Rules:
Grab a book, any book.
Turn to page 56.
Find any sentence,
(or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you.
Post it.
Add your (url) post
below in the Linky at http://fredasvoice.blogspot.com/.
Friday, October 26, 2012
My Answer: 1. Shelfari - I have all the books I own on there. I love the shelf widgets that I can display on my blog. 2. GoodReads - a great book community. It also has giveaways you can enter to get free books. 3. Book Blog Ning is a community for book blog reviewers. I have made several publisher/agent contacts from there.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
SCARY MOVIES AND BOOKS
by KC Hilton
When it comes to
horror movies and books, I stay clear of them. I’m a regular
scaredy-cat! I even sleep with a nightlight! Ohhh, but there
are reasons for my fear, but I’ll get to that in just a moment.
Recently, I’ve tried to break the scary feelings and have read a
few books. I’ve always wondered how a person could read a
scary/horror book without shutting their eyes, lol. I started with
reading Graveminder by Melissa Marr. OK, this was a great book
and I got through it, without any permanent damage, so I decided to
read another book, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. I made it
through the Twilight series, so I thought I could handle this book.
OK, it was a great book! I seriously loved it, but let me just say,
it took me four days to read it and the first two nights I was scared
to go to bed, lol. When I did finally go to bed, I pulled the covers
nearly over my head! With all the facts woven into a Vampire story,
well… It had me believing in Vampires! Yeah, it took me a while to
get over it but I’m still here. Now, I want to see the movie! I’m
not sure how that’s going to go, but I’m willing to give it a
try.
On television, there is a channel that
has a series about Ghost Stories. Now, I can watch those during the
day, but not in the evening. Why? Because it’ll be the last thing
on my mind when I go to bed! Needless to say, I wouldn’t get much
sleep.
But why am I so afraid of scary books
and movies? It goes back to my childhood. I blame it all on my
father. It’s true! It’s funny really, but it seeded something in
my mind and I can’t break it. When I was a young girl the horror
movies like, Halloween (Michael Myers), Friday the 13th
(Jason) and Nightmare on Elm St. (Freddy Krueger) were big hits. My
brother and I had an early bedtime, like most kids do, but the
problem was, my bedroom wall shared with the living room wall. In
fact, my headboard was on that same wall. My father would watch the
scary movies at night, thinking it was fine because the kids were in
bed. I heard all the scary music, which usually lead up to the
horrible screams. I started sleeping with a nightlight!
During the late 1980s to the middle 1990s, the horror genre was very popular in the middle grade and young adult market, many thanks to Point Horror, but there where other publishers that released horror books as well. Archway Paperbacks tried to release a new series titled "Tombstones", but only two books were brought out in 1995.
Jared Irving is determined to find out if the Full Moon Enterprises is dumping toxins into the local streams in Tombstones: The Last Drop. The Full Moon Enterprises is breaking federal laws by using deadly chemicals, but the town people seem to ignore it, or they just don't want to believe it as the company has brought in many new jobs for the area.
While getting samples at a nearby stream, Jared meets a creature of the night and it will be the last thing that he will ever see.
Killer's Law
By L. Ron Hubbard
Directed by Jim Meskimen and Tait Ruppert
Voice Cast: Jennifer Darling, Brooke Bloom, Corey Burton, Bob Caso, R.F. Daley, John Mariano, Jim Meskimen, Enn Reitel, Richard Rocco and Tait Ruppert
Studio: Galaxy Press
ISBN-13: 978-1592122769
Release Date: October 22, 2012
Running Time: Approx. 2 hours
Review:
The 1930s and 1940s were known as the golden age, a time when many unknown writers published their work in Pulp Fiction magazines as they were paid around a penny a word. Unlike the higher-class magazines that were printed on glossy paper with higher production values, pulp magazines were published on cheap brown pulp paper and featured adventures, science fiction tales, mysteries, and many other stories.
Galaxy Press has been releasing the short stories written by author L. Ron Hubbard that were published during the golden age under the Stories of a Golden Age line of paperbacks and audiobooks. They nicely sent me a free audiobook of the "Killer's Law" for this review.
"Killer's Law" was originally published in the September 1947 issue of New Detective Magazine, where Sheriff Kyle travels from Deadeye, Nevada to Washington D.C. to personally deliver evidence against a rich copper king to Senator Meringue. Suddenly, Kyle is knocked unconscious. When he awakes he is surrounded by policemen asking questions and reporters snapping pictures. It seems that the Senator was murdered and Kyle is holding the murder weapon.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
What or whom inspired you
to become a writer?
JOHN: When I was young, I had
anemia, so I wasn’t allowed to do sports. Instead, I stayed inside
and read. When I ran out of stories in my favorite series, I started
making up my own. After that, I couldn’t sop making up stories.
What was your first
book/story published?
JOHN: My first book was “The
Official Doctor Who And The Daleks Book”, about the English TV
show. As a result of that, I got to write a “Doctor Who” novel,
“The Chase”. Then I sold my first original book, “Uptime,
Downtime”. That was my own version of a time travel story.
You have written media
tie-ins, fantasy, science-fiction, and horror. What is your favorite
genre to write about?
JOHN: I just like writing, so I
don’t really mind what genre. I think my favorite, though, is
fantasy. I love being able to make up whole worlds and situations.
But I’ll write anything at all as long as it sounds interesting to
me.
One of my favorite books
growing up was Shockers: Grave Doubts. How did you come up with the
reincarnation plot?
JOHN: By accident! What happened
was that I went in to my editor, Craig Walker, about writing
“Shockers”. I thought he wanted three books in the series
initially, so I had three really good ideas – “Night Wings”,
“Blood Wolf” and “Alien Prey” (horror, fantasy and science
fiction). Then he said, “And what about the fourth book?” I
hadn’t realized he’d wanted four, so on the spur of the moment I
said: “Grave Doubts”. He loved the title, and asked me what it
was about. So I told him I’d let him know just as soon as I
decided! So then I went home and thought about it. Since I’d
invented a title, I realized I had to do something set about a
cemetery, and “doubts” suggested confusion. So I thought that it
should be about somebody everybody thought was dead… and then I
thought, no, it would be better if it was about somebody who *was*
dead. And then the whole story fell into place.
Grave Doubts is simply one of my favorite books from my childhood as it has always stuck in my mind after almost twenty-years later. I recall ordering many books from the Scholastic flyers when I was an elementary student. I was in the sixth grade (aka - the year I got glasses) when I read Grave Doubts during study hall.
In book three of the Shockers series, Matt Howard had blocked out the murder of his older sister, Penny, for ten years, but now those unwanted memories have resurfaced. A family friend, Mr. Ciprelli or known as Uncle Joey, went to a mental hospital shortly after Penny's brutal murder, but he has now returned and is moving into the house next door. Matt finds the man to be very odd as he is always watching him.
Matt doesn't have many memories about his sister, except for what people have told him about her. It seems that Penny was the perfect daughter and student. Matt gets into trouble at home and at school. He is told constantly from his parents and teachers that he was nothing like Penny and that she shouldn't have been the one to die.
