Tuesday, I began a mini series, within a series, within a series. Wait...what? Becky that is very confusing. Okay, so let me explain.
You are currently reading the 31 Days of Horror series and today's post is part of the "Why I Love Horror" series within that series. However, it is also part of three days featuring authors who play their trade in the self publishing sphere, authors who are putting out solid books, titles readers love, but with little to no marketing push behind them.
All three of these authors are also members of the Horror Writers Association and they have offered up a book for one of you. All titles offered are finished copies that you should add to your library's collections immediately. The rest of you, should consider ordering a copy for yourselves.
Please see the most recent giveaway for rules. Those rules apply here as well. I will pull 3 separate winners over the weekend. The third name pulled will get today's title.
Now you can see what I mean about this being "a mini series, within a series, within a series." So let's begin.
I have thoughts, but I begin with Daniel Kraus, who gave this unsoltiiced blurb after reading the novel.
"This book hits like a summer squall and never lets up, a real-time, one-location doom machine that earns its place beside The Mist." - Daniel Kraus, author of Whalefall
I whole heartedly agree that this book is an excellent readalike for The Mist. That alone is reason enough to order a copy for your collections right now. From Goodreads:
A sudden storm appears above an isolated farmhouse in rural Illinois, bringing with it a relentless and unnatural rain. A rain that eats away at everything it touches. A rain that turns people into monsters.Trapped inside his crumbling home, a father must do everything he can to keep his family from falling apart. But the rain calls to them, and not everyone wants to stay inside.Haunted by memories of loss, he must put aside his painful past and find a way to keep them all safe. But the rain shows no signs of stopping, and time is running out.From the award-winning author of Suburban Monsters comes a heartbreaking tale of survival and terror.
I read this mostly on sunny days and I was checking the sky for rain clouds multiple times, with like actual fear of what I might see. Click here for more from on this book, including this:
Three Words That Describe This Book: intense dread, compressed time frame, trapped
I have a finished copy of Downpour for 1 winner, but again, if Daniel Kraus and I like it, isn't that enough for you to order it? Just in case, here is Chris himself to tell you why Horror can do it all.
💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀
What Horror Means To Me
by Chris Hawkins
by Chris Hawkins
There’s a feeling you get when you’re at the top of a roller coaster. And I don’t mean the shiny, magnetic ones that shoot you down the track like you’re being launched off the deck of an aircraft carrier. I mean the old-school rattle-coasters, the ones that are just an accumulation of rickety hills made of piled-up wood. The kind where the cross bracing looks more improvised than planned, and you’re pretty sure some of it is missing and what’s left is all cracked because the last time it was painted probably wasn’t in your lifetime.
But you get on the thing because it has to be safe, right? Otherwise, why would all these other people be in line to get on it, too? I mean, they’re hearing all the same screams that you are and none of them seem to be thinking anything of it, and when the cars arrive they’re more or less full, so you’re pretty sure that they’re coming back with everyone they left with.
So you sit at the front because everyone in this country knows that first is best. You climb in and fasten your threadbare seatbelt–no fancy shoulder harness here!--and you wait. You wait long enough to notice that the kid working the controls doesn’t even look old enough to be in high school, and the one who checked the seatbelt barely glanced at the thing at all. Then you shudder a bit and wonder if it’s too late to get off. Just when you’ve resolved to do exactly that, the whole thing lurches forward and there’s no turning back.
That’s when the chain catches you and starts to pull you up. And it’s slow, so slow that it feels like time is stretching, and you’re not getting any closer to the top even though the ground is getting farther away. And the whole time, you’re hearing the heavy ratcheting of the chain, like the tick of a clock counting down to doomsday, and you realize that the machinery that makes this thing go probably isn’t any different than it was back in the days when men wore top hats and kids died of things like Polio and Smallpox.
And you’re sure now that some of the cross bracing really is missing because you can feel the whole structure swaying ever so slightly as you climb. And by now you’re certain that you made a bad choice–maybe even a fatally bad choice–but you’re so high up now that the people look like ants and when you chance a look over the side you see that the only thing between you and the ground they’re walking on is a sheer drop. You’re committed. The only way out is through.
The top is in sight now, and it’s worse than you thought, because you can’t see anything over the crest in the hill. You know that the track has to be there, that it has to keep going, but for a moment you’re not so sure. You’re at the summit now–you have to be–but all there is ahead is empty air.
The chain lets go, and everything goes quiet. There’s a pause while you wait for gravity to take you, and because you sat up front you can feel it wanting to pull your body out ahead of the cars, and there’s only that skinny strap of seatbelt to hold you back.
That’s when the feeling starts to take hold.
It starts in your gut, just above where the seatbelt is digging against your hips, a sickening sense that something is about to go terribly, horribly wrong. It tingles its way up your spine and across your limbs and into your fingertips. You push back with your legs and you grip the hand-bar tighter, but gravity is coming for you no matter what you do because gravity is inevitable and gravity always wins. You can see the track ahead of you–at least some of it–and the drop is steep, steeper than you thought it would be. There’s no way this can end well, no reason why it should end well, and you never should have agreed to go on this ride in the first place.
And at the same time, there’s a voice in your head that starts to rise above the rush of blood in your ears, and that voice is positively giddy. That voice knows that this is exactly what you came for. It knows that you stood in line for forty-five minutes just so you could experience this moment, this feeling, with your heart pumping and your body amped up like it’s ready to run. That voice is at odds with everything your body is telling you, which only makes your body work that much harder to be heard. You’re elated and a little bit sick all at once, and when gravity finally takes you and you roar down that track the voice comes out in a scream.
The ride is over way too quickly, but that feeling? That feeling lasts. It trembles through your legs as they touch solid ground. The world is tilting, and it forces you to look at everything like it’s brand new. Colors are brighter. You feel the cool breeze tingle the little hairs on your arms and all of it is telling you that you’re alive. You did the frightening thing and came out whole on the other side. And you want to do it again.
That’s why I love horror. It’s the only kind of storytelling that even comes close to replicating that feeling. The slow building of dread. The terror of knowing what’s lurking around the corner but still being powerless to stop it. The catharsis that comes when you’ve been through hell but come out safe on the other side. It’s not the same as the roller coaster ride, but when it’s done right, it’s better. It’s so, so much better.
No other genre can do that. Romance might get the blood moving. Thrillers might give you a shot of adrenaline. Science fiction may take you to places unknown, but only horror can do it all. That’s why I read horror. That’s why I watch horror. That’s why I write horror. That’s why I love horror.
So who wants to go again?
No comments:
Post a Comment