A Far Out Fantastic Site

Credit: Pixabay.com I hope everybody’s been enjoying this Holiday Season! I had a groovy Christmas Eve and Day. I was in Fresno during that time visiting the family there. My brother took me and his son to see Star Wars the Last Jedi which was just awesome! And only last night, did I see The Force Awakens on DVD. That is, I saw it for the second time only yesterday since seeing it in the theatre two Christmases ago, also with my brother and his son. (Hey, I think a new Holiday tradition is forming in my family!) Now you’re probably wondering why I’m watching the two movies out of order? Well, I hadn’t actually planned on watching the latest movie until I returned here to Sacramento, because I wanted to refresh myself on Force Awakens first. But since I only see my brother and his family a few times throughout the year, I couldn’t resist an invitation to see a movie like Star Wars with them. But now that I’m back, I’ m watch ing the two movies in order and so will se...

Credit: Pixabay What does a writer of dark fiction like myself write for a Holiday blog post? I’m not really a fan of black Christmas fiction, but I do love the comical holiday fairy tale flick, The Nightmare Before Christmas , as well as other weird Holiday films such as the cheesy Santa Claus Conquers the Martians . But since this is more of a literary fiction blog, I thought I would do something in the line of that. I decided to do terrifying toys in speculative fiction that doesn’t necessarily take place during Christmas. So below is a list of mostly horror stories about terrible toys. And I don’t mean “terrible” as in cheap or defected like the Misfit Toys in Rankin/Bass’s “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer”. I’m talking about terrible toys that the Krampus might bring to naughty boys and girls. Some of them are so terrible that even Krampus may be too nice to bring. Instead he might bring those to evil grownups. The list is in no particular order. 1. “Don’t Ask Jack”, by...

Last week, the FCC did something that any indie author or artist of any sort would never want to see it do: it repealed the net neutrality regulations. These regulations protected fair access to online content that wouldn’t be hindered by big companies paying for faster service. Indie authors and their readers can’t afford this repeal since it will limit access to certain websites on the internet. Doing so will limit access to niche genres of fiction. In general, the absence of net neutrality will cause internet users to have to pay extra for faster access to websites. It will also cause many website owners to have to pay extra to make their content accessible. This puts many indie authors and their readers at a disadvantage because many indie authors don’t have the funds to pay for the faster internet service when promoting their work and many of their readers are in a similar financial situation.  This class preference of internet access can limit the choices for con...

Credit: Pixabay.com I apologise for posting so late again. The Thanksgiving holiday was extra busy for me and last weekend had too many things that needed catching up on. I also was a little ill some of the week but am much better now. I hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving, though. It seems like the holiday was just yesterday and we’re already hurtling toward Christmas! About a week ago, I came across a really neat article on the website Earther entitled “Rare Manuscript Exhibit Explores How Climate Disasters CreateMonsters” . Well, if climate disaster isn’t doing that, some other natural or technological disaster is. The article shows how climate change has influenced not only science fiction but even certain types of fantasy fiction too, especially horror. The author of this article, Maddie Stone, uses examples from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and, believe it or not, Bram Stoker’s Dracula . A lot of science fiction, needless to say, has been influen...