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| Chillin’ at the top of the world by dangerousllama |
Why Haven’t You Read This? Part 3-Great Stuff you can find for Free!
Continuing my attempts to bring you stuff from the Interwebs for all of you broke, yet needing entertainment bastards out there, Why Haven’t You Read This? goes one step further, moving away from the norm and established to bring you some of the best stuff out there, made by aspiring writers!
In keeping with the original rules set up in part 2, here’s…
Some pretty cool shit by people you haven’t heard of-yet
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| Because maintaining obscurity and a façade of indifference to recognition is for assholes… |
Neal Alan Spurlock’s Dreams of Fire and Glass
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| The modern world is trying to kill you, by mimulux |
I just want to get this out of the way: I don’t like Lovecraft’s writing style. Oh sure, I love his cosmic horror as much as the next guy but godDAMN I can’t stand his writing style. So it’s only fair that I try to seek other venues toward sating my thirst for Universe-devouring terrors.
Enter the Lovecraft e-zine (http://lovecraftzine.com), where I spend some of my time, browsing through their stories, reading through modern iterations of the mythos tropes, when suddenly, I stumble upon Dreams Of Fire and Glass.
Holy shit. An actual Lovecraft Mythos tale for the 21st century, excellently written and, above all, completed. It’s scary, it’s sad, it’s grey and has a great payoff. If you don’t have the money to invest in a Lovecraft-based anthology, then go check this place (and above all, this story), out:
PhroMetal’s Alfredrick and I
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| I know it’s relatively unrelated, but what is? |
Alfredric and I is the kind of story that you will stumble upon, while perusing the web and it will strike you as so singularly strange and funny that you will seek out the dude who wrote it just so you could ask what he was thinking at the time.
When he responds with: ‘Fuck if I know’ you will know that he is telling the truth.
Alfredrick and I is funny and singular in its madness and the weird, terrible world that it hints at. If you want a future that’s not quite what you’re wishing for it to be, then go right ahead and click dat link.
James ‘Grim’ Desborough’s Where do you Get your ideas?
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| Nyeh-heh! |
Alan Moore once said, in his afterword to V for Vendetta, that the question of where a writer comes up with his ideas is the most terrifying question you can ask a creator. And why wouldn’t he? After all, half of us don’t even know what the hell we’re doing!
Mr. Desborough is a man who has worked a LOT on roleplaying games and freelance writing; enough so that he gets the question and presents a pretty viable answer to it in this story.
He’s also a man after my own heart, what with subtly helping me come up with the next Installment of Human Slaves of An Insect Nation and all.
To find out the answer to that most terrible and worthy of questions, click this link:
Dan Ryan’s Smallstories Blog
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| Tiny stories for big moments. |
Even though this goes against the rules I set for part 2 (boo on me), I couldn’t help but add Dan Ryan’s Smallstories blog on this list. I found Mr. Ryan on FaceBook after reading some of the touching stuff in his blog, where I learned that he is a man who pretty much works like a reverse vampire:
Shadowing people so he can make their lives better.
His stories are short, swift and sweet enough to make you smile without having to do anything with cheap comedy. To check them out, click the link below:
Gorfain and MacLean’s Meatspace
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| Transhumanism is no longer what it used to be |
The future is a mad mad mad mad place. It’s scientific advancements have changed us and our culture has shifted in ways we cannot even understand or hope to grasp. Humanity is no longer what it used to be and Meatspace seeks to present all that in a competent, grotesque, ultraviolent manner.
I.e. just the way I want it. Click that link, you know you want to:
http://www.monkeypipestudios.com/meatspace/
Ryan Sayles’Before they Died, they called me God
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| And lo did the men come to me and kneel before me and babble in tongues at the sight of me. |
Garbled Transmissions is one of those ezines I go to when I’ve had my fill of YouTube videos and web comedy. It’s also one of those places where I tend to find some undiscovered gems.
Before they Died is one of those stories. To be absolutely honest, I mostly clicked on it because the title caught my eye, but I wasn’t really expecting to like it so goddamn much. Wasn’t thinking I’d read it twice or bookmark it on my web browser either.
Still did it, anyway:
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Gregg Chamberlain’s Jimmy Smith has a Dinosaur
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| But mooooommm…. |
You know what? I was a difficult kid growing up. I used to be endlessly jealous of the cool toys other kids would have. I’d pester my mom about getting a VCR or a Super Nintendo but I’d give up after a month of nagging or two.
But for a dinosaur? I’d never, EVER give up on a goddamn dinosaur. Sorry mom.
Jayme Lynn Blashke’s MakeOver Men
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| Is it just me or is this creepy as fuck? |
Become the man women would want! Be the woman men would lust for! Be bigger, better, faster, stronger, hornier! Kill the world while you’re at it!
MakeOver men. Goddamn, I wasn’t ready for it. Read it and check around revolution SF while you’re at it. They got some great shit up there:
Walter De La Mare’s Bad Company
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| Redifining Mean Old Man, one paragraph at a time. |
Pseudopod is one of those lesser known horror podcasts that offer some excellent examples of work. Bad Company is one of those examples. It’s haunting, magical and just the proper amount of creepy.
The fact that the voice actor has a voice like Worcester sauce on a well-done rib steak also helps.
Captain August-A webcomic
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Well, that’s certainly not the sub-par thing I thought I was about to clink on! |
Captain August is one of those rare occurrences of something imaginative and well-thought out disguised as fan fiction. When I stumbled on it, I originally thought that it was an attempt at an Invader Zim ripoff. About twenty pages later, I found out that it wasn’t so, not by a longshot.
The best part about it is its grotesque and unsettling art style that starts growing on you, even as the artist constantly improves on it. What also helps is its sick, twisted sense of humor, which is pretty much a win in my book.
Made in DNA's DeSade Assassins
| Actual Cover Image not shown due to NSFW content. But this is pretty close. |
Ever had that feeling that you'd stumbled into the darker, wronger corners of the Internet, with nothing but your wits to guide you? No? Well I have. And there are dark, terrible things in there. Only a select few of them are downright fun.
Enter DeSade assassins, a perfect example of Sexpunk, in the style of Full Metal Orgasm, presented in ApocalyptoVision! It's funny, it's horrifying and it's 5600 words long but goddamn does it feel like a punch to the dick.
Read it here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/eabprvot4n30pef/de%20sade%20assassins%20-%20Made%20in%20DNA%20-%20pdf%202013.pdf
Addendum:
Good God, this week has kicked my ass, but at least it has some perks! First, I get my short zombie apocalypse Valentine’s day story published:
Fuck. Yes.