Friday, January 20, 2012

Death's Given Chance




Eventually death will call us all, but in the meantime it will send a postcard, or visit someone close to us, or invite you for a showing. Death likes to be remembered, however sometimes there is a limit in how much to hold death in your thoughts.

Ben Dawson, unemployed, lonely, his life in a crisis not having met any goals he set out for himself. With the last of his money he buys a ticket back to his home town to attend a funeral.

***

I released my short story Death's Given Chance. It's the third completed for my challenge to write 20 short stories in a year time.

As promised, I've made it available for free on Smashword to followers of my website, blog, and twitter for a period of 7 days.

With this coupon code you can get a copy:

Promotional price: $0.00
Coupon Code: QB96Q
Expires: January 28, 2012

I would appreciate it if you left a review on Smashwords, Amazon, or on your own blog.

Website Offline

My website www.alexrosaria.com is not accessible. I sent a ticket to my host provider to resolve the issue. I hope to be online soon again.

I noticed it being down because I wanted to update my site with my just published short story "Death's Given Chance".

Monday, January 16, 2012

Book Review: The Congregation by Aric Mitchell


About the Author:

Aric Mitchell is a young man with a love for horror fiction, and writer of the novel “Bearcats All the Way” a high school football fable inspired by a real life tragedy. The congregation is his first full length horror novel.

You can find more about him on his own site.


My review:

One drawback of reviewing a story a long time (About a month) after reading it, is that you will forget a lot of what happened in the story. (Heck I even forget stories I wrote myself) The congregation I still remember, it's sufficiently weird and in an existentialistic way disturbing that even I with my memory that just seem to last for two weeks remembers it.

Is this a good thing? Yes certainly it is. Weird is good, and disturbing in a horror story is almost a must. I liked the plot, the writing is good, and the characters are well done. I didn't care for all the characters, however I think story wise it is not necessary for the reader to like them all and in this story it may be intentional for you not to care for them all.

I don't want to tell too much about the story as not to spoil it for you. The story is about a man seeking redemption for something he done in the past, but he's punished in a way by God that he will never be able to not be different than the moment he was when he did his crime.

There is only one way he may be released from his punishment, and that is to find the right person to deliver him from his burden.

The story is very graphic in the violence and partly a slasher, however with a serious undertone about humanity. If I had to describe it in a few words then it would be; A well written slasher but one with meat around it.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

2012 A new year, new beginnings.

A belated Happy 2012. :D

I've been so busy that the passing of the year been a blur to me. I almost slept into the New Year, if not for my wife waking me up at 2357 hours. It was a blur, a blur, of our dog howling and barking, us drinking non alcoholic champagne and eating snacks. It was fun (not so for the dog), but within the hour I was sleeping again.

The days before I've been writing like crazy, I did 8000 words in two days, finishing a short story. Since then I've been revising the story to polish it to a shine of perfection.(okay near perfection)

I wrote my very first thriller in a post apocalyptic setting. No monsters in the story or anything supernatural, just war and the monstrosity of humanity. It was fun writing, nearing the obsessiveness. I guess the story grabbed me and took over. I hope to publish it soon, and when I do a seven day valid coupon will be available to get it for free at Smashwords.