Reading | CW Hawes

Good Villains

What makes the hero (or heroine) stand out, and show us what he (or she) is made of, is the villain. The hero’s nemesis.

Who can forget the Wicked Witch of the West? Or Inspector Javert?

A memorable villain will make a story a success, even more so then a memorable hero. Because the hero must triumph over the villain to win. The bigger the villain, the bigger the triumph.

Of course, an author can shake things up. Take Macbeth, for example. Where a hero becomes his own worst enemy, aided by his lovingly ambitious wife. The same can be said for Stevens in The Remains of the Day, where he is the villain to his own hero.

Generally, though, the villain and the hero are two separate persons. Both want something and are at cross purposes in the achieving.

A good villain can even save what might otherwise be a mediocre production. The TV show Colony, canceled after three seasons (which is a shame), in my opinion, was carried on the back of the villain Alan Snyder. The hero and heroine, Will and Katie Bowman, were lackluster characters (nor was the acting very good for their parts).

What made Colony a success, I think, was the complexity of the character of the bad guy. Alan Snyder was someone you justifiably hated, and yet empathized with because in many ways he is us. He personified the dilemma of survival.

There are many great villains in literature. A few of them are:

Augustus Melmotte in The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope

Count Dracula in Dracula by Bram Stoker

Captain Ahab in Moby Dick by Herman Melville

O’Brien in 1984 by George Orwell

Fagin in Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Mrs Danvers in Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Four of my favorites are:

Mrs Proudie in Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope

Mrs De Ropp in “Sredni Vashtar” by Saki

She in She by H Rider Haggard

Cthulhu in “The Call of Cthulhu” by HP Lovecraft

Mrs Proudie, like Lady MacBeth, is driven by ambition. However, operating in Victorian society, Mrs Proudie must take a different approach than did Lady MacBeth in achieving the goals of her ambition.

Mrs Proudie whips her milk toast husband, the bishop, up the ladder of clerical success — and she steps on whoever gets in his way. Trollope makes it quite clear early on that it is indeed Mrs Proudie who wears the trousers in the Proudie household. The bishop’s attempt at taking over the reins of his life are quickly quashed.

Mrs Proudie is not a nice person. Unlike Lady MacBeth, she doesn’t have anyone do the dirty work for her, nor is she the least bit repentant.

Mrs De Ropp, for me, represents the evil of duty, and manners, and expectations — all hidden under a façade of do-goodism. Mrs De Ropp does what is proper and expected and in the process is killing Conradin. And she doesn’t seem to care.

She, or She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, is the ultimate jealous bitch. She kills her lover in a jealous rage, then bathes in the magic fire so she can live forever until her true love is reborn and they can be reunited.

In the meantime, she enslaves a whole nation of African tribal folk to serve her. She takes a woman scorned to a whole new level of meaning.

By the way, her actual name was Ayesha, and she was an Arab. Her lover was Egyptian and she wanted to rule Egypt. Ambitious to boot.

The ultimate question about Cthulhu is this: is he truly evil, or just indifferent?

When it comes to, let’s say ants, are we evil or just indifferent? There are ants on the sidewalk. Do you step on them, or over them? Do you even notice them?

Given Lovecraft’s worldview, I’m inclined to say Cthulhu and his ilk are merely indifferent. On the other hand, an argument can be made for the evil of indifference.

Put yourself in the place of the ant. Now contemplate humans.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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Men! Read Fiction — It’s Good for your Brain!

Men are a marketing demographic. Retailers know this, and market accordingly. Check any website or catalog that carries goods for both men and women. The retailer segregates the two, and makes separate appeals based on what motivates each sex to “Buy! Buy! Buy!”

So why the heck are publishers ignoring men? We noted last week that the publishing industry (and by extension, authors) ignores men in favor of women. Why write off half of the potential marketplace?

That doesn’t sound like a wise business strategy to me. Perhaps that’s why traditional publishing is constantly re-trenching and brick-and-mortar bookstores are in trouble. I remember when there were scores of publishing companies. All independent. All vying for authors and their books. Today they are all imprints or divisions of 5 mega-corporations. A very sad state of affairs.

So why do publishers and many authors ignore men? It’s because they believe the myth that men don’t read, and especially don’t read fiction. Note the operative phrase: believe the myth.

Popular indie author Mark Dawson has said that the readership of his John Milton thriller series is more or less evenly split between men and women. Perhaps somewhat shading towards men, but not by a large margin.

The books in the series generally rank in the top 5,000 in the overall paid Kindle store and in the top 100 of such sub-categories as Crime Action & Adventure.

Readers buy hundreds of Dawson’s books every day and at least half of them are men. And he is just one writer.

Men don’t read fiction? Rubbish!

However, I will concede that there are men out there who don’t read fiction (in fact, I know one).

So for those men in your life who don’t read fiction, this post is for them.

I’m going to riff off of an Art of Manliness blog which is very good and I encourage everyone to read it.

Reading fiction is good for people in general, but is especially good for men who lack in some of the skills at which women naturally excel. Yes, guys, the women have us at a disadvantage and we need to play catch up. So let’s have at it!

Reading Fiction Strengthens Your Theory of Mind

At the risk of over simplifying, theory of mind is our ability to perceive what others are thinking, feeling, and perceiving. It’s our ability to get inside another person’s head. It’s our ability to “read” another person.

We see someone smile. Theory of mind is what tells us if, to us, the smile is warm and genuine, or perfunctory, or phony.

The famous poisoned cup scene in The Princess Bride is a hilarious example of theory of mind at work.

On the opposite side of the coin, when a baby puts his hands over his face and thinks because he can’t see me that I can’t see him — that’s a theory of mind fail.

Women are better at theory of mind than men. However, there’s an easy way for men to strengthen their theory of mind muscle — yep, that’s right: read fiction.

Studies have shown that reading fiction strengthens one’s theory of mind. So let’s hear it for reading fiction!

Reading Fiction Makes You More Empathetic

Empathy is when you feel what the other person is feeling. Empathy is having the same emotional reaction as someone else.

If my friend tells me his mother died, I know what he is going through because I’ve had the same experience. And most likely experienced the same emotions he is experiencing.

Women are generally more empathetic than men. So once again, guys, we need to even the score. We need to read fiction on a consistent basis to strengthen those empathy muscles.

Why is empathy important? Humans are creatures of feeling. Sure we think. But feelings are primary. They are lodged in the oldest part of our brains. When we can share feelings with another person, doing so builds a bond between us and them. And that breaks down barriers. Bonding builds relationships and civilizations. Civilizations you say? Yep. Because a civilization is nothing more than a group of people who’ve bonded together.

So, men, if you aren’t reading fiction — hop to it! We have a civilization to build!

Reading Fiction Increases Creativity

Reading fiction is a form of play. A form of make believe.

Reading fiction allows you to experience the world in new ways, or to experience new worlds. Fiction allows you to pretend you’re someone else, and do things you’d not normally do — or maybe never do.

Fiction allows us to re-evaluate beliefs. It challenges our preconceived notions. Makes us defend, or toss, our beliefs.

Nearly half of us are at least in part kinesthetic/tactile learners. That means we learn best by acting and playing and by hands on experience. In other words, we learn best by doing something while getting the information.

Fiction reading, being a form of play, is one of the best ways for kinesthetic/tactile learners to learn new ideas, to learn about life. This is especially true if the reading experience is out loud and shared with one or more people.

Fiction stimulates our creativity. It helps us to be dynamic, creative beings. So, guys, let’s read some books!

The Type of Fiction Doesn’t Matter

The positive effects upon the mind of reading fiction are not tied to a specific genre or “quality” of fiction. In this case, all fiction is equal. Read the classics. Read westerns, or sports stories, or spy thrillers. Read comic books or graphic novels. It doesn’t matter. It’s all good.

What does matter is that you read — and that you read fiction.

So men, if you aren’t reading fiction, pick up a book and dig in. Or get an audio book if you’d rather listen. It’s all good.

Women may be from Venus, but men are from Mars — and Martians read fiction!

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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Men’s Fiction

There is in the publishing industry a definite bias towards women. Jason Pinter’s excellent article in the 25 May 2011 HuffPost, “Why Men Don’t Read: How Publishing is Alienating Half the Population”, explains the reason for and critiques this bias. I think he is right on target.

What’s worse is when publishers grudgingly admit that maybe men do read, they’ll immediately add — but they don’t read fiction!

I think that’s about as true as the fact horses have feathers.

Men do read fiction. I won’t believe anyone who tries to tell me men don’t read Clive Cussler, or Lee Child, or Tom Clancy, or William W Johnstone. Or when they were boys didn’t read Sherlock Holmes, or Tarzan, or Doc Savage. I just won’t believe it.

Porter Anderson, in a 26 December 2013 post on Jane Friedman’s blog, “Men Don’t Read Fiction? BULL! — Writing on the Ether”, explodes the publishing myth that men don’t read fiction. Do take a read. It’s an excellent post.

I think part of the problem is the ever increasing focus on women in our society, as a way to right their previous inequality. We’ve seen an explosion of genres and categories that target women. Starting with the very explicit Women’s Fiction.

There’s nothing wrong with marketing books to a particular demographic. Nothing. In fact, it’s good business. But if it’s good business to market to women, why isn’t it also good business to market to men? I’m a man, and I read. I even read fiction. In fact, I mostly read fiction. I certainly can’t be the only guy who does.

In an exceedingly insightful paper written by Kate Summers and published in the Spring 2013 (Vo. 52, No. 3) issue of RUSA, Ms Summers provides us with information that supports what we already know but fail to act on: men and women are different — and have very different reading interests and habits.

For example, Summers points out that the culprit in fostering this bias against the male reader may in fact be the public school system.

She notes the belief that “boys’ under achievement in reading is a result of a school curriculum that is ‘biased towards girls’ reading interests’ or a product of the predominance of female teachers versus male teachers, which contributes to boys’ perception of reading as being a feminine pursuit.”

Young boys, who certainly don’t want girl germs, aren’t going to be interested in fiction geared towards girls. Why? Because boys have very different interests vis-a-vis girls.

Summers cites a classroom study of 6 boys, which just so happens to coincide with my own experience: namely, that boys will read fiction that ties in with their interests.

Early on, I was fascinated with dinosaurs. Consequently, I liked stories that featured dinosaurs; such as, Danny and the Dinosaur and The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek. As my interests developed, so did my interest in fiction on those topics.

If you want boys to read fiction, find out what they’re interested in and give them fiction to read on those subjects.

Girls will read Betsy, Tacy, and Tib; and the boys will read Star Rangers. And all will be well with the world.

So if we were to have a new BISAC fiction code for Men’s Fiction (one doesn’t exist now, while women have FIC044000 FICTION/Women) what would be the characteristics of this category, or genre? What would make it different from Women’s Fiction?

Based on the information cited in Ms Summer’s article, I put forward the following as a starting point.

Men’s Fiction would in general

Be written by men (perhaps women using a male pen name)
Have a male protagonist
Contain elements of the genres preferred by men, such as adventure, humor, horror, and science fiction
Have believable characters with whom they can identify
Be realistic fiction that deals with contemporary problems of people

Which means if male authors want to attract male readers they need to re-think their reliance on the kick-ass heroine as the protagonist. While the kick-ass heroine may attract some male readers, as a whole men don’t like female main characters. This is because men have a greater need to identify with the protagonist than do women. Something to think about.

Robert E Howard recognized this. He paired his kick-ass heroines with a man. She might be the star, but there was a man there so his mainly male readers wouldn’t get turned off.

Erle Stanley Gardner noted that one of the reasons for the popularity of Sherlock Holmes was due to “the extreme masculine atmosphere and the yearning for freedom.” After a time, even the most happily married man begins to feel squeezed by his responsibilities to his family. He may be tied to a job he doesn’t like. He may have doctor bills. Chores like cutting the grass, or painting the house. There are dirty diapers, lack of sleep, and the Terrible Twos.

Holmes and Watson were blissfully free from all those things. Their extremely masculine world is something every guy dreams of — no matter how much he may love his wife and kids.

Gardner also wrote:

Every story, or rather, every type of story that has succeeded has the common point of a single man, unaided, overcoming difficulties by the inherent power that is within him and attached to him.

I’m not sure this applies as much to women’s fiction, but it sure as heck applies to men’s fiction. That is every man’s dream: To conquer the impossible without any help or aid. It is the essence of the adventure story, a genre much preferred by men — not women.

I don’t know if I’d get anywhere marketing books as Men’s Fiction. I suppose I can give it a try. There is, after all, #MensFiction on Twitter.

Men do read fiction. They aren’t as social about their reading as women, which may account for all those surveys which say men don’t read. But they do read and they do tell other men the books they’ve read.

With the advent of e-readers, there is a new privacy when reading in public. No longer can the world see your book cover. This may work to the advantage of men. They can read their guilty pleasures, Conan the Barbarian, Doc Savage, and Longarm, and not get questioning looks. Something to think about.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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HP Lovecraft and Robert E Howard

Reading has been a huge part of my life. And quite frankly still is. Long before I developed an interest in music, I was reading.

Don’t get me wrong. I very much enjoy music. But I was a reader long before I was a music aficionado.

When I was a kid I frequently got to spend the whole day at my grandparents’s place. My grandmother used to insist that my brother and I take a nap in the afternoon. I suppose she just wanted us out of her hair for an hour or two.

I’ve never been a napper, and I used that “quiet time” to read. I’d rummage around in my uncle’s books and find something to occupy my time. Some of the books, maybe most of them, weren’t age appropriate. But they were there and nobody said I couldn’t read them.

One of the books I treasured was Groff Conklin’s Omnibus of Science Fiction. The book was published in 1952, the year I was born, and has some absolutely fabulous stories within its covers. And it was in the Omnibus where I discovered HP Lovecraft, through his story “The Color Out Of Space”; an amazing tale of sci-fi horror.

Years later, I picked up the Beagle Books reprinting of the Arkham edition of HPL’s works and discovered HPL in full.

My introduction to Robert E Howard occurred somewhat after my purchase of the Beagle HPL paperbacks in the early 1970s.

A friend of mine at the time mentioned that he thought one of the scariest stories ever written was Howard’s “Pigeons from Hell”.

Intrigued, I went out and bought the Lancer paperback The Dark Man and Others, which contains “Pigeons from Hell” and 14 other fantastic journeys into the weird.

I fell in love with Howard. “Pigeons from Hell” is not only an excellent example of Southern Gothic, it is indeed one of the spookiest stories I’ve ever read.

There is an ongoing debate as to which of the two is the real master of weird fiction. In the circles that I traveled in, Lovecraft was acknowledged as the master. However, being the iconoclast that I am, I held out for REH. My argument was that at their very best the two were equal.

However, of the two, I argued that REH was consistently better than HPL. The overall quality of Howard’s weird fiction is higher than that of Lovecraft.

I realize my position is a minority view. And I think the debate ultimately boils down to one of taste.

When Lovecraft was on top of his game, he was the master of slowburn, atmospheric weird fiction. And there is none finer.

There’s nothing slowburn about Howard. He was the quintessential man of action. His finest weird tales are replete with action.

There’s also the differences in the main characters of the two writers. Lovecraft’s narrators often exist on the edge of sanity. They are not known for their physical prowess, and are often bookish intellectuals. Even their names tend to be unknown, or little mentioned.

Howard, on the other hand, wrote about vibrant characters. Characters that were full of life. Characters, even the women, that were physically and emotionally strong. King Kull, Conan, Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, Red Sonja. Perhaps this was the case because Howard wrote in series, or at least conceptualized his heroes and heroines as series characters. Lovecraft did not. His main characters for the most part make sole appearances, with the implication that they will not survive. And they don’t. We usually never see them again.

In some ways, my Pierce Mostyn series tips the hat to both of these giants of weird fiction. There is the slowburn, but there is also action. Pierce Mostyn is something of a fusion of HPL and REH. And in that perhaps he’s all CWH.

I owe a lot to HP Lovecraft and Robert E Howard. The two giants of weird fiction. Both have influenced my approach to the genre, and how I think it should be written. And if Pierce Mostyn comes across to readers as a fusion of those two giants, I will be very satisfied.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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The Western

One of the staples of TV entertainment when I was growing up was the Western. The TV Western was popular because the Western was a very popular genre for books and short stories.

Here is a partial list of the shows I remember:

The Lone Ranger
Death Valley Days
Davy Crockett
The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin
Zorro
Gunsmoke
Broken Arrow
Maverick
Have Gun — Will Travel
Wagon Train
Bat Masterson
Lawman
The Rifleman
The Rebel
Rawhide
Bonanza
The Virginian
The Wild Wild West
The Big Valley
Daniel Boone
Laredo
F Troop
The High Chaparral

Then in the 1960s things began to change. Spy shows became the in thing (thank you James Bond) and the Western began a slow ride into the sunset. By the late 1970s, both Western TV shows and fiction were pretty much passé.

However, for lovers of the Western, things just might be turning around. TV shows have aired to a fair degree of popularity. Shows such as

Godless
The Pinkertons
Hell on Wheels
Deadwood
Into the West
Longmire

These shows are very different from their 1950s and 60s cousins. There is often more blood and gore. A lot more. There is much more foul language. There is nudity, sometimes lots of it. There are women in main roles. They take a more sympathetic view of Native Americans. And they present us with a more accurate, and more ugly view of American history.

Western fiction today is very much a niche market, being divided into several sub-categories, such as Classic Western, Western Romance, Weird West, and Steampunk.

A look at Amazon’s top 100 bestselling Westerns reveals that all of the books are in the top 5000 in the paid Kindle store. The #1 Western (which by the way doesn’t happen to be a romance), was written by an indie author, and ranked #154 in the overall paid Kindle store. Pretty doggone good, if you ask me. Especially for a genre that is supposed to be dead.

Even James Patterson (co-authored with Andrew Bourelle) has a Western. Its 46 pages long and Hachette charges $9.99 for the story. And some people complain that my Nightmare in Agate Bay, being 72 pages long, is too expensive priced at $2.99! I guess indie authors are just supposed to give their books away. Bullsh*t.

Now you might ask why am I talking about Westerns. After all, I don’t write them and I very rarely read them.

Well, last year I read Jacquie Rogers’s Hot Work in Fry Pan Gulch. The book was very funny and very good.

For #IndieApril on Twitter, I read Chris Derrick’s The Tainted Dollar. A doggone good classic Western.

Between those two novels, I watched

A Fistful of Dollars
For a Few Dollars More, and
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

And now I’m hooked on Hell on Wheels and I’m re-watching The Wild Wild West.

I guess I do indeed enjoy a good Western. To balance out the movies and TV shows, I may have to put Zane Grey, Max Brand, and Louis L’Amour on my TBR list and maybe a few indie authored books as well.

In a way, the Western is as American as apple pie. And I do so love apple pie.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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The Reading Experience

Every reading experience begins in the mind of the writer and is completed in the mind of the reader.

That means every time I finish writing a book, I’m only half done. No communication, no entertainment has taken place until someone reads what I wrote.

Only when there is a reader has the act of writing a novel been completed. And for the reading experience to be a positive one, the reader has to be able to tap into the world I created and been able to take something away from it that he or she can make part of his or her ongoing experience in this journey we call life.

Lee Child, in his 2012 introduction to a new printing of the first Jack Reacher novel, Killing Floor, says essentially the same thing.

Child wrote in that introduction this gem:

To me, entertainment was a transaction. You do it, they watch it, then it exists. Like a Zen question: If you put on a show, and nobody comes, have you in fact put on a show at all?

The reader is vital to any fiction writing experience. Not awards. Not accolades. Not bestseller status. Those things are nothing.

Bestseller status can be, and often is, gamed. (For example, Joanna Penn wrote a blog post on how you can ad stake your way to bestseller status.)

Accolades can be false. “That was a great book, Chris!” Said not because Jed actually meant it, but because it’s the social thing to do. Or maybe he’s hoping I’ll write him a 5-star review.

Awards basically mean nothing except to those who put value on what other people think. And often the award is based on who gets the most votes. So the winner is simply the one who got his or her fans to cast the most votes. Pure high school.

All that really matters are readers. Because readers read books. It is the reader that counts — and only the reader.

I am a reader. I have been ever since I can remember. Books are my life. Wear the old coat and buy the new book.

What do I look for in a book or short story? First and foremost — character. As Lee Child noted in the above mentioned introduction:

Character is king. There are probably fewer tha 6 books every century remembered specifically for their plots. People remember characters. Same with television. Who remembers the Lone Ranger? Everybody. Who remembers any actual Lone Ranger story lines? Nobody.

But great characters are only a part of the puzzle. There are certain themes I gravitate towards and others I shy away from.

In my life, I’ve experienced a significant amount of injustice. Unfairness. So for me, justice and fairness are very important themes. I want to see an unfair world made fair. I want the characters in the books I read, the good guys, to right wrongs. To see to it that the bullies and cheaters don’t win.

As a reader, so am I as a writer. My private detective’s name reflects it all: Justinia Wright. Justinia comes from the Latin for justice, and Wright to connote that she makes things right.

Pierce Mostyn fights an uncaring, and to us unfair, universe and its minions. He does his best to prevent bad things from happening to good people.

The other theme that is important for me is loyalty. In my world, when I was a child, I often felt like Julius Caesar, crying out “Et tu Brute?”. And in some ways that feeling of betrayal at the hands of those I trusted continued into adulthood. So loyalty and betrayal are themes which gain my attention as a reader.

And loyalty and betrayal also factor in my writing. For all their bickering, Tina and Harry Wright depend on each other. They are loyal to each other, through thick and thin.

Bill Arthur, in The Rocheport Saga, as he seeks to build a new world out of the ashes of the apocalypse, is constantly faced with issues of loyalty and betrayal.

To the extent a writer can tap into what is important to me, that writer becomes memorable.

For the most part, I think most readers don’t give this idea of themes conscious thought. They read books and like some and not others. The books they like they often aren’t even sure why they like them. Most likely, though, they like those books because they tap into things that matter to the reader.

As writers, we have to give this considerable thought if we want a ready audience. What is our message? The more we can identify it and communicate it, the more likely we are to find our fans. And not have to rely on accident or luck.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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What Book is in Your Hand?

Reading is my favorite form of entertainment. I enjoy reading over TV and movies. I enjoy it more than boardgames. Although I might actually enjoy eating more than I do reading. The waistline is difficult to ignore.

There is, though, one problem I have as a writer with reading. It takes over my mind. As a result, if I am writing a horror story, problems develop if I start reading mysteries, for example. Suddenly my brain leaves the monsters behind and I’m thinking whodunit. Something of a problem that!

Recently I received a three month Kindle Unlimited trial for 99¢. Unfortunately, it ran over the holidays so I didn’t get as much of an advantage out of it as I would have liked. Nevertheless I did read 7 novels/novellas, 7 short stories, and 1 short story collection. Which means I did get my money back with interest.

Most of the novels I read were mysteries, and therein lay the conflict with my novel writing.

I’m currently at work on Pierce Mostyn #7, but with all those mysteries passing before my eyes my horror novel started looking a little bit like a murder mystery. I’ll undoubtedly have some fixing up to do.

However, don’t take the above as complaining. I’m just saying. Because quite a bit of my KU reading was, in fact, horror related. The short stories were from the Occult Detective Quarterly, Issue #1 (Fall 2016). Six of the seven stories were excellent reads. So good in fact, I’ll probably buy all of the issues. The short story collection was The Abominations of the Nephren-ka and Three More Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos by Mark McLaughlin and Michael Sheehan, Jr. All four of the tales were quite serviceable reads with which to pass a couple of hours.

With the KU trial over (I didn’t renew), I’m now back on my own resources for reading, which includes the works of several indie authors of my acquaintance I wish to promote.

I think it is very important for indie writers to read the books of their fellows. Because we indies are all in the same boat pulling at the same oars. The least we can do to help each other is to buy, read, and review each other’s work.

Over the weekend, I read In Agony Again by Ernestine Marsh. Ms Marsh has to be in the running for the title of Queen of Comedy. She’s that funny.

With the writing of Pierce Mostyn being bent all out of shape due to my recent reading, I have to get it back on track. So for the rest of the month, I’ll be focusing on horror, the supernatural kind.

Aside from the KU reading, I’ve read this year “The Call of Cthulhu” and “The Nameless City” by Lovecraft, and The Horror from the Hills by Frank Belknap Long. Having thus far read only one Clark Ashton Smith Cthulhu Mythos tale, maybe I’ll spend some time with Mr Smith. “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros” may be a very good place to start.

Now to you. What book or books have been in your hand of late? I’d like to hear about them. Especially if the authors are indie writers such as myself.

With over 3000 new books appearing on Amazon each day, that’s a lot of books to sort through. And if we consider that four years ago there were 3 1/2 million ebooks in the Kindle store — that’s a heck of a lot of books to look through for some good ones.

So please share some of your good reads with me, and you can bet I’ll do the same back with you.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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Tony Price: Confidential

Good Books You Probably Never Heard Of – Part 11

Tony Price: Confidential by Richard Schwindt

https://www.amazon.com/Tony-Price-Confidential-Richard-Schwindt-ebook/dp/B01MSYGO6F

Richard Schwindt is a phenomenally innovative and creative writer. His storytelling is nonpareil. His characters are amazingly realistic and his word paintings put you on location with them.

Tony Price is one of Schwindt’s wonderfully delightful characters. He’s a chain smoking, vodka drinking, burnt out social worker with a knack for finding and fighting monsters. Yep, you read that right. A monster fighting social worker. Right out of Paranormal Land. Only Schwindt makes it all seem as real and ordinary as crossing a street.

Tony Price: Confidential is the collection of all three Tony Price novellas. Below is a brief synopsis of each tale.

Scarborough: Confidential takes place in 1987. To Tony’s dismay, his clients are being brutally murdered one by one. Who or what is doing this? To find the answer, Tony ends up not only scouring the dark corners of Scarborough, but winds up traveling to the Venezuelan back country. And there he finds that only he can defeat the evil killing his clients.

Sioux Lookout: Confidential sees Tony taking a vacation at the urging of his girlfriend. What was supposed to be a time of fishing, drinking, smoking, and relaxing, suddenly vanishes when something evil comes to the little town of Sioux Lookout. And it is upon Tony to send the monster back to the hell it came from.

Kingston: Confidential finds our hero forced into retirement all because he was being a good Samaritan and rescued a woman and her child from a notorious hardcore druggie who was armed and threatening their lives.

So he and wife Brenda move to Kingston to be closer to their twins who are attending college there. As often happens to those forced into retirement, Tony is bored. He has too much time on his hands. That is until a monster comes to town.

This time Tony is aided in his battle with the homicidal maniac ravaging Kingston by his daughter, Ashley, who’s inherited her father’s gift and much of his personality.

Schwindt’s books are filled with humor, horror, fascinating people, and scary monsters. If you’re into the paranormal or urban fantasy, Tony Price: Confidential is for you.

Very Highly Recommended!!

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Daguerreotype

Good Books You Probably Never Heard Of – Part 8

Daguerreotype by Ray Zacek

https://www.amazon.com/Daguerreotype-Ray-Zacek-ebook/dp/B00EN3JJI4

Garth Colby finds among his late brother’s belongings a remarkably preserved early Daguerreotype depicting a Parisian street scene. Because of the remarkable condition of the photograph, Garth realizes he has a small fortune on his hands. And, of course, that’s where the trouble begins.

For the photograph has a long and sordid history. A history of producing hallucinations and insanity. Money-hungry Garth, though, is ignorant of this history. But more importantly, if he did know the history, would he care? Money solves everything, right?

Even though Daguerreotype is a horror or macabre novella, Zacek handles the form in a way that brings as much satisfaction as one would get from a novel. We are treated to well-developed characters. We experience a fully developed storyline, hauntingly told, that holds our attention right to the end. And the suspense, as Zacek weaves the past and present together, is unrelenting.

Some readers balk at the shorter prose forms. If you aren’t especially fond of them, I invite you to think of Daguerreotype as a long lost script for a never produced episode of The Twilight Zone. Yes, Daguerreotype is that good. It is well worth an hour of your time.

The book is only 99¢, and it’s also on Kindle Unlimited.

Very highly recommended!

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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Ben Willoughby

Good Books You Probably Never Heard Of – Part 7

I’m back with Good Books You Probably Never Heard Of. And today we’re not looking at one book. We’re looking at one remarkable author.

Ben Willoughby and I met on Twitter, and I’m glad we did. His horror books have provided hours of scary, spooky, and at times hilarious entertainment.

He is also the very talented artist who is responsible for the awesome book covers of my Pierce Mostyn series.

In addition to writing horror, Ben has written a high fantasy novel, Gods on the Mountain, and is working on The Zeppelin Lords dieselpunk trilogy.

It is his horror tales, however, I want to highlight in this post, for they are the books I’ve read and thoroughly enjoyed. So without further ado, let’s take a look at Ben Willoughby’s Reign of Terror.

Mannegishi is based on a Cree Indian legend. The small people, the Mannegishi, play pranks on people. They’re tricksters. And at first Jonathan Banks wonders if perhaps he hasn’t had the misfortune of drawing the attention of the Little People. But then things start taking an ugly turn, and so does the story. Highly recommended.

Daddy’s Girl is a ghost story you won’t easily forget. Alex never knew her father. He died when she was very young. However, through the stories about him, she learned he was a warm and loving person, and was a devoted father who loved her very much. When she goes off to college she discovers what a father’s love truly means. And woe to those who threaten Daddy’s Girl. You don’t want to miss this story.

The House That Homed is a hilarious dark comedy. And Willoughby handles the comedy and terror with equal aplomb. You just might never want to be home alone again. Thoroughly entertaining.

Raw Head is another tale based on Native American legend. A serial killer is brutally murdering children. And events cause Susie to fear that the child she is carrying may be the next victim. Can the killer be stopped? What if the killer isn’t human? An emotionally powerful tale.

Deadly Whispers is a dark comedy that takes a whole new look at Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, or ASMR. And let me tell you, that look is both chilling, and funny. Very funny, in fact. There’s also a love story. Horror, humor, and love. A combination guaranteed to creep you out and warm your heart at the same time. And the ending? Well, I never saw that one coming! Very highly recommended.

If you are looking for horror tales that are well-written and come from a very fertile imagination, look no further than Willoughby’s books. They’re superb.

If you are a writer in need of a book cover, I highly recommend Ben Willoughby. He understands book covers. You can get in touch with him on Twitter.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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