Alan Baxter's Blog, page 86

From Dark Places by E J Newman – Review

From Dark Places is a collection of short fiction from E J Newman. The title is well placed, as the stories are all dark in a variety of ways. They explore subjects from the existential to the personal, from infidelity to murder, from the supernatural to the super normal and they're all bloody good.

A lot of these stories are really short, flash fiction pieces capturing a vibe or an event and searing a single scene onto the reader's brain with uncomfortable clarity. Some of the tales are longer, exploring all manner of things from Creation to madness.

Newman writes with a tight turn of phrase, many a well placed word and an eye for place and setting that makes all these tales of urban unease extremely convincing. She inhabits her characters, their distinctive personalities entrancing. Newman explores the speculative with ease; gods, demons and angels inhabit these pages as much at home as the cheating spouses, spurned lovers and ugly, foul-mouthed orphans.

Some of the stories have a bit of fun to them, some a touch of the absurd or the surreal, all an edge of darkness that plays nicely with our boundaries of comfort.

Emma Newman is a powerful emerging voice in dark fiction and From Dark Places is an excellent selection of her work. I'll be watching out for more of her stuff. You should too.

You can get a signed copy of the book directly from Emma at her website here. Or you can order from Amazon here. Follow Emma on Twitter at @EmApocalyptic.

But before you do that, I've got a copy to give away to one lucky reader. Leave a comment with your idea of a dark place. The one that creeps me out the most gets the book.

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The written fight tournament – the Results!

So last week, to help promote my new ebook, Write The Fight Right, , where I asked people to write a 500 word or less fight scene and the top three would get prizes. I got a lot of entries – thanks to everyone that had a stab. There were all kinds of fights submitted, from fantasy battles between fantastic creatures, to fisticuffs in a dark alley and everything in between.

Reading through all the entries was good fun and it was tough to pick winners. But I had to, so I did. Bear in mind that these winners are purely based on my own taste. I refer you to the tagline of this blog, under The Word in the header image above. When judging the entries I was mainly looking for a few key things:

* A exciting, rapid pace, giving a good, visceral sense of the fight;

* Not too much clinical detail, slowing down the action;

* A strong sense of character and place.

I said there would be three winners and I'd publish them here, so here we go. Second and third place each score a free copy of Write The Fight Right in whatever format they prefer. First place gets that and a signed copy of RealmShift.

I'll list the winners in reverse order, with their fight scene followed by a few words about why I picked it.

In 3rd place, there's this piece by Alex Stoiche:

Steve bumped past the man, taking his wallet at the point of impact. He raised his hand over his shoulder in apology and continued to walk. He heard the man's footsteps stop, then break into a run. Steve sighed and shifted his weight to push hard off his right foot. His shoe slipped on the damp cobblestone, sending his body flying forward. He hadn't fallen. The man was holding him upright by the neck of his jacket.

Steve spun around, throwing his left arm over the man's extended arm. Using his momentum, he swung his right arm into the ribs of his captor. He felt a satisfying crunch as his punch hit home. The man's body twisted in pain. Still controlling the man's left arm, Steve threw another punch at his exposed side. The man roared in pain as his ribs fractured. Steve sneered as he shoved the man away.

The man's breathing came in short, pained bursts. Steve snickered. He stood just outside arm's reach of his victim, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Steve threw a punch to his victim's rib. The man threw his arms out to cover his injury. Grinning, Steve jabbed to the man's unprotected face. He bounced again. He threw another body punch, only to sting the man again. The man's eyes started to tear up as the throbbing sensation in his face increased. Steve faked again, the man threw a half-hearted block. He feigned a jab and the man quickly lifted both arms to block. Steve hissed a laugh. He swung his right hand in a vicious hooking punch to the man's unguarded ribs. Steve took delight in the man's agonised scream. His opponent doubled over in pain.

Steve stretched his arms high. The man snorted the air from his nose. Steve saw a dark blur speeding towards him as the man's backhand strike slammed into his jaw. His felt his head twist sharply, his body went numb. His vision blurred as he staggered backward. The man stood up straight and started walking towards him. Steve desperately fought the urge to close his eyes. Through his distorted perception he could make out the man getting closer. A blinding light flashed in Steve's eyes. It faded, only to be replaced by a crimson haze. The red tinged alley slowly twisted and warped around him. He fell to the ground, unable to maintain equilibrium.

Steve felt himself being pulled to his feet, his body limp and lifeless. He felt the air rush past him. Pain stabbed through his mind as the back of his skull cracked against the wall. His body slumped to the ground, leaving a slick blood trail down the brickwork. The man lifted his front leg, curling back his boot to expose the heel.

He drove his boot into Steve's face, crushing his skull against the wall behind him.

He wiped his boots on the dead man's pants.

The man looked around. He picked up his wallet and left the alley.

What I liked about this piece was firstly the decent description of the fight itself, with enough detail to know what's happening without the thing being slowed down by description. The pickpocket playing with his victim is well done. The PoV is a bit clumsy and the piece could have been written with a clearer third person perspective in play, but that's a small gripe. The thing I like best, however, is the realism and the sudden turnaround. The pickpocket is over-confident and showy and he pays a dear price for it. This is a good lesson in fighting.

In 2nd place, there's this piece by Jason Fischer. Jason is a friend of mine, so there might be cries of nepotism here, but so what? It's my contest, I'll pick who I like.

(from A Blind Pig for the Juggler-King)

'We're done talking,' Raoul growled, snatching at the Juggler-King's ruffled collar. Almost quicker than sight, the sorcerer darted out of his reach, but not before giving the minotaur a stout rap across the nose.

Enraged, Raoul swung his fists, his limbs unfolding so fast that they created miniature sonic booms, the glasses on the tables shaking, light bulbs rattling overhead in their fixtures. His foe narrowly avoided this onslaught, but turned his exertions into a comical dance, a tango complete with the rose that he suddenly clenched between his teeth.

'You dance beautifully, little bull,' he said, bowing and narrowly ducking a supersonic haymaker. 'Still, I prefer if I lead.'

Hand darting forward, the Juggler-King caught a corner of Raoul's skin, pulled it taut between thumb and forefinger. Opening his mouth, a split second cacophony resembling church bells and breaking pottery emerged, a word of power no mortal could hope to emulate. The disguise melted and came away in the Juggler-King's hand, a furious minotaur emerging from the tear in the skin. With a whipping motion the sorceror flicked the deflated man-shape away, held it in a matador pose as if it were a cape.

'Toro!' he cried, flicking the saggy skin as Raoul charged into him, a sickening blur of fists and horns and stomping feet. Driving a stack of furniture into splinters, the minotaur realised that the Juggler-King was already elsewhere.

'A little help?' Imogen called out, and Raoul extricated himself from the wreckage to see her fending off the Juggler-King and several of his followers. She was flailing around blindly with a set of aether-encrusted nunchucks. Her free hand was contorted into a protective mudrā, thus far keeping the blank-faced constructs at bay.

The sorcerer was attempting to sing apart her disguise, spreading cracks already beginning to show on the sides of her arms and legs. She willingly dropped the flapper facade, not missing a beat as she emerged her usual tom-boy self, cracking godlings in the ribs with more enthusiasm than art.

Attempting to goose Imogen, the Juggler-King miscalculated, putting his fingers into the path of the nunchucks, the shards of aether tearing his skin and bruising bone. Wincing, he sucked on his knuckles, and a moment later Raoul had blasted through the group of brawling drunks, barrelling into the god and bearing him into the ground.

'Try something tricky, I dare you,' the minotaur snarled, holding the points of his horns against the Juggler-King's throat. The sorcerer offered a weak smile, swallowed nervously.

I'm sure you can see why I picked this one now, right? It's brilliantly written, but we all know that Jason is a great writer. More to the point, it's a great example of developing a fight scene where the combatants are more than human, with powers and weapons of extreme power. Yet the fight stays visceral and realistic nonetheless. This is a good lesson in writing fight scenes in fantasy or other genre fiction where the players are all very powerful. The fighting needs to be ramped up to match.

And now, the Winner! Congratulations to Bryce Beattie, taking out the contest with this piece:

He lunged at Key.

Most other men would have been caught unawares by the shameless blindside. Key, however, had half expected it. He spun, parried the strike, and slid to the side.

"That was fairly dishonorable for a captain of the guard."

"It might be if I had an honorable opponent."

Key exploded at the captain.

Blades flashed and clanged with frightening speed.

The two masters whirled and spun, their bodies and blades locked in a gruesome dance. The duel flew about the platform, many times close to the edge, but never did a combatant seem off balance or likely to fall from its edge. These master swordsmen were in top form, focused and furious.

The crowd grew silent in awe of the savage battle. No one present had ever seen a match as passionate and precise as this, nor is it likely they ever would get a chance to see one again.

The grunts of physical exertion and the clanging of steel filled the air. For a time it appeared that neither fighter could gain an advantage. After several minutes of unmatched fury, the captain began to tire.

Key controlled more and more of the movement on the platform. It was only a matter of time now, and he knew it.

The captain knew it, too, and so he decided to try for a final, desperate lunge. Even in his tiredness the captain was faster than most.

Key brought his sword left and parried just enough.

The captain's weight carried him forward.

Key dug in with his heel put all of his might into an elbow strike.

The blow landed hard on the captain's chest, whose feet came out from under him. He crashed backward to the platform and his sword clanged from his grip.

Key stepped back. "Do you surrender?"

The captain rolled backwards onto his feet, scooping up the fallen blade in the process. "No need of surrender."

The traveler took a step forward and stopped.

The captain stood, sword held at guard in his right hand and left hand extended. The stance was strangely open, especially for a master.

Something wasn't right.

Key paused and wondered what the captain had up his sleeve.

The captain's left hand grew dark. A floating shadow gathered around it.

Key's eyes widened.

The captain muttered a bizarre incantation and the ball of shadow grew larger.

Only one chance, thought Key. He dove forward with an necessarily unguarded thrust.

The captain was too focused on his spell to react.

Key's blade pierced the darkness and the hand.

The darkness dissipated.

The captain screamed in pain and dropped to his knees. His sword again clattered to the platform.

Key lowered his sword. "Your magic is even worse than your skill with a sword." He backed toward the edge of the platform. It wouldn't matter now how many times the captain could stand.

I picked this fight scene as the winner as it manages to fulfill all the main criteria. We get a very definite and clear sense of place, there's a distinct style to the piece. The combatants are clearly drawn very quickly and we know all we need to about them to appreciate this scene. The fight itself is fast-paced and full of action, without too much detail slowing things down. I also liked how the captain tried to change things up by using magic when he realised his sword skills were outclassed and that proved to be a bad mistake. A good lesson in fighting that the fancy and powerful stuff isn't always very usable – if takes a long time, be it a fancy kick or a spell, it's harder to pull off than a simple, powerful, straight technique.

It was really hard to choose from all the entries. Everyone that entered should be proud, as every scene I read had a lot going for it. But congratulations to Alex, Jason and Bryce for making the final cut.

What do you think? Do you like the scenes I chose and do you agree with my reasoning?

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Phantasy Moste Grotesk at Red Penny Papers

You may remember a while ago that I was posting about Red Penny Papers and the great fiction they publish. They're going to publish my novelette, The Darkest Shade Of Grey, as a four part serial early next year. Right now they've just started publishing another novelette.

My friend and excellent writer, Felicity Dowker, penned a disturbing psychological horror piece called Phantasy Moste Grotesk. It's a great yarn and you can read part one now. Head over to the Red Penny Papers and check it out. Tell your friends.

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Best Australian Blogs 2011 Competition

This very blog has been nominated for the Best Australian Blogs 2011 Competition, run by the Sydney Writers' Centre. There's a lot of blogs in the running, but if you could see your way to dropping me a vote in the Peoples' Choice Award, that would make you extra awesome.

It's very simple – you go to this page: http://www.sydneywriterscentre.com.au/bloggingcomp/peopleschoice.html and click through to the Voting Page. All the blogs are listed alphabetically, so click through to the Ts for The Word (which is this blog, obviously), and check the box. Add your name and email address at the end and job done.

I'd be very grateful.

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Australian Shadows Awards announced

The winners of the Australian Shadows Awards for this year have been announced. They are:

Long Fiction winner:

Under Stones by Bob Franklin (Affirm Press)

Edited Publication winner:

Macabre: A Journey through Australia's Darkest Fears, edited by Angela Challis & Marty Young (Brimstone Press)

Short Fiction winner:

She Said by Kirstyn McDermott (Scenes from the Second Storey)

These are all very worthy winners and I'm honoured to count each of these people among my friends. The Australian spec fic community is great and I couldn't be happier for Bob, Angela, Marty and Kirstyn (not to mention all the incredible authors that contributed to Macabre to make it the incredible achievement it is).

You might remember that I reviewed Scenes from the Second Storey a while back and picked Kirstyn's story as one of my favourites. I haven't read Macabre yet, but it's on the pile and the Table Of Contents is just amazing. I did a signing with Bob Franklin at Halloween last year and grabbed a copy of Under Stones then. I haven't finished that yet, but every story in it that I have read has been excellent.

You may also remember that Dark Pages, the anthology published by my micro publishing outfit, Blade Red Press, was also nominated for a Shadows award. Clearly Macabre beat us to the win, but guest judge Rocky Wood had this to say about Dark Pages.

Dark Pages 1 (and let's hope there are more) is a treat – a collection of dark fiction ranging outside the horror genre (including science fiction) and including authors from outside Down Under. Marty Young's neat little "Clip Notes" has the classic Twilight Zone feel to it and is but one example of what makes this anthology a deeply satisfying read.

That's just great – and good to see Marty get another shout out. It's interesting that many of the people nominated in one category were also featured in another. We really do have some serious talent in this country.

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees. All the details and judges reports can be found here.

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So many free books, mine and others' – link-a-rama!

I thought I'd combine a few things into one post, as there seems to be a plethora of free book offers happening at the moment. My own books are available all over the place, but lots of other great books too. So here's a kind of digest list of everything going on at the moment.

Firstly, there's my Write The Fight Right giveaway happening. – basically, send me a fight scene up to 500 words, the best three get published right here. 1st place gets a free Write The Fight Right ebook and a signed copy of RealmShift, 2nd & 3rd place get copies of Write The Fight Right ebook.

As mentioned in my previous post, I've been interviewed over at Friday Flash Dot Org, and there's a chance to win a copy of RealmShift there too.

Next up, Fangbooks is giving away several copies of Trent Jamieson's awesome urban fantasy thrillers, Death Most Definite and Managing Death. All you have to do is comment. All those details here.

And finally, there's a massive giveaway over at the Writer Goes On A Journey website, for Aussie Author Month. Yeah, that's right. We get a month. Want to make something of it? There's all kinds of sweet books by people like Jason Fischer, Tara Moss, Trudi Canavan, Lisa L Hannett, Trent Jamieson, Jennifer Fallon, Kirstyn McDermott and me. A variety of ways to enter, deadline is April 30th. All the details here.

Get to it. Enter, win books, read!

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"My Path to Publishing" interview up at fridayflash.org

Any regular readers here will know that I occasionally indulge in a bit of Friday Flash. It's basically a community of writers that put together a flash fiction story (1,000 words or less) and post it on their site. They then tweet the link with the hashtag #fridayflash and get to share their story with others in the group. It was started as an idea by Jon Strother a while back and has grown into a pretty cool community.

I don't post often, as most of my writing time goes into things that I plan to sell and I don't write a lot of flash these days, but I still have a stab now and then. My story, Decennial General Meeting, made it into the first group anthology, The Best Of Friday Flash Vol. 1. You can see all my Friday Flash related stuff by checking the Friday Flash category here.

Anyway, there's a dedicated website now – http://fridayflash.org/ – and they've started a new series of interviews called My Path To Publishing. In their words, "This series will feature writers' stories and their experiences on the many different paths to publication."

They picked me for the inaugural interview, so if you're interested you can find that chat here. I'm giving away a signed book as part of the thing too, so get over there and have a look.

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ThrillerCast 15 – Fighting and responding badly to reviews

The latest ThrillerCast is up. In this episode, David Wood and I talk about fighting and writing fight scenes, in some thinly veiled… well, actually not veiled at all, pimping of my new ebook. We also talk about the recent author meltdown, where a self-published author responded really badly to a negative review of her work. I deliberately avoided blogging about it at the time, as there was enough internet beating up going on already. But Dave and I talk about it in this podcast and discuss how people should respond to reviews. Clue: it's a very simple aswer.

Enjoy. And if you do enjoy it, please recommend us to your friends.

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The written fight tournament – Begin!

My friend Gary Kemble came up with this idea and it's a good one. Now that I've finally made my short ebook about writing fight scenes available, Gary suggested I run a written fight scene competition here on my blog. He actually said: "You should host a fight-writing kumite on your blog. Best 500-word fight scene wins… something? That'd be fun!"

I reckon that would be fun. So it begins here.

Send in a fight scene you've written, or write one specially for the contest. Absolutely maximum of 500 words, but if you can make a tight scene in 200 or 300 words I'll be even more impressed. There doesn't have to be any context or setup, we just want the fight – but make it real. Give us some description of the surroundings, let us know your characters just a little bit in the process. Try to make the fight scene as visceral and intense as you can.

Make it interesting. Your characters don't have to be human. They can be magical or mundane, on a spaceship or in a garden shed, set in 1603 or 2533. It can be one on one, one on many or many on many. Hand-to-hand or weapons. Mix it up and make it fun.

Send your entry to me at alan(@)alanbaxteronline(.)com – (take out the ( ) obviously). Put "FIGHT WRITING CONTEST" in the subject line. I'll use my completely unbiased judgement to decide which are the best scenes and there'll be prizes.

1st place gets a copy of my Write The Fight Right ebook in the format of their choice and a signed copy of RealmShift.

2nd and 3rd place get copies of Write The Fight Right in whatever format they prefer.

I'll post the three winning fight scenes here with links back to the authors once the decision is made.

All clear? Good.

FIGHT!

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Dead Red Heart – preorder now

"33 fantastic tales, 502 pages, 140,000 words. All about vampires in Australia."

Pre-order details are up now for Dead Red Heart from Ticonderoga Publications.

As contributor Pete Kempshall says, "the contributors' list reads like a who's who of Australian horror, so it's going to be well worth picking up." I couldn't agree more and I'm really pleased to be in among that list of great names.

Also, pre-orders from the website are 20% off before May 5, or the book will be available through Amazon, The Book Depository and Barnes and Noble in early May.

Alternatively, you can always grab a copy at the book's official launch at Swancon. I know that several of the contributing authors will be there, including myself, and we'll all be more than happy to sign our stories for you.

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