Last Friday of 'Tis More Blessed

It's the last Friday of 'Tis More Blessed. There's a lot of winter left to come. January and February are looming in the near future. Don't you want to curl up with a good read while chill winds whip and rattle your windows? Come celebrate the season with free books and giveaways. And spread the word please, #tismoreblessed.

Visit the sites below to see what's on offer and don't forget to enter my raffle at the tail of this post. You could win a paperback copy of the latest Plasma Frequency Magazine edition or Tales of Woe and Wonder. Winners to be announced January 1.

Stephanie Loree   Jeff Beesler   Jeff Chapman   M Pepper Langlinais 

 Sherry Ellis   Martin Willoughby   E. Catherine Tobler   Tyrean Martinson

Peter Coleborn   Chrysoula Tzavelas   Stevie Carroll   Anne Barwell

Kristy Gillespie   Misha Gericke   Lexa Cain   Roland Yeomans

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Ghost Stories for Christmas Eve

M. R. James circa 1900.

Christmas Eve is past for this year. Most of you are in the thick of boxing day or maybe preparing for New Year's Eve celebrations. One of the Victorian Christmas Eve traditions that appears to have died out is the telling of ghost stories. Family and friends used to gather round the fire on Christmas Eve to delight and give fright with tales of specters and terrors. Other than watching some version of A Christmas Carol, I doubt most Americans make any connection between Christmas Eve and ghost stories, unless you're a fan of M. R. James.

Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936), was an English author and medieval scholar. He served as provost of King's College, Cambridge from 1905 to 1918 and is best remembered for his ghost stories, many of which draw on his antiquarian interests. His ghost stories appeared in the collections: Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904), More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1911), A Thin Ghost and Others (1919), and A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories (1925). James claimed that he wrote many of these tales as Christmas Eve entertainments.

Thanks to the BBC and Youtube, you too can experience a bit of an old Christmas tradition. Settle in to a cosy chair with something hot and comforting to drink. Build a fire if you have a fireplace and listen to some masterful tales of the strange and mysterious. Just do a search on Youtube for "M. R. James".

Here are a few links to get you started:

"A Warning to the Curious".

"Number 13".

"The Ash Tree".

CSFF Blog Tour: Merlin's Shadow

This month's selection is Merlin's Shadow, book two in the Merlin Spiral series by Robert Treskillard. I reviewed the first book in the series, Merlin's Blade, a few months ago. You can find my comments here.

Merlin's Shadow picks up the action where Merlin's Blade ended. Merlin has killed the stone by driving Uther's sword into it. Merlin's father is dead. Ganieda--Merlin's half-sister--watches her dear mother die and vows to take revenge on Merlin, whom she blames for everything. Uther's daughters are in hiding and Uther's infant son Arthur is under the protection of Merlin and Colvarth who are on the run from Vortigern, who murdered Uther and covets the high kingship. The narrative switches back and forth between Merlin, Ganieda, and the druid Morganthu as it develops the characters and sets up the conflict between Merlin and Ganieda.

Merlin faces one hard decision and test after another. Not a lot of good things happen to Merlin and company in this book. They endure Vortigern's chase, a season of back-breaking slavery to the Picts, and a harrowing journey across an icy sea. Time and again, Merlin's efforts are thwarted, although a few small victories along the way keep the party alive. Merlin struggles with depression and a deep sense of failure, but his suffering is not in vain. He learns to depend on others as he comes to understand lessons in humility, love, and sacrifice.

Ganieda's path takes her in the opposite direction toward a darker destiny. At the foot of the stone, she discovers an orb and a fang, both of which possess dark, magical powers. The orb allows her to see other places and to briefly travel there. She weilds the fang like a weapon to give power to her curses. Both Ganieda and Morganthu are able to use the orb and fang. They delight in Merlin's suffering, which they witness through the orb. They interfere with Merlin and their efforts add to his suffering but always fall short of killing him. Ganieda and Morganthu fight over the orb and fang. Ganieda also has visions in which she meets with the Voice, Belornos perhaps, who uses her hatred for Merlin and love for her mother to manipulate Ganieda into its servant. Ganieda learns too late that while the Voice never lies, it omits some of the truth, allowing Ganieda to believe in falsehoods.

With its themes of humility and sacrifice, Merlin's Shadow is a deeply Christian work. Treskillard sets up an interesting contrast between the sangraal--the Holy Grail--and Ganieda's tools--the orb and fang. Merlin finds that he cannot make the sangraal do magic for him but he is unable to dispose of it when he loses faith in it. The bowl keeps coming back to him. Ganieda and Morganthu find it easy to manipulate the orb and fang to bring destruction but Ganieda is powerless to do what she most wants, bring her mother back. The orb and fang are easily lost, and one must work hard to reacquire them once lost. The sangraal can restore and heal, but as Merlin discovers, the power rests not in the object but in faith in the power behind it.

If you enjoy a complicated story pitting forces of good and evil against one another in an heroic struggle, check out Treskillard's variation on the Merlin-Arthur story.

To learn more about Robert Treskillard and his work, visit his website at www.KingArthur.org.uk or his blog at www.epictales.org/blog/robertblog.php.

In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of Merlin's Shadow from the publisher.

Check out what other CSFF Bloggers are saying at the links below:

Red Bissell Thomas Clayton Booher Beckie Burnham Pauline Creeden April Erwin Victor Gentile Ryan Heart Timothy Hicks Jason Joyner Carol Keen Jennette Mbewe Amber McCallister Shannon McDermott Meagan @ Blooming with Books Rebecca LuElla Miller

Joan Nienhuis Nissa Jalynn Patterson Writer Rani Nathan Reimer Chawna Schroeder Jacque Stengl Jojo Sutis Robert Treskillard Steve Trower Shane Werlinger Phyllis Wheeler Deborah Wilson

'Tis More Blessed Launch

It's the first Friday of 'Tis More Blessed. I know you want to curl up with a good read while chill winds whip and rattle your windows, so come celebrate the season with free books and giveaways.

Visit the sites below to see what's on offer and don't forget to enter my raffle at the tail of this post. You could win a paperback copy of the latest Plasma Frequency Magazine edition or Tales of Woe and Wonder. Winners to be announced January 1.

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CSFF Blog Tour: The Shadow Lamp

It's fall and that means it's time for another installment in Stephen Lawhead's Bright Empires series. The Shadow Lamp is book four in the five part epic. With the introduction of new characters and story lines in The Shadow Lamp, I'm curious to see how Lawhead will wrap everything up in the next book. The Bright Empires series is one of those stories that seems like it could go on forever or suddenly come crashing down in the "End of Everything." I like these characters and ley jumping presents endless possibilities. I wouldn't mind reading a lot more books in this series. Each visit in the Bright Empires world is like reuniting with old friends.

Like its predecessor The Spirit Well, The Shadow Lamp provides the history behind several story elements. We accompany one Flinders-Petrie descendant on a trip to Egypt to secret the skin map in an Egyptian tomb and follow another descendant on a quest to steal it from said tomb. Ever hear of anyone drowning in a desert? Ask Charles Flinders-Petrie about it. We learn the origin of the infamous Burleigh men and witness a thrilling sea battle in the process. I guess you could say Burleigh is a good judge of character, although it's not the character most of us are looking for.

The most prominent new character in this installment is Tony Clarke, Cassandra's father. He follows the Ghost Road in pursuit of his daughter and winds up in Damascus, where the Zetetic Society has been expecting him. Clarke is a physicist and his conversations with Brendan Hanno on the state of the universe set up the problem for the next book. Writers are told to make the stakes as high as possible and Lawhead has taken that advice to heart. The Zetetic Society members are convinced that the annihilation of the universe and time itself is at hand unless they somehow redress the balance and keep the universe expanding. I wondered as I was reading how that bad penny Archelaeus Burleigh could be responsible for the collapse of the omniverse, but Kit may have stumbled--as he always does--and caught the real culprit in a pool of trouble way over his head.

To learn more about Stephen Lawhead and his works, visit stephenlawhead.com or like his Facebook page.

In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of The Shadow Lamp from the publisher.

Check out what other CSFF Bloggers are saying at the links below:

Julie Bihn Red Bissell Thomas Clayton Booher Thomas Fletcher Booher Beckie Burnham Karri Compton Theresa Dunlap April Erwin Timothy Hicks Christopher Hopper Becky Jesse Becca Johnson Jason Joyner Carol Keen Rebekah Loper

Shannon McDermott Meagan @ Blooming with Books Rebecca LuElla Miller Mirriam Neal Writer Rani Nathan Reimer Chawna Schroeder Jojo Sutis Rachel Starr Thomson Robert Treskillard Steve Trower Rachel Wyant Phyllis Wheeler Deborah Wilson

Coffin Hop Wrap Up

Thanks to everyone who stopped by my blog for Coffin Hop. (And if you didn't make it, no fear, the door's still open.) Thanks, also, to everyone who made my raffle a success. Coffin Hop was a crazy blast. I'm already thinking about what to do for next year.

The winners of the raffle are:

Grand Prize: Caren W.
Second Prizes: Lori J. and Anita S.

Congratulations winners. Your prizes are speeding through the ether.

Coffin Hop #4

As anyone who works with words in English understands, the language is insanely rich based on its multi-language heritage. (Thank you, William the Conqueror.) Here's a sampling of words associated with this season of horror and fear. I am surprised at the even split between Germanic and Latinate words.

Halloween (Germanic): An eighteenth-century shortening of the Scottish word Allhallow-even, meaning the Eve of All Saints, the last night in October. The verb hallow derives from the Old English word halgian, meaning to consecrate, ordain, or honor something as holy. Hallows derives from the Old English word haligra, denoting a saint or holy person.

Grendel, by J. R. Skelton (1908).

Horror (Latinate): From the Middle English horrour, which comes from the Old French horror (which in modern French is rendered horreur), which derives from the Latin horror, meaning dread, religious awe, or the action of bristling with fear, shuddering. The latter meaning to bristle, comes from horrēre.

Terror (Latinate): A late fourteenth century borrowing from Old French terreur, from the Latin words terrorem, meaning dread, and terrere, meaning frighten.

Monster (Latinate): In early fourteenth-century usage, monster referred to a malformed animal or human and derives from Old French monstre and mostre, meaning a monstrosity. The Old French words come from the Latin monstrum, which denotes a divine omen, portent, abnormal shape, monstrosity, or object of dread. The root for monstrum is monere, which means to warn. Abnormal animals were associated with evil omens. By the late fourteenth century, English speakers were applying monster to mythical animals. Calling inhumanly wicked people monsters dates from the 1550s.

Coffin (Latinate): Originally meant a chest or box in which to store valuables and derives from the Old French cofin and the Latin cophinus, meaning a coffer, basket, or hamper. The Latin word can be traced to the Greek kophinos, meaning a basket. The English association with burial and corpses dates to the 1520s.

Fiend (Germanic): Comes from the Old English feond, meaning enemy or foe, which derives from the Proto-Germanic *fijæjan, a word for enemy. Considering the spelling, feond was originally the opposite of freond, a word for friend. It took on its diabolical connotations when Old English speakers began using it for Satan, the enemy of all mankind. Foe captures the original meaning.

Haunt (Germanic): Derives from Old French hanter, meaning to frequent or be familiar with. Hanter likely comes Old Norse heimta, meaning to bring home, which derives from Proto-Germanic *haimat-janan. The reference to a spirit haunting a place may have been present in the Proto-Germanic usage, but Shakespeare popularized the meaning in his plays.

Fear (Germanic): Derives from Old English fær, meaning calamity or sudden danger, which comes from Proto-Germanic *feraz, meaning danger. The present meaning—an uneasiness attributed to potential danger—evolved in the late twelfth century. The Old English words for fear as we use it now are ege and fyrhto.

While you're contemplating etymologies, don't forget to enter my raffle for a chance to win the Coffin Hop anthology or my ghost story novelette Highway 24. Find more Hop destinations at the end of this post. Keep hoppin' and don't close the lid too tight. I've heard coffins can get a bit stuffy.

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Visit the other Coffin Hop bloggers below for more Halloween fun.

Coffin Hop #3

It's day five of Coffin Hop. This has been great fun. I'm amazed at the effort some of the other participants have put into their contests and posts. I need to start planning for next year. Now. I'm hoping to have a few more horror titles to give away by then.

As the leaves change and the nights grow colder with the approach of Halloween, I'm always drawn to reread or listen to some favorite books and stories. At the top of my list is Carmilla, Joseph Sheridan LeFanu's vampire novella. The story predates Bram Stoker's Dracula by nearly two decades. You can find my review of the story here. If you're a vampire fan and you haven't read Carmilla, well, you should. There's a fine recording of Carmilla at LibriVox or you can find the text in LeFanu's In a Glass Darkly.

Next up is “The Rats in the Walls,” H. P. Lovecraft's tale of an ancient castle haunted by rats and a devastating family secret. Frederic Himebaugh gave an impassioned reading of the tale earlier this year on Protecting Project Pulp, show 47.

And then there's Roger Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October. Set in late Victorian England, the story tells of a "game," a competition between openers and closers, concerning a gate between this world and the realm of the Great Old Ones. Snuff, the guard dog and familiar belonging to Jack the Ripper, tells the story, which has a chapter for every day in October.

So how about you? Do you have any books or stories that you always read near Halloween?

While you're thinking, don't forget to enter my raffle for a chance to win the Coffin Hop anthology or my ghost story novelette Highway 24. Find more Hop destinations at the end of this post. Keep hoppin' and don't close the lid too tight. I've heard coffins can get a bit stuffy.

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Visit the other Coffin Hop bloggers below for more Halloween fun.

Coffin Hop #2

I'm of two minds today (and since it's late in October, I may mean that literally). It's the last Friday of Creepy Freebies and day two of Coffin Hop.

For Creepy Freebie fans and any one else, click over to Creepy Freebie Central to find free stuff and contests brought to you from James Garcia Jr., Bob Eccles, Michelle Ann King, and Aaron Polson. It's been a fun month and passed all too quickly. Can't wait to do the creepy freebie dance again next year.

Two minds is a rather common theme in horror. Consider the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde or the many variations on the werewolf or the serial killer who seems to slip back and forth between murder and normality. I think we find the movement back and forth the most unsettling, the most frightening. Is each of us capable of switching, of losing control. What's your favorite bit of horror about two minds?

While you're pondering those thoughts, don't forget to enter my raffle for a chance to win the Coffin Hop anthology or my ghost story novelette. Find more Hop destinations at the end of this post. Keep hoppin' and don't close the lid too tight. Sometimes they stick.

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Visit the other Coffin Hop bloggers below for more Halloween fun.

Coffin Hop #1

It's the first day of Coffin Hop. What's that? Here's the brief description from coffinhop.com:

The quick answer is that we are a loose association of hundreds of horror authors and artists who get together for the week before Halloween, when we throw a colossal online party with prizes, giveaways and all the crazy you could want leading up to All Hallow’s Eve. Come back from October 24 – 31 to get in on the biggest, baddest, Halloweeniest online event of the year!

My raffle, beginning today and extending through the end of October, includes a grand prize--a kindle copy of the anthology Coffin Hop: Death by Drive-In--and two second prizes--a kindle copy of my ghost story novelette Highway 24.

Coffin Hop: Death by Drive-In is a collection of some of the best and brightest of the Coffin Hop crew, with 21 amazing B-movie inspired stories from some of the best Indie authors around. Go HERE to read more about it.

In Highway 24, a young travelling salesman encounters a ghost on a lonely country highway and comes face-to-face with a dark secret from his father’s past.

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This is also the last day to enter my raffle for a Kindle copy of the Midnight Diner 4: Wastelands Under the Sun--hard-boiled speculative fiction with a Christian slant. The Diner 4 features my story “Morphine and Chocolate”. Click HERE to enter.

And, last but not least, if your taste slithers toward twisted nursery rhymes and tales of revenge gone horribly wrong, grab my short story “Sixpence and Rye and a Snake in a Pie: A Fractured Nursery Rhyme”. It's forever free on Amazon and everywhere else.

Happy hopping and don't close the lid too tight.

Visit the other Coffin Hop bloggers below for more Halloween fun.

Creepy Freebies: Friday #3

It's a Friday in October, which means more Creepy Freebie fun.

This week's lineup includes me, Ellie Garratt, Anthony J. Rapino, Lyndon Perry. Follow the links to check out what they're offering. (And if you happen by Milo's blog, don't forget to thank him for being our creepy host.)

My monster story “Soul Thief” is free on Smashwords today through the weekend with the coupon code FP28J.

What happens when you abandon your family? Do they abandon you? Does a soul eater or a mythical monster come looking for you? James is about to find out. He's home alone, having once again turned down an invitation from his family to share in an evening out. He's about to come face to face with a horrifying thief of a distinctly supernatural kind.

Also, enter my raffle below to win one of three copies of the Midnight Diner 4: Wastelands Under the Sun.

The long-awaited fourth installment in the Midnight Diner anthology series continues the Diner's tradition of offering quality, hard-boiled speculative fiction with a Christian slant. No restrictions on God, no restrictions on reality.

The Midnight Diner 4 contains my story “Morphine and Chocolate”.

“Morphine and Chocolate,” possibly our most eccentric Editor’s Choice to date, virtually bursts at the seams as its protagonist, neither an angel nor a demon, tries to come to grips with a horror as quotidian as it is unfathomable. 

—Robert Scott Garbacz, in his introductory essay “From the Counter”

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Lonesome October Nights

Need something to while away those chilly, lonesome nights in October? I've got the link for you. Check out Salome Strangelove's reading of Roger Zelazny's A Night In the Lonesome October. Here's a link to the introduction. The remaining 31 chapters (one for each day in October) follow as separate recordings. Strangelove's presentation and the story are quite addictive, so don't be surprised if you have trouble stopping once you start listening.

A Night In the Lonesome October is Zelazny's last novel and is now sadly out of print. Set in late Victorian England, the story tells of a "game," a competition between openers and closers, concerning a gate between this world and the realm of the Great Old Ones. The story draws heavily on Lovecraft's mythos as well as characters from Victorian gothic fiction. Jack the Ripper, Count Dracula, and Sherlock Holmes, among others, populate the tale. Each player in the game has a familiar. Snuff, the guard dog and familiar belonging to Jack the Ripper, tells the story.

The title comes from a line in the first stanza of Edgar Allan Poe's "Ulalume."

The skies they were ashen and sober;
    The leaves they were crisped and sere—
    The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
    Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
    In the misty mid region of Weir—
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
    In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

Creepy Freebies: Friday #1

Creepy Freebies has begun! 

Check out what fellow bloggers Erin Cole, Stoney Setzer, and Rhonda Parrish have on offer.

Creepy Freebie Central can be found at Milo Fowler's blog.

And don't forget to enter my raffle. Three lucky winners will receive a Kindle version of  the Midnight Diner 4: Wastelands Under the Sun, which features my story "Morphine and Chocolate" among others.

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Coming in October

October is just around the corner. You know what that means. Leaves, chilly nights, bonfires, pumpkins, and spooooookies. It's also time for Milo Fowler's Creepy Freebies!

The Twa Corbies (1919)

by Arthur Rackham.

This year Milo is teaming up with a bunch of other writers. (What do you call a group of writers? A scribble? Flourish? Gaggle? Murder? Writers are kind of like crows, always cawing. Let's go with that one. Hmm.) So, Milo is teaming up with a murder of writers to bring you free downloads and raffles every Friday in October. It's like Halloween every Friday and you don't even have to dress up or go outside. But if you want to dress up and go outside, feel free to do so.

Stop by Milo's blog every Friday to get directions to the "houses" with the Creepy Freebies courtesy of Aaron Polson, Anthony J. Rapino, Bob Eccles, Cate Cardner, Christine Rains, Deborah Walker, Ellie Garratt, Erin Cole, James Garcia Jr., Jeff Chapman, Lyndon Perry, Michelle Ann King, Rhonda Parrish, Roland Yeomans, Simon Kewin, and Stoney Setzer.

To get you in the mood, here's one of my tweets from the 13 Words of Horror Friday the 13th Twitter Party sponsored by Underneath the Juniper Tree. Go here for more delicious tweets.

Bamboo and blood, such yummy stew, but what about YOU in the stew?

The Creepy Freebie fun starts this Friday, October 4! Be there! Be scared!

Word of the Week: Rake

The Tavern Scene from A Rake's Progress

by William Hogarth.

Fall is tumbling down upon us and all around us (if you live someplace where the leaves turn and fall that is). Here's a word synonymous with yard work and debauchery: rake.

The prosaic meaning of rake—a tool with teeth for scraping and bringing things like leaves together—comes from the Old English words raca and ræce, which likely derived from the reconstructed Proto-Germanic root rak-, meaning to gather or heap up. Similar words exist in Old Norse: reka, Old High German: rehho, and Gothic: rikan.

The more colorful meaning of rake—an idle, dissolute person and often a heartless womanizer—comes from the word rakehell. The shortening of rakehell to rake likely became common in the 1650s. Rakehell's origin is fittingly murky. It might be an alteration of the Middle English rakel, meaning rash or headstrong, because of the association with the words rake and Hell. I guess a rake gathers up Hellish habits of personal conduct.

Rakes bring pain and suffering to otherwise good people. Just try raking a half-acre of leaves. The other kind of rake does something similar—dispensing emotional pain and suffering—particularly in novels. Two of the most famous rakes are Vicomte de Valmont from Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Robert Lovelace from Clarissa.

Valmont pursues and falls in love with the virtuous Madame de Tourvel but then cruelly deserts her at the urging of the Marquise de Merteuil who had challenged Valmont to corrupt the young Cécile de Volanges. Valmont dies in a duel with Cécile's lover but not before destroying Merteuil's reputation. Emotionally wrecked by Valmont's rejection, Tourvel succumbs to a fever after learning of his death.

Lovelace desires to marry the virtuous Clarissa Harlowe, whose family insists she enter into a marriage with Roger Solmes, a union more economically advantageous to the Harlowe family. Angered at the Harlowe's rejection, Lovelace decides to take revenge on the Harlowe family by marrying Clarissa. He tricks her into eloping with him, but she refuses to marry him. He imprisons her in a brothel and decides that only after destroying her virtue will she marry him. He rapes her. His scheme backfires and Clarissa becomes even more adamant that she will not marry him. She escapes from the brothel but dies from illness and mental duress. Lovelace dies in a duel with Clarissa's cousin.

The machinations are much more complicated than those brief descriptions, but you get the idea. Who is your favorite rake?

Finally Published! Midnight Diner 4

I've been waiting a long time to announce this. Years, I think. The Midnight Diner 4: Wastelands Under the Sun is finally available to the reading world. It contains my short story “Morphine and Chocolate,” which is also one of the three Chef's Picks in the collection. "Morphine and Chocolate" draws for inspiration from the medieval poem Pearl (which you can read all about here). Bob Marley's “Mr. Brown” also contributed some ideas. Like Pearl, my story concerns a father mourning the loss of his daughter but places events in contemporary and psychedelic settings.

“Morphine and Chocolate,” possibly our most eccentric Editor’s Choice to date, virtually bursts at the seams as its protagonist, neither an angel nor a demon, tries to come to grips with a horror as quotidian as it is unfathomable. 

—Robert Scott Garbacz, in his introductory essay “From the Counter”

The Fairy Tale as Laboratory: Jeff Chapman on “The Princess and the Vampire”

Eric Ortlund—author of Dead Petals - An Apocalypse—interviewed me a couple years ago regarding my story “The Princess and the Vampire.” The interview was originally posted on The Midnight Diner blog. The Diner is undergoing major renovation and the old posts are no longer available. I love this interview so I was bummed that it had disappeared. Enter Diner staff Michelle Pendergrass and Lincoln Crisler, who graciously helped me to locate an archive copy.

“The Princess and the Vampire” first appeared in The Midnight Diner, Volume 3. It has since been reprinted in my story collection Tales of Woe and Wonder.

Ortlund's Introduction

With a title like “The Princess and the Vampire,” I expected Jeff Chapman’s tale to begin with “Once upon a time, in a faraway land . . .” The story does open with two members of a royal court sent to deliver a message to another castle, but little else in this kingdom resembles what you’d expect in a fairy tale. The most glaring example of the dissonance I experienced in visiting this kingdom is that our Princess is determined to take a vampire as her plaything or her lover-roles which, for her, amount to pretty much the same thing-and is ready to flog anyone suggesting otherwise. A spoiled princess is already enough to shatter any expectation of a “happily ever after” at the end, but the vampire is not what you’d expect, either. While Chapman’s vampires behave in pretty standard ways, our view of them is drastically changed in the story’s final paragraphs.

Part of Chapman’s accomplishment is the way he shows the surreal ability of vampires to mesmerize the humans around them, but shatters our view of the undead by the end. The story’s last scene is revelatory on several levels, and continues to reverberate after reading. I won’t be giving much away by saying that things end truly tragically for the Princess. But part of the reason I enjoyed “The Princess and the Vampire” is that Chapman deftly avoids becoming prurient. The story strikes exactly the right note as the earlier pieces of the narrative fall into place and everything changes at the same time. It is disturbing in the right kinds of ways, and in ways I didn’t expect, as well. I probed a little further in the following interview. (You can read Chapman’s tale in the third edition of The Midnight Diner.)

Ortlund: Your title seemed deliberately to evoke a fairy-tale setting and also to subvert it. Was that intentional? Did you want readers a little off balance, right from the beginning?

Chapman: Putting readers off balance is a good thing. I want them to expect the unexpected and be at least a little surprised at the ending. I imagined this story with a fairy tale setting: kings, princesses, castles, and medieval technology. The reader doesn’t question that the Princess has the power to flog anyone that gets in her way because in a fairy tale, rulers possess that kind of unchecked power. While invoking the tropes of a fairy tale, I’m aiming for a writing style and attention to physical detail and motivation that is closer to a modern short story.

Vampires are usually associated with the horror genre, so juxtaposing the fairy tale princess and horrific vampire in the title signals something strange is brewing in the story that follows. I didn’t plan it, but I think there is a gradual move from fairy tale to horror as the story moves toward its conclusion.

Ortlund: I can’t think of too many stories which have spoiled, Disney-ish princesses . . . and the undead. What influences were there for this story? Were you trying to play with the vampire mythos at all?

Chapman: I imagined and wrote this story when the craze for the Twilight series was in full swing. I like my vampires to be evil, not the moral center of the story. I prefer traditional vampire tales like Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla.” Vampires are following an alternative route to immortality. That path has some drawbacks for the vampire, and many mortals in the vampire’s wake pay a high price as vampires buy immortality with blood and death. It’s a wicked perversion of the Christian concept of salvation and eternal life bought through Christ’s blood and death. It’s hard for a vampire to be anything but evil. There is some wiggle room if you consider how someone becomes a vampire. Is it willing or forced? Can a vampire turn from evil and repent? There’s lots of material there for interesting stories, but I don’t think it’s possible for a vampire to remain a vampire and be “good” at the same time. It’s like an alcoholic who says he’ll just drink once in a while. A vampire who repents must seek his own death.

Ortlund: The scene where the Chief Counselor tries to de-fang the vampire seemed to me simultaneously comic and unsettling. Your theme seems to come into sharp focus here.

Chapman: “The Princess and the Vampire” asks, can you render something that is inherently evil harmless? Can you domesticate a vampire? As I mentioned in my answer to the previous question, a number of popular works suggest that vampires are not inherently evil. Young girls can have them as boyfriends. I find this domestication or “de-fanging” of vampires appalling. Fairy tales provide a wonderful laboratory for taking a metaphor such as de-fanging a vampire and making it literal.

The de-fanging scene came to me first. I built the rest of the story around it, describing how we got to this point and then addressing the ramifications. Pulling out a vampire’s teeth is insane and ridiculous. I always chuckle when I think about this scene so I went with the comedy to achieve some dark comic effects. I liked the Fool’s suggestion of horse power (another literalization) and the image of the Barber bouncing across the yard. Their failure to pull out the teeth because “the roots run too deep” and their compromise to shear off the sharp points, suggests the impossibility of taming inherent evil.

The fangs are a symptom of the vampire’s “disease”, not it’s cause. The Vampire recognizes the Princess’s faulty logic and willingly gives up his teeth. The only way to get rid of the evil is to go for the heart, which the Chief Counselor attempts to skewer and the Vampire protects.

Ortlund: Ironically, even the vampire’s final victory is foiled by a bit of clumsiness on his part. Is this (in your mind) just part of the story, or are you hoping readers will notice this detail?

Chapman: I didn’t like the idea of the Vampire achieving a complete victory. Nobody likes to see evil triumph although the Princess asked for what she got. I hope readers will notice that evil is not invincible and see the parallel between the Princess and the Vampire. The Princess brought about her downfall and the Vampire injured himself. I also liked the image of the Vampire dripping the Princess’s blood across her kingdom as he made his escape, proclaiming her folly to everyone.

Ortlund: The Fool traditionally tells truths (in veiled, indirect ways) nobody else wants to hear. As the character with the last line of dialogue, did you intend him to play this role? Or is this Fool not up to the task?

Chapman: The Fool unwittingly makes the most profound statement: “Who would have thought a vampire would use a dagger?” At this point in the story, the Fool’s point is obvious. There has been a severe failure of imagination, but he sums up the thrust of the tale. When playing with evil, there are no rules or safeguards.

CSFF Blog Tour: A Cast of Stones Day Two

As I stated in yesterday's post, I found A Cast of Stones a mixed bag. The story came to life for me in chapter eleven, when Errol meets the farmer Rale and his wife and daughter. Rale and his family nurse Errol back to health after he nearly drowns while fleeing from some more people trying to kill him. Rale helps Errol overcome his addiction and we learn why Errol took to drink. Rale sees potential in Errol and teaches him how to fight with a staff. The next segment of the story, when Errol joins a caravan heading for Erinon also held my attention. Errol puts his new found fighting skills to use and manages to resist the ale barrel. He's maturing quickly as the story progresses, maybe a bit so quickly at times as to stretch my credulity. He also meets a defrocked priest named Conger who fills him in on the history of the church and kingdom. Carr does wonderful work in these sections creating secondary characters with depth and interesting back stories.

What makes these sections work so well? First, they don't feature Martin, Luis, Cruk, and Liam. The characters in these sections explain to Errol what's going on in the kingdom and speculate with him why people are chasing him. More importantly than Errol learning this information, the reader learns the context. Carr keeps the reader in the dark for much of the story because we're limited to Errol's point of view. We can only know what Errol knows and make guesses from that scanty information. Also, it was never clear to me why Martin and Luis refused to tell Errol what was going on, even in broad outline. The political situation in the kingdom and its implications is no secret. Rale and Conger tell Errol everything they know without a second thought. It seemed to me that Carr was withholding information to create some sense of suspense or confusion. Instead of creating suspense, I felt frustrated and annoyed with some of the principal characters. Keeping a character in the dark is one thing but keeping readers in the dark can be dangerous. Adding some chapters from other points of view would have alleviated the problem.

I've read books before that feature heroic characters that approach near perfection. Liam appears to be one of those types. I find these characters annoying. No one is without problems or weaknesses. Liam's issues are missing which makes him rather dull. Another item missing from A Cast of Stones is a map. Not every fantasy book requires a map but Errol does a lot of traveling. Without a map, it's difficult to get your bearings.

Wondering if you should invest some money in this series? You can dive in for free. The Kindle version of A Cast of Stones is currently free on Amazon. Not sure if this is forever or a limited time offer, so get it now!

In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of A Cast of Stones from the publisher.

To learn more about Carr and his work, check out his website and blog.

Check out what other CSFF bloggers are saying:

Julie Bihn Jennifer Bogart Keanan Brand Beckie Burnham Laure Covert Pauline Creeden Emma or Audrey Engel April Erwin Nikole Hahn Jason Joyner Carol Keen

Krystine Kercher Shannon McDermott Meagan @ Blooming with Books Rebecca LuElla Miller Writer Rani Nathan Reimer Chawna Schroeder Jojo Sutis Steve Trower Phyllis Wheeler Rachel Wyant

CSFF Blog Tour: A Cast of Stones Day One

Patrick W. Carr's A Cast of Stones is book one in The Staff and the Sword series. The narrative follows the journey of Errol, the village drunk, as he climbs out of the ale barrel and discovers physical talents and depths to his character that he didn't know existed. All of his “friends”—might be better to call them acquaintances (more on that later)—are surprised as well. Carr tells his tale from a third-person POV and follows Errol's story with a single plot line.

The tale begins when an official messenger from the capital Erinon arrives in a backwater village with a message for Martin—a hermit priest who lives with a servant Luis in a nearly inaccessible cabin in a nearby gorge. Errol, who knows the path to Martin's cabin better than anyone, manages to get the job delivering the message along with some sacramental bread and wine. He can't believe his luck. The payment from the messenger will keep him in ale for the foreseeable future and Errol's vision of the future only extends to his next drink. Errol's future is about to change. A mysterious man in black tries to feather Errol with arrows. Errol barely escapes after leaping into the river, and the message is ruined in the process. Martin, Luis, and Errol set off the next morning to intercept the messenger but discover along the path that they have been poisoned. Errol saves their lives after obtaining an antidote from a herb woman. As the story unfolds, Errol finds that many people are trying to kill him. Fortunately, Errol is good at running. Errol is caught up in something “bigger” than begging for ale. It has something to do with a looming succession crisis. The elderly king has no heir and ancient prophecies tell of dire consequences if the royal line ends. The mystery of Errol's place in this crisis and the physical threats to his life fuel the narrative.

I have mixed feelings about A Cast of Stones. At times, I didn't want to stop reading. At other times, well, I had to finish the book for the blog tour. I found the middle of the novel, when Errol stays with the farmer Rale and then joins a caravan as a guard on his journey to Erinon, riveting. Other parts of the novel fell flat for me because I didn't like many of the other characters and the limitation to Errol's POV keeps the reader in the dark for too long. I'll delve deeper into what I liked and didn't like about A Cast of Stones tomorrow.

Wondering if you should invest some money in this series? You can dive in for free. The Kindle version of A Cast of Stones is currently free on Amazon. Not sure if this is forever or a limited time offer, so get it now!

In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of A Cast of Stones from the publisher.

To learn more about Carr and his work, check out his website and blog.

Check out what other CSFF bloggers are saying:

Julie Bihn Jennifer Bogart Keanan Brand Beckie Burnham Laure Covert Pauline Creeden Emma or Audrey Engel April Erwin Nikole Hahn Jason Joyner Carol Keen

Krystine Kercher Shannon McDermott Meagan @ Blooming with Books Rebecca LuElla Miller Writer Rani Nathan Reimer Chawna Schroeder Jojo Sutis Steve Trower Phyllis Wheeler Rachel Wyant

Story of the Week: The Cursed Axe

Diana Doherty's "The Cursed Axe" from Silver Blade Magazine is a story of revenge and its cost. A band of so-called mercenaries has long plagued Sabela's village, and after the ruthless rape of her friend Viatrix, Sabela determines to do something about them. She decides to fight evil with evil. One girl would have no chance against a camp of bandits but someone wielding the enchanted Cursed Axe, which "drove its bearers insane with an insatiable lust for bloodshed," would be unstoppable. Never mind the druid Severinus's warnings or the legends which claim that suicide is the ultimate fate of the bearer. Sabela is ready to sacrifice everything, but the Cursed Axe has a will of its own and what Sabela is ready to give up may not be what the Axe wants to take.

Doherty has created a powerful narrative. We sympathize with Sabela's desire to defend her friends and neighbors. Sabela brings safety to the village but at a tremendous personal cost. Severinus tells her that "your deeds shall not be forgotten," which may be some comfort to Sabela if she can escape the memories of the horrors she wrought with the Cursed Axe.

Image Credit: By Doublecompile (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Stuck in the Middle of a Story

A few weeks ago a writer friend mentioned to me that she was slogging through the middle of her novel. The worst place to be, she said. I wondered what that felt like, being stuck in the middle of a writing project. Things have a way of coming around or maybe we're just more atuned to it once the idea is put on our radar. I know exactly how she feels now.

I've been working on this novella for almost a year. It started as a short story but I quickly saw it was NOT going to be short. Time to rethink and think bigger, so I abandoned it for six months to work on other projects that I knew I could finish. (I have this overwhelming desire to finish something once in awhile.) I reached a point in the spring where I had several projects in various states. I decided to push through to the end of the novella. For various reasons, I'm moving away from short stories and focusing on longer works.

As often happens, writing stimulates the little gray cells and I developed a new and much, much better ending, all worked out in my head: a faux climax leading to a faux denoument and than a crushing real climax. But, I have to do the groundwork to set all this up and guide the reader along to understanding what's really going on in this house. If I don't lay the foundation, the climaxes won't work. That means more scenes, more writing, more words. And I don't want the middle to become boring. Arrrgh!

So, I'm stuck in the middle. All I want to do is get to the end but as I move forward a step, the end seems to get further away by a half-step as I add more material. Does that make sense? I know I'm making progress, but it sure doesn't seem that way from where I'm sitting. Those climaxes look like a mirage on a hot desert highway. As an incentive, I've forbidden myself to watch The Hobbit DVD I bought a couple months ago until I finish this novella. I hope I see The Hobbit part one before part two comes out. Stay tuned. Pray for me.

Have you ever been stuck in the middle of a writing project?

Simon Kewin on Engn

Today I'm talking with Simon Kewin about his new young adult novel Engn. It mixes elements of steampunk, fantasy, and science fiction into an adventure story with surprising levels of depth.

As a fellow computer geek, I enjoyed Finn's foray into cryptography with the line-of-sight telescopes. What inspired the communication system?

It seemed like a cool idea. I heard the phrase "line-of-sight" somewhere and that triggered the whole thing with the telescopes and the switch houses. Then, later on, I needed to have encrypted messages because of the thing with Matt, so I added that in. Of course, it's an old-fashioned shared key symmetric encryption method. It's just as well the people of Engn haven't discovered asymmetric encryption because Finn wouldn't have had a chance then...

What is the nature of Engn's socio-economic structure? Is it a vast collective in which individual freedom is squashed to serve the needs of everyone through the machine or an extreme form of capitalism in which the lower castes/classes are reduced to slavery to support a life of ease for those at the top?

I'm going to avoid answering that as I'm wary of placing a precise interpretation on the book. I think readers will apply their own meanings. But it did have a very specific idea in my own mind when I wrote it. I will say I like the idea of something being so vast and all-encompassing that people don't question its existence; that they think that's the way the universe has to be.

Some aspects of Engn—the mysterious tests, the withholding of information, and the quest to reach the center of power, remind me of Kafka's hellish bureaucracy from The Castle. What is it about Finn that allows him to survive and fight another day in the arbitrary world of Engn?

Any parallel with Kafka is thrilling - I love his writing and there's clearly an influence there. Why does Finn survive and fight? On one level, it's because that makes for a (hopefully) exciting adventure story. On a deeper level, I suppose it's because I identify with Finn more than anyone else in the book. Whether I'd do the same as him I don't know - but it would be nice to think so.

While Finn struggles with the system, Connor appears to thrive. What aspects of Connor's character equip him for success in Engn?

Partly it's his background. He gets opportunites Finn doesn't. His background has also given him good reason to want to destroy Engn. Let's just say some of that backstory is something that will be explored some more if and when there is a sequel...

The first third of the novel covers the back story of Finn's youth and his trip to Engn. Elements of the back story, such as the avalanche, reappear as relevant memories during Finn's struggles inside the machine, adding depth to Finn's story. Did you fill in parts of the back story as you wrote the scenes in Engn?

It was the other way round - I wrote it more or less chronologically so that by the time I got to the later episodes I already had the avalanche and the falling from trees and so on as things that would be in Finn's head. Things happen in Engn that would have reminded him of those earlier episodes, but also I had fun setting up the various parallels and references.

Your story "Her Long Hair Shining" centers on a woman mangled by a machine in a factory. Engn takes mechanization to a new level. What drives your interest in the sometimes deadly relationship between people and machines?

Hmm, good question. I'm no Luddite—as you say I'm a computer geek—but machines are a recurring trope in my work. I guess they're a pretty obvious metaphor for the way society works too often: reducing people to little more than machines themselves. The Valve Hall, for example, has people labouring away for long, long hours at pretty pointless work. I don't think you'd have to look too far to find instances of that in the real world.

Besides a counterweight to Finn's optimism and faith in Connor, what does Diane bring to the story?

I see her as a voice of reason. Also I wanted to bring a third person into the group and I liked the idea of this resourceful, smart girl who has done things no-one else has dared. She doesn't have a huge part to play, but she's at the centre of matters when she does appear.

Engn extols the triumph of determination, friendship, and loyalty in the face of extreme cynicism and authoritarianism. Is that a fair summary?

In a word, yes. In my mind that's what it's about; staying true to yourself.

Simon Kewin—Biography
Simon was born and raised on the misty Isle of Man, but now lives and works deep in rural England. He divides his time between writing SF/fantasy fiction and computer software. He has had around fifty short stories published in a variety of magazines and anthologies, along with a similar number of poems. He has a degree in English Literature from the Open University.

He is currently learning to play the electric guitar. It's not going that well, frankly.
He lives with Alison, their two daughters Eleanor and Rose, and a black cat called Morgan to which he is allergic.

Simon's Blog: http://www.simonkewin.co.uk/
Simon's Twitter: @SimonKewin

About December House
At December House we're a different kind of publisher. We don't publish print books, we only publish to e-book distribution platforms (Kindle, Kobo, iBooks, Nook, Smashwords, Tomely and Google Play), but we're not self publishing and we're definitely not a vanity press. We only publish great writing from great authors.

If we think a writer's work has promise then we'll work with them to deliver on that promise, just like a traditional publisher. Then we take over everything, from writing a blurb to designing a cover and deciding on a price, through to marketing the book pre and post publication. We believe it's our job to sell a book, and a writer's job to write it.

For more details see www.DecemberHouse.net