Edward Lorn's Blog, page 30

My Semi-Fictional Life #4 (News and a Review)

In case you missed it, I announced yesterday through my social media platforms the title and publisher of my new novella. Here’s the post.

ANNOUNCEMENT TIME!

Darkfuse has picked up my new short novel FAIRY LIGHTS as part of their novella series. The novella will be available in installments on their site in November, with a limited edition hardcover release in December, and an ebook coming in March.

I am stoked to be working with Darkfuse, a company I consider to be one of the best in the business. I am also thrilled to be in the same stable as such terrific talents as Michael McBride, Lee Thompson, and Craig Saunders, just to name a few.

I can’t wait to show you guys what’s hiding in these woods…

Pretty rad, huh? Fun times. I’ve been giddy since I found out they accepted the book. Things are moving quickly, too. I received line edits last night and already have them approved. Now I’m waiting on copy edits and the cover.

I’m stoked to see what their cover artist does with the ideas I gave them when I submitted. Hell, they might scrap everything I said and go their own route, and that’s okay. I’ve come to expect that in this business. The main reason I’m excited is that it’s been two years since I had a cover reveal for a cover I didn’t create myself. The last one was for my novel Pennies for the Damned, and I didn’t much care for it. I have faith in Darkfuse, though. I don’t think I’ve seen a bad cover from them.

Finally, I read Brian Hodge’s Whom the Gods Would Destroy a few days ago and reviewed it today. It’s a Darkfuse release I highly recommend. Click HERE for the review.

Tomorrow, I have something different in store. See you then!

E.

My Semi-Fictional Life #3 (New Books)

Hello, you lovely so-and-sos. Great news. I sold a book. Contract is signed. I’m stupid-happy with the stipulations. I maintained some important rights, like audio and film. Keeping those is always a good day.

I want to divulge more but I’ve not heard from the publisher as to when I can spill the beans. I would hazard a guess that you’ll know more very soon…

What can I say? Well, the piece is more straight horror than I’ve done in the past, with a little social commentary sprinkled in. Gorehounds should get a kick out of this one, as well as you readers who like more than just splatter work in your horror fiction. I hope it makes you think. If not, there’s always the blood and guts to fall back on.

Also, it’s a creature-feature, which some of you have been asking for. See, I listen. *smooches*

What’s next? Well, aside from the one mentioned above, I have one more book to announce once I get the okay from the publisher.  Then there’s Slasher: Live, my Running-Man-meets-Friday-the-13th novel, which is currently going through beta reads and rewrites. So much good stuff on the way. You excited? ‘Cause I’m excited.

For the limited-edition crowd, there’s a limited coming in December, but not through me. Shush! Super secret stuff must remain super secret! I’m also currently working on an omnibus of my short fiction that will be released in a signed/numbered limited edition hardcover. That one is called All Told: Five Years of Horror.

Man, it’s been a good day. *walks away whistling*

E.

Pic of the day.

 

 

 

 

My Semi-Fictional Life #2 (Museum Outing)

Hello, everybody. Today, my wife and kids and I went to the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. While we were there, we visited the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts (@MMFA) in Montgomery, Alabama. Living in the south, we take every advantage when the weather decides to start cooling off. Everyone had a blast, and I thought I’d share a few pictures with you. We were there for almost an hour and I took numerous pics, but these are my favorites.

First, this exhibit is made entirely out of old clothing.

The clothing exhibit won’t be open until Friday, but we got a sneak peak thanks to a second-floor balcony.

This next painting in person looks like a flat screen television. It was one of my favorite things I saw.

Rad.

This next painting was a pain to get a photo of because my camera didn’t know where to focus.I think it thought the hand was another face. Anyway, this is the best shot I could get. I thought this piece was especially relevant, given all the clown sightings as of late.

But the coolest thing on display was this amazing kimono made entirely out of glass. It being headless was a mite disturbing, but that’s why it was my favorite piece of the day.

Many thanks to the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts for allowing us to take pictures.

See you tomorrow,

E.

 

 

My Semi-Fictional Life #1 (Introduction)

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the first in a new year-long series entitled “My Semi-Fictional Life”. For those of you who don’t know, my name is Edward Lorn and I’m an author. To date, I’ve written and published five novels (Bay’s End, Dastardly Bastard, Life after Dane, Cruelty, and Pennies for the Damned), two novellas (Hope for the Wicked and Fog Warning), and three short story collections (What the Dark Brings, Other & Oddities, and Word). Some of these are currently not available due to rights reversions and image re-branding, but there are still quite a few left up on my Amazon.com author page.

Now for a little Q&A.

What can we expect from this new blog series?

The easy answer to this is, some of everything. I plan to blog every day for the next year. These blogs will be personal stories, short fiction, reviews, news, and other miscellaneous stuffs.

What’s with the title?

Some posts will be true stories. Some will be fiction. So “Semi-Fictional” seemed accurate. No worries. I will let you know when I’m lying to you.

Why should we care?

That’s a damn good question, Fictional Interviewer. I don’t expect many people to care. But there are a few of you who will. The main thing is, there are some big changes happening in my life in the near future and I want to document everything so that I might be able to look back on this amazing time and smile. I’d like for you all to be able to join me on this journey, so I’m doing it publicly.

What big things are on the horizon?

I am not allowed to talk about several things right now, but you should expect plenty of new books and stories and, if I may say so, rather cool projects. Over the course of the next month, my brand (Edward Lorn) will be going through a re-imagining, if you will. I will be transitioning from an indie horror author to something more… Well, let’s just leave it at that. “Something more” sounds good to me.

What’s with all the secretive nonsense?

Contractual obligations. I can’t talk about certain things because either the ink isn’t dry or it’s not my place to announce the project. Trust me, though, you will know soon enough.

Is there anything you can tell us about?

Sure. You will finally be able to purchase all of my novels in paperback for a decent price, between $7.99 and $13.99. If you have Amazon Prime, they will ship for free. You can expect two new novels from me next year, a novella collection, and at least one more book in the Edward Lorn Signature Series. Everything after that will be through publishers.

Will we ever see the final A Decade with King post you’ve been promising us?

Yes.

When?

Soon.

What else?

Nothing more for right now. I promised myself I’d keep these posts to under 500 words, and I plan on sticking to that plan.

Until next tomorrow,

E. (10/03/2016)

GodBomb! Review

Review:

 

Exceptional. Far beyond all expectations I might have had regarding quality. I know most of my friends have given this novel high praise (that’s how I came to read it), so I was expecting it to be good, but the writing herein is well above your average small-press or indie author. I’d even risk saying that Kit Power is one of the best writers working today, at any level of publishing. I’d have to read more of him, of course, but right now, I’m very impressed.

What Kit Power was able to accomplish with character development in such a short period of time matches the skills of Stephen King and Herman Koch. Power is not afraid to look deep into the hearts and minds of those he writers about. While the book reminded me a small bit of one of King’s early novels, his Bachman book Rage, GodBombstands on its own legs. I would even say that Power’s novel is better than Rage and Rage is one of my favorite Stephen King books.

The ending was the highlight of the book for me. Those who know me will understand why. I don’t want to give even the subtlest of hints, because, while it’s not necessarily a twist ending, it did shock me. I thought for sure we were headed one way, and Power took me a completely different direction. I can’t say whether or not you’ll be shocked, but that was my experience.

Being a opioid junkie of ole, I especially liked Mike’s history. I did heroin in the late 90s and early 2000s, before I met my wife and managed to kick the illegal stuff, and currently am what they call a “functioning addict” because of my need for high-dose narcotic pain medicine due to a chronic back condition. I’m not sure if Kit Powers ever chased the dragon, but he sure nailed the character of Mike. Bravo.

I don’t know nor will I theorize about Power’s religious beliefs, or if he has any at all, but I believed that his characters were devout. If he’s not a practicing Christian, I commend him for making these characters believable. It’s hard to be respectful of characters with this level of faith if you’re not a believer yourself. I know how hard that is. I ran into problems while writing one of my books, trying to make a Christian woman believable while keeping her from feeling overly silly. It’s a testament to the power of this book that I found it so engaging when in reality I hate religion of any form. I don’t mind religious people as long as they don’t try to convert me every time we see each other, but I do hate the gimme-gimme structure of Christianity.

“Lord, please let my sports team win the big game.”

“Lord, please let me win the lottery.”

“Lord, gimme, gimme, gimme, Amen!”

Oh, and I can’t forget the pastors and preachers of the world. But their gimme-gimme is called tithing. Then they can be like Joel Osteen in his million dollar mansion and say “These are just blessings! God is GOOD!” When translated, that statement reads “My congregation is GULLIBLE! Praise the Almighty Dollar!”

I’ve lost some of you, and that’s okay. That means you won’t be around for me to offend later. If you’re still here, high five. Good job thinking for yourselves. *smooches*

In summation: Kit Power is a talented dude. While he reminds of the best, he’s definitely got his own style. A style I image will be a pleasure to read for years to come.

Final Judgment: What a blast!

 

 

Original post:

edwardlorn.booklikes.com/post/1477003/godbomb-review-my-last-review-or-post-on-booklikes-hope-to-see-you-elsewhere

Hide and Seek Review

Review:

This is a typical Jack Ketchum novel. 85% of it is a narrator droning on about young(ish) people being young(ish) people: raising Cain, having sex, drinking and/or doping, telling stories. The last 15% is horrific to the point you think you might be sick. It’s the Ketchum formula. You either like it or you don’t. Me? I have to be in a certain mood for it.

I read this one right after The Girl Next Door and I shouldn’t have. Would have enjoyed myself more had I spaced these two book out more. I love a good dark read, but I can’t do them back to back. Fucks with my mood.

The audiobook, read by Wayne June, is good. No complaints there. If you have Kindle Unlimited you can listen to it for free.

In summation: Mostly boring with a kicker of an ending. Not Ketchum’s best but far from his worst.

Final Judgment: Better than dog food.

Kindle Unlimited money saved: $27.94

Quality of books: $2.99

In case you’re curious how my process of quality-versus-money-saved is calculated, here’s a break down:

If a book is one I would’ve bought no matter if it was on KU or not and I enjoyed it, it goes in the quality column.

If a book is one I would not have read without KU and I enjoy it, it goes in the quality column.

If a book is one I would’ve read and I disliked it, it goes in both columns because I would have paid money for it anyway, so the quality comes from not having to pay for it by itself.

If a book is not something I would’ve read without KU and a terrible read, it goes into money saved, but not quality.

Original post:

edwardlorn.booklikes.com/post/1476379/hide-and-seek-review

The Girl Next Door Review

Review:

There’s going to be some personal information in this review. If you feel uncomfortable reading about child abuse of a sexual nature, you might want to skip this one.

The Girl Next Door was one of the first Leisure paperbacks I recall buying. I don’t know what I was expecting, but what I got was a kick in the teeth. This book is brutal and unapologetic. And, in my opinion, Ruth is one of the scariest characters to be found within the pages of the book. What makes this all the more terrifying and unsettling is that the story is based on true events.

This time around, I decided to listen to Jack Ketchum read the book to me via audiobook. The one criticism I have is that Ketchum, like Ruth, is a heavy smoker. You can hear evidence of this in the way he breathes. I constantly felt myself drawn out of the story and and wondering about Ketchum’s health. His voice isn’t unpleasant, but his breathing is. You likely won’t notice, but I did. He reminded me of my father, who was on oxygen during the final years of his life.

Here’s where the personal info comes into play. You can skip to “In summation” if you like.

Growing up, I lived down the street from a pedophile named Eddie. The guy was arrested after a neighbor walked in on him molesting his mentally-impaired son, Jamie. Jamie’s brother Ryan soon confessed that, yes, Eddie had been messing with both of them. After that, all the kids in the neighborhood came crawling out of the woodwork with stories of how Eddie had been at them.

I recall very clearly playing hide and seek with Ryan and group of our friends. Ryan and I hid in a closet. While we were in there, Ryan unzipped his pants and pulled out his penis. He said, “Put it in your mouth.” I was ten and he was a year older than me, but even then I knew there was something wrong with what he was asking me. I mean, you pee out of that thing. Why would I want to put my mouth on it? I called him nasty and he laughed. He put his dick away and said he’d only been kidding. We played the rest of the day and never mentioned it again.

That was my only odd experience with that family, meaning Eddie never got a hold of me. Although there were stories about how my sisters offered themselves up willingly so he would leave me alone. To this day I’m not sure if that’s true. It’s not something I feel comfortable asking them, because we’re not that close.

Soon after he was caught, one of the girls on the block came up pregnant. Rumors flooded the street about how the father was Eddie. The girl’s mother had had a thing for him and used her daughter as a bargaining chip to win Eddie’s attention.

Years later, I remember thinking, what kind of woman would do such a thing? Reading The Girl Next Door hit me that much harder because of all that.

Monsters come in all shapes and sizes. They come in all genders. Unfortunately, people like Ruth exist. Trust me. I know.

When Eddie got out of jail a few weeks later, he would park on the cross street and walk up and down our block. He’d point at houses and nod his head. He’d wave at anyone he’d happen to catch in their yards or looking out their windows. This was years before sexual predators had to register on a national list, and it was months before a restraining order was put into effect.

Some of you might recognize parts of this story because I put a different version of these events in one of my books. Looking back, I know how lucky I was.

In summation: Rereading this wasn’t a bright idea, but I don’t regret it. I’ll never say that I enjoy reading it, but I feel everyone should experience it at least once.

Final Judgment: Utterly horrific.

Original post:

edwardlorn.booklikes.com/post/1473834/the-girl-next-door-review

Deathcrawl Review

Review:

One thing is obvious after finishing Deathcrawl. Rich Hawkins is an above-average writer. The editing is on point and he was able to extract physical reactions from me. The dinner scene toward the end was intense and disgusting and I damn near threw up. That scene is also where, in my opinion, the book should have ended. Deathcrawl ends up drifting into nonsensical territory that dropped my rating from a solid four stars all the way down to a low three. 

In summation: A short review for a short book. Deathcrawl is reminiscent of Stephen King’s Cell, up to and including the lackluster ending. Instead of Phonies, we get mad cannibals who may or may not be possessed. Luckily, Hawkins’s book is a quarter of the length of King’s, so the rushed ending doesn’t annoy as much as it would have had the book been longer. Worth a read if you have Kindle Unlimited.

Final Judgment: Rushed and nonsensical finish leaves a bad aftertaste to what was an otherwise delicious cocktail.

Kindle Unlimited Update: Money saved = $3.98

Spoiler Discussion:

 

[spoiler]

What sense did it make for Charlie and his mom to leave Jed alive only to come back six months later to kill him? None. That’s how much sense it made. Zero. And both Jed and Charlie surviving a bombing run and being able to hear each other afterward? Highly unlikely. Charlie’s mom running out of the mist made me literally laugh out loud. Everything after the mad dinner party felt like a rush to tie up all loose ends. Even the writing took a hit, as Hawkins’s prose went from lush to bare minimum quicker than I could blink. This is all a huge shame because I was thoroughly enjoying myself until the last few pages.

[/spoiler]

Original post:

edwardlorn.booklikes.com/post/1472898/deathcrawl-review

David S. Atkinson wants to pay you for reviews!

David S. Atkinson is buying reviews for $5 gift cards. How nice of him! Mind you, I’m not a reviewer for hire, so I passed up the chance to review his book for $5, but I promised to spread the word.

Original email sent to my personal email account:

Happy Friday!

Hope you’ve had a great week.

My name is Sami, and I just wanted to check in [I don’t know who this person is, so I have no idea why “Sami” would be checking in], as I have an author wanting some Amazon (and Goodreads, if you’re a member) reviews for his book of short stories – Not Quite So Stories.

David is giving out $5 gift cards for your time, and I’m happy to send you a digital copy of the book, if it piques your interest! I’ve included some details below.

Thanks for taking a look, and I hope to hear from you!

Sami

Descripition:

Not Quite so Stories (published March 1, 2016 by Literary Wanderlust) The traditional explanation for myth (including such works as the relatively modern Just so Stories by Rudyard Kiping) is an attempt by humans to explain and demystify the world. That’s crap. We may be able to come to terms with small pieces, but existence as a whole is beyond our grasp. Life is absurd, ultimately beyond our comprehension. The best we can do is to proceed on with our lives in the face of that. The stories in this collection proceed from this idea, examining how the different characters manage (and/or fail) to do this.

Original post:

edwardlorn.booklikes.com/post/1472619/david-s-atkinson-want-to-pay-you-for-reviews

Helltown Review

Review:

This is the first book I’ve read using Kindle Unlimited. I got the idea to keep track of the money I save using KU from my buddy Dan. But I will not only be judging the amount of money I save. I will also be comparing the money saved to the quality of the books offered. Thankfully, I decided to start my 30 free trial of Kindle Unlimited with this book, because, holy shit, was it bad. Had I paid for it, this review would have been far more rage-y.

DNF @ 18%, but I’m going to review this because the problems I had were with the terrible writing and editing, meaning no amount of good story could have saved this. To those of you who whine about reviewers reviewing books they do not finish, kindly take a flying fuck at a wall of spikes.

The Stephen King references and Easter eggs were cute, but Stephen Bentley is no Stephen King, so they felt out of place. From a store called King’s Supermarket to mentions of people with names like Barbie (Under the Dome) and Dodd (The Dead Zone) to the main character having gone to the University of Maine at Orono, where King was not only a professor, but a student. Then we have the Overlook Hospital… Okay. I get it. You’ve read some Stephen King. Good job. As a King fanboy you’d think that I’d have loved this stuff. But not here. Here it felt well and truly overdone, because all those nods to King occur in the first 18%. I can’t imagine how many are in the book total.

The dialog is clunky and silly and at times just plain broken. Bentley fails at even getting the simplest points across without rambling on. Slight spoilers ahead:

Bentley writes:

“I felt uncomfortable out there in the dark with Jessica trading numbers, like I was cheating on Pam or was planning to, but I wasn’t, and that’s the truth.”

No shit, Sherlock, because Pam’s dead. You can’t cheat on a dead person. I know what he meant, that he felt he was betraying his dead wife, but that sentence if full of unneeded words. Speaking of unneeded words, we get stuff like:

“I saw Jessica swallow hard.”

The book is written in first-person, so we know everything seen is from Dan’s POV. A simple, “Jessica swallowed hard.” would suffice. We know Dan saw it. He wrote the book.

Which brings me to the fact that this poor novel is in serious need of a line editor. Sure, there’s a missing word here and there, but Bentley needs help with simple mechanics. He needs to have a professional work with him on how paragraphs are structured and what information should come before what information.

Speaking of information, the first 15% of this novel is nothing but info dump after info dump. Instead of getting to know the characters, like in any other cogent novel, Bentley dives right into these vague scare tactics. “Can’t you feel something coming?” Ooooooo, eerie! But not so much, because we don’t know the characters, one of which is stolen whole-hog from Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher. Barbie is Duddits’s doppelganger, right down to the way he talks. But, back to my point about the lack of character development. I can’t be scared for characters I don’t know. Just because you tell me something is scary doesn’t make it so.

There’s a bunch of silly shit in here that I won’t go into too much detail about, but I wanted to highlight a scene wherein the two main characters are saying this place, Hilltown, is unique because it has ghost stories. Here’s the interaction:

“It’s amazing isn’t it?”

“What?”

“All these stories.” She put her pen down and looked at me. “Everyone [the people in Hilltown] has them. Did they have them in Maine?”

“No.”

“Didn’t have them in Fairlawn, either…”

Fucking what? What town doesn’t have ghost stories? Also, I lived in Maine, for 3 years. That state is loaded with ghost stories. It was at this point, 8% into the book, that I lost all faith in Bentley as a storyteller.

Nothing happens in this book for the first 15%, and when something does happen (the characters being teleported ahead two days) they’re shocked for all of a minute before going to grab hamburgers at Burger King. What? You just lost two days and your investigative approach is “Wanna grab a whopper?” Fuck off.

We do get a lot of forced foreshadowing. Something is coming. Everyone feels weird and uncomfortable. We get the cliched old man warning of “Get out of town while you still can!” and the strangest fucking bit of forced foreshadowing I’ve had the displeasure to read:

“Jessica threw the ball into the river. I was glad. Something about it gave me the willies. I had a feeling those pinky balls didn’t belong in this universe.”

There’s no reason for this dude to feel the way he does about these pinky balls. No descriptions of odd shadows or the ball sweating or dripping ectoplasm. He just… feels… like… something’s… wrong… And that is this book. It just feels wrong. From the info dumps to the terrible writing to the forced foreshadowing to the goofy dialog to the tired King homage, it all just feels wrong.

In summation: Nothing can save this read at this point, so I gave up. Stephen Bentley has written what will likely become my worst read of the year.

Final Judgment: That soupy substance at the bottom of a dumpster.

Thank fuck for Kindle Unlimited. Money saved thus far: $2.99

Original post:

edwardlorn.booklikes.com/post/1472106/helltown-review