Vile Things

Okay, I've been meaning to promote some of the magazines and anthologies that have been kind enough to include my short stories, so I thought I'd start with one of my favorites.

Now, I don't consider myself a writer of "extreme" horror. In fact, the phrase "extreme horror" generally makes me a little sleepy. I tend to think of poorly written stories that exist only to describe goopy acts of violence.

A quick look at the table of contents for Vile Things from Comet Press will tell you this isn't that kind of extreme horror anthology. It's extreme all right (in fact, a couple of these, like "Sepsis" and "Maggots" were so gruesome I nearly lost my lunch) but these stories have, you know, actual stories. Sure, there's corpse eating and penis severing, but there's character and humor and atmosphere and all that good stuff as well.

Here's the TOC:

The Fisherman Brian Rosenberger
Fungoid Randy Chandler
Tenant’s Rights Sean Logan
Again Ramsey Campbell
Maggots Tim Curran
Going Green Stefan Pearson
Coquettrice Angel Leigh McCoy
The Fear in the Waiting C.J. Henderson
The Worm John Bruni
Sepsis Graham Masterton
What You Wish For Garry Bushell
The Devil Lives in Jersey Z.F. Kilgore
Rat King Jeffrey Thomas
The Caterpillar C. Dennis Moore
“Poor Brother Ed” or The Man Who Visited Ralph Greco, Jr.

Being an unknown among all of those great writers, I was glad to see that my story was singled out by a number of reviewers as a favorite (okay, it was also singled out once as someone's least favorite, but it was mostly positive).

Here are a few comments:

"Tenent’s Rights is just about the funniest gross-out story I have ever read. Reading this from the perspective of a short filmmaker it was a story that immediately made me think ‘I want to make the film’."

"'Tenant's Rights' by Sean Logan will have you laughing and squirming at the same time."

"Other favorites included the cheeky Tenant’s Rights by Sean Logan, in which an off-kilter, nerdy tenant gets revenge on his playboy roommate/landlord, but with disastrous results."

A slightly shorter version of this story was also featured on the great horror fiction podcast Pseudopod, where it received a ton of great feedback from the listeners. Here's a small sample:

"I laughed outloud (frightening my family) while taking all of my underwear back to the washing machine as a precaution. Horror with more than a sprinkling of humor from the silver alchmist’s mixing bowl."

"Fantastic!!!! Best Pseudopod ever!!!"

"Seriously funny and totally gross. Loved it!!"

"Sheer comedy, I laughed and laughed."

"Oh my gosh, this creeped me out, scared me, had me scratching and all of the above. I was screaming in my car, gasping and just squealing in pain."

"This story did exactly what I imagine it was intended to do: give me screaming nightmares."

And my personal favorite:

"I liked this a lot.
Well, actually i felt sick, which i guess is sort of a compliment!"

(Long Overdue) Tequila Review: Corzo Anejo

Well, look at Mr. Fancy Schmancy. Look at me with that bottle they had to get out of the locked case. Hey, it wasn't me, it was Christmas present (my relatives are enablers).

So how’s it taste? Good. Not Chinaco good, but good. Rich and spicy. More Indian spice than the roasted nutty flavor I favor, but it’s a unique and distinctive. Almost a little buttery in texture. Some carmel in there too, but in a good way. I’m not all that experienced with Anejos, but this is the second one I’ve tried that had a strong whiskey taste. I’m wondering if that’s a common characteristic among Anejos that isn’t usualy present in Resposados. Anyway, a little overpriced for the taste, but get this one for the bottle and look all classy and stuff.

What, you still exist?

Damn, no post since May? What the hell? What happened?

You want to know what happened? Coma. That's right, I was skydiving and my shoot didn't open. I fell 10,000 feet straight onto my head and I've been in a coma ever since.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Now don't you all feel bad for suggesting that I was just to lazy to post?

Anyways, I'm out of the Fresh Blood contest. I came in third. And third prize is, you're fired. The final vote is happened now, so head on over to chizine.com to vote for your favorite. And good luck to eventual winner *he says through his tears*.

I'll be back later with some more tequila reviews. Just because I was in a coma doesn't mean I wasn't drinking tequila.

Brother can you spare a vote?

Well, through devine intervention or some hanging-chad related voting mixup, it looks like I've made it into the top three in the Fresh Blood contest. Voting for this round has already started and continues through June 14. So how 'bout a vote? Come on. Come on! It's easy. Here's what you do:

1: Click here

2: Send that email

3: There is no step 3! You're done! I told you it was easy!

If you're just tuning in and would like to learn more about this exiciting contest, you can check out chizine.com.

Thanks!

Tequila Review: Cazadorez Reposado

Remember last week when I talked about how great Chinaco was? Well, the greatness of Chinaco is equal to the suckiness of Cazadorez. Man, this sucks. I mean, there are worse tequilas out there, but not 100% agave. Not at this price. It has an unpleasant smell and a sharp, harsh flavor with a heavy burn. In its favor, even though the flavor isn’t very good, it is pretty clean. It doesn’t have that thick, nasty carmel flavor of a Cuervo Gold. If you gave me a shot, I wouldn’t spit it in your face. I’m just not rushing out to buy it again. And on top the bad flavor, the bottle sucks too.

Tequila Review: Chinaco Reposado

Damn, this is good! How good? So good it makes me want go back and rewrite all my old reviews. You know all those nice things I said about all those other guys? I take ‘em all back. I didn’t have my new girlfriend, Ms. Chinaco, to compare them to. The reason I like it so much is because it tastes natural. It tastes real. I’ve described some other tequilas as tasting good but “artificially flavored.” This is the opposite of that. The taste has some familiar flavors like vanilla and perfume, but the predominate flavor is agave. (Honestly, I don’t know for sure the flavor is agave. I mean, I’ve never bitten into one of those poky things. It’s totally a guess. That said, I’m entirely sure I’m right.) So, you past tequilas: you got lucky. Next week’s tequila: you better step up. Have I been exaggerating in this review? Yes, but good tequila will do that to me. And I can’t wait until I taste something so much better than this that will get me to take back this review.

Overrated/Underrated

Underrated: English peas

They're huge and super easy to cook. Good lookin' out, English peas!

Overrated: Fava beans

Admit it, you never really thought about fava beans until you saw Silence of the Lambs, and then you wanted to cut someone's liver out so you could try them. No? Just me? Well, I finally tried them.

On the outside, they look almost exactly like English peas, but you know what's on the inside? Almost nothing. If you want a cup of fava bean, you'd better bring a 40-gallon garbage bag to the grocery store to fill up. You struggle to peel open the pod and it's like a luxury condo inside, with tiny little beans nestled on a fine fur blanket. But guess what? You're not done peeling yet. Now you have to peel each individual bean. But you have to steam them first, so you can get the skin off. Finally, you squeeze out a little bean the size of a BB covered in some gross embryonic fluid. Now do that a thousand times and you've got yourself a spoonful of food. So what did they taste like? They tasted like not worth it. The dude's liver I had with them, however, was excellent.

And don't forget to vote for me in Fresh Blood contest!