RealityBypass

So here we are.  End of another month and my favorite holiday for today.  Ask me in a month and Thanksgiving will be my fav, then Christmas, etc…I’m a live for the holiday gal.  Today marks the end of UF October, but the responses we’ve had have been so much fun that I can guarantee we’ll keep interviewing authors of many shades, and definitely more of the UF crowd..  Thanks again to all of our interviews of the month.

Housekeeping!

Remember today is the last day of our October contest.  At midnight we’ll be drawing both for the weekly gift and for the October grab bag.  You can enter more than once by having more than one comment, but if they all just say ‘bump’ or ‘comment’ or such I’m gonna get cranky. 

Now…on to stuff for today.

Today I’m going to talk one of my favorite UF series:  the Dreden Files by Jim Butcher.

This book features the tales of one modern day wizard trying to protect the city of Chicago, get a date and pay the rent all at once.  Harry Dresden is, by far, one of my favorite UF heroes, not because he’s the most poweful, but because I love watching him grow and change.  The character remains very internally consistant all the way through the series and remembers what he learned from book to book.  Characters who seem to have forgotten all the lessons they picked up on from book to book make me crazy, but Harry keeps in mind what he’s seen and rarely gets burned by the same issue twice.  Harry is a genuinly likable man and for all of his power is also very relatable to, again one of my reasons he’s a favorite.  I also truly like the secondary characters and feel like they compliment the lead without being consumed by him.  Often the only place for secondary characters is what they provide to the lead, but in the Dresden files you know the secondaries are off having their own lives when they’re not on screen with Harry and you see those lives and needs and desires reflected in their interactions with the wizard.

If you’ve not seen this series yet I’d advise you to give it a whirl.  The currently available books in the main arc are:

Storm Front
Fool Moon
Grave Peril
Summer Knight
Death Masks
Blood Rites
Dead Beat
Proven Guilty
White Knight
Small Favor

The first two have some slow spots, but it picks up quickly from there and just doesn’t let go.  I like that this is a series which I can reread frequently and still pick out new details on each reading.

So what series tickle your fancy dear reader?

~J

Okay, I was slow putting the pictures together for last week’s winner and the coming week’s winner…of the not big grab bag variety.  Sooo…here’s pictures of what’s going in the mail for Judi and for whomever this week’s lovely is.

Remember to comment to be entered in this week’s contest and for the monthly grab bag…Rumor has it there may be a Lilith SaintCrow novel in there…

Jana

Firstly, I wanted to put up a nod for where I got the name Creatures and Cultists. My friend Chad is the Runner Up Board Game King of Houston. He has this card game based on the Cthulhu Mythos: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/2242.

Anyway so it’s time for some more ghouls, goblins and monsters. If you notice I’ve carefully avoided mentioning the Vampire and the Werewolf. Why? Well those are monsters most folks know and love. Jana’s and my book Whispers from the Grave deals with a Victorian Vampire, after all. But for Creatures and Cultists I wanted to write about other things out there to give you inspiration.

Today we’re going to talk about  Gorgons and Erinyes of Greek Mythology. The Greek history is full of great ideas for coming up with monsters and madness! I highly reccomend Edith Hamilton’s Mythology.

Medusa is the most famous of the Gorgons. The Gorgons are monsterous female creatures who turn anyone who looks at them into stone. These women strike me as being similar to fallen angels and in some Greek traditions they are a storm goddess or storm monster. Most of these women have beautiful faces, long batline wings and serpents for hair. I imagine them having slitted snake-like eyes, if you actually get close enough to look at them. I also imagine them having scales, or possibly the ability to shift into a snake form. This isn’t in the literature, just my own imagining.

The Erinyes are another favorite of mine. These are your Furies, the avengers of injustice and evil-doing. The Erinyes chase a wrongdoer across the lands until he collapses in exhaustion. Some versions of the legend say that the Furies were created to hunt down men and women who committed crimes against their own blood (breaking natural laws), others say that the Furies were avengers of any crime against humanity. When the evil-doer is finally caught, the Furies drag them down into the Underworld where they undergo tortures to pay for their crimes. Dante describes the Furies in a manner very similar to the Gorgons. They have batlike wings, serpents for hair and they drip blood from their eyes.Virgil gave names to three of the Furies:  Alecto (“unceasing,” who appeared in Virgil’s Aeneid), Megaera (“grudging”), and Tisiphone (“avenging murder”).

Books: Dread Locks #1 (Neal Shusterman),  Medusa Island (Stuart and Linda MacFarlane),Corydon and the Island of Monsters (Tobias Druitt), The Furies (Mike Carey and John Bolton)

(Click the book cover above for more info about the Chris Achilleos book.)

I have the creeping crud…makes for a really deep voice , maybe this Halloween I’m going to have to be a banshee.  Anyway, you don’t care about that.  No, I know why you’re here on a wonderful Wednesday, to see what book is up for discussion.  After the interview on Monday I decided that today we’d have to feature none other than Happy Hour of the Damned, by Mark Henry.

Happy Hour of the Damned is the first Amanda Feral book, the story of debutant Amanda Feral’s journey from the living large to the realm of celebrity ghoul extraordinaire.  Now I’ll be bluntly honest here, even though I like the author, I don’t LIKE Amanda Feral.  I really don’t think anyone is supposed to.  I’m not sure if I want to call that a strength of the book or a weakness.  It’s definitely a point which draws readers, because Amanda is unrepentently bitchy and never really swerves from her course though you can see some of how she got there.  There’s a Sex in the City type vibe to the whole thing.  Amanda is definitely an anti-hero archetype and we’ll see if she grows on me, hopefully not literally.

The writing is fun and I like the addition of footnotes sporadically through the book as we get an extra glimpse into Amanda’s mind.

Rating
Age:  Adult
Content:  Gore, yuck, meanness, violence, language, suggestive situations.
Rating:  Hrm…hard call.  Borrow or buy depending on if bitchy ghoul is a reread for you.  For me it’s a borrow.

Book One in the Chronicles of Amanda Feral, Celebrity Ghoul

Seattle. One minute you’re drinking a vanilla breve, the next, some creepy old dude is breathing on you, turning you into a zombie. And that’s just for starters. Now, the recently deceased Amanda Feral is trying to make her way through Seattle’s undead scene with style (mortuary-grade makeup, six-inch stilettos, Balenciaga handbag on sale) while satisfying her craving for human flesh (Don’t judge. And no, not like chicken.) and decent vodkatinis. Making her way through a dangerous world of cloud-doped bloodsuckers, reapers, horny and horned devils, werewolves, celebrities, and PR-obsessed shapeshifters-not to mention an extremely hot bartender named Ricardo-isn’t easy. And the minute one of Amanda’s undead friends disappears after texting the word, “help” (The undead-so dramatic!) she knows the afterlife is about to get really ugly.

Something sinister is at hand. Someone or something is hellbent on turning Seattle’s undead underworld into a place of true terror. And this time, Amanda may meet a fate a lot worse than death.

*taps microphone and is rewarded with a static squeal*  Ahem…yes…we interrupt this session of Creatures and Cultists to announce the winner of the book give away from yesterday’s Meet the Author Interview with Mark Henry.  The poor…umm…lucky…vict..erm…winner of a copy of Happy Hour of the Damned and a flat of Road Trip of the Damned iiiiiiissss…

Please drop an email over to (me at markhenry dot us) to receive  your fabulous prize, and stay tuned.  There are two more give aways this week and all commentors are part of the fun.

Speaking of give aways there are a few places I know of giving away some fun freebies and contest entries of their own, so pop on over and win great prizes while talking with great people.

EOS Books

Juno Books

The League of Reluctant Adults

That is all…

~J

Today’s feature is Sea Monsters! These aren’t your typical Halloween Monster, but I’d love to see a book dedicated to monsters of the sea. Ocean dwelling monsters relate back to the Greek Times, where Odysseus battled with a giant whirlpool, a Kraken and Sirens. There’s such a wealth of darkness and creepyness we can attribute to the ocean.

After all, the ocean is a place we really haven’t tamed. I just think about all the damage from Ike that came from the water that came ashore, and it makes me realize how little we actually control the ocean. Ancient sailors felt the same way, and there’s plenty of Real Monsters such as sharks and jellyfish to remind us that we’re puny humans in the face of nature’s danger and variety.

So on to the monsters.

First we have the Kraken, which came into vogue recently thanks to Pirate’s of the Carribean. The Kraken is a squid or octopus like monster, with rows of teeth and endless tentacles. I’ve seen the Kraken portrayed as having parylizing poisons in his tentacles and most say that a Kraken is as large as a ship, or bigger. The Kraken is always hungry. I’d love to see a Were-Kraken, for lack of a better term. A  man that can become human and walk the land, but in the ocean he’s the fearsome devourer of ships. HP Lovecraft’s Octopus God, Cthulhu, is said to be based on the Kraken.

Nessie - or Lake Monsters: This creature has a dinosaur-like body with a long neck. Sometimes Nessie is portrayed with sharp teeth, and otherwise she’s very docile. This is an elusive creature that lives in the lake. The scarier versions of the legend have the lake monster preying on hapless swimmers, killing and devouring them. I imagine you could link Nessie to the Water Horse legend.

Water Horse - These are lake monsters that come on land and lure men and women by appearing as a lost, and utterly beautiful, horse. This horse, whose mane is always dripping, lures men and women to mount her and then she brings them into the ocean where she drowns them.

Sirens - Beautiful women, sometimes portrayed as Mermaids, who sing on rocks to lure men to sail to their doom. The Siren is actually another side of the mermaid legend. These ravenous creatures, once men are lured to their death, feast on their flesh. Their song is said to drive men to complete insanity.

Mermaids - Fictional Mermaids are very similar to the Water Horse. They appear as a woman to lure men to chase them into the sea, where they drown them and devour them. There are less monsterous aspects to the Mermaid, but for Halloween, I wanted to focus on the darker side.

Books featuring these creatures: Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, The Fellowship of the Ring, Artemis Fowl, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Boggart and the Monster (Susan Cooper),The Loch (Steve Alten)

*hack, cough, phlegm…wheeze*  Hallo boys and girls…  Welcome to Halloween week at Reality By Pass.  Yours truly has gotten in the spirit by coming down with the cold from hell.  Brains leaking, shuffling from room to room dragging a blankie…puts me right in line with the zombie creatures of myth, book and movie…which goes right along with our kick off author interview for the week: Mark Henry author of Happy Hour of the Damned, and the forth coming Road Trip of the Living Dead.

Now there’s some special housekeeping that goes with this one so listen up or I’ll breath on you and you’ll be diseased too.  There are three contests to be aware of this week.  Yes, THREE.  The first is a today only bit.  Those who read and comment on Mark’s interview will go into a drawing for a copy of Happy Hour of the Damned and a cover flat of Road Trip of the Living Dead, one sweet package!  Then our fourth weekly give away is up for grabs, mug, candy and all for anyone that comments all this week.  And finally on Friday we’ll have our Halloween grab bag give away where in everyone who has commented all month goes into the drawing.  So stay tuned and get chatty for chances to join us in celebrating UF October and Halloween!

Moving on to Mark.

Vital Stats:
Lives: We’re not so sure about this.  Amanda may have devoured his brains already.
Website: Burlesque of the Damned
Books:  Happy Hour of the Damned, Road Trip of the Living Dead (2009)

From the mouth of the author:
Do you have a day of the week that is your most creative day?  Or do all the days just gang up and attack you all the time?
I’m not more creative on any specific day, just less lazy, less distractible.  I have to get into a groove to write well, usually the first 500 words of the day is crap and then I’ll move into something actually readable.

What is your favorite supernatural critter and why?
No joke, mine is zombies.  I still love ‘em.  I should be completely tired and burnt out on them three books into my Amanda Feral series but I’m not.  In fact, my wife and I are going to see Quarantine this weekend (the remake of the spanish horror movie [REC]).  It’s partially due to my mother who introduced me to zombie movies as a kid and partly the   whole metaphor thing.  Need to make a statement about rampant commercialism?  Use a zombie.  Want to get existential on someone’s ass?  Nothing says life is meaningless like the shambling undead.  See?

We all know it’s easy to get distracted when a project is taking its own sweet time to bubble.  What is your Achilles heel when it comes to getting distracted from writing?
Facebook IM and AIM.  I can be minding my own business with a regular distraction like Wordtwist and then all of a sudden I’m sucked into endless chatter involving porn names or celebrity gossip.  One thing leads to another an here comes the AIM chatroom.  Then all of a sudden it’s 5 o’clock and I haven’t written a thing.  I need a 12 step group.  I’m not kidding.

With the holidays coming up and October being a good kick off, what is your favorite Halloween activity?
Definitely going to the pumpkin patch.  When someone first brought it up years ago.  I was like, “why not just go to Safeway?” I had no idea that there were corn mazes (where else do you get an opportunity to scream “Malachi?”), hay rides (admittedly retarded but nonetheless fun) and hot cider (perfect for those chilly fall cider fights, just make sure it’s scalding).

I’ve heard of inspirational eating, so when you’re settled in to get things done is there a particular food that you just have to have on hand?
Not really.  Though spaghettios with meatballs and fritos make me pretty happy.  Also, fat.

What does it take to write a really good villain?  Do you ever find yourself in a mental space that scares you or makes you wonder if that really came out of YOUR head?
Really good villains need to be human, too, have some characteristics that the reader can identify with.
They’re always creepier if you kind of like them.  I feel a real affinity for the villains, I guess that’s why Amanda is an anti-heroine.  If you can fall in love with her then I’ve done my job.  Villain be damned.

Which of your characters gave you the most trouble and was the hardest to write for?
Martin.  Amanda’s therapist/boyfriend.  He was definitely tricky.  I had to write him just thin enough for the reader to let [Massive Spoiler Deleted] slide.  If he was fully fleshed out and likeable that kind of plot point would be unforgiveable.  Maybe it is anyway.  Hmm.

Stephen King says we should murder our darlings.  What is your most favorite murdered darling from any of your books?
He does say that.  So do Strunk and White, right?  I don’t know.  My stuff is so over-the-top that if I deleted the stuff that made me the happiest the book would lose something.  Though, I’m on the third book now and I almost wish I’d killed the idea of footnotes.  That shit is hard to keep up on.

What is your worst writing habit, the thing which you keep telling yourself you’re going to change and you do it anyway?
Comma vomit!  I use commas like Gossip Girls use credit cards.  They’re everywhere.  I have this suspicion that there’s a secret edict at Kensington, where the copy editor just gets to skip that part, lest they go completely insane.  They don’t skip it, of course.  I bet they hate my long dashes, though.

If you were going to interview another UF author, whose brain would you want to pick…or consume, we’re not picky.
I do interview lots of urban fantasy authors.  I’m certainly not shy about asking.  But there is one.  Christopher Moore.  I’m not sure if he’d consider himself an urban fantasy author, but I do.  I’d love to get into his mind for a bit and see how he pieces together story.  Can that be arranged?

From the mouth Amanda:
Boxers or briefs? You know I had to ask.
I don’t really have a preference, just as long as there’s no shit stain running up the back.  I won’t have a man that can’t wipe his own ass.  That goes for dribblers, too.  Pathetic.

Since no one seems to be able to stay out of gore covered trouble how do you get the blood stains out?
I have no idea what you’re talking about.  I’m a dainty eater.  And anything that can’t be dry cleaned is bound for the furnace, if you catch my drift.

It seems most UF characters get a wardrobe I’d kill for.  So what is your favorite article of clothing?
I don’t know what you mean by “character”  but, I’ve yet to meet anyone who could match my wardrobe in real life, let alone in print.  Sure.  Some try.  Sad little posers.

What did your author screw up most about you?
He’s really more of a ghost writer.  I give him the goods and he forms the pesky sentences and shit.  I can’t be bothered with the minutiae, I kind of have a social life if you haven’t noticed.

Is there true love on your horizon, or is true love only for those sappy romance books?
True love.  Hmm.  I guess anything’s possible.  Still, I’ve seen the new book and I can tell you this, I’ll definitely be getting some trim.

Thank you Mark and Amanda!

Stay tuned for more Halloween creepiness, new Creatures and Cultists and fabulous prizes!

~Jana

We had ten comments for this week, so I pulled out my trusty D-10 and made a roll.

Saturday’s Winner of the giveaway is:

                                            JUDI

 Please contact us at realitybypass@gmail.com with your name and address. Congratulations. Jana is the Great Creator of Awesome Prizes so she’ll post a picture later!

Stay tuned for more author interviews coming your way and remember, there’s something extra Monday! Check in and keep reading. Also as the month is starting to wind down, if you have suggestions for a theme for upcoming author interviews, or if you have topics you’d like to see post them in the comments!

Thanks to the suggestions by some knowledgeable literature minds, Jana and I did an update on the first chapter of Whispers. Go check it out! We were told that the exposition didn’t grab the attention quick enough, so this is the second go. Or it’s probably the third or fourth, since Whispers has gone through a few edits.

Stay tuned for the grab bag drawing later today.

Iiiiit’s Friday!  And there was much rejoicing!  Not only because it marks the end of the week for most of us worker bees, but we’re a week closer to Halloween and we have another lovely author interview to share!

Don’t forget the contest.  Remember there’s a lovely candy filled mug to be won at the end of this week and a grab bag of October goodies (and book shaped objects) to be drawn on Halloween itself!  To enter link to us and post it in the comments or just comment in general.  Rumor also has it that there just might be an extra contest goodie on Monday so be sure to get on back here and check it out.

Housekeeping done, I wish my RL housekeeping was as easy, let’s get down to the interviewing.  Today’s delightful diva is Stacia Kane, author of Personal Demons, yes the one we featured on Wednesday, and The Demon Inside (2009).  Oh, and Unholy Ghosts is coming in 2009 too!

Let’s dig right in.

Vital Stats
Lives:  England!  Woohoo.
Webpage:  Stacia Kane
Books:  Personal Demons, The Demon Inside (2009), Unholy Ghosts (2009).  She has a bunch of others, but we’re only putting UF stuff here today.

From the mouth of the Author:

Do you have a day of the week that is your most creative day?  Or do all the days just gang up and attack you all the time?
Man, those days are such jerks. They follow me around with knives and taunt me, all the time, regardless of what I’m actually doing at any given moment. I hate them.

What is your favorite supernatural critter and why?
Ohhh, I still love vampires. I mean, demons are fun, and I am very, very partial to ghosts, but I still think vampires are sexy and I love them. I’m rather bloodthirsty anyway (um, not in that way. Well, maybe in that way. Muahaha) but the whole immortality thing is just way too appealing.

We all know it’s easy to get distracted when a project is taking its own sweet time to bubble.  What is your Achilles heel when it comes to getting distracted from writing?
I have two of them, actually; one is seven and the other is almost four, and they nag me constantly. Like it wasn’t enough for me to give them life and let them destroy my figure in the process. They actually expect me to feed them and give them juice and pay attention to them when they talk and stuff. Sheesh. Not to mention my husband.
 
Actually, my big one is baking. My family can always tell when I’m avoiding a project, because suddenly I’m baking layer cakes with fresh whipped cream, or meringue pies, or cookies, or whatever else. And I don’t really eat them, because I’m on a diet (I have lost 32 pounds in the last year and am now the same size I was when I met my husband, which makes me quite happy), but I love to make them, the more complex the better.

With the holidays coming up and October being a good kick off, what is your favorite Halloween activity?
Oooh. I love everything about Halloween! Everything. This year the hubs is taking the girls Trick-or-Treating while I stay home in my sexy zombie costume and hand out candy (it seems to be catching on in our area!). I celebrate Samhain, so I put out some offerings and do tarot readings for myself and some other stuff, so I’m really looking forward to those too. I just love all of it!

I’ve heard of inspirational eating, so when you’re settled in to get things done is there a particular food that you just have to have on hand?
No. I’m not an inspirational eater. I’m an inspirational smoker. I smoke Camel Lights, and I have to have one before I get to work.

What does it take to write a really good villain?  Do you ever find yourself in a mental space that scares you or makes you wonder if that really came out of YOUR head?
No, I’ve always known I’m kind of a sick freak, so…  I remember when the hubs and I were dating and we went to see the film “Apt Pupil”, which was an excellent movie, we thought. (RIP Brad Renfro.) And we were discussing it with the guy who worked at the local video store and I mentioned how I think the thing about movies like that is, everyone has a very, very dark side that is attracted to horrible things; it’s human nature, and it’s easy to be fascinated by serial killers or the holocaust or whatever horrible atrocities. But why I thought the film was so powerful was that it showed how dangerous it can be to really give yourself over to that dark side, and what it can do to you mentally. Which the hubs and I thought made perfect sense, but the guy at Suncoast seemed to think I was saying the Nazis were cool or something, which I totally was NOT (and I don’t think that, not at all, not one bit. Nazis=BAD). And he got all offended and walked away before I could explain, and told all the other employees what a terrible person I was. It was very upsetting, actually. (And incidentally, Malleus, Maleficarum and Spud had run-ins with the Nazis during WWII, and still have extremely strong feelings about the experience.)
 
A really good villain must be convinced that he or she is in the right. Yes, there is the sociopath-as-villain, or the ones who enjoy hurting people, but in general I like a vilaain who fools him or herself into believing they are doing the moral and good thing. Those villains are so easy to hate, but they’re also easy to understand. And I think it makes them scarier because we understand.

Which of your characters gave you the most trouble and was the hardest to write for?
Hmm. Probably Brian Stone. He’s very complex, but I didn’t really have time to get as deeply into his complexities as I would have liked.

What is your most favorite murdered darling from any of your books?
Oh, gosh. Um…Actually I usually figure out a way to work them in somewhere else if I like them that much. *blush*

What is your worst writing habit, the thing which you keep telling yourself you’re going to change and you do it anyway?
I’m a feedback whore. I shouldn’t be, but I am, and I get very hurt when people don’t read my stuff.

If you were going to interview another UF author, whose brain would you want to pick…or consume, we’re not picky.
Hmm. I guess Neil Gaiman isn’t technically UF, but him. I would say someone like Mark Henry but let’s face it, there’s nothing to pick there.

From the mouth Greyson:

Boxers or briefs? You know I had to ask.
Boxer briefs. If I wear them at all. I don’t always.

Since no one seems to be able to stay out of gore covered trouble how do you get the blood stains out?
Oh, I have servants for that sort of thing. I don’t know what they do; honestly, they probably throw the bloody things out and just buy new ones. F*** it. I’ve got the money.

It seems most UF characters get a wardrobe I’d kill for.  So what is your favorite article of clothing?
I quite like my overcoat. It’s just a nice black wool, but it fits well and looks good with everything. I buy most of my clothes on Savile Row.

What did your author screwed up most about you?
She made me too sappy. I don’t enjoy being exposed like that; it’s like she thinks she deserves to know everything about me and to spread it around. She’s a dirty sneak, that one.

Is there true love on your horizon, or is true love only for those sappy romance books?
Oh, no. That would be telling. You’ll have to wait and see, I guess; I don’t dare tell the author, she’d just blab it everywhere. It’s impossible to have any privacy with her around.

And there you have it!  Thank you Stacia and Greyson!

~J