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.

The ART of DRAMATIC WRITING

You've seen it right, the title is in CAPITAL LETTERS, this book deserves the added exclamation. If you want to know more about how to improve your writing craft, be it playwright, writing a short story, a novelette, a novel, a screenplay, even your grocery-list, buy this book.

Lajos Egri explains the need of having a premise, characters, and conflict to shape the story. He shows that without this the story will not reach its full potential. He proves his points with explanations, and examples of existing plays (from the era he wrote the book), and a session of question that he answers in great detail.

This book helped me understand why some of what I wrote previously worked and some not so much. It gave me understanding where previously I was guessing and going by feeling. It's not that you can't write a great book based on going just with pure imagination, but it's rare. Knowing why things work gives you that much more confidence in your writing, and the right tools to knowingly write (or attempt to) a great book.

I'm glad I read this book. It's a shame I forgot who recommended The Art of Dramatic Writing to me, I would kiss him or her a thousands times. It's a great book and an asset to every writers bookcase.

Book Review: I Eat Butterflies: Tales of Vampires, Mages & Mutants

The book's description as found on smashwords:

I EAT BUTTERFLIES - Tales of Vampires, Mages & Mutants is a trio of sinister & sexy erotic horror / urban fantasy / dark & dangerous sci-fi stories from the creator of THE WORLD OF SYNNIBARR and CRYPT: THE PHARAOH’S CURSE.

THE BRIDES: The Brides of Dracula have always been secretly calling the shots by making Draculii as fall guys. What happens when you create the wrong dark prince?

MERLIN’S KNOT: Upon discovering the secret code interlaced within the Celtic knots, a group of college students learn how to use real magic, and the knowledge propels them into a world of intrigue and adventure.

VELOCITY SYNDROME: An Orwellian take on the near future, where there are groups of low-powered mutants, humans have chips in their brains, and the world is drowning. And the answer to one murder may save the world or lead to total destruction

My Review

The stories in themselves are okay to good: Velocity Syndrome being the better one. While reading I had the feeling that the author was new at the craft of writing. This was evident from his overuse of "purple" prose, so much it distracted me from reading his story, which is a pity. Luckily he improved. In his third short story "Velocity Syndrome" he writes much more fluent and readable. Because of that I could immerse myself better in the third story than the previous two.

The brides was a drag to read. The story is an interesting one. It's a new way (for me at least) describing vampires. However the writing was distracting, and this made reading it less enjoyable. For example in the story the brides talking amongst themselves about the past, one retells the story how they started. A flashback by retelling. It's nice getting some back-story, but it's weird and awkward way of doing it. Why would one of the three people, who have lived and experienced the event, retell this to the other two who lived it along with her? It's made it too obvious it being a flashback, and this can distract readers.

The story picked up when the brides found a new prince. The writing started to flow better at the end. This made it more a pity, that while improving in his writing style, the story suffered a little fall. It felt chunks were left out, and stuff started happening ad hoc. The ending was a little abrupt and left things not so clear. It felt it rushed by leaving me to ask my self; "What happened!"

MERLIN’S KNOT is less flowerly written. The story follows a clearer path than The Brides. It has an interesting take on magic and technology. Too bad the story gets convoluted by having too much going on at once. I'm sure some will like that. To me it has an B action movie feel to it. There are things added to the story that I felt were not there to add to the story(because it didn't make sense), but for the cool factor. However the writer is improving in his craft. Merlin's knot is less a drag to read.

Velocity Syndrome is more coherent and read fluent compared to the first two, it is less distracting written. I enjoyed reading this one. The setting is great and the story draws you in. At the end it has a twist, only too bad it is a tad confusing.

From reading "I Eat Butterflies: Tales of Vampires, Mages & Mutants" I have come to believe Raven c.s. McCracken has an imaginative mind and that he shows he improves with every word written. If he keeps writing I'm sure he'll come to a point he'll be writing great stories. These being his first, they are however not so great, but still worth reading.