Todd Russell's Blog, page 4
August 16, 2011
What Scares Author Athanasios
What scares me has changed over the years. When I was younger it was whatever bad guys I saw in cartoons, television and movies my immigrant parents didn't know I shouldn't be watching. I remember, quite vividly, trying to hold my breath, with the covers over my head, hoping I wouldn't be discovered and could live out the night.
Then the next real scare in my life was the classic Chuck Jones Xmas cartoon, the Grinch. In a time when kids should be happy and have joy in their hearts I was terrified under the weight of both my cousins, who held me down and forced me to watch that evil little fuzzy miscreant steal the Whoovile's presents. I should've never told Jimmy & Tommy that he scared me, serves me right for opening my fears to two farm boys who outweighed me by a good 20 lbs each at eight years old.
Then soon after that it was the Exorcist and the Omen. I was never religious but coming from a Greek Orthodox upbringing the full extent of my knowledge of Satan was he was never named and was at most times as He Who is Not of This Earth. So the Exorcist stuck with me for the first look at what someone's imagined personification of evil was. Terrifying for me and for many in my generation.
Three years later came The Omen and that transfixed and inspired me. Here was this son of Satan, who was to rule the earth as an inverted and warped Christ, an Antichrist and he was a child just like me.
As I grew older though I thought about those strong fears, especially the Antichrist. I re-watched the Omen and the sequels and thought: why would anyone want to be the reason for the destruction of the world? That made me fear the Antichrist less and made me think he was getting a bum wrap. Then in high school, girls, fantasy, comics & science fiction won my attention over those childhood fears.
So I followed the ideas in my head till since he was considered a monster & was damned, creation of the devil, yadda, yadda, yadda, that's when I thought, why isn't he just like us? I also didn't want him to be huge but wanted him to be beneath notice, an everyman, all the more insidious because he could be anybody, look like anybody. Medium height, medium build, brown hair, brown eyes, no discernible racial characteristics, nothing impressive or frightening until you find out he's the Antichrist.The whole time I thought this, I also lived my life in low end jobs. Cook & then manager in family restaurant, comic book store clerk, sports card collectibles store clerk, busboy, waiter, illustrator, graphic artist, video/dvd graphic artist/editor. I went back to school twice. Once for illustration the other for 3d animation & dvd production. This little preamble aside I never forgot about this fear.
About The Author
Athanasios has been interested in religion & faith since childhood. This led to studying a bewildering variety of beliefs from pagan, wicca, judaism, christianity, islam, to hindu, buddhism, shinto, luciferianism & much more. The interest made its own momentum & brought Mad Gods.
His other interests include most entertainment, from film, to television & books. He won't try video games for the same reason he doesn't keep his favourite booze in the house; he would do nothing else. There was a short time that he was into World of Warcraft but that became the obsession he knew it would be. He had to leave it for a deeper & more engrossing one: Mad Gods.
About Mad Gods
Kostadino Paleologos is a descendant of Byzantine emperors and lives with honour, duty and sacrifice. Every year he returns to Istanbul and sends trapped souls to their deserved rest. The final soul in this solemn task sends him on a quest to the mythic, ancient Library of Alexandria. There he finds the Idammah-Gan Codex, a unique book which convinces him to abduct the infant Antichrist and raise him as his own. They live life on the run pursued by Satanists, Catholic Church & Dark Nobility, who want the baby back or dead.
Buy Mad Gods at:
B&N |
Amazon US |
KOBO |
iTUNES |
SONY | DIESEL
Thanks Athanasios for being #9 in the ongoing What Scares Authors series. Read what scares other authors:
Steven R. Drennon, Heather Marie Adkins, Sue Owen, Laura Yirak, Arshad Ahsanuddin, Jean Marie Bauhaus, Gayle Carline, David Gaughran.
August 11, 2011
Custom Fresh Flesh Pac-Man maze
We all have guilty pleasures. Feel free to tell me about yours in the comments.
Horror is my guiltiest pleasure but video games rank high. In particular, Pac-Man has claimed more game time than any other videogame I've played. No surprise that Microsoft's goal to showcase HTML5 by creating the world's biggest PAC-MAN game interested (and distracted) me.
You can join the fun at WorldsBiggestPacMan.com and play the Fresh Flesh custom maze here. Must admit the Fresh Flesh maze is a bit challenging, luckily there are five big power pills.
Want to design your own custom mazes and share with your friends? No programming knowledge required. As long as people keep making new mazes, the supply of mazes won't run out any time soon. Microsoft is also running a contest through August 18, 2011 with the grand prize being a PAC-MAN Arcade Party machine.
Speaking of contests, you can enter to win a rare, signed proof 6x9 paperback of Fresh Flesh at Goodreads (or below). No purchase necessary to enter and the contest ends October 17, 2011.
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget { color: #555; font-family: georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; text-align: left; font-size: 14px;
font-style: normal; background: white; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget img { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0 !important; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a { padding: 0 !important; margin: 0; color: #660; text-decoration: none; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:visted { color: #660; text-decoration: none; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget a:hover { color: #660; text-decoration: underline !important; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidget p { margin: 0 0 .5em !important; padding: 0; }
.goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink { display: block; width: 150px; margin: 10px auto 0 !important; padding: 0px 5px !important;
text-align: center; line-height: 1.8em; color: #222; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold;
border: 1px solid #6A6454; -moz-border-radius: 5px; -webkit-border-radius: 5px; font-family:arial,verdana,helvetica,sans-serif;
background-image:url(http://goodreads.com/images/layout/gr... background-repeat: repeat-x; background-color:#BBB596;
outline: 0; white-space: nowrap;
}
.goodreadsGiveawayWidgetEnterLink:hover { background-image:url(http://goodreads.com/images/layout/gr...
color: black; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer;
}
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Fresh Flesh
by Todd Russell
Giveaway ends October 17, 2011.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
Enter to win
Fresh Flesh is coming September 29, 2011. You can read the first two chapters as bonus content at the end of the ebook version of Mental Shrillness available at Amazon US UK DE and Smashwords.
August 10, 2011
What Scares Author Steven R Drennon
I was lying on a gurney in the emergency room after having been brought in with a broken ankle I obtained in a recreational league softball game. Most people have settled into a casual lifestyle with moderate to no exercise by the time they turn fifty, which I was set to do in about a year. As for me, I was still playing in a competitive league and was easily ten to twelve years older than anyone else on my team.
Okay, so the broken ankle should have been a sign that it was time to hang up the cleats, but it was a fluke accident that caused me to be here. There was a lot of sand on the first base bag, so when I planted my foot and turned towards second for what was certain to be my second double of the game, my foot slid across the bag, planted in the dirt, and then snapped. I didn't feel any pain really, I just fell to the ground and realized that my foot wasn't moving. I was still three feet away from the bag, so I crawled back to put my hand on the bag and then asked for a timeout. Only then did I realize that my foot was almost backwards!
Fortunately, I must have gone into shock right away, because as I mentioned, I didn't feel any pain. The recreation staff called for an ambulance, the paramedics gave me morphine right away, and then they hauled me to the hospital. Did I mention I hate hospitals? I've always made a point of taking really good care of myself so that I wouldn't ever have to be in one, but now here I was, waiting to be seen by an ER doctor who would try to reset my foot before putting it in a temporary cast and referring me to an orthopedic specialist for surgery.
My disdain for hospitals doesn't just apply to me being in one, but also to simply visiting people there. I've always been the kind of person who likes to take charge of a situation and try to find a solution. In a hospital, I can't do that. I feel helpless, ineffective. I feel inadequate. I feel like I need to get the hell out of there.
When family or friends have been hospitalized, I usually make a brief appearance, but I'm always looking at the clock to make sure I don't stay too long. I had never been a patient before now, and I sure as hell didn't want to stay if it wasn't necessary for me to do so. Now, it was most definitely necessary.
As I got processed through the ER, I found myself relaxing and just going with the flow. I knew there wasn't anything I could do, so I just let the medical professionals do their job and trusted them to take care of me. I decided later that the morphine probably did a lot to ease my discomfort, not only from the pain in my foot, but also from the anxiety of being in this most dreaded of all places.
When I finally got a chance to see the doctor, he did the cursory review of my foot and told me what I already knew: your foot is dislocated, and there's a good chance that the lower part of the leg bone was broken. They would send me to get x-rays which I could take to the specialist who would schedule my surgery. After that, he did a regular review of my general condition. He checked my pulse, listened to my heart, and then had me sit up so that he could listen to my lungs. As I leaned forward, the doctor commented, "39. Why 39?"
I knew right away that he was referring to my uniform number, the same number I had worn for almost thirty years. As I leaned back down onto the gurney, I explained, "My father died when he was 39 years old. Ever since then, I've worn the number 39 to remind me that my life is precious, and if I wanted to live beyond that age, then it was up to me to make it happen."The doctor smiled and said, "So how old are you?"
I looked up at him and said, "Guess!"
He got a serious look on his face and raised one eyebrow before answering, "43".
I laughed slightly as I told him, "Actually, I'm almost 49!"
The doctor crossed his arms and smiled at me and said, "Well if all my 49 year old patients took care of themselves as well as you do, I'd have a lot fewer 49 year old patients!"
We both laughed, and then the doctor turned my chart over to a nurse and asked her to take me down to the x-ray department. As he turned to leave the exam room, I asked him, "So doc, once I've had the surgery and everything, how long do you think it will take me to get back on my feet again?"
He stopped and looked back, his face much more serious now. "You're looking at a good six weeks before you get off crutches. Even then, you may never be able to walk without a limp. Your break is pretty nasty, and if any of the ligaments are torn, you could be looking at a lot longer."
I laid my head back and made a decision right there that I wasn't going to accept his answer. My team was a lock to win the league, and we were going to be playing in the playoffs in six weeks. I had every intention of playing in that championship game.
I never saw that doctor again, so I never got the chance to tell him that the orthopedic specialist said the same thing he had told me. I also never got the chance to tell him that six weeks later, the specialist told me I could remove my walking cast and resume normal activity. I also never got the chance to tell him that I ended up playing only one more game that softball season, and it was the championship game. I was the starting pitcher, and my team won by six runs. A week later I went on a fifteen mile hike with my son and his Boy Scout troop.
It's been three years since I broke my ankle, and I have broken that magical 50 barrier. Since then my softball team has won three more championships, with me pitching, and I have gone on dozens of hikes with my son and his Boy Scout troop. I still wear the number 39 on my jersey, and now I have a nice, long scar on my ankle. When I look at it, I see yet another reminder that it is up to me to make things happen.
About The Author
Steven R. Drennon is the author of two fantasy novels: "Rise of the Raven" and "Three for Avadar". In addition to this, he has published six volumes of poetry and two poetry anthologies. You can read more about him and his works by visiting his blog, where he regularly interviews other indie writers as well as provide book samples and reviews: http://www.drennon.com
About Three for Avadar
A princess trying to find her way back home, while finding herself along the way.
A sorceress trying to retrieve a sacred crystal that was secreted away by her father before he was murdered.
A warrior seeking to avenge the death of his family, who finds himself sidelined by two very different, yet very attractive women.
Three separate travelers drawn together by chance, all destined for one place...Avadar!
Buy Three for Avadar at Amazon.
Thanks Steven for being #8 in the ongoing What Scares Authors series. Read what scares other authors:
Heather Marie Adkins, Sue Owen, Laura Yirak, Arshad Ahsanuddin, Jean Marie Bauhaus, Gayle Carline, David Gaughran.
August 7, 2011
FRESH FLESH excerpt Something Fresh
Something fresh, the strange-looking, salt-and-pepper bearded man in tattered clothes thought, fighting his way through the damp, dripping ravine to meet the morning tide. Last night, while the forces of Mother Nature descended upon the helpless island like blood-thirsty vampires, and ear-piercing screams echoed in the night, he dreamt of something fresh. Something fresh, he was certain, awaited him on the naked beach.
He made it to the clearing, his feet bleeding through rotted tennis shoes, his heart pumping. He turned and fixed on the setting behind him, sweat cascading down his bony cheeks, believing that there was someone or something there. But there was nothing. Nothing but his own trembling shadow in the creeping sun.
At last he turned, prepared to see what he'd only seen last night as a blur, a smoky haze, a shape entirely formless. Something fresh, he thought, not knowing if he was trembling in fear or anticipation.
At first he only saw the tide's usual disappointments: tree limbs blown into the water from the other side of the island, seaweed wrenched from the ocean floor, pebbles and tiny and larger rocks of innumerable configurations. And then he saw something else.
Something new and different.
Lying face-down in the sand, among a score of torn, soggy driftwood, was the body of a woman.
Something fresh.
He tore across the beach with sand irritating the exposed flesh in his rotted tennis shoes trying to slow his progress. Nothing could stop him.
He reached the woman and flung the driftwood aside. He picked her up in his arms, turned her, cleared the sand away from her face and felt for a pulse.
He felt her heart beating.
The strange man looked up at the scorching sun and smiled for the first time in ages. It didn't occur to him that the last time he'd smiled he had a full set of shimmering pearly whites, where now he held a mouth full of black rot and decay. Nevertheless, he smiled, and soon began to weep.
Five minutes later he carried the woman away as carefully as a five-foot, six-inch fragile mirror.
At the same time he vanished into the trees, something else washed ashore.
A severed hairy arm with a smashed, paper-thin hand, complete with five twisted digits.
FRESH FLESH is coming September 29, 2011. You can read the first two chapters as bonus content at the end of the ebook version of Mental Shrillness available at Amazon US UK DE and Smashwords.
What Scares Author Heather Marie Adkins
Safely tucked beneath the covers in her bed, a little girl screams for her mother.
She has awakened to find the pale glow of her nightlight has disappeared during the early hours of the night. It's late; the sky is still black outside her bedroom window. The moon isn't even visible to give her relief from the dark.
That little girl was me. It still is.
I still sleep with a nightlight.
Granted, that nightlight often takes different forms now that I'm older. One night, it may be the television screen flickering in the dark; another, the thin strip of light from the hallway shining beneath my bedroom door. But, one thing remains the same--
I will not sleep in the dark, and I still wake up with sweaty palms and a racing heart if my light has somehow gone out in the night.
I'm terrified of what I can't see. This girl is one of those people who believes anything is possible: ghosts do haunt this world, there is life beyond Earth, and Bigfoot does walk the Appalachians, among other things. So when it comes to being blind to my surroundings, I am petrified; and that fear culminates the worst in the dark.
In a black cave, I'm constantly searching over my shoulder even if I'm surrounded by tourists, despite the fact that I love spelunking. As I walk through my own home in the middle of the night, I flip on every light I come across. I won't even walk into the backyard--our fenced in backyard--at night. Camping is one of my favorite pastimes, but the true inkiness of the night beyond the circle of a campfire terrifies me.
The dark makes my skin crawl. The absolute most terrifying form of darkness, though, is when I can't see a person's face. Think the Dementors from the "Harry Potter" movies. The hooded statue that comes to life in "The Haunting". The ring-hunting Wraiths in "Lord of the Rings".
How did this start, you ask? Sorry, I can't give you a horrid tale of being punished for misbehavior by alone time in a dark closet. I've been this way as long as I can remember. My mother kept a nightlight by my crib and my earliest memories are of reminding her to flip that little switch before she turned off my lamp.
Yet, I love to write ghost stories where creatures go bump in the night and my heroines triumph over their fears. Someone has to, because I certainly haven't.
I'm 26 years old and I still sleep with a nightlight because I'm afraid of the dark.
About the Author
Heather Adkins is an independent fiction novelist and avid bibliophile with the library to prove it. She is the author of paranormal mystery "The Temple", as well as free ebook horror shorts "Underneath" and "The House". Her current projects include a horror novel with a ghostly protagonist, a collection of paranormal romance short stories, and the first in a new witchcraft series. A practicing Witch, Heather lives in North Central Kentucky with a house full of animals and the love of her life--all of whom drive her crazy. She can be found daily (mostly) at http://heather.bishoffs.com
About The Temple
Vale Avari has a mysterious past and a laundry list of super-powers, but that's nothing compared to what she finds upon moving from small town U.S.A to jolly-good England.
A chance dart throw lands her in Quicksilver, an off-the-map place with a big problem - people are dying, and word is, it's supernatural.
At her new place of employment, a temple dedicated to the ancient Mother Goddess, Vale learns something even more shocking - women guards are disappearing at an alarmingly patterned rate; women who possess special gifts like her own.
Supernatural powers aside, Vale isn't ready to believe in the Wild Hunt as the culprit, and she's determined to prove the deaths are acts of human violence.
Plagued by a brute with a history of domestic violence and lusting after a dark-eyed man with a secret, Vale has a limited amount of time to discover the killer before he strikes again. In the process, she'll learn things aren't always what they seem and the supernatural might not be so extraordinary after all.
The Hunt could ride for her.
Buy The Temple
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Temple-ebook/dp/B0057XOQ1E
Barnes & Noble: NOOK
Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/69094
Thanks to Heather for being #7 in the ongoing What Scares Authors series. Read what scares other authors:
Sue Owen, Laura Yirak, Arshad Ahsanuddin, Jean Marie Bauhaus, Gayle Carline, David Gaughran.
