I loved The X-Files. It’s one of my all-time favorite TV series and the best of the 1990s, in my opinion. It had sci-fi, fantasy, the paranormal, the weird, and horror. I not only wanted to believe, but I did believe.
My hands-down favorite episode was the second in season 4, originally airing on FOX October 11, 1996. “Home” was controversial because it was so dark and violent. In fact, it was the only episode to carry a TV-MA rating during the series.
Mulder and Scully investigate the death of a baby born with severe physical defects. Traveling to the small isolated town of Home, Pennsylvania, the pair meet the Peacocks, a family of deformed farmers who have not left their house in a decade. Initially, Mulder suspects the brothers kidnapped and raped a woman to father the child, but the investigation uncovers a long history of incest…”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_(The_X-Files)
I’ll leave the rest for your viewing pleasure.
If you love horror, you’ll want to watch “Home” for yourself. This seminal episode is what inspired me to produce the horror/crime anthology Tales of Blood and Squalor at Dark Cloud Press. “If you were a mother, you’d understand…”
Watch Will Johnston’s review of “Home” on YouTube (Warning: contains spoilers!): The Best X-Files Episode | “Home”
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Excerpt from Lee Allen Howard’s Dark Sci-fi Thriller,
Available for Kindle
THE SIXTH SEED, my dark paranormal novel that’s a mash-up of sci-fi, family drama, alien abduction, and suburban horror, is available for immediate purchase. Brace yourself for protagonist Tom Furst’s fateful vasectomy and then download for more.
Scroll to the end for purchase options…
Chapter 1
Tom Furst lay on his back on an examination table in Sterling Health Center, dreading the procedure he was about to undergo.
His mother-in-law had been delighted when he and Melanie were expecting their first child, happy with their second, concerned at their third, disappointed about their fourth, and disgusted when she deduced they were having a fifth. She cornered him alone in the kitchen of her suburban Pittsburgh home last Christmas before the family dinner.
“My Melanie is not a baby factory. Get fixed,” she said, snipping the poultry scissors at his crotch, “or I’ll fix you myself.”
Tom had always used condoms, unaware they weren’t entirely effective. The latest surprise compounded their financial pressures—they simply couldn’t afford any more children. So here he was, lying on an exam table, barely covered by a paper gown.
The door to the exam room clicked open, and a thin red-haired nurse stepped in.
“Mr. Furst? I’m sorry, there’s been a change in plans.”
Tom propped himself on his elbows and adjusted the blue paper over his groin.
“Dr. Lindquist was called away for an emergency. Another doctor is taking his place for the procedure. He’ll be with you in a moment.”
Before Tom could object, the nurse slipped out and shut the door. He swung his legs off the table and sat up.
It was bad enough that his healthcare plan forced him to use their medical facility, but when they switched doctors on him, they were going too far.
He considered dressing and rescheduling the procedure. But he had already arranged for time off work, announced the vasectomy to his mother-in-law, and shaved his crotch as Dr. Lindquist requested. No need to face all that again. Besides, if he left now he might never come back—the instruments on the rollaway cart were making him nervous.
He supposed one urologist was as good as another. Reluctantly, he lay back down.
The door opened, and a tall dark-complected man in a paper smock entered. He approached the table where Tom’s bare legs hung over. Tom leaned up on his elbows again.
“I apologize for the last-minute change.” The doctor’s swift speech flowed smoothly from behind the surgical mask. Over top of it, his eyes were two black marbles embedded in fading bruises.
“I am Dr. Prindar Krakhil. I will perform the procedure this morning.” Krakhil lifted the paper gown.
The doctor’s gaze darted about, and Tom grew uneasy. Had this guy never seen male organs before?
“Good,” Krakhil said and let the paper drop.
The nurse returned as Krakhil stepped to the sink. After washing and drying his hands, he plucked floppy examination gloves from a dispenser on a cabinet. He wriggled into them, snapping the milky material over his long, slender hands, which he finally flexed at arms’ length.
Krakhil rested his wrists on Tom’s knees. “We will start with a local anesthetic on the right side, make an incision, cauterize the right vas deferens, and then repeat the procedure on the left side. After that, I will suture the incisions.”
Krakhil folded back the gown. Tom flushed with embarrassment. Perhaps this was just another procedure for the doctor, but it was the utmost humiliation for Tom, especially with the nurse looking on. Yet, she was also a professional and had probably attended hundreds of vasectomies. If you’ve seen one guy’s bald junk, he supposed, you’ve seen them all.
Krakhil tore open an alcohol swatch. Tom spread his legs, resting his knees against the cold chrome stirrups. Krakhil scrubbed the cool patch in the crease of Tom’s thigh. The fierce antiseptic stung his shaved skin.
Krakhil reached for a hypodermic, poked the needle into a small glass bottle, and withdrew a measure of liquid. Holding the syringe before his dark eyes, he thumbed the plunger.
A few tiny drops arced from the needle, splattering Tom’s abdomen. A chill rushed through him.
“Just relax.” Krakhil’s voice was silken, but something about his manner disturbed Tom.
Krakhil sunk the needle into his groin.
Tom jerked, banging his knees against the stirrups. He gritted his teeth and gripped the table sides, silently praying for the searing pain to stop. His heart thrashed. Cold sweat formed on his forehead.
After a moment the doctor pulled the needle out and pressed gauze on the spot. “Sorry about that.”
Tom looked at the nurse. She was staring wide-eyed at Krakhil, her mouth ajar.
While Tom waited for the mercy of the anesthetic to manifest, the nurse pressed a rectangular gray patch onto his left side. An insulated wire connected it to the table.
“This grounds you for the cauterization,” she said. Her eyes were a creamy blue, the color of the star sapphire on her neck chain.
Krakhil busily swabbed Tom’s privates with Betadine. The feeling faded away. When the doctor finished, he reached a gloved hand between Tom’s legs. “Can you feel this?”
“No,” Tom said, wondering what the doctor was doing. Wringing his scrotum like a dishrag? On second thought, he didn’t want to know.
“I will make the first incision.”
Tom concentrated on breathing slower.
“Do not move.”
Tom laid his head on the padded rest and willed his legs to stop trembling.
Leaning forward, the doctor stared intently below the rumple of paper gown over Tom’s stomach.
He poised the scalpel for the first cut.
Purchase options:
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What writers are saying:
“Lee Howard stitches together a story where the suspense never lets up.” –Ron Edison
“THE SIXTH SEED abducted my imagination and unsettled me with its pitch-perfect blend of science fiction, body horror and domestic terror. What a weird read!” –Michael A. Arnzen, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Proverbs for Monsters
“Lee Allen Howard is an imaginative writer with slick, vivid prose and high octane pacing. He writes like no one else, and I mean this in a very good way.” –Trent Zelazny, author of Fractal Despondency
“Howard brings alien invasion up close and personal… buckle up for a thrill ride.” –Scott Nicholson, author of Liquid Fear
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Asylums once used to confine those deemed mentally unfit to linger, forgotten behind trees or urban development, beautiful yet desolate in their decay. Within them festers something far more unnerving than unlit corners or unexplained noises: the case files left to moulder out of sight, out of conscience.
Stephanie M. Wytovich forces your hands upon these crumbling, warped binders and exposes your mind to every taboo misfortune experienced by the outcast, exiled, misbegotten monsters and victims who have walked among us. The poetry contained in Hysteria performs internal body modification on its readers in an unrelenting fashion, employing broad-spectrum brutality treatment that spans the physical to the societal, as noted in Stoker Award winner Michael A. Arnzen’s incisive introduction.
HYSTERIA: A Collection of Madness by Stephanie M. Wytovich
Introduction by Michael A. Arnzen
Cover art by Steven Archer.
Collection of horror poetry coming in paperback from Raw Dog Screaming Press this summer
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To celebrate the cover reveal for Heidi Ruby Miller’s GREENSHIFT, the e-book will be temporarily 99 cents at Amazon!
GREENSHIFT is a tale set within the world of AMBASADORA.
Mari’s rare eye color makes her a pariah within Upper Caste society, which is why she prefers plants to people… except David, the former Armadan captain who shuttles scientists around on a refurbished pleasure cruiser.
But someone else is interested in Mari and her distinctive look—an obsessed psychopath who tortures and murders women for pleasure.
When the killer chooses Mari as his next victim, the soldier inside David comes alive, but it is Mari who must fight for her own life and prove she isn’t as fragile as the flowers she nurtures.
GREENSHIFT by Heidi Ruby Miller
Cover Art by Bradley Sharp
Foreword by Dana Marton
Space Opera/Science Fiction Romance paperback coming from Dog Star Books in August 2013
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Fighting for survival in a post-Civil War America overrun by zombies, Cyrus and Lucinda join a military group called the Odd Men Out, and together they face a terrorist army from the North in a showdown over a weapon of enormous power.
The Civil War went on far longer than anyone expected, prompting the North and South to call a truce to fight their common enemy: The Chewers—dead men come to life to attack the living. As a result, a peacekeeping force called the Office of Military Operations is created to watch over the tenuous peace.
Cyrus Joseph Spencer didn’t fight in the war and couldn’t care less about the United Nations of America that resulted from it. His main concern is making money and protecting his crew from all manner of danger. To escape a horrible tragedy, Cyrus and one of his wards, Lucinda, board a U.N. dirigible for safety. They quickly discover their situation has not improved as the U.N. team is chasing a group of rogue soldiers in hopes of stopping them from obtaining a terrible weapon.
They also have to contend with a larger threat—Drago del Vapore—a giant lizard attacking the West Coast and wreaking havoc on everything it encounters. As the two sides face off against each other and the huge beast, Cyrus feels more and more like an Odd Man Out and finds it harder and harder to stay out of the fight.
Matt Betts’ steampunk alternative history novel, ODD MEN OUT, is due for release from Dog Star Books this summer. Check out the fantastic cover art by Bradley Sharp.
Dog Star Books – http://dogstarbooks.blogspot.com
Matt Betts – http://zombiewrangler.blogspot.com
Bradley Sharp – http://www.bradsharp.co.uk/
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The best way to learn about an alien species is not only to live among them, but to become them in both physical form and function. But could a human really learn to think like an alien, and at what cost to his humanity?
Journalist and adventurer Xavier William Lennox becomes obsessed with the rituals of the Fireflies, an alien culture of gold-skinned inhabitants living on the planet Medina. When he gets too close to their mysterious society, he’s captured, tortured, and banished for his curiosity, but vows to learn what it is that the aliens are so desperate to hide, even if it means becoming one of them.
But his curiosity doesn’t end with the Fireflies. As opportunities arise to study more alien races, Lennox undergoes a series of cosmetic surgeries so that he can blend in with their cultures. But each time his humanity is stretched until he faces his biggest challenge—trying to return to the ordinary life of a man who has experienced the universe in ways he was never meant to.
Mike Resnick’s anthropoligical science fiction tale, A MIRACLE OF RARE DESIGN, is due out from Dog Star Books this summer. Check out the fantastic cover art by Bradley Sharp.
Dog Star Books – http://dogstarbooks.blogspot.com
Mike Resnick – http://mikeresnick.com
Bradley Sharp – http://www.bradsharp.co.uk/
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Ginormous Multi-author Genre Anthology to Benefit Seton Hill University Alum
Seventy-six writers connected to the Seton Hill University Writing Popular Fiction program contributed to a multi-genre anthology, HAZARD YET FORWARD. All proceeds from this project benefit Donna Munro, a 2004 graduate of the program. Munro, a teacher living in St. Louis, Missouri, was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. An active member of the SHU WPF alumni committee, Munro helps organize the school’s annual writing conference, In Your Write Mind.
To aid Munro and her family, faculty members, alumni, students and friends of the Writing Popular Fiction program immediately responded to compile this massive anthology. The book features flash fiction, short stories and a full-length novella. There are 75 works total from various genres—literally, something for everyone—ranging from horror to romance to mystery, and everything in between.
Notable writers in the anthology are World Fantasy Award winner Nalo Hopkinson, Bram Stoker winners Michael A. Arnzen and Michael Knost, Bram Stoker nominee Lawrence C. Connolly, ALA/YALSA Best Book for Young Adults winner Jessica Warman, Rita finalist Dana Marton, Spur winner Meg Mims, Asimov’s Readers’ Award winner Timons Esaias and WV Arts and Humanities literary fellowships winner Geoffrey Cameron Fuller.
HAZARD YET FORWARD co-compiler Matt Duvall says, “It’s an unprecedented collection of stories from every genre imaginable.” This large volume is an electronic book for the popular Kindle platform and is available for purchase through Amazon, reasonably priced at $9.99.
When I heard about the project, I quickly responded by contributing my story “Mixed Breed, Loves Kids.” Donna was my sponsor when I entered the program in 2004, and she does so much for the WPF program. She’s an all-around fantastic person; I want to support her while she conquers breast cancer.
You can order HAZARD YET FORWARD here.
You can find more information about the anthology at http://hazardyetforward.wordpress.com. To learn about the unique and exciting Writing Popular Fiction program, visit http://www.setonhill.edu/academics/fiction/.
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THE SIXTH SEED is finally out in trade paperback!
To celebrate its release, get $3 off the list price when you order by the end of the month. Apply discount code XE3FX6EB at the CreateSpace checkout.
Order THE SIXTH SEED now.
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Look what came in the mail the other day!
Proof copy interior looks great. Cover needs another try. Books will be ready to ship next week.
THE SIXTH SEED in trade paper, coming soon!
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GREENSHIFT by Heidi Ruby Miller
4.3/5.0 stars
Mari is a beautiful young woman from the polluted planet of Deleine. Her coral-colored eyes are the result of a reaction to a childhood vaccine. She seeks to make her mark in the field of science, upgrading the hydroponic botanical bays in spaceships.
When she meets Armadan ex-military pilot David Anlow, their chemistry turns to intimacy, and the virgin’s first amour becomes the one she would take as prime.
But when the slimy Dale Zapona hires Mari to upgrade his freighter ship, she accepts the on-board job against her better judgment only to find he and his henchman have something less businesslike in store for her because of her lithe body and strange orange eyes.
Like AMBASADORA, this prequel kicks ass. Miller weaves sci-fi and romance effortlessly, loading on the action and suspense. Although there’s a rough spot in the writing during a fight scene, the story is solid, the characters strong, the conflict palpable, the sex scenes hot, and the resolution satisfying. Everything in a book worth buying.
If you like genre mash-up like I do, I recommend GREENSHIFT. Miller knows how to tell a story and keep it moving til the very last page. I look forward to her next novel in the rich and imaginative Ambasadora-verse.
For more about Heidi Ruby Miller, visit her blog at http://heidirubymiller.blogspot.com/.
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