Author Ellie Garratt wants to ask you if there's any type of dark fiction you'd consider too dark to read

I'm publishing Ellie Garratt's Passing Time Book tour spot one day early because she lives in the UK, and I live in the U.S. and it just will work out better for cross communication between our two blogs. This post will remain up for Thursday the 14th as well. Now to turn my blog over to Ellie Garratt whose byline on her blog states that she is an author of both speculative fiction and horror!

Why Dark Fiction?

All the blue seems to lend itself to
a macabre atmosphere, kind of like a
film still that has been overexposed
for bleakness and despair.

One of the more common questions I’ve been asked about Passing Time is, Why dark fiction?

When I decided in early autumn of 2012 to put together two anthologies of my previously published and unpublished short stories, I put them into two groups: science fiction and horror. What I found after I’d filed them came as quite a shock to me – horror stories outnumbered science fiction by 2:1. I’d always considered myself as more of a sci-fi writer. After all, I’ve written the first draft of a science fiction novel. Yet here was proof that when it comes to short stories, I’m really a horror writer. So, it seemed logical to make my first collection dark fiction.

Another often asked question is: "How dark is it?"

I think the answer to that question depends on what you as the reader consider "dark" to be. The nine stories that make up Passing Time feature death, cloning, a devil, vampires, zombies, a serial killer, an undertakers, and the end of truth. If these sound like the kind of fiction you’d enjoy reading then I would say you’ll like Passing Time. Hell. I hope you’ll love it. But if any of that makes you squeamish, you may need to reconsider. Having said all of that, I don’t think my stories feature overly gratuitous violence. Where violence appears or is referred to, it is done so to fit the context of the story. Please don’t go away with the impression that Passing Time is one big bloodfest from beginning to end. It really isn’t.

So, have any of my stories whet your appetite? Is there any type of dark fiction you would consider too dark to read?

This is a photo still from the remake of "The Evil Dead" which I (Michael)
am looking forward to. I put it here because maybe what Ellie is talking
about is that her book, Passing Time won't "necessarily" feature nasty
evil zombie people like this that WANT TO EAT YOUR FACE!!! But then
again, it just might. I have no idea since I haven't read it. I am intrigued
though. Consider appetite "whetted."

Book Blurb: Nine dark fiction stories that may just give you nightmares.

• A man lives to regret "Passing Time."
• A father will do anything to save his son in "Expiration Date."
• An author finds out her worst nightmare is back in "The Devil’s Song."
• A woman gets more than the claim fee when she takes out vampire insurance in "Luna Black."
• In "Dining in Hell," the Death Valley Diner becomes the wrong place to stop.
• A serial killer wants to add another file to his collection in "The Vegas Screamer."
• In "Eating Mr. Bone," an undertaker could meet an unfortunate end.
• A con man meets his first ghost in "Land of the Free."
• And will truth finally be set free in "The Letter?"

Book Links:
Amazon for $2.99
Amazon.co.uk for £2.05
Goodreads

Facebook

Author Ellie Garratt showing that
astronauts can totally be cover girls.

About The Author

A life-long addiction to reading science fiction and horror, meant writing was the logical outlet for Ellie Garratt’s passions. She is a reader, writer, blogger, Trekkie, and would happily die to be an extra in The Walking Dead. Her short stories have been published in anthologies and online. Passing Time is her first eBook collection and contains nine previously published stories. Her science fiction collection Taking Time will be published later in the year.

Here are some author links for you to explore:

Website

Amazon

Facebook

Goodreads

Twitter

a Rafflecopter giveaway 
So are any of you horror fanatics out there going to buy Ellie's book? The price on it seems like quite a steal. Get it while it's hot! And don't forget to enter the giveaway.

Four ways to totally satisfy your Walking Dead withdrawal

So we are a little over a month away before AMC's epic "The Walking Dead" starts up again, hopefully with a high body count and much samurai sword wielding goin' down in the zombie apocalypse. We can blame the Nielsen sweeps for such lulls put upon us by the holidays, but the fact is, if you're like me, blame only goes so far. So what can we do in the meantime?

1) My first suggestion is to read The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor.

Seriously. This novel had me on the edge of my seat for two nights as I consumed page after page following the first days of the outbreak. The Governor (known as Philip) and his brother (plus a couple of friends and his daughter Penny) are just like everyone else: caught unawares when the world "mysteriously shifts" and the dead rise up to eat the living.

This book is dripping with gore. My favorite scene is when this small group commandeers a luxurious Cadillac Escalade and try to make their way into downtown Atlanta where there's supposedly, a government refugee camp where they can get supplies, help, medical attention, military protection, and perhaps an explanation as to what the hell is going on.

As a little background, in the early days of the outbreak, power is still available in many areas. There are still television broadcasts going on along with updated news programs. But as the hours march on, more television stations drop off the air, and broadcasters turn to previously recorded shows. The way the author writes it, it's eerie in a very normal way. So really, there's no reason for our group to know that Atlanta has been overrun. Just that it seems suspicious that the television stations are all so quiet.

Well this Cadillac Escalade is essentially a rolling tank. And Phillip gets caught downtown watching zombies come out of skyscrapers like clowns coming out of a clown car. There's literally thousands of them, and they get cut off on all sides. So he slams his Escalade into four wheel drive, revs it up to sixty miles an hour, and just cuts a swath through the walking dead, blowing them up, running them down, and creating so much "zombie grease" under the tires and carriage that it hydroplanes through a building and gets wrapped around a concrete pillar. And behind them, the zombies are roaring, relentless, and hungry.

2) You should watch all of the episodes of High School of the Dead on Hulu. You don't have to have a Hulu Plus membership. It's totally free. You just have to sign in using Facebook to show that you're old enough to be watching anime with such "adult/gory" content.

High School of the Dead is exactly how I would picture The Walking Dead in Japan. Only here we have young adults being eaten alive. The outbreak starts simple enough at a school with a zombie being mistaken by the principle as a trouble maker trying to break into the school's secure grounds. When confronted, the principle gets bit and quickly spreads the contagion. So the faculty ends up eating young adults. A particularly chilling part of the anime is when the voice of someone in the office is shouting "Stop! It hurts! It hurts! Stop!" and then screams when the mic goes dead. After that, there's a stampede as kids try to get out of the high school. A pair of girls (vowing to protect each other) gets separated, and the one stands over the other horrified, watching her friend get torn to pieces by zombies. It's great! And yes, for guys out there who like to see Japanese school girls in their school uniforms, there's lots of that going on.

3) Watch 13-year-old Nick Mastrangelo's animated video of The Walking Dead's Daryl Dixon in action. It involves machine guns, a magic crossbow, and even robots. You should watch this and then ask yourself what you were capable of doing with a computer in the 8th-grade.

4) Watch the new "Evil Dead" trailer which is being billed as the scariest movie of 2013. This trailer is Not Suitable for Work. It is for mature audiences and features gore, swearing, and a disturbing scene where a woman cuts her tongue in half. But for the "Evil Dead" purists out there, it should be quite satisfying. It looks less campy than the Bruce Campbell/Sam Raimi version, and the Necronomicon looks pretty convincing. In case you don't know, the Necronomicon is an H.P. Lovecraft prop used in most of his Cthulhu mythos stories. It's not something you'd ever want to read from. In the least it rouses the dead, and that's never a good thing.

Housekeeping:

Next week I shall be attending the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. I decided that I am going to take a laptop so I will strive to blog about C.E.S. And yes, I am going to grab as much free stuff as I can possibly get. I'm going to point out to every vendor that I work for the State of Utah and we do demonstrations for people all of the time SO HOOK ME UP homey! :) Mostly I will be going to the Silvers Summit and taking a look at Smart Home Technologies and basically anything that "differently-abled" people could use to make their lives more independent. That's my career (using assistive technology to provide independence and a more meaningful life to those who could use some help). I install cameras and environmental controls that are voice-operated, I install voice-operated computers in people's homes, and strive to stay on the cutting edge of technology.

Anyway, I hope my laptop doesn't get stolen in the airport. I think I've taken every precaution.

If you have time today, please visit Laura Eno's blog as it's a stop on my book tour. You can find her HERE.

Additionally, on Saturday I will be at the Indie Book Blog. I think Oculus is getting a review. You'll find that blog HERE. Oh well, I guess that's the chance we authors take, right?

FREE MONEY>>>Also, the $50.00 Amazon Gift Card promotion is still going on. Go HERE for the daily tweet which has been updated. The gift card giveaway ends this Monday.

Have a great weekend. Monday, I shall be doing a cover reveal for Ellie Garratt's new book.