew Me Under Foreign Skies by Jacob Milnestein
“On the Victoria line?” she asked, crossing her legs again as she sat on the other side of the cluttered desk, the door at her back and the firm and reassuring presence of her bodyguard leaning his hands upon the back of her chair. “Didn’t we just deal with a giant monster on the Underground last week? Am I right, Mister Mo?”
“That was a roc trying to roost, little bud,” the large man behind her said.
She rolled her eyes.
“Same thing!” she answered with impatience, glancing sourly over her shoulder before again turning her attention to the silent man on the other side of the desk. “Can’t you send someone else? What about Bai and Lam?”
Behind her, Mister Mo shook his head, answering for the silent man before them.
“Bai and Lam are in Guam. Something to do with that martial arts tournament and this Onitsuka Lola girl.”
Ayesha Swanson raised an eyebrow.
“Wasn’t that the tournament you wanted to go to?” she asked, again turning to look over her shoulder.
Mister Mo pouted like a child.
“Yes,” he muttered.
The old man on the other side of the cluttered desk slammed his hands down firm upon the table.
“If you children have quite finished,” he snarled. “If you are not prepared to take the assignment, Ms. Swanson, I’m sure there are countless other freelancers who are more than capable of filling your shoes, Joanne Faustus for one.”
His lips twitched, the sharp beak of his nose wrinkling with distaste as he spoke.
“Perhaps you have become too confident in your usefulness to UKXD, Ms. Swanson. Perhaps it is time for you and your bodyguard to part ways.”
A moment of panic was visible on the young woman’s face, the playfulness and self-assured manner now utterly absent as she bowed her head and stared at her hands, folded flat in her lap.
“My apologies, sir,” she murmured softly.
Do you want to read more? Follow this link for a FREE copy of Blackfriars Bestiary via Smashwords
December 6, 2014
WEEKLY SERIAL: THE MONSTER OF BELL ISLAND – PART 9 BY JON OLSON
Once Dr. Roswell was safely ensconced inside his bunker, two men, who had been told to find an errant freak that looked like Joseph Merrick, breathed a huge sigh of relief as their boss wasn’t one for making friends or trading pleasantries.
He ruled by fear and intimidation.
“Hey, Chris, have you ever noticed how the atmosphere changes when he’s not around?”
“Yeah, Dave, there is definitely something off about him,” his friend replied. “I can’t put my finger on why he makes me feel so uncomfortable.”
Chris started walking towards the dock and then began to unzip himself. “Why do you care about anything other than getting paid?”
“He makes me feel uneasy,” Dave replied.
“Me too,” Chris confirmed. “Roswell gives me the creeps. It’s not just him, though. There is something weird going on in that bunker. Argh! I hate this island.”
“Agreed!” Dave exclaimed.
“Which part?” Chris asked as he finished urinating.
“All of it,” his friend replied while attempting to look the other way when confronted by a set of exposed jewels. “We’d better go and find that creature.”
“Mammoth?”
“That’s the one.”
“I’ve heard stories,” Chris said as he took a deep breath. “This guy isn’t someone who should be taken lightly.
“You’re so gullible!”
“Hey!”
***
As Mammoth reached the dock, two people started arguing about crates and monsters. Although day was turning into twilight, he could still see their faces while they debated how best to catch a creature that they’d never seen but knew through tall tales, spun by shallow criminals.
His legend had rewritten many tales of cowardice.
The giant behemoth laughed as he listened to their conversation.
When did I do that? Mammoth thought as their stories got wilder. Do they even care if what they’re saying is true?
After a few minutes of increasingly fantastic tales, involving fictitious criminal deceit, he decided, without any regard for personal safety, to reveal his position and interrogate the two silhouettes who were intent on arguing until all their excuses were vanquished.
“I’m right!” Dave shouted. “That makes you… wrong!”
“My opinion is just as valid!” Chris replied.
Mammoth, who was bored of the debate, decided to intervene.
He extended his tusks and started growling.
Suddenly, from out the water, a creature began to rise.
“What’s that?” Dave asked as it landed beside him with an enormous thud.
“I told you the stories were true!” Chris shouted.
“Whatever!” Dave exclaimed. “How do we capture it?”
The three of them looked at each other as it stared at them with its white eyes.
“What are you waiting for?!” Mammoth shouted. “Shoot it!”
Chris nodded and pulled out his revolver. Gunfire immediately lit up the night sky as each bullet, that was expelled, illuminated Bell Island. In retaliation, their foe struck out, sending two of them flying into murky waters.
Mammoth thought he could hear a low growl coming from his opponent. For some reason, even though its words were inaudible, they made him feel uneasy.
Suddenly, the creature turned its head and stared right at him.
“If you’re going to kill me… do it already!”
Minutes passed as they kept their eyes locked on each other. Then, his nemesis dropped through the dock, like sand pouring through a sifter, and disappeared from sight.
“What was that?!” Mammoth asked.
Silence.
***
Dr. Roswell was standing inside his underground laboratory, admiring a layout that resembled Frankenstein’s traditional digs, as the final crates were delivered. He suddenly let out this extraordinarily loud maniacal laugh that made everyone shiver and shake with trepidation.
“Who told you to stop?!”
To the madman’s left was a row of six incubators; two of them were already occupied.
His phone rang, and he answered it without hesitation. “Problems?”
“Yessir!” answered one of Roswell’s minions. “Shots have been fired on the dock.”
“Did you see who was responsible?”
“No.”
“Did anyone survive?”
“Yes,” an increasingly nervous soldier replied. “I fished two witnesses out of the water.”
“Retrieve whatever information you can and then dispense of them.”
“Understood.”
Dr. Roswell stared at his incubators as three voices argued before a single gunshot echoed down the open line.
“I’m afraid they were too traumatised to provide much of a description. All I can tell you is that their assailant had white eyes.”
“I see,” the doctor replied. “That’s not exactly… helpful.”
“No, Sir.”
Roswell ended the call with a dissatisfied sigh.
After a few minutes, his phone rang again. “What now!”
“It’s Bull…”
“Yes, Chief, what can I do for you?”
“Red Pressman is on his way to the island.”
“Good!”
“I don’t want him turned into one of your freaks… you got that? He’s not to be harmed.”
Dr. Roswell sighed. “Your wish is my command.”
Do you want to read the entire story so far? Download this file: Mammoth – The Monster of Bell Island parts 1 -9
Written by Jon Olson
SPOTLIGHT: VOICES FROM A COMA – ISSUE TWO – MUM’S THE WORD BY BRYN FORTEY
YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT FOR FREE FROM SMASHWORDS
The Zombie Blackmailers of Panocadia Three by Dave Fragments
The Train Set by Matthew Wilson
The Chalice by Paul Melhuish
Sylvia’s Pictures by DJ Tyrer
Burned Toast by Michael McGlade
Mum’s the Word by Bryn Fortey
Siphon by Kerry Lipp
Edited by Shaun AJ Hamilton
Artwork by Iestyn Rhobet
Alan Chesterfield grew up with the pomp-rock of Meat Loaf and the shock-rock of Alice Cooper. “My name is Chesterfield, baby. Smoke me…” had been his largely unsuccessful chat-up line back when he still used it. He hadn’t used either line or name in quite a while now.
Marvin Lee Aday had become Meat Loaf.
Vincent Damon Furnier changed his name to Alice Cooper.
Alan Douglas Chesterfield turned himself into Mutha Mayhem.
He had paired the almost operatic excess of Meat Loaf’s Jim Steinman period with the shock-rock theatricals of an Alice Cooper stage show, touring the world with an extravaganza based upon his debut CD ‘The Last Public Hanging’. Magic and illusion, fantasy and horror, all blended within the epic pomp of his hi-octane music and culminating with the Mutha himself being strung up onstage.
A worldwide hit, it sold out everywhere, with the album reaching number one in every country it sold. Not even the unfortunate suicides and/or accidental deaths of a number of teenagers trying to emulate his onstage demise could stop the juggernaut from rolling on and on. But with the passing of time, it was inevitable that ‘The Last Public Hanging’ would run its course and executives at his record company were soon eager for a follow-up.
For Alan Chesterfield the millions he had already banked, while welcome beyond his most extravagant dreams, were not sufficient to sustain the inner being. He got off on the fame and adulation and was well aware of the dangerous second album syndrome. Many singers had followed a smash hit record with a second that bombed. As had actors with films and authors with books, and such people sometimes never recovered from the blip, becoming mere footnotes in One-Hit-Wonders quiz questions.
YOU CAN READ MORE ON SMASHWORDS
MORE ABOUT BRYN FORTEY:
Bryn Fortey appeared in 1970 anthologies published by Sphere, Corgi, Sidgwick & Jackson and Fontana. Later, having been seduced by poetry, he was an award-winning writer and editor, appearing widely in small press magazines. Since returning to fiction his stories have appeared in Shadow Publishing (‘Horror! Under the Tombstone‘), Gray Friar Press (‘Terror Tales of Wales‘) and various titles from The Alchemy Press, who also published his debut collection ‘Merry-Go-Round & Other Words‘. Due later this year is a story in ‘Kneeling in the Silver Light‘ edited by Dean M Drinkel, and one in the online ‘Tigershark Magazine’
STEVE GILMORE’S MUSIC REVIEWS: MATAN – THE GATE
You can listen to this artist on Soundclick
Another new Soundclick name up this time. Matan is a 19-year-old Alternative artist who comes from Isreal, who composes his songs on keyboards and then – I suppose – throws them onto the PC for the rest of us to listen to. The reason I seem to be belabouring the ‘home made’ point here is because that much will be obvious as soon as you fire this track up. Pretty much the entire track is keyboards and vocals and not much else, other than the odd finger cymbal here and there and a odd sounding kick that – to my ears anyway – doesn’t really add anything to the proceedings at all. As if that were not enough, the vocal is sung with a definite accent, and I know that will get up some people’s noses.
So, pile of rubbish then eh, ol’ Gilmore??
Not quite. To be sure, it IS lacking in lots of things but it does have a certain something, especially in particular sections of the vocal, and certain of the melody touches. However, it does pale somewhat when you consider the high audio standard we have all become used to. It does mean that tracks like this WILL get passed by because of the reasons I have already stated and – to my mind – that would mean passing on something that (remember he is only 19) can only get better. I think he can inject drama and vision into his work, as The Gate shows, there are sections of it that make the hairs stand up, if you know what I mean.
Again, most people seem to think that the term ‘alternative’ is always a kind of kiddie rock (a la Coldplay, etc.) whereas alternative really should mean alternative, shouldn’t it? Just because he works in a less than commercial field, the song construction and internal impetus of this track should ensure that those who can hear DO hear. I find it is getting harder and harder for musicians (on Soundclick or anywhere else) to just lay down a track ‘as it comes'; there should (of course) be some production work attempted at the very least and Matan manages (just) to accomplish that. For a further track, I would want to hear a more complete piece of work but hey, it’s early days yet…
Interesting, if not exactly gripping.
Written by Steve Gilmore
