Five is Alive

‘Tis the season to be jolly, so why not give the gift of fear this Christmas? You could dress up in a red suit and set out on a spree of eggnog fueled home invasions or alternatively you could just stay home and pick up a copy of Demonic Visions Book #5.   
This latest installment in this series contains another fifty tales of the macabre that will have you checking the closet for monsters and sleeping with the light on. I’m back for my fifth go-around too with a dark story of guilt and regret found within the eye of a perfect storm.

There is no need to wait for Halloween to roll around again; you can snag a copy of DEMONIC VISIONS #5 right now for your kindle or nook.

Happy Horror-days!

Maybe I should Just Shoot You In The Face

It’s been a long dry spell for Zelmer Pulp, but after several trips to rehab and one custodial sentence we’re back with new blood, fresh ideas and clean underwear.  

MAYBE I SHOULD JUST SHOOT YOU IN THE FACE is our first collective venture into the dark, gritty world of noir. For the ZP team that meant they were going home and it shows. This issue features stories from all the regular ZP offenders, including new fish, Benoit LeLievre and Gareth Spark. In an attempt to make us more attractive to woman we have added New Jersey Noir photographer Mark Krajnak to the ZP roster. His stunning photography appears throughout the book. We are also delighted to have our old pal and father of Brit Grit Paul D. Brazill along for this ride.  

The Tesla version is available right now for your electronic trickery at the princely sum of just 99 cents and a dead tree version will be arriving just as soon as we have slashed and burned enough rainforest. Check out this doozy of a trailer and then go buy the thing. You won’t regret it. Well, you might, but by then I’ll be like 3 cent’s richer and probably living in some offshore tax haven. Hammer down!

  

Smoke Em If You Got Em

Yeah, I know it’s been a while since I blogged. I’ve been up against it of late. This is largely my own fault as I tend to follow a writing process that consists of several weeks of intense planning (procrastination) followed by a brief period of blind panic and actual writing when I realize the deadline is only two days away.

In between times I’ve been working with Ryan Sayles on putting together a collection of my short fiction. The result of this madness will be unleashed on an unsuspecting world in the next month or so and just to whet your appetite here’s a sneaky peak at the awesome cover, designed by Kit Foster.

SMOKE EM IF YOU GOT EM includes eighteen tales filled with loners, losers, cheap women and cheaper liquor. You know how I roll. But this isn’t just a case of grabbing everything from my hard drive and dumping it into a book. Ryan and I thought long and hard about the feel and content of the collection. I wanted SMOKE EM to provide new readers with a good introduction to my work and I also wanted to give the select few that have actually heard of me something new to chew on. I think it will do just that—at least I hope it will.

That Escalated Quickly!

You probably thought  Zelmer Pulp were sleeping it off under a freeway overpass somewhere and that our particular brand of awesome was on hold until after holidays, or at least until we found Brian Panowich, who was last seen heading west in a stolen Camaro with a transvestite table dancer. The thing is we never sleep, at least not without prescription meds. So just in time for the holidays here is something a little bit special from our very own red-suited fat guy with a reindeer fetish, Ryan Sayles.  

THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY!

Flash fiction doesn’t leave a lot of room for build-up, so it’s best to start by going for the throat and seeing where it leads. In these stories Ryan Sayles does just that. He turns on a dim light and leads the reader down an already claustrophobic path. Active shooter event? Check. Ugly, failed relationships? Check. Dope fiends making smart decisions? Check. People seeking out roadkill because that’s the deepest relationship they can handle? Check. Putting on a soiled Easter Bunny costume to say goodbye the hard way to your former office colleagues who all foolishly thought they had the last laugh? Check and double check. Each story is like an unmarked pill; just swallow it and see what happens. C’mon. It’ll be fun.

The ability to tell a story with only one or two thousand words that stays with a person for days afterwards is a rare talent. Ryan Sayles knows this, and what’s more he has that talent. Read “Uncluttering” and then tell me I’m wrong. These 22 stories are some of the best edgy fiction you will find anywhere, period. And I’m not just saying that because Ryan is a buddy (he doesn't read this blog anyway.) I’m saying it because I believe it.

THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY is out now in both print and e-book. You may hammer down when ready.

 

Hell and Gone

It’s all about the western right now and just to continue the theme, my story HELL AND GONE is up at THE BIG ADIOS today. I submitted this one back in the summer and I guess Ron Earl Phillips and Ryan Sayles must have liked it, because not only did they agree to publish it, but I also got offered an editors chair. I’m grateful for both.

The story is set on the Kansas / Missouri border towards the end of the Civil War. I have long been fascinated by this period of America's history and especially by the bloody, brutal and often short lives of the Missouri Guerrillas under the command of William Quantrill and Bill Anderson. These men rode hard, fought hard and ultimately died hard. Some of those who survived the war went on to become notorious outlaws such as Frank and Jesse James and Cole Younger. There is no doubt that the Guerrillas put a lot of the blood into 'Bloody Kansas', although to many living across the state line in Missouri they were seen as heroes, rather than murderers. I think the truth probably lays somewhere in the middle.  

HELL AND GONE introduces the character of Mitchel McCann; a preacher with Southern sympathies who worships his own particular kind of religion.  You’ll be seeing a lot more of him and his adopted daughter, Justice in my novella GOSPEL OF THE BULLET, which will be out sometime early next year. But for now go and get yourself to HELL AND GONE. I hope you dig it.

 

Roadkill Review: Tales from The Longcroft by Darren Sant

Buy from Amazon

Looking for something for the weekend? Well, if you haven’t done so already I can recommend checking out Tales From The Longcroft by Darren Sant.

In this collection of interwoven stories the author has created a rich tapestry of believable characters. The poor and the marginalized that inhabit his fictional council estate are vividly drawn. Their daily struggle to survive in the run-down terraces and tower blocks of the Longcroft is told with compassion, humor and no mean skill.

The writing is tight and absorbing. I found myself instantly sucked into this gritty world of chancers, wasters and small time crooks. Darren Sant handles some difficult subject matter with consummate ease. His social commentary is spot on, but he never allows the stories to wallow in self pity and lifts the narrative to another level with some clever touches and plenty of dry wit.  

All of the stories here are worthy of your time, but for me, the best of a very good bunch is “Rowan’s Folly” which tells the story of Andy and Shona and provides a harsh lesson in what happens when you rub another man’s rhubarb on the Longcroft Estate.

Calling All Intergalactic Word Slingers

Are you an android who dreams of electric sheep? Can you bulls-eye a womp rat from your T-16? Then you might be just the person we are looking for. Zelmer Pulp needs a couple of space cadets to test drive our latest release HEY, THAT ROBOT ATE MY BABY!” Hit me up here if you are a book reviewer with a penchant for all things Sci-Fi.

The madmen that brought you 2012's legendary zombie epic, C'MON AND DO THE APOCALYPSE, are back in your face for the second wave, and this time they brought friends.

Joining Sayles and Panowich on their latest voyage into the world of Science Fiction are three of the hottest writers of genre fiction in the biz, Chris Leek, Isaac Kirkman, and ZELMER PULP cover artist Chuck Regan. 5 distinct voices, and 5 mind-bending tales to astonish and offend.

This ain't your Daddy's Science Fiction. This is Zelmer Pulp: Hey, That Robot Ate My Baby!

Zelmer Pulp - Keep watching the skies

Citizens of Earth, the countdown has begun for a full on assault of the Sci-Fi genre by ZELMER PULP.

All the stories for our next release: HEY, THAT ROBOT ATE MY BABY! Have been turned in and as we speak they are being formatted for world domination.

It's an ambitious book for us, and we think it can hold its own with anything out there. So look out for it later this month, and don't say we didn't warn you. This ain't your daddy's science fiction. Here are some teasers, just to get you in the mood.

GEEK SQUAD 2.0  by Brian Panowich - In the 60’s and 70’s they did it with a bullet. In the 80’s and 90’s they did it with the media, but today if you want someone dead, it’s as easy as a Google search. The Geek Squad, bringing assassination to the modern age, but still can’t get dates for the prom.

WHEREVER THE LIGHT ENDS by Ryan Sayles - In 1947, twin sisters disappear from the face of the Earth during the most horrific experience of their lives. Later they are found, and they have new parents, new scars and a desire for a new life. When they die in 2012, shut-ins and with no family and no friends, the results of that one disappearance mark the end for mankind.

THIS PROTEAN LOVE by Isaac Kirkman - Adelita Salazar, the last living border agent of her precinct patrols the Tierras Oscuras, the Dark Lands, in search of her missing brother, encountering killers, and refugees, human, and machine in a futuristic world where the nature of reality is as uncertain as her future.

TIMEJACKED: THE RAND PARADOX by Chuck Regan - In the 24th Century, the ultimate form of vanity is to create a personal alternate Earth timeline. Chlör Byzantine, a B-Grade web celebrity, travels to 1957 to stop Ayn Rand from ruining the future... but she is ready and waiting for him.

THE WHORES OF GOD by Chris Leek - Earth in the 22nd Century is a nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there; the moral majority has taken a stand and if you want your kicks in 2132 you have to go off-world to get them. In the international waters of deep space everything is available, for a price. Jensen Corduroy is on a mission to get laid, but the Reverend Ellroy has a much higher purpose, he is on a mission from God.

In the meantime go and ‘Like’ us on Facebook to keep your finger on the Zelmer pulse:  ZELMER PULP

Making The Cut

First up; Happy New Year!

I thought it would be best to start 2013 as I mean to go on, so here is the first 'Me' post of the new year. 



When the alcohol haze of midnight celebrations had cleared a little I was delighted to find that two of my short stories had been included in the ‘best of 2012 online’ lists from the inscrutable Paul D Brazill and the enigmatic Mike Monson.

Paul picked my story ‘Redheaded Woman’, which first appeared at The Flash Fiction Offensive and subsequently in the new anthology Out Of The Gutter 8.
Five you Can't Miss from 2012 - Paul D Brazill

Mike plumped for ‘Party Favors’, which was published at Spintingler Magazine, back in the summer. Special Short Stories I read This Year - Mike Monson

Thanks guys I’m honored to have made the cut.

So that was 2012 then?

It’s the end of the world year as we know it and actually now I think about it, yes I do feel fine. 2012 hasn’t been an easy ride for several reasons; the economy for one, that's spent the last 12 months resolutely entrenched in the toilet, which in turn has left me clinging to the wreckage of my day job, but like the Boss says: you got to learn to live with what you can’t rise above, so screw all that. 2012 has also been pretty awesome.

Roll back one year to the 20th December 2011. That was the day I got an e-mail from a guy named Larry Green, he's the editor of an online zine called Death Head Grin. Back in the September I had sent him a short story called Wetwork, like the other stories I was touting around at that time it had already been rejected by several other places, so I couldn’t quite believe it when Larry told me he dug the story and he was going to publish it. That was the first piece of fiction I ever had accepted for publication. Those of you who write will know how that felt. For those of you who don’t, try to imagine a lottery win and an orgasm rolled into one. You’re a good man Larry Green.

Roll forwards again to today, one year on and I’ve had 18 short stories published, one even made the cut for the new Out of the Gutter 8 print / e-book anthology (I may have mentioned that once or twice recently).  I’ve also got myself a regular writing gig, reviewing more talented folk’s stuff at the Out of the Gutter website. All that counts as awesome in my book, but what has really made this year for me is the help, support and above all the friendship of the people I’ve met in the crime / noir writing community.  I’m sorely tempted to name the names, but you guys know who you are right? Well you all have my sincere thanks.  

I know that my writing won’t pay the rent or make a damn of difference in the grand scheme of things, but it makes me happy and if once in a while I write something that makes somebody who reads it happy too, I’ll take that.

Happy Christmas Y’all.

Kama Bomb

Most days life sucks; I’m not talking about major league sucking like sitting in the dark eating cold beans from the can after a hurricane has ripped the ass out of your world. I mean the chicken shit stuff that beats on you every damn day.

We spend our lives waiting for a moment that never seems to come and deep down we know it probably never will. But every now and again we get a little luck, maybe catch a break and that’s enough to keep us from hooking the garden hose up to the exhaust pipe.

 

Well, I’ve put that hose away for now because there’s a double hit of anthology love going on. First up, those stand up dudes Daz & Craig at Near to the Knuckle have accepted my story Brothers under the Bridge for their very first collection. I’m equally stoked to tell you that all round good guy and editor of All Due Respect, Chris Rhatigan has also taken my story The Honeymooners for his new print and e-book anthology. Both titles will be out early in 2013, so keep it here and share the love brothers and sisters, share the love. 

Downbound Train

I had a job, I had a girl, had something going mister in this world...

Dark dreams and darker realities can be found over at SYWzine!

Many thanks to Laurance Kitts for taking a ride on my new story 'Downbound Train.'
We're getting ready to leave from platform number nine, so go get your ticket and climb aboard: SYWzine!