Samantha Lienhard's Blog, page 181

The Book at Dernier

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas, and I apologize for the blog being down over the holidays. I got a special holiday treat on Christmas Eve--the long-anticipated launch of my horror novella, The Book at Dernier. Episode 1 released on Christmas Eve, and Episode 2 will launch this Friday (tomorrow)! The remaining episodes will come out each Friday after that until the story is completed.


I love the cover. It's so creepy and awesome. (It also reminds me of Silent Hill, and I love Silent Hill.)

So, if you're ready to venture into the dark past of Dernier and see what secrets surround the strange book that once belonged to Marcus Phineas... If you want to enter a world of death, madness, and rituals... If you're prepared to walk alongside obsessed academic Paul Bryce on his mission to uncover powers that should have never been brought to light...

...make your way to the Red Penny Papers and see what horrors await you.

Latest News

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Sure, sure, she said she was going to update regularly, but once that class of hers ended, what did we get? Nothing! Lies, all lies!"

If you weren't thinking that, you now think I'm crazy. But really, the name of the blog should have given that much away.

Anyway, here I am, with a not-quite-regular update. Besides the first priority (assuring you that I have not forgotten about my blog), I have a few pieces of news I'd like to share.

1. I'm getting a logo!
Yes, about five minutes after I told myself I would be just fine without a logo, my brain started buzzing with design ideas and thoughts about how cool it would to have a logo, and the next thing I knew, I was looking up information on how to get one. I don't have it yet, but I've approved a concept design, so my logo is on its way.

2. The Book at Dernier is also on its way.
I got to see a couple drafts of the cover art for my horror novella The Book at Dernier, and it is wonderful. Spooky, Lovecraftian, and with a bit of a Silent Hill vibe--how could I not love it? Stay tuned for more news on that front.

3. An editor requested a look at my full manuscript.
My dear horror readers shouldn't get too excited--this is my YA fantasy novel I'm talking about. For the first time ever, someone I queried about Agent of the Relari has requested to see the full manuscript. This is so exciting! Even if nothing comes of it, this is a step in the right direction.

4. I might turn this blog over to my own domain name.
"Might" is the key word. It's supposed to be a simple process, but you really never know. I promise not to experiment to the point of breaking things. (Is it even possible to break a blog?)

That's pretty much it for now. You can check my new freelancing page to see that I'm now available at WriterAccess as well as Elance, and I'll try to keep up a more frequent blogging schedule from now on.

(Just be glad I didn't write daily posts gushing about Dual Destinies. I was tempted.)

Finishing NaNoWriMo 2013

Yesterday, I crossed the 50,000 word mark in my horror collection and officially became a winner of NaNoWriMo 2013. I don't think I've ever finished this early before, so it's odd having these last few days of November free of desperate writing.

If you read my post when I reached the halfway point, you know I had nine stories that ranged from decent to just plain weird. The second half of the month expanded the collection to include:

10. A flash story about creepy murders
11. A flash story attempting to improve that emotion eater from the earlier story
12. A flash story about creepy monsters
13. A short story that rambled on for a bit before deciding it was probably a monster story
14. A creepy murderer story that has potential, but didn't work well as a part of NaNoWriMo (I'll definitely come back to this one, though)
15. Yet another yokai story
16. A cultist serial killer story I wrote on 11/21, in honor of Walter Sullivan
17. A weird short story about the dangers of being consumed by revenge
18. An unfinished story that varies between being about an evil psychologist, murder, and crazy assassins

I'll probably go back and finish the 18th story eventually, once I have a better idea of what it's about. (Right now it sounds like I was hammering out ideas when what I really wanted to do was think about Dual Destinies. Which is exactly what I was doing.) NaNoWriMo may not have been as desperate a race as it's been for me in past years, but my ideas definitely started to run out. I spent much of the second half of the month staring at a blank screen while struggling to think of something horrific.

Nevertheless, I'm glad I did this project. It was nice to create lots of short stories again. I haven't done that in a while. Still, maybe next year I'll return to the novel format--at least I won't have to constantly come up with new plots.

Dual Destinies Blew Me Away: My (spoiler-free) Thoughts on the new Ace Attorney Game

Ace Attorney is one of my favorite video game series in the world. When I first heard about it, I thought it sounded dull--why in the world would I want to play a game about a lawyer? Then I gave the first game a try and immediately fell in love. It wasn't boring...or very realistic. It tossed me into a world filled with wacky characters, spirit mediums, and trials in which the defense attorney and prosecutor slam their desks and shout, "Objection!" at one another as they try to prove their case, although the trial is always biased in the prosecution's favor. ("Innocent until proven guilty"? In the world of Ace Attorney, it's closer to "Guilty unless the defense attorney can shoot down all of the prosecution's arguments and probably prove who the real killer is, as long as it can be accomplished within 3 trials, because after 3 trials the defense loses.") The first game puts you in the shoes of rookie lawyer Phoenix Wright and takes you through the twists and turns of his cases.

The series is very heavy on reading, so keep that in mind. It is very story-driven and has many visual novel elements. Gameplay centers around investigating crime scenes (in a style similar to point-and-click games), questioning people to gather information, and finding contradictions in testimonies and theories. In fact, the unofficial fan musical project explains courtroom gameplay quite well in "The Objection Song." (Note, the song spoils parts of first game's first case.) It is a very funny series that nevertheless has its share of dark moments and tragedy.

At the time that I'm writing this, the Ace Attorney games available are:

Phoenix Wright: Ace AttorneyPhoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for AllPhoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations (these three are collectively considered a trilogy)Apollo Justice: Ace AttorneyAce Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (which has a sequel released only in Japan)and the main topic of my post today:Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies Though this newest Ace Attorney game is a download-only title on the Nintendo e-shop, I consider it to be one of the best. Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice both return with their gameplay elements from previous games (Phoenix's ability to break Psyche-Locks and Apollo's ability to Perceive lies), along with Athena Cykes, who introduces a new gameplay element called the Mood Matrix. The Mood Matrix is a program that tracks a person's emotions, so you can look for contradictions between what the person says and what emotions they feel. Oh, and the new prosecutor is a convict who uses psychological manipulation and sics a hawk on people in the courtroom.
Now, if you've never played an Ace Attorney game before, there's a good chance that most of what I said in that last paragraph sounds silly, crazy, or nonsensical. If you're a fan of the series, it might still sound that way, but at the same time, it all makes perfect sense.
Because I love Dual Destinies so much, let me get the few things I object to out of the way first. It was much easier than previous entries in the series. While in a way, this is a good thing (sometimes the old games could leave you desperately tapping everything on the screen in the hopes that you'd find something), it went a little too far. It was a little too easy, and the investigation sections lost some of the freedom they used to have and locked you onto the correct course. This was most apparent to me when I encountered a set of Psyche-Locks and could immediately unlock them all. In the past, I'd have had to leave the character and hunt around for more information and evidence first. My hope is that future games in the series will find a middle ground.
That's it for the complaints. I pretty much loved everything else. There are more typos then usual, but not enough to disrupt the brilliant humor and top-notch story. By Case 3, I was enjoying the game quite a bit, and after that, the story really got interesting. The story and characters are really what pushed this game so close to the top for me. Each game has a great plot, but some stand out more than others. In fact, since the very first game, there's been no question of who my favorite Ace Attorney character is, but Dual Destinies gave me a competitor.
It's very hard to talk about the story without giving any spoilers. There are many excellent moments that will hit you hard and touch your heart. I could ramble for hours, but I would give everything away in the process. All I'll say is that, as is typical for the series, there is darkness and tragedy and deep character moments amidst all the zany courtroom antics. In fact, there might be a little more darkness than usual--this is the first game in the series to receive an M-rating, either due to the fact that it now has 3D graphics, or because of a very specific scene that has a lot of blood and is very creepy. Nevertheless, at its core, Dual Destinies is about hope, trust, friendship, and the importance of the truth.
The music is as great as ever, with the return of a lot of old favorites as well as some new songs that are really catchy.Since this is the first game on the 3DS, it is also the first to receive downloadable content. I know some people get anxious at the very mention of DLC, but in this case, it's worth it. It's a full-length additional case with a wacky story and its own share of great moments and unexpected twists.
If you've finished the game already and want to chat about it with me, feel free, just be sure to mark your spoilers for the sake of others. If you're an Ace Attorney fan who hasn't gotten this game yet, it's well worth your time!
And if you haven't played a single Ace Attorney game before, what are you waiting for? The first game is waiting!

NaNoWriMo: Halfway Point

(You might be here looking for my posts on Relic or Snow . If you come back afterwards, you'll find more rambling about NaNoWriMo, as the title would suggest.)

Well, we made it--the halfway point in National Novel Writing Month. This is the 15th day out of the 30 days we have to write our 50,000 words, which means at this point, participants would like to have at least 25,000 words to be on pace.

As far as numbers go, my collection of horror stories ("The Night of the Swan and Other Dark Tales," because I needed a name for it) is on pace. I just edged over 38,000 words today, so I'm doing much better than I need to. It's never gone so well before.

As far as content goes, well...it's NaNoWriMo. You aren't supposed to spend too much time thinking, planning, or editing. It can get a little crazy. You get some good stuff, you get some bad stuff, and you get some downright weird stuff.

Right now, my collection contains:

1. A story about an evil swan
2. A vague, rambling story about Halloween that doesn't know what it wants to be and just can't escape the fact that it was written at 1 in the morning.
3. A vampire story
4. A story about an insane artist
5. The start of my yokai craze, which was inspired by Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies, fueled by class, and greatly aided by the blog I linked to.
6. A second yokai story
7. A third yokai story
8. A rambling story about a sorcerer who probably worships the Devil
9. A story that really can't decide what it wants to be, as it starts as a horror story about an emotion eater who feeds on fear, then pits him against the Devil and gets all religious and spiritual, and finally concludes as a romance

And that's the entirety of my 38k words. I'm doing well, but the end isn't here yet. We'll see what sorts of insanity the next few days of writing bring.

Snow: Great in Concept, Less So in Execution

Our next monster story to look at is Snow by Ronald Malfi. This one...is not a favorite. Fair warning to anyone who plans to read it, there will be spoilers in this post.

But let's start by discussing what I liked about this book--namely, the monsters. Snow is the story of a
This. This is the enemy.group of travelers/survivors in a small town that has been taken over by snow monsters. This isn't just a story in an snowy setting. Here, the monsters are the snow. The first monster seen in its natural form is described as "a hurricane swirl of snow, funneled and compacted so that it was nearly tangible" (Malfi 69). They also have sword-like arms that they drive into people's backs. However, they aren't normally seen in that form. The Snow (capitalized to avoid confusion with regular snow, because the creatures themselves aren't given a name in the novel, unless it just passed right by me) prefer to take people over. They either use them as temporary puppets--a trick they can perform even with corpses--or enter their bodies to use them as more permanent "skin-suits" (it doesn't work with children, however, who end up faceless). Either way, they solidify their sword-arms in order to get inside a person. Although these "skin-suits" can imitate humans decently enough, as shown by Eddie Clement, the monsters in Snow regrettably act more and more like zombies as the story goes on.

Actually, more than zombies, the skin-suits reminded me of the Taken from Alan Wake. Just like the Taken need to be blasted with light before they can be killed, the Snow (seriously, was there a real name given to them?) need to be hit with heat, which forces them into a corporeal form. Both are also controlled by an external consciousness--the Taken are controlled by the Dark Presence, and the Snow receive orders from the mysterious storm that rages over the town.

 One of the feral children grows up to be Slender Man.This is all pretty wacky stuff--the monsters look like snow, except they have blades for arms. They take over humans and can imitate them somewhat successfully, except for children, which become faceless for no clearly explained reason (but it's creepy and reminds me of Noppera-bo, so I'm not complaining), and near the end they show a couple more forms they're capable of. It's weird, but I like it. Even though they start acting more like a zombie horde in Snow, the idea behind them isn't quite like anything else I've heard of. And I love snow. It was very interesting to see something I love turned into a monster.

Their origin, motivation, and true nature is never made entirely clear. It's suggested that they come from "a whole other world, a whole other dimension" (298). The fact that they struck multiple towns, and that the epilogue implies they aren't finished yet, indicates a plan. It wasn't just a random event, but the book never gives solid answers, either. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I'm just glad it didn't try to tell me they came from genetically modified food.

All right, now that I've talked about what I liked, let's move on to what I disliked.

Everything else.

Okay, that's unfair. It wasn't a terrible book. Compared to some literary things I've been forced to read, this was a masterpiece. I didn't hate it. I just didn't particularly like it, either. I felt nothing for the characters. I found Nan and Fred to be more interesting than any of the others, but the book chose to focus on Todd and Kate. It wasn't long before I figured out that Todd and Kate were THE main characters, as they encountered various survivors here and there and outlived them. And I just didn't care. The book tried to throw pieces of their past at me (and either it was my imagination, or every point of view character narrated their sexual history, because that's what people think about during the Apocalypse, apparently), but it didn't help. It didn't feel like character development. It just felt like a bunch of facts about some people I didn't care about.

Once the skin-suits took on their zombie characteristics, then really all I had was yet another zombie story, with survivors I didn't care about. And then I was just waiting for it to end.

Snow had an interesting premise and interesting monsters, but they weren't enough to keep my interest. I would have liked to see more about the Snow--and maybe the point of view of someone as they were taken over. I don't think we got even a single one of those. It had a lot of potential, but it didn't live up to it.

Works Cited Malfi, Ronald. Snow. New York: Dorchester, 2010. Print.

Relic: It's Like Scratches Meets Crichton

Due to a broken modem, I'm writing this blog post on my iPad in the library, so I won't be able to easily add links and pictures like I usually do. That makes me sad, particularly since we're going to be discussing Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. I absolutely loved Relic, and since I started reading it well in advance to have enough time with a decently long novel, and instead found myself glued to the pages, I had plenty of time to think up images to put in here. Maybe I'll add them in later.

For now, Relic. There will be spoilers in this post.

A mysterious tribe that lives on in more than just its legends... A strange artifact taken away... A curse that haunted the tribe and seems to follow the artifact... I could be talking about Scratches again, but this time I'm talking about Relic. (Despite those similarities, which jumped out at me right away, the two stories are extremely different.) This novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child begins in the Amazon Basin in 1987 with Whittlesey, who is responsible for the discovery and transport of the Mbwun figurine, which he believes is proof that the Kothoga tribe exists. The expedition ends in failure, but the figurine makes it back to the New York Museum of Natural History. The main story takes place at the museum in the present day (around 1994, based on their statements that Whittlesey's expedition took place 7 years previously), where a series of odd murders begin.

The murders are brutal and strange--a very specific part of the victim's brain, the hypothalamus, is removed and apparently eaten. There is no sign of who or what was responsible. And the murders match previous unsolved murders that have followed the crates from the Whittlesey expedition on their journey. The unusualness of the situation brings in Special Agent Pendergast, who is pretty awesome. Pendergast joins the rest of the main cast of characters--researcher Margo Green, Dr. Frock, Lieutenant D'Agosta, and reporter Bill Smithback--in their efforts to uncover the truth behind the murders before anyone else dies, particularly with Museum authorities insisting that they continue with their plans to throw a huge opening party for their new expedition.

Yeah, the creature may be the literal "monster" in this story, but special monster points go to Wright, Rickman, and all the other nitwits who routinely stand in the protagonists' way, and especially to Coffey, an FBI agent who seems to live for the sole purpose of disagreeing with Pendergast.

While their antics sometimes aggravated me to the point where I wondered how anyone could be that stupid, I liked the main characters a lot. I didn't like Smithback too much in the beginning, but by the end he'd grown on me. I had to laugh when he keeps eating during the chaos until he realizes he's snacking his way through what could be the biggest story of his career. His goals weren't as noble as those of some of the others, but he was a good character.

As time passes and the case gets weirder, it becomes clear that the murderer is perhaps the so-called "Museum Beast," and evidence turns up that suggests it could bear an uncanny resemblance to the mythical Mbwun, or "He Who Walks On All Fours" (Preston and Child 234), from the legends of the Kothoga. As they look at the situation further, Dr. Frock presents his own theory, that "every sixty to seventy million years or so, life stars getting very well adapted to its environment. Too well adapted, perhaps. There is a population explosion of the successful life forms. Then, suddenly, a new species appears out of the blue. It is almost always a predatory creature, a killing machine. It tears through the host population, killing, feeding, multiplying" (203), and that the Mbwun creature loose in the Museum is just that.

I have to say, I loved all of it--the Kothoga legend, the science, and Frock's theory (which did make me think more than a little bit of the Reapers popping up to wipe everyone out whenever life has reached an advanced enough state). As monsters go, Mbwun spends most of its time in the shadows for this novel. Bodies are found after they've been killed, characters hear the beast walking around, and the figurine is the main link to the creature. It isn't clearly seen until near the end. However, I thought the mystery surrounding it make it a very interesting creature nevertheless. The link to the plants confused me at first (mainly because of Margo saying "Mbwun" is the name of the plants, which I'm still unsure about), but that turned out to be an interesting twist and gave the monster a motivation beyond "kill people." It needed plants. It needed those hormones. It needed to eat hypothalamuses if it couldn't get its plants. The comparison of the plants to a virus was interesting--even more so in the revelation in the epilogue of Whittlesey's true fate.

My iPad has decided to go crazy on me and make typing this as difficult as possible, so I'll end here instead of gushing on further about how much I loved this book.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to look up Reliquary, the sequel.

Works Cited
Preston, Douglas, and Lincoln Child. Relic. New York: Tor, 1995. Print.

An Upcoming Month of Horror

(You might be here looking for my posts on The Wolfman or The Thing. If you want to come back here when you're done, great, but I'll just be rambling about NaNoWriMo, not pointing out cool stuff.)

Well, it's that time of year again, when people around the world sit down at their keyboards for hours as they try desperately to get out enough words to meet their goal for the day.

NaNoWriMo!

This will be the fifth time I've officially participated in National Novel Writing Month, although last year I didn't actually use it to produce a novel, just assorted writings. This year is going to be somewhat the same, but instead of random bits of writing all tallied together toward the word count, I'm going to write a collection of horror stories. I use the term "collection" loosely. They probably won't be connected, and I probably won't consider them a part of a whole. But as far as NaNoWriMo is concerned, my 2013 50,000-word novel is a book of short stories, novellas, flash fiction--whatever they turn out to be. The only rule is that they all have to be horror, or be related to horror (for example, a story with spooky elements would count). I have a few ideas already, so I'll be typing my first few words as soon as we hit November 1!

To everyone else who is participating this month, good luck! I hope we all reach the end together in triumph.

Celebrating All Things Spooky: Grinch Night

(You might be here looking for my posts on The Wolfman or The Thing, but if you're up for hearing about one of my favorite Dr. Seuss movies, come back here when you're done! :))

Do you know what tonight is? What's that? Halloween? No, I mean what else is it? Mike Collins's birthday? Well, yes, but besides those two things, what else?

You don't know? Don't you smell the Sour-Sweet Wind coming? It's Grinch Night!

Grinch Night is a short animated movie, also known as Halloween is Grinch Night. Whenever the Sour-Sweet Wind blows, it sets off a chain of events that gets the Grinch's attention, and he goes on a rampage to destroy everything in his path and wreak general mayhem. Everyone in Whoville knows that they need to stay inside and lock their doors to be safe, but young Euchariah Who needs to "go to the euphemism" and ventures out on Grinch Night.

Euchariah gets horribly lost and runs into the Grinch, and then he decides that it's up to him to protect Whoville by delaying the Grinch until the Sour-Sweet Wind stops and Grinch Night is over.

This might be my favorite Dr. Seuss movie. It's filled with general wackiness, memorable lines, and a particularly creepy climax when Euchariah stalls the Grinch by facing the horrors of the Paraphernalia Wagon, which shows what happens when Dr. Seuss tackles Halloween.

The whole movie is just about a half an hour long, and it's available on DVD now in a set with other Dr. Seuss stories, so check it out!

Celebrating All Things Spooky: Arsenic and Old Lace

(You might be here looking for my posts on The Wolfman or The Thing. When you're done, you might consider returning to hear about a great movie. :D)

How could I celebrate Halloween without mentioning one of my favorite movies? Arsenic and Old Lace was a play that was later adapted as a movie starring Cary Grant. It is black comedy at its finest, in my opinion. The story centers around the Brewster family: the Brewster sisters, Abby and Martha, who are considered by everyone who knows them to be two of the sweetest, kindest old ladies in the world, their nephew Teddy, who believes himself to be Theodore Roosevelt, and their other nephew Mortimer, a famous dramatic critic. Teddy and Mortimer have a third brother, Jonathan, but he has long since left home and they hope to never see him again. The story begins when Mortimer marries Elaine Harper and stops to visit his aunts before leaving on his honeymoon. While there, however, he opens up the window seat and discovers a dead body.

Mortimer initially believes Teddy is a murderer, but when he brings it up to his aunts, they quickly correct him--that is one of their gentlemen, and since they're going to bury him in the cellar with all the others, there's really nothing for Mortimer to worry about.

 They go on to explain about how one day, a lonely old man visited them and had a heart attack right there in the house. When they saw how peaceful he looked, they added poisoning lonely old men to the list of charities they perform. And Teddy, who had been down in the basement digging the Panama Canal, believed the dead men to be Yellow Fever victims, and therefore immediately buried them.  Mortimer knows something has to be done, but he doesn't want it to be known that Abby and Martha were murderers. He finally decides that since everyone already knows that Teddy is crazy, if he can commit him to the sanitarium now, it'll be assumed he was responsible if the bodies are ever discovered. And without Teddy to dig the canal, Abby and Martha won't be able to take care of any more gentlemen. He begins a frantic race to commit Teddy, keep his new wife from becoming too angry with him as he delays their honeymoon, and keep his aunts from killing anyone else in the meantime.  But while Mortimer is gone, his criminally insane brother Jonathan returns to town with his assistant, Dr. Einstein--on the run from the police and with a dead body to hide. As far as Jonathan is concerned, the house is a perfect hideout. He can find a place to hide the body, get Dr. Einstein to change his appearance yet again (especially since people keep comparing him to Boris Karloff), and maybe, just maybe, eliminate his hated brother Mortimer once and for all. I'll leave the rest of the plot for you to discover when you watch the movie, because it is definitely worth watching. By the way, the play eventually returned to Broadway in the 80s with Jonathan Frid playing Jonathan Brewster. In that version Larry Storch plays Dr. Einstein, and the entire cast is excellent. But whether you're watching the play or the movie, it's certain to be something you'll enjoy.