Shaun Horton's Blog, page 20

31 Days of Monsters: Kraken

The idea of giant monsters lurking in the depths of the ocean has probably been around since the first pre-humanoid saw the form of a shark swimming through the shallows before disappearing out to sea. Since that time, we've explored the oceans some and we know it isn't teeming with creatures just waiting for us to unwittingly swim into their reach. However, we've also discovered that, in some cases, there really are creatures we should be very afraid of.

Name: Giant Squid, Giant Octopus, Krak...

31 Days of Monsters: Sasquatch

I live in the pacific northwest, where camping, hiking, and nature walks are commonplace and can be found within a half-hour trip from even such a major city as Seattle. So it makes sense to start with the most local "monster" on the list.

Name: Sasquatch, Bigfoot

Height: 6-10 feet tall

Appearance: Humanoid/ape, walking upright, coarse black or brown hair covering the entire body.

Threat: Low. Reports of sleeping campers being carried off and held captive have been made, but are rare and never in...

31 Days of Monsters: Megaconda

It's a given, that the South American rain forest is teeming with animals and plants yet to be discovered by science. Most are small, like this cricket discovered in a cave in Venezuela, which can swim and eats flesh. The idea that larger animals could be slinking through the trees, ground-litter and the murky water, is one that is easy to accept.

Name: Giant Anaconda, Megaconda, Titanoboa

Length: 40 - 60 feet

Appearance: Reports are of a common Anaconda, easily found in the amazon rain for...

31 Days of Monsters: Chupacabra

If you live down in the southern US and Mexico, you probably know about this curious critter. Stories started in the mid-1990's in Puerto Rico of goats and chickens being attacked and drained of blood. Thus the name Chupacabra, which means goat-sucker.

Name: Cupacabra

Height: 3 - 4 feet tall

Appearance: There are currently two differing descriptions of the Chupa. Initial descriptions was a 3 - 4 foot tall, bipedal creature with short, quill-like hairs or smooth, scaly skin, large eyes that glowe...

On Tonight's Edition...

Time for some news.

June has come and gone and it's been a long one, without too much going on really. July is already shaping up to be a much busier month.

My second book, Class 5, is heading in to the editor's office the second week of the month. In addition, I've already sent in a request for cover art, so that is in the works too. If all goes well and things fall into place quickly, I'm hoping for an early August release, but we'll see how that goes.

I also got my second opinion back on...

Author Interview: Karl Drinkwater

So, my 40th blog post is going to be my first interview with a fellow author. 
Karl Drinkwater is a fellow author I met through Goodreads.com. I've read and reviewed his book Turner , giving it a full five stars and which I'll add on here as part of the introduction.

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"A terrific read. Suspenseful. Fast-paced, but won't break your neck.  

A true page-turner. As a horror writer myself, I take pride in a certain level of familiarity with the types of stories that are out there. T...

Judging a book by its cover

Yeah, yeah. We all know the saying. You shouldn't judge a book by its cover. The thing is, it doesn't always apply, especially to books. Also, they may not have said it if they'd had access to photoshop waaay back when.

(This was probably pretty close to 'state of the art' back then.)
Today, we can make covers that show anything and everything, from dinosaurs and aliens, to spaceships and machines which conform to no known laws of physics, and in this age of self-publishing, you can certainly j...

What Scares Me?

It really is a simple question, and one more people won't hesitate more than a few seconds to answer. After all, everyone knows something that scares them, even if they won't admit to some of them.

In today's world, fears are mostly things that unnerve us or that we know make life disturbingly hard. Fears don't keep us alive like they used to. Sure, people in the African savannah know to fear lions, rhinos and crocodiles, but most of us don't really need to worry about being stalked, killed, a...

A blog of random thoughts.

So, I apologize for this going up late. Monday was my birthday, not that I did anything particularly worthy of interrupting the schedule, but that's my excuse. As it is, I also don't have a specific theme or topic for today, so I thought I'd go over a few things that I've had bouncing around in my head for a bit that may not be worth full posts in and of themselves. So, it's going to be a little random, and bounce around a bit. Still, I'll try to make it entertaining at the very least.

1. Unde...

An Excerpt from one of my next works, Black Lake.

So, with all the focus on promoting my debut novel and the business of writing, it has been a little while since I touched upon anything horror on here. Even longer since I gifted my readers with a writing sample. I figured I would kill two birds with one stone with an extra blog post. So, without further ado, a sample from one of my next works: Black Lake (Title subject to change.) 

                Dylan Walker sat quietly in his small rowboat...