Review: Biology of Blood by Mark Parker

Biology of Blood by Mark Parker

Up front I shall say that I am not a fan of short stories typically as I don’t feel you can get to know the characters well enough to grow attached to them as I do with a novel. With the case of BIOLOGY OF BLOOD, it’s not so much a short story as the beginning of a longer book. If I recall my conversation with Mark Parker correctly, this is the first of two short stories to be published with a third novella length book coming after that to complete the entire story.

In this short, the reader is given the chance to meet mainly three characters: Draymond, his roommate Trevor, and his biology professor Prete. Draymond is concerned about something he read in his biology textbook and is looking to question Prete about it since he was the author of the text. However, what he discovers is a bit more than what he bargained for.

Based on the cover art and title of this series you can pretty much figure out up front what he’s going to discover so the story isn’t really suspenseful at this point, however I think that as Parker expands upon this story there is great potential for things to get interesting. I’m looking forward to seeing where he goes from here as the first short seemed a bit bland for me, like the beginning of many novels out there. There just wasn’t time to get to know any of the characters well enough nor to even see much vampire action. I’ll definitely be picking up “book” 2 to see what happens next as it sounds like things are just beginning for Draymond.

You can currently grab this tale on Amazon Kindle for only $0.99.

Fast Zombies Suck by Brian Keene

Getting a late start on the Wicked Winter Read-A-Thon this morning as I REALLY needed extra sleep after the week I’ve had, but I’ll get some reading in today for sure.  A link popped up to Briane Keene’s blog on FaceBook this morning as I was catching up on things so decided to give it a read.  In doing so I found that Brian had posted a video of himself reading FAST ZOMBIES SUCK, so decided instead of reading myself first thing this morning, I’d allow author/friend Brian Keene to read to me instead.  🙂  I enjoyed the story so much I thought I should share it here with you guys as well.  Check it out!  And if you enjoy it, be sure to check out his other books on Amazon.

Short Story #16 – Moving Day (Night?) by Kathryn Ptacek

This short little vampire tale from the 100 Vicious Little Vampire Stories collection started out very reminiscent of the original Fright Night movie.  Sadly, it was too short of a story to get into anything in depth and came to an abrupt halt.  I would one day like to try reading something longer by Kathryn Ptacek, but this story alone left a pretty dry taste in my mouth.  I kind of want to go watch Fright Night again now to get the rest of the story.  But for now… I’ll just watch and share the trailer…

Short Stories #14 & 15 – Rottweiler & Carrion by Wrath James White

Due to a major headache the other night I skipped a night of reading so there was no story post posted on 1/11/12.  So, to make up for this I’m doing a double feature tonight.  Both of these stories are by one of my favorite authors, Wrath James White, and both come from the anthology SMALL BITES.  If you’re not familiar with Wrath’s work he goes very in depth with detail and leans towards the grotesque.  Some people can’t handle his writing style, but I absolutely love it.

The story ROTTWEILER tells the story of a small child who has a baby-sitter that sexual abuses them.  When left alone one time, the pet rottweiler has been locked away so the child fears that they won’t be protected by their dog.  But this rottweiler, Hades is his name, isn’t your every day rottweiler and finds a way to save the day.

CARRION was the second story of Wrath’s I read in this collection.  It tells of a jealous boyfriend and how his jealousy gets the better of him.  The twist in the end of the story though put a major smile on my face.  You gotta love a happy ending!

I know I haven’t given much detail about either of these stories, but they are only 2-pagers which means most anything I could say would completely spoil the story from your own reading of it if you are able to stumble upon it one day.  This anthology is not easy to come by as I’ve mentioned before, but it’s definitely worth seeking out.  It was originally written in order to help raise money for Charles L. Grant who, at the time, was suffering from chronic Obstructive Plumonary Disease.  Unfortunately, Grant since passed away, leaving only his wonderful books and memory behind.

As an added bit of fun…

The story CARRION made me recall one of my favorite episodes of Tales From the Crypt titled Carrion Death.  This show has a different storyline than Wrath’s did, but has some similarities as well.  I just searched out the episode on YouTube and below you will find links to the full episode in three parts.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did the first time.

Part 1:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swm4rL7a1P4

Part 2:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZv3k6n87S8

Part 3:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4DtHDoR9jo

 

 

Short Story #13: Jenny’s House by Ada Hoffman

Recently I found the collection One Buck Horror Vol. 1 free for the Kindle so thought I’d check it out.  If you’re not familiar with them, these are basically just short anthologies.  This on in particular has five shorts by five different authors.  Tonight I read the first story of this collection and honestly, it seemed like something a Jr. High student might have written.  Nothing of significance really happened in the story and the writing style itself was fairly immature.  I’m hoping that future stories in this collection are better, but I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

If you’re curious about the collection, you can still get it free from Amazon as of today.  Just click on the cover below.  Additionally, if you want to find out more about the One Buck Horror series, please visit their website.

Short Story #11 – Eat Me by Scott Nicholson

In honor of the #epickindlegiveaway that Scott Nicholson and a few other authors are hosting  (see my previous blog post for details), I decided tonight’s short story read should be one of Scott’s.  So I chose another little quick 2-page story from the collection SMALL BITES. This was in the zombie section and titled EAT ME.  If I hadn’t known this was supposed to be a zombie story it could almost have been a cannibalistic story in the sense that these two people were eating each other, however one seemed to have a bigger craving than the other since they outlived (or should I say, became undead) them.  Yes, this story is only two pages long, but Scott makes a huge impact with what few words he has worked with.  It’s extremely lyrical and well-written.  Just a great little “piece”.  (pun fully intended)

This book is hard to come by, but there are many, MANY great reads by Scott over at Amazon readily available for your Kindle or Kindle app and if you stop by today and tomorrow you will find a lot of them for absolutely free.  So don’t delay… head over to Amazon now!

Short Story Break

So, have been fighting with major headaches the last couple of days again and haven’t found anything even touching them, so taking a break tonight from the short stories.  I shall try to add an extra one in this weekend to make up for it.  Hope to be back here tomorrow night with another great read to share.

Short Story #10: Meeting Dad by Tim Waggoner

After last night’s read Tim Waggoner informed me of a prequel to the story Buyer Beware that appeared in an anthology titled Prom Night.  As luck would have it, I had the anthology already waiting on my shelf, so figured it was as good as time as any to read the prequel tonight.  🙂

The witch, Isobel, from Buyer Beware is getting ready to go to the prom in the story Meeting Dad.  While she is preparing her date arrives and has to deal with what all boys dread… meeting the father.  In his case, however, he probably has a lot more to worry about as he doesn’t know the “family secret” regarding their witch heritage.  The boy gets more and more freaked out about things but chooses to blame it all on nerves, until the father finally manages to convince him that it’s not just nerves.

If only all dads had the power that Isobel’s does in this story.  I’m sure it’d make a lot more teenage boys think twice about how they act around girls.  I sure know my dad would have loved to pull a trick similar to this dad’s a time or two.

I actually liked this story a bit more than Buyer Beware… probably due to the more humorous elements to the story.  I kind of wish there was a full novel including the adventures of Isobel as she was growing up and all the things she had to deal with.

 

Short Story #9: Buyer Beware by Tim Waggoner

Cracked open yet another short story collection tonight title 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, which was a Barnes & Noble exclusive.  Upon finding the familiar name of one of my favorite authors, Tim Waggoner, I knew what my first story should be in it.  Buyer Beware follows the events that occur when a witch who has tendencies to give into peer pressure and the link as she goes car shopping.  Yes, I know, witches are supposed to ride brooms as this particular witch usually does.  Unfortunately, her broom was currently in the middle of being repaired and brooms take longer to fix than cars it seems.  In order for this little witch to not be influenced by the car salesman she tries every ward she can to make herself not give into the pressure.  In the end she feels she did well by managing to get them to drop the price by several hundred dollars, but as she journeys home she realizes that her bargain might not have been such a good deal after all.

Yet another fine story for my #storyeachnight blog posts.  Tim Waggoner has yet to disappoint me with his writing, though, so I knew going in I was in for a treat.  Of course, I had to laugh when the pubic hair of a mummy was mentioned, as I totally wasn’t expecting a line such as it was to show up in this story.  LOL!  Tim always keeps his readers guessing though.  You should see that for yourself by checking out some of his novels:  http://www.amazon.com/Tim-Waggoner/e/B001JP0XFM

Short Story #7 – Curse of the Blind Eel by James Roy Daley

This post is about a re-read story.  I was telling Craig about how this story had me laughing so hard on the initial read of it that I had tears streaming down my face so decided to share it with him.  He didn’t laugh as hard as I did the first time, but still found it amusing.  It wasn’t AS funny to me this time only because of the fact I had read it before and what I found so amusing the first time was just how many euphemisms Daley could come up with for “poop”.  Yes, this is definitely a bathroom humor story so if you’re not a fan of those, you might want to skip it.  But… it’s also a vampire story (no, not of the sparkly variety) so I’m sure that adds points for many.  If you can track this story down, I’d recommend doing so.  Your best bet is to contact Novello Publishers/Nick Cato and see if they still have copies of the Dark Jesters horror/comedy anthology still available.  It’s a great collection!