I rarely plug my own fiction stuff, but that is precisely what I did yesterday. I know what it is like to want your own project to do well. While many copies were sent out (over thirty print copies paid out of my own pocket) reviews have been few and far between. I learned a hard lesson that some folks --if they can’t love every single thing in a book---won’t say a word. Others had too much going on and the Carpathian Shadows 2 anthology got lost in the shuffle. I certainly always understood that and even more so now. Since Sandi’s strokes last July, her knee surgery in October and rehab, the sudden multi-week hospitalization in November with the brutal diagnosis on Thanksgiving Day of her cancer, the days have been a blur. Not to mention my own worsening health (speech to text software is a VERY frustrating process), the constant financial stress (begging again and again for help here and elsewhere), and a host of other issues and events that have been covered here the last few months, I very well understand why things get lost in the shuffle.
Still, when a review comes in, I am thrilled to get it. So, I thank authors Chester Campbell and Victor J. Banis for following through and doing exactly what they said they would. Both reviewed the book--despite the fact it was not their kind of thing--- and I am very grateful.
“I had some qualms about it when this book was given me to review. I'm not a fan of the paranormal or the fantasy story. It requires too much suspension of disbelief to enjoy the antics of vampires and werewolves and zombies. But I had accepted the book, so I read it. All of the stories are based around the premise of vacationers visiting an old castle in the Transylvania area of Romania (Dracula country). One or more of the characters in each story gets caught up in some kind of mysterious action involving ghosts and other-wordly creatures. I found the stories mostly well written and suspenseful. The characters were fully developed and quite believable until they slipped into the realm of the paranormal. I enjoyed the stories that didn't get too far out. A few got into areas that were more than I could take, but if you're a fan of this genre, you'd probably love `em. It isn't a large book but would provide an evening of exciting reading. Don't read it by yourself in a dark room, however.” Chester Campbell
“First, let me say up front, this bills itself as Volume 2. Having not read Volume 1, I can state with certainty that this book works as a stand alone, in case anyone worries about that.
This is a theme-anthology, horror stories with a bit of a twist. The visitors to the Cornifu Hotel, deep in the Carpathians Mountains of Transylvania, are individually invited for a free one day bus excursion to nearby Erdely Castle, said to be haunted. Each story is about a different group of travelers to visit the castle. And with that setting and that common theme, one can rightly expect vampires and ghosts and werewolves--just about all those things that go bump in the night show up here.
As in any anthology of stories by different writers, the quality of the writing varies--and, of course, readers' tastes are different, which is to say what one likes, another may not. I did not find any real clunkers here, but I did find some that I preferred over others.
To my tastes, one of the standouts in the book would have to be The Scholar by author Seana Graham. Most of the tales here are focused on the supernatural, as is to be expected, but this is really a well written story of a mismatched marriage and "the other man," with the scary stuff more of the frosting on the cake. It's a bit less fanciful than some and not particularly horrific (though not without a creepy moment or two), but it compensates with well sketched characters and believable interactions.
Kristin Johnson's vampire story, Divine Curse, seemed a bit murky to me, but that in itself is not altogether inappropriate to the genre. A bit of ambiguity can be an asset in spooky fiction. This is, after all, a genre that dispenses with conventional reality. And, this tale stands out for its gay elements, not usually found in horror collections. So, I give it a passing grade, but not without some reservations.
Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil by Donna Amato is likewise ambiguous, particularly in its ending, and the cast of characters occasionally seems to be tripping over one another, but the writer manages to make the implausible reasonably plausible, which is as much as one can fairly ask of horror fiction. Let's face it, parts of Dean Koontz's books make no sense at all. The real question is whether the writer can carry the reader along, and Ms. Amato does that admirably.
A Visitor From the Past by Carol A. Cole is somewhat of a time travel, or maybe, more correctly, dimensional-travel. Anna has been short-tempered with her husband, Rob, since returning from a trip to Germany months earlier, and this trip is intended to rekindle their relationship, but the results are not what Rob expected. Many of these stories have downer endings. This one is more bitter sweet. I found that it lingered with me after I had finished reading.
The other standout, for me, is Kevin Tipple's By the Light of the Moon. While most of the stories in the book follow a quickly familiar plot line--the busload of tourists comes to the castle, a storm strands them there, and mysterious events follow--this one distinguishes itself by going its own way. To be sure, there is the bus, and tourists at the castle and eerie doings, but Tipple sets his story elsewhere and afterward, and we hear about the events at the castle in flashback narratives. It's a tricky sort of structure but he pulls it off neatly.
In short, this is not great literature--it surely wasn't intended to be--but if horror is your cup of tea, I can heartily recommend this for a couple of hours of goose-bump reading.” Victor J. Banis
This is a theme-anthology, horror stories with a bit of a twist. The visitors to the Cornifu Hotel, deep in the Carpathians Mountains of Transylvania, are individually invited for a free one day bus excursion to nearby Erdely Castle, said to be haunted. Each story is about a different group of travelers to visit the castle. And with that setting and that common theme, one can rightly expect vampires and ghosts and werewolves--just about all those things that go bump in the night show up here.
As in any anthology of stories by different writers, the quality of the writing varies--and, of course, readers' tastes are different, which is to say what one likes, another may not. I did not find any real clunkers here, but I did find some that I preferred over others.
To my tastes, one of the standouts in the book would have to be The Scholar by author Seana Graham. Most of the tales here are focused on the supernatural, as is to be expected, but this is really a well written story of a mismatched marriage and "the other man," with the scary stuff more of the frosting on the cake. It's a bit less fanciful than some and not particularly horrific (though not without a creepy moment or two), but it compensates with well sketched characters and believable interactions.
Kristin Johnson's vampire story, Divine Curse, seemed a bit murky to me, but that in itself is not altogether inappropriate to the genre. A bit of ambiguity can be an asset in spooky fiction. This is, after all, a genre that dispenses with conventional reality. And, this tale stands out for its gay elements, not usually found in horror collections. So, I give it a passing grade, but not without some reservations.
Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil by Donna Amato is likewise ambiguous, particularly in its ending, and the cast of characters occasionally seems to be tripping over one another, but the writer manages to make the implausible reasonably plausible, which is as much as one can fairly ask of horror fiction. Let's face it, parts of Dean Koontz's books make no sense at all. The real question is whether the writer can carry the reader along, and Ms. Amato does that admirably.
A Visitor From the Past by Carol A. Cole is somewhat of a time travel, or maybe, more correctly, dimensional-travel. Anna has been short-tempered with her husband, Rob, since returning from a trip to Germany months earlier, and this trip is intended to rekindle their relationship, but the results are not what Rob expected. Many of these stories have downer endings. This one is more bitter sweet. I found that it lingered with me after I had finished reading.
The other standout, for me, is Kevin Tipple's By the Light of the Moon. While most of the stories in the book follow a quickly familiar plot line--the busload of tourists comes to the castle, a storm strands them there, and mysterious events follow--this one distinguishes itself by going its own way. To be sure, there is the bus, and tourists at the castle and eerie doings, but Tipple sets his story elsewhere and afterward, and we hear about the events at the castle in flashback narratives. It's a tricky sort of structure but he pulls it off neatly.
In short, this is not great literature--it surely wasn't intended to be--but if horror is your cup of tea, I can heartily recommend this for a couple of hours of goose-bump reading.” Victor J. Banis
I have always said my story “By The Light Of The Moon” was not horror though it may have a creepy crawly element or two to it. I think of my story as a fantasy piece with mystery. It is very different than the normal kind of thing and as a result almost didn’t make the book. I am very glad it did. Nothing of mine has made it anywhere since.
Not that I have submitted that much. Beyond the physical issues with writing, the idea vault is bare. I literally have nothing at all on anything. The novel has been stopped dead for over two years now, a half dozen short stories are locked down as well, and there simply is nothing happening from a writing angle other than the reviewers. So it isn’t surprising that somebody on one of the lists I am on recently said he had no idea I had ever written anything that was ever published anywhere. He thought of me solely as a reviewer--not as a writer.
Ironic as I had originally gotten into doing reviews back in 1998 as a way of getting my name out there a bit in order to help with my fiction efforts. More than two decades later, there are well over 1000 reviews and a whopping twelve or so published fiction pieces.
Sandi is pushing strongly, as she has for over a month now, that I need to get back to working on my own stuff. To put out in e-book form the stuff that went to this magazine or that --all dead deals now--so that my stories that have not seen the light of day in a very long time would be back out there again. To get back to work on a mystery novel that she thinks has potential as do folks in my local writing group. To get back to work on creating new stuff, to submit pieces to markets, and to again put a high priority on my own writing.
Considering everything here, I really don’t see how I can….and I don’t know that I even want to try.
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1 comment:
Kevin, I think you should try. Many authors have managed to do this themselves so you wouldn't have to come up with extra money and it would give you something to divert your mind from the tough things in your life. There is also the hope of a little income.
Lelia Taylor
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