Month: June 2017

Strungballs Giveaway!

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It’s time for another giveaway!

Strungballs

by Mike Russell

Editorial Reviews

“It is these types of stories, that make us question our own society, that I feel are going to be vital to literature in the coming years.” –TheGeekLyfe

“Pick up this book if you want to read something strange and mind-boggling.” -Snapstter

“Thoroughly recommended.” -TheStrangeAndTheCurious

Strungballs by Mike Russell
Strungballs by Mike Russell

About the Author

Mike Russell was born in 1973. As a child, he enjoyed daydreaming, art and writing strange stories. As an adult, he enjoys daydreaming, art and writing strange stories.

Mike Russell’s books have been described as Strange Fiction, Weird Fiction, Weird Lit, Surrealism, Fantasy Fiction, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Metaphysical Fiction… but he just likes to call them Strange Books.

Ordered and mesmeric. This family’s interactions can pause to an extent that almost becomes non existent. Do they exist only if all is involved in the conversation? An eerie language that connects time, memories and moments described to the second. – Amazon review

An episode of “The Twilight Zone” or “The Outer Limits” in book form, ‘Strungballs’ is a must read for all who love the strange and unusual. – Amazon review

This was enjoyable to read. – Amazon review

Strungballs by Mike Russell
Strungballs by Mike Russell

StrangeBooks.com have kindly agreed to give away one signed copy of Strungballs to a lucky Examining the Odd reader! How do you enter? Simply leave a comment on this blog post and include your email address. Super simple!

Competition closes at midday (GMT) on Friday 7th July 2017. Giveaway is open to anyone, anywhere, as long as you’re over 18. One entry per person. Winner will be chosen using a random number generator. The winner will then be contacted for their address and StrangeBooks.com will send the signed book! Good luck 🙂

The Cock of the South

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Today, I have a versatile author and his lovely robotic assistant, Lisa. Give a hand, blog visit, and/or book review to C.S. Boyack Thanks to Charles for opening his blog up to guest authors. It seems like we’re always looking for places to post, and this is a great opportunity. Charles is a fantasy author, […]

via The Cock of the South by C.S. Boyack #fantasy #magic #asmsg — Legends of Windemere

Review- Nothing is Strange

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Hedgehog Book Reviews

Nothing is Strange by Mike Russell

4/5 stars

Genre: Science Fiction
Binding: Paperback
Page Count: 144
Publisher: CreateSpace
Publication date: December 31, 2015

25099252A man called Dunce who is bald with a pointed head, a couple who wishes that their genitals would fall off, and a clone who gets locked up in a shed, are all different types of people who make appearances in Nothing is Strange. The 20 short stories exist in their own fantastical lands that each have their own special laws of physics. What happens when right arms are nonexistent or the act of crying is never heard of? These things are just normal occurrences in Mike Russell’s writings.

Earlier this year, I was gifted a copy of Mike Russell’s other book, Strange Medicine. It was the first short collection in a long time that I actually enjoyed. I went into Nothing is Strange with…

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Just Like Hell / Mr. Gray by Nate Southard

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Just Like Hell / Mr. Gray by Nate Southard from Austin, Texas.

This book contains two novellas, Just Like Hell and Mr. Gray, the former being a violent outpouring in a realistic situation, the latter a more intelligent and original horror piece. I wouldn’t have reviewed Just Like Hell as a standalone because I can tell that it’s well written; I’m just not the right reader for it.

In Just Like Hell, Dillon is a successful, popular high school student. However, he harbours a secret that not even his closest friends are in on. At least, he didn’t think they were.

Even his best friends don’t know. They might not understand. They might overreact.

I’m not a sensitive reader, but I did find Just Like Hell a little over the top, lingering on violent details when it wasn’t always necessary. I favour psychological horror over slasher horror, so perhaps I’m not the intended audience for this one.

In Mr. Gray, the bad guy isn’t even human. He’s some kind of evil spirit with psychopathic, twisted intentions. Mr Gray preys on children and not many of them survive. Can anyone stop him?

I don’t always give books ratings but I’ve decided to score Just Like Hell/Mr. Gray 4/5 stars. To break it down, I give Just Like Hell a 3/5 and Mr. Gray a solid 5/5. I will be keeping an eye out for work by the fried-chicken fanatic, Nate Southard in future. Even if am a vegetarian. Can’t hold that against an author. He’s also bad at skateboarding and I probably would be too if I tried it, so I think we’d get on.

Paperback, 184 pages

Horror

Published April 8th 2017 by Sinister Grin Press

Other books by Nate Southard: Will the Sun Ever Come Out Again?, This Little Light of Mine, Broken Skin and more. His short story “Going Home, Ugly Stick in Hand” received an honorable mention in Ellen Datlow’s The Year’s Best Horror, and he earned a Bram Stoker Award nomination for his story “In the Middle of Poplar Street.”

 

Book Review: Strange Medicine

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chloee ✨ magic

Strange Medicine by Mike Russell

Mike Russell is back to scramble your brains!! this time with tiny little stories…little pills, if you will, that are truly, truly, truly strange.

Reading this collection of short stories is very much like untying yourself from this world and losing sense of gravity, they all make enough sense to be human, but they mainly twist you upside down and leave you stuck to the ceiling with a confusing feeling in your stomach.

within 141 pages, Mike Russell tells 8 stories that all seem to have their own meaning, I feel that if you decipher them enough they are somewhat a cautionary tale…of what? maybe to step out of the normality? the meaning of the subject is in the eye of the beholder.

What I love about Russell’s writing is how detached it is. The characters describe objects to every inch/measurement, and they converse…

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The Monday Poem – The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe

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This week’s Monday poem is Edgar Allan Poe’s The Sleeper. I hope you like it!

Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe

 

The Sleeper
BY EDGAR ALLAN POE
At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin moulders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies
Irene, with her Destinies!
Oh, lady bright! can it be right—
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice drop—
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through thy chamber in and out,
And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully—so fearfully—
Above the closed and fringéd lid
’Neath which thy slumb’ring soul lies hid,
That, o’er the floor and down the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come o’er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!
Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
And this all solemn silentness!
The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie
Forever with unopened eye,
While the pale sheeted ghosts go by!
My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
As it is lasting, so be deep!
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold—
Some vault that oft hath flung its black
And wingéd pannels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o’er the crested palls
Of her grand family funerals—
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portals she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone—
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne’er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.

Love in Lindfield

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‘‘There was supposedly one woman Charles Kempe tried to propose to. Unfortunately, the story goes she misunderstood his declaration of love, finishing his sentence for him with another meaning completely! He never had the nerve to try to ask her again. Sad, isn’t it?’ said Ellie.
‘I think I know the type though!’ Harry replied ironically.’ – Love in Lindfield by David Smith

Love in Lindfield follows the likeable character of Harry, a TV researcher scouting for a suitable old house in rural Sussex. He’s a believable, relatable figure who unwittingly gets mixed up in some comparatively unlikely dramas. Luckily for us, Harry finds it all a bit unbelievable too, so he’s the perfect protagonist to hang on to for this ride.

$_57

Although Love in Lindfield is a fairly straight forward love story, the book kept me pondering throughout. I couldn’t quite second-guess what each character was up to and I wasn’t always sure who was trustworthy.

The book is littered with interesting old found letters relating to the buildings, towns and their long-deceased inhabitants. It’s a fun read which made me giggle on occasion. It’s also a very quick and easy story, a real page-turner as they say! If I were the type to sun-bathe, this would be a perfect beach read, but I’m not… so I enjoyed it on my window seat overlooking the sea.

The ending of the book was a little sudden for me and it’s one of those stories where I think the final ten pages or so just aren’t necessary. Sometimes I like to be left to my own imagination to wrap things up. Without giving anything away, the tone of the ending was fairly bleak and blunt, quite a contrast to the spirited, fun adventures that we’re taken on earlier in the story.

Readers of Examining the Odd may be thinking that this book sounds a little out of place for this site, but I enjoyed the fact that it’s set in and around the area where I live (Brighton, England). I would recommend this book to anyone who has spent time in Sussex, or to anyone with an interest in Charles Eamer Kempe or Lewis Carroll, both of whom are quite prominent in the story.

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Love in Lindfield reminded me a little of a wonderful book I read years ago called Sex & Bowls & Rock & Roll, a story of a city man who moves to the country. I don’t always give ratings to books, but I give Love in Lindfield a solid 7 out of 10.