Benjamin Sobieck's Blog, page 56

Time Out for a Writing Review

It's been moving so quick around here. Ever since I signed up with Trestle Press, I've been keeping busy with writing, promoting, networking and everything else (not bad things at all). It's time to stop and assess the situation.

I find I've carved out four distinct styles of writing. My various writing projects fall into one of these categories, published and unpublished.

Novel

"Cleansing Eden"

"Green Shoots" (the next work-in-progress, I've got a good start)

Short Story Crime Humor

"Who Whacked the Blogger?"

The Maynard Soloman Series (a spin-off from "Who Whacked the Blogger?")

Experimental Short Story

The stories in "4 Killer Crime Stories in 4 Minutes"

My story, "The Giver, The Taker, The Monster," in Chris Allinotte's collection, "Eight Days of Madness"

The upcoming "The [good ol' days]" in Black Heart magazine.

Anything else I've submitted to a flash fiction site that didn't appear in the above

Journalistic

Founded the crime flash non-fiction online magazine, "Fingerprints"

Review: "Run" by Blake Crouch

"Run" is the novel equivalent of a 3-D movie. Things constantly jump out at you at every turn. While this kept me reading, I couldn't help but feel that the action became almost too overblown. There was a show stopper every 10 pages or so. That can be fun, but it doesn't allow a lot of time to build on the plot. Fans of zombie survival movies will find this novel suited to their tastes, since "Run" borrows heavily from the tropes of those films.

Also like a 3-D movie, there's a emphasis of style over substance, action over character. There's some nice development within the MCs family unit, but it took a back seat to the almost constant bombardment of action. By the novel's end, I felt as worn out as the characters.

It's a fun read, though. Perfect for lazy summer days or for a quick action pick-me-up. Author Crouch deserves much credit for creating a feeling of dread with each turn of the page. He knows how to use words efficiently and to great effect.

You can get "Run" as an e-book from Amazon here or from Barnes & Noble here.

Listen: Live Podcast on G-Zone

This came as a pleasant surprise yesterday. Giovanni Gelati asked if I would like to call in to his live podcast (I'm slated to appear next Friday, May 27, this was a different thing). Given the cool authors who were also joining him for his TGIF authors round-up, I couldn't say no.

I uploaded the podcast onto my site here, but for some reason can't get it to embed into this post. So click here to listen to it now (you won't leave the site, you'll just go to a different page).