When writing science fiction horror, it's important to know that the genre should not dictate where your story goes, or how your characters behave. The characters, the people whose story is being told, are what matter. They're the hook. They're the meat and potatoes. The science fiction is the background—the shiny dinner plate that holds the meal. The horror? Well, that's the itch in the back of your mind wondering whether the meat was undercooked and exposed to pathogens that will be obliterating your insides over the course of the forthcoming night. That's how I like my stories, at any rate.
This book and the entire Dark Tower series spurred my interest in fiction. Stephen King is a master storyteller, yet this novel is exceptional in its simplicity. The first line is as gripping as any I've ever read, and it also summarizes the core of the plot: "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." The Gunslinger stands alone, both the character as well as the book. The way the story grows from a simple get from A to B plot line into an exponentially grander web of mind-bending As and Bs and Xs and Os will forever have an impression on me and my work. My book, and its characters, were heavily influenced by The Gunslinger.
The Dark Tower is now a major motion picture starring Matthew McConaughey and Idris Elba.
'The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.' The iconic opening line of Stephen King's groundbreaking series, The Dark Tower, introduces one of his most enigmatic and powerful heroes: Roland of Gilead, the Last Gunslinger.
Roland is a haunting figure, a loner, on a spellbinding journey toward the mysterious Dark Tower, in a desolate world which frighteningly echoes our own.
On his quest, Roland begins a friendship with a kid from New York named Jake, encounters an alluring woman and faces…
This complex sci-fi epic taught me the importance of forming my characters as people rather than puppets. Amid the setting of an endless war and the intricacies of its opposing factions it is the individuals who stand out in this novel. The war is a backdrop. The people are the story. Whatever chaos and calamity the author concocts—none of it matters unless it is felt by the characters, and the feelings of the characters don't matter unless the characters feel real to the reader.
In Conquest Born is the monumental science fiction epic that received unprecedented acclaim - and launched C.S. Friedman's phenomenal career. A sweeping story of two interstellar civilizations locked in endless war, it was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award.
Ray Bradbury's stories ooze charm—an approachable and inviting essence that is absent from nearly all other works of science-fiction. This novel, and in a broader sense many of Bradbury's works, taught me to let loose, to have a little fun with my writing. From this I learned that you can have a spooky and suspenseful story that isn't grotesque, that is funny, that doesn't cling to suspense like it's the only thing holding the plot together, that is poetic, that is fun to read, that is a story you can share with anybody, that is engaging, witty, and philosophical. Ray Bradbury taught me to write for me, and not for anyone else.
One of Ray Bradbury’s best-known and most popular novels, Something Wicked This Way Comes, now featuring a new introduction and material about its longstanding influence on culture and genre.
For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic power of its dark poetry, step inside. The show is about to begin. Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. A calliope’s shrill siren song beckons to all…
Hyperion taught me how to be afraid. The feeling I get when I read Hyperion is quite similar to how I feel when I watch Alien, my favorite movie. I see the Shrike as the ultimate literary sci-fi horror monster, much the same way as the Xenomorph is the quintessential movie monster. These creatures create the fear that I crave from my media, and the fear I hope to incite within those who read my works.
I must admit, I never read Storm Front or any of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. I listened to them on audiobook performed by the masterful James Marsters. However, my biggest takeaway from this book and the rest of the series isn't the depth of its characters, the impressive detail of its urban fantasy world building, nor the nail-biting blockbuster action sequences—that's all spectacular. But no, what Storm Front and all of the Dresden Files taught me was the importance of structure. Jim Butcher sticks to a particular structure that he uses in nearly each and every one of these books, but he also knows exactly when and how to break away from that structure to create a monumental impact on the reader and his imagined world. It's fascinating, and it works.
In the first novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling Dresden Files series, Harry Dresden’s investigation of a grisly double murder pulls him into the darkest depths of magical Chicago…
As a professional wizard, Harry Dresden knows firsthand that the “everyday” world is actually full of strange and magical things—and most of them don’t play well with humans. And those that do enjoy playing with humans far too much. He also knows he’s the best at what he does. Technically, he’s the only at what he does. But even though Harry is the only game in town, business—to put…
Son murdered. Wife abandoned. Head hunted. When a violent pandemic turns his neighbors homicidal, Kozz is forced to break out of his solitude and venture back to the world where he left his love behind. Frostarc is a journey through one man's struggle to forgive himself.
The people of his frozen planet have gone insane, and many have disappeared. Kozz needs to find a way off his ice-block prison to track down his wife. Hiding from his past is no longer an option. A decade of isolation and self-loathing has destroyed his spirit, but a young boy and mother who Kozz finds on his travels serve as a surrogate family, one he feels compelled to protect. Frostarc will haunt readers with its bloody, western-shootout style and frightening revelations of Kozz's secret history.
I've always loved fiction, fantasy, and adventure stories. Growing up in the Star Wars generation, I was seven whenA New Hope was released at the theaters. Living in the hollows of West Virginia there weren’t libraries close by, and movies were a great, though seldom, treat. Suggestive material and cursing was not something that we saw in books or movies growing up in a more simple period of time. I still thoroughly enjoy many well-written, clean, books or shows. As an active member of the body of Christ, I now serve with my writing, and hope that kids of all ages can enjoy epic fantasy and adventure books from a clean and wholesome perspective.
Finding Family, Discovery, Destiny. This is what nineteen-year-old Bain Brinley is searching for.
In his homeland, far in the mountains, he stepped into what he could only describe as a time-portal and landed in a strange land known as Egypt. Then he falls through another portal during a storm, only to end up in another world known as Harilhia. Here, he soon discovers a creature he knew from home. He was back, but it wasn't Zanchier.
Can he find his family, and figure out what the Creator wanted him to do with time-travel?
Stormwalker Series Connections In Time Bain's Story Book 1
Nineteen-year-old Bain Brinley has just inadvertently stepped into a time portal and was deposited into a world like none he had ever seen before. He turned to go back through the portal and back to Zanchier to find his family, only to find the portal gone. Now, Bain must face this strange, new, world without anyone else on whom he can depend.
As he gazes out over the hot, dry, desert climate at the large pyramid shaped structures, he is unsure where to go. He is soon thrust into a strange,…
