Short Story Monday: “When God Opens a Door” by Tim Waggoner

by Carol5 Comments
Tim Waggoner was on a panel discussion I attended at the Ohioana Book Festival on Saturday. He's a horror and fantasy writer who has published over twenty novels and one hundred short stories, but I had never read anything by him, so I found one of his short stories today to feature. It is available to read on his website here. "When God Opens a Door" features a man named Darrell who feels like his seemingly perfect life is missing something, some spark. He becomes fascinated by a door at the local strip mall. It's  a plain metal door, but there's no indication what's behind the door and it's always locked. Darrell hears screams and moans coming through it, but they're a mixture of pain and pleasure that haunt him, maybe a better phrase is he becomes obsessed with them. Finally late one night he meets a woman he knows casually coming from behind the door, the chest of her shirt...
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Short Story Monday: The Botathen Ghost by Robert Stephen Hawker

by Carol5 Comments
I don't read many ghost stories, but "The Botathen Ghost" caught my eye today. It was written by Robert Stephen Hawker, published in 1867. Hawker (1803-1875) was a poet and an eccentric Anglican Clergyman, who chose to make the main character in this story a Cornish minister. Pastor Rudall is requested by an older man to come to his home in Botathen. The man's son has become moody and withdrawn and the man is concerned. Upon arrival, Pastor Rudall learns that during his daily walk, the young man sees a ghost, a young woman he knows has been dead three years. The Pastor also sees the ghost. The aspect of the woman was exactly that which had been related by the lad. There was the pale and stony face, the strange and misty hair, the eyes firm and fixed, that gazed, yet not on us, but on something that they saw far, far away; one hand...
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Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

by Carol6 Comments
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley I think this is the first time I've actually sat down and read Frankenstein, but I had the story all mixed up in my mind with the various movie interpretations I've seen, either whole or in part. I didn't even know that it was a story being told by Frankenstein to a ship captain, and that part of that story had been told to Frankenstein by the monster himself. Captain Robert Walton, who is on a voyage of discovery in the North Polar Seas, takes on board his ship a man who is on the verge of death. This man is Victor Frankenstein and before his death he tells Walton his whole, unbelievable story. Frankenstein relates to Walton that, as a student, he became passionate about the natural sciences. So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein,—more, far more, will I achieve: treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and...
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Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

by Carol8 Comments
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith From the back cover: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains." So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty & arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Can she vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism...
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