Category: Uncategorized (Page 5 of 5)
One of the joys of being a writer is finding inspiration in the most unusual spaces.
My question for today: What is the most obscure thing you’ve read/seen in the past month that impacts your writing?
Here’s a few gems we’ve found in obscure places that have impacted our writing. Leave your own in the comments or feel free to comment on ours. Enjoy!
DAVID RIKE
Attack of the Mushroom People is a Japanese horror movie from the 60’s on Amazon Prime. It’s actually good. Mostly just a stranded-on-an-island-survival-movie. Surprisingly smart script, you know, for a story about attacking mushroom people.
STEPHEN PATRICK
The Imjin War by @Samuel Hawley explores the Japanese invasion of Korea from 1592-98. Ostensibly, a historical piece about an obscure time period and a sliver of history that was never covered in my world history classes, Mr. Hawley builds an incredible narrative about human interactions, strategy, and drama. Based on original sources, it is filled with colorful characters, immersive settings, and page-turning scenes. Add in palace intrigue, samurai and naval combat with Geobukseon (“Turtle ships”), it filled my notebook with inspirations for several current and future projects.
From Stephen Patrick:
One of the best things about working with a writing partner is how we compliment each other to make us and our stories better.
Our individual reading tastes are hard to describe, but we both have a unique discipline beneath the madness. Below is a small snippet of what we are reading as The Holocaust Engine prepares to launch. Please share your own in the comments. We’d love to see where you are casting your gaze these days.
DAVID:
Every year I have a reading list with categories: classic, course study topic, recent sci fi, new author, etc.) I just finished this year’s classic, Joyce’s Ulysses, hated it. All high brow mainstream fiction is self-serving but Ulysses just seemed to hold its readers in contempt..After that I read Greg Bear, Hull Zero Three — which was a fantastic palate cleanser.
STEPHEN:
I love the art of discovery in reading. Each year, I split my targets among science non-fiction, history/biographical, top 10 contemporary fiction, classic fiction and “literary” classics. My stack is currently anchored by the Norton Anthology of English Literature (the 3k page powerhouse we hated in school), which gets me from Blake to Kipling to Conrad to Achebe. It sits next to my palate cleanser: Fritz Lieber’s “Our Lady of Darkness”. “The Biggest Bluff” by Maria Konnikova and “The Great Influenza” by John Barry complete the stack and keep the lights on deep into the night.
A brief look into the setting of The Holocaust Engine:
For David, “The Holocaust Engine” started as a dream/nightmare. In my dream it was an island off of the coast of California, but I haven’t been to California in ages. The storyline needed an area that could be easily cut off due to its geography and we already had a trip planned to Florida.
For Stephen, Key West is a stewpot of the weird, the strange, the eccentric and more than a few thing that defy explanation or even language. Equally important is the chance to turn a veritable “Paradise on Earth” into a living Hell.
What about you? What do you think of Key West as a setting? Any personal stories to share? Who knows, your favorite spot may find its way into the series.
As we move toward the release of The Holocaust Engine and our own first lines, it seems fitting to drop a few of our favorite fiction first lines.
Add yours in the comments section
- It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. —George Orwell, 1984
- A screaming comes across the sky. —Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
- All this happened, more or less. —Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
- He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. —Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
- It was a pleasure to burn. —Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
- In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
We’re synchronizing our watches for Sept 14th as we count down to the official release of The Holocaust Engine.
To help channel our excitement, we’ll be dropping daily hints about the book, a bit about us and some other fun topics to play with.
Drop by www.holocaustengine.com and share your feedback, comments and other ideas. You can also share them on our FB page , and our book’s Goodreads page.
And it won’t stop when the book drops…. but we’ll leave that for Sept 15th.
Please stop by, leave a comment, like, subscribe or just say hi.
#5 The White Mountains, by John Christopher (Alien Invasion), young adult, but an absolute classic in the field. I read it, 4th grade, maybe fifth, and it was my favorite book for years.
#4 The Earth Abides, George R. Stewart (disease) how timeless is this book? When I bought it, it had a cover with a guy sporting an 80’s mullet. It wasn’t until the end of the book that I realised it had been written MUCH (1949).
#3 A Canticle for Lebowitz, Walter R. Miller Jr., (nuclear) beautifully written. Emotionally devastating. Nuclear holocaust books that call for an emotional investment that they never earn (On the Beach) are a dime a dozen. Canticle earns it.
#2 The Passage Justin Cronin (viral vampires), it couldn’t sustain it in the next two books, but the first book is a masterclass in the fast crash, end of the world as a disaster, run, run, run! fast paced action thriller. Wonderfully wrought characters.
#1 Lucifer’s Hammer Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle (meteor strike)I don’t even think there’s a close second. This book simply gets everything right. The action, the characters acting in a realistic way, the plot threads that twist brilliantly before drawing to a satisfying conclusion. Largely forgotten now, It spawned a host of copycats in the literary field which in turn spawned a pair of Movies. This one is the gold standard!
On 9/14/2020, do you know where you’ll be?
For David Rike and I, we’ll be celebrating the release of The Holocaust Engine, book 1 of our thriller series from Evolved Publishing.
Pre-order your copy to join us as we start on a journey that takes us into Paradise to find something sinister and deadly. Do you have what it takes to survive?
The armies of hell are loosed upon paradise, and nothing can stand in their path.
It begins with disease…
A brain-rotting virus, which leaves its victims disoriented and hyper-violent, rages out of Cuba into the Florida Keys. The bewildered government destroys the mainland bridge and places the islands under quarantine. Inside this cordon, the population descends into chaos, as rival factions battle over dwindling resources, buildings become fortresses, boats lash together as defensible islands, and whole neighborhoods wall off into armed camps.
As order slips beyond any chance of recovery, hopelessness reigns. But not everyone accepts this fate.
***NOW AVAILABLE AT EVOLVED PUBLISHING in all your favorite E-book formats***
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