Gerald Dean Rice's Blog, page 50
December 4, 2013
Where the Monsters – Giveaway!
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Since Where the Monsters Are came out it has gotten six 5-star reviews! It’s on pace to be the most well-reviewed story I’ve ever written! So to say thanks, I’d like to give away 6 copies. All you have to do is tell me about a childhood encounter with an under-your-bed or in-your-closet type of monster. I’ll pick the six I like best and post them on my site. And in case you’d like to check it out, here’s the link to the eBook! http://amzn.to/1aYa92y
December 3, 2013
What in the World is This?
I don’t read whatever language this is
but I am NOT going to this website.
November 26, 2013
Make that Five 5 Star Reviews for Where the Monsters Are
Gerald Dean Rice stuns readers with his new book – Ft. Myers Young Adult Fiction | Examiner.com
Where the Monsters Are by Gerald Dean Rice is among the most captivating novelettes one will read. The old-school vibe is simply mind-blowing and will bring you back to your childhood of watching great shows such as “The Twilight Zone” and “Creepshow”.
There’s no denying that horror has been muddled throughout the years since it first took off. It went from classics like “Dracula” to the ever-so-popular horror comics of the 1950s, and these days it seems that the horror age has melded with the either the romantic era and/or the graphically gruesome aspect of stories.
Believe it or not, most horror does not need graphics and gruesome details to scare, disorientate, and please readers. In fact, sometimes it’s scarier when it doesn’t include all that. It’s also easier to get through the book and keeps the readers attention. It’s absolutely incredible how Rice captivates his audience in the thrills of the story while most authors in the same genre try to distract from their style through mindless and unnecessary violence and graphics.
Gerald Dean Rice has mastered this style; keeping his unique voice steady throughout the story. His characters will pop out at you, terrify you, latch onto your heart, and even give you a little something to relate to. Rice pulls at your innermost thoughts, and expertly crafts his story. Read the rest of the article here.
Read some of the other reviews!
November 24, 2013
One of the best reviews for anything I’ve ever written
Pick up a copy of Where the Monsters are here. I will let the review speak for itself:
By Keith Milstead
Gerald Dean Rice’s novelette WHERE THE MONSTERS ARE so befuddled me the first time I read it that I believed I should read it again. Not to say it was anything but genius, it was. I just kept feeling the need to reread Mr. Rice’s journey into madness. Upon my first reading, I looked at Mr. Rice’s story at face value, a man’s journey through the rabbit hole where he meets people who think they know him from the past and then begin showing up again and again, affecting his life by going as far and destroying a co-workers career and killing another. His journey is diluted by the fear he will kill his wife and destroying his life.
Now, if I had chosen to stop there, it would have been like eating the cherry off a cake but not eating the cake. I am not even sure Mr. Rice had this deeper meaning that I perceived because as a nightmare story, this tale would have been sufficient and well worth the price of admittance. Instead, I read it again and as I moved through the main character’s nightmarish journey, I, being a long time student of clinical psychology began to see the symptoms of schizoaffective disorder and the horrible influences that this disease has on people.
I cannot be sure that this is what Mr. Rice wrote about but it is how his work influenced me. People affected by schizoaffective disorder experience strange thoughts and perceptions along with paranoid thoughts and ideas. This is definitely what the mind of our main character, Gerald Parsons, seems to be filled with. A victim of schizoaffective disorder experiences delusions, hallucinations, a manic mood as well as thoughts of homicide and suicide. People who are affected by this disorder also have problems with attention and memory and display behavior at the extreme ends of the normal spectrum. My first clue that Gerald is being treated for something is indicated when he takes medication of an unknown type and that he has seen a psychiatrist before.
I will not reveal any more of this story and plot line because Gerald Dean Rice is a master story teller and you should obtain this e-book to fully enjoy a story that works so well on so many levels. Reading it through the second time is where I let my imagination open up and gained a whole new since of Mr. Rice’s story. So to me, it was like reading two different stories with the same characters. This is an incredible book, an incredible story and an awesome journey into madness. I cannot recommend this book any more than I have.
Literally, buy this book and figuratively, get your mind blown! Kudos Mr. Rice, kudos!
November 22, 2013
Get a #Free Copy of The Closet Today and Tomorrow!
Today and tomorrow download your absolutely free copy of the first installment in the Returned series, The Closet. The series next has The Revelation and then The Bargain before picking up again next year. Now is a great time to get started on it.
The Firing Range
I had the chance to go to my local police department’s firing range today. I used the standard medium glock that officers carry and after a very brief explanation on how to hold, load, and fire I did a little target shooting.
First off, it was incredibly loud. I had to wear two types of hearing protection and the kick surprised me. After I finished with the first clip, I believe it was 9 bullets, the officer told me I was going to shoot for scoring. Now other than firing my brother’s .22 back when I was fourteen in the backyard into the dirt, I’ve never shot an actual gun. So when I set my sites and began firing, I wasn’t expecting anything fantastic. Body shots were worth ten points, head shots were worth twenty. Check out how I did:
My score was 170 out of 200. I’ll know where I placed next week!
**Correction**
The Closet is not free today. That post came a little too early. You can download a free copy after midnight tonight for Kindle. You can always get my zombie story 30 Minute Plan and The Beggar’s Bowl for free, though.
November 21, 2013
One More Time- Pick up a Free Copy of The Closet this Weekend!
Okay, for whatever reason my promotion didn’t come off last Saturday like it was supposed to, so I’m doing it again. This Saturday and Sunday, get a free copy of the first issue in the Returned series, The Closet. The reviews have been interesting because people haven’t known exactly how to take it. But things begin to come together in The Revelation and then The Bargain. This series will pick back up next year and now is a great time to get started on it.
And in case you haven’t read the Z-Flash series, read the first four before the next one comes along!
November 20, 2013
Sparing Change, part II
Check out Where the Monsters Are, only $0.99 on Amazon.
“What the hell?”
“What is it?” Millie began walking over with that smooth gait she had to have spent years perfecting to magnetize the eyes of every man she passed by to her butt.
“There’s a quarter in my foot. But how did it get there?”
“A what?”
“A quarter. I must have stepped down on it perfectly.” I pinched it between thumb and forefinger, ready to yank it out.
“Well don’t pull it,” she said, kneeling and examining it. “It could be lacerating an artery.”
“I can’t walk around with it there.” I was fuming inside that I was in a position to be helped by her of all people. She had to have been enjoying my being crippled. I could imagine everyone laughing back at the office tomorrow.
She flashed those large hazel eyes at me with a face full of phony concern. If I could have figured how, I would have accused her of doing it.
“It looks like it’s really in deep. Aren’t you in pain?”
“No,” I said, gritting my teeth. “A little bit. It’s all right.”
“Look, I’ll stay with you, but I’m going to call an ambulance.” She pulled out her phone, but dropped it before dialing.
“What?” I looked at her and she was just standing there with her mouth open, looking past me.
“Ch-ch-change!” She backed away. I turned, not seeing what she was talking about until it was too late.
The first one caught the heel of my shoe, making me lose my balance and place my full weight down on my injured foot. I felt the quarter dig deeper and this time I did scream.
It had to have been something large, like a fifty-cent piece, but it sliced through all my toes, leaving the big toe hanging on by a thin piece of skin. I fell to the ground on my knees, already in shock and that’s when I saw them rolling toward me.
Quarters, nickels, dimes, pennies and any manner of coin from several foreign countries rolled my way. Unidentifiable at the time from their high rate of speed until they killed me.
And it didn’t take long. Millie screamed as dimes and pennies raced beneath my hands, barely slowing as they sliced through flesh. I reared back on my knees, leaving the tip of my left pinky on the sidewalk. Blood coursed down my arms, soaking my shirt to the chest. Lucky for me I was wearing my suit jacket so Millie couldn’t see anything past the shirt cuffs.
I hugged my arms to my chest as the white hot burning of coins through the bones of my knees forced me onto my side. They were all over me then; slicing and stabbing me. One industrious nickel had found its way inside my chest cavity and did major damage. I felt it tearing things inside and I coughed it up, spitting it out onto the side of my face before it sliced off a sliver of my tongue. I lay there, being dissected by forty dollars and eighty-two cents in change as Millie pressed herself up against the nearest wall, screaming uselessly.
The quarter that popped out of my eye socket signaled they were done with me. It turned, pointing its knurled edge at her before rolling off my forehead and onto the pavement. Millie fled, turning into the alley and running as fast she could.
Her gait had lost all of the grace it had had at its lower speed. I would have laughed at how pathetic she looked stumbling down the alley, her expensive shoes flopping off her feet if I had lungs and vocal chords left.
The change followed her, cutting around, through and over my body in an unending, ringing chorus. She must have clung to her Chinese on instinct, but she ran with that bag, clutching the General Tso’s chicken until the sauce smeared and ran down her shirt.
They picked up speed, slowly gaining on her, averting things they couldn’t go through, punching through everything else, living and not. I don’t know how she couldn’t have seen the brick wall before she did, but she didn’t. She ran like she would actually get away, like she wouldn’t be as dead as me if she just kept her feet moving as long as possible. Maybe she couldn’t see from the tears in her eyes—whatever it was, it was pathetic.
When she finally did trip she skidded into a puddle pothole filled with filthy water. One knee and both hands were thoroughly scraped and bleeding. Instead of getting up and running when she heard the coins, she flipped onto her back and scuttled halfway out of the pothole.
“Please,” she pleaded. The tattered remnants of her skirt were hiked up to her hips. “I didn’t do anything—I just work with him. Whatever he did, it wasn’t me. I don’t even use hard cash. I have a debit card!”
They had her. She was soaked to the skin, winded and helpless. They could have done anything. But instead of ripping into her as they had done to me, they turned their respective knurled and unknurled edges and rolled away. They spared her. They spared her.
November 19, 2013
Sparing Change, Part I
I paid the Chinese man behind the counter with a hundred dollar bill and he gave me a dirty look. It took all of his twenties and tens and most of his fives to give me change and he slapped it into my hand. I paid him no mind as I folded the bills over the change and dumped the whole thing into my pocket. Millie handed me my bag and we headed for the door.
We were fellow employees but rivals, both jockeying for the same account. It had been a hard morning, a four hour conference call to Tibet and so I had a craving for Chinese when we finished. This place was way on the other side of town but it was the best Chinese in the city. Millie had spotted me just after I had hailed a cab and after I told her where I was going she joined me.
The cab hadn’t waited for us so we headed down Fifth hoping to see a cab on Lincoln. Right before we passed an alley way I got a sharp pain in my foot. I almost dropped my food and I bit my tongue to keep from screaming in pain. Millie pretended not to notice I wasn’t walking next to her until she was about twenty feet ahead of me.
“Ed, what’s the matter?” she said in that too cool tone of hers after twirling around like a super model. She had to have known I noticed—everyone noticed—that her skirt was too high per the company dress code, but no self-respecting heterosexual male had the wherewithal to say something to her at the behest of his genitalia.
“Nothing,” I said, gritting my teeth. “Just a cramp.”
The pain radiated up my ankle all the way up to my knee. Perhaps I’d severed a tendon. Balancing my food in one hand, I pulled off my shoe, stoking the pain and felt the bottom of my foot. There was something flat and small stuck in my foot. I switched the bag to my other hand and half knelt, putting my ankle across my opposite thigh to examine the area.
There was a quarter sticking in my foot.
**Come back for the final installment tomorrow at 7:30**
And don’t forget to check out my new story, Where the Monsters Are, only $0.99 on Amazon.
