To his chagrin, I volunteered straight away.
Emmetrius wanted nothing else but to lay low and wait this out. Stranded fifty megaparsecs away from civilisation, I couldn’t understand his logic. I guess he didn’t trust me one bit, believing I would make some pointless attempt to escape his custody.
Continue reading “The Sargasso Void”The Halloween remake, or second remake, is, by all means, a very good return to the franchise. It does its job of capturing the feel, atmosphere and style of John Carpenter’s original. It doesn’t miss a beat, the dread and the scares are genuine, and the Shape is as menacing as ever. One decision the producers went for in this reboot, however, is the elimination of the events of Halloween 2, and pretty much everything that came later.
Michael Myers ceased being this paranormal, un-killable ‘Shape’.
Why?
A fascinating aspect of horror, in particular the slasher genre that the Halloween series ventured into, is which of the following possess the most frightening kind of horror; psychological evil or supernatural evil?
Continue reading “Halloween: The Two Evils”
An excerpt from the book “The Blood Ring.”
Her russet eyes stood out, through dark mascara, heavy makeup and curly hair. There were several things I disliked about the girl; her open, shameless flirtation with Sophie being one. The dress she wore, an embroidered, simple number, suggested she’d been living in a bus shelter, a vagrant of sorts. She smelled like cheap homebrew perfume. Yet, my gal, my lover of nine years, seemed infatuated with her.
Continue reading “The Hate Triangle”First published on Wattpad, and part of the Ytterbium Fires collection of short stories
Apparently, they aren’t even reptiles.
With skin covered in scutes, boasting a vertebral sail and powerful jaws, this thing looks like a fat, bear-sized lizard, but Russell Hansard seems to think the wildlife around here predates the dinosaurs by fifty million years. Out of the two thousand surviving passengers on board the Cruise Ship Eudora, Mr Hansard is the only one who claims to be schooled in palaeobiology.
Too bad he isn’t here to see this monster. Somehow it managed to get into the ship and feast on an elderly couple lodging in one of the balcony cabins.
“It’s the biggest one yet,” I gasp, having abandoned living in fear; embracing this impossible, marvellous world.
Continue reading “Permian Spring”If you’re like me, you probably have hundreds of story ideas floating around inside your head. The good ones, as Stephan King once said, are the ones that you can’t shake from your memory. I found this to be true, but having access to a pool of ideas, concepts and research is still a valuable tool for any author looking to create content using free tools for w
Keep is a tag (label) only system, so if folders are your thing Keep doesn’t make it easy. But tags are folders anyway. There is no text editing, just input. There are no categories in Keep. Instead, you can group notes into a small selection of colours.
What makes Keep useful is that it’s fast and simple, you can add images or drawings, and it has the ability to convert a note into a Google Doc when an idea is ready to be expanded. The mobile app integrates well, ideas can be written, voiced, and pictured straight to keep, as well as webpage links.
Part of the outlook and Onedrive ecosystem, Onenote is crammed with features. Just one notebook can cater to your whole library. Each notebook has a section, and in each section, you can create pages. The desktop version has subsections and subpages, but this causes a problem as the two are somewhat incompatible. The text edit box is as Microsoft as one can get. This has everything one would ever need. Major downsides; slowness, like all Microsoft online products, the lag between opening up a basic note is a big drawback. Plus there’s no exporting to anything else. The phone apps are okay, but the desktop app is a little convoluted in regards to how the files are stored.
Simplenote is just simple. It’s a tag only system, so no folders, but that’s the same thing really and Simplenote makes this look and feel the same anyway. There is no text edit box, just text input, but it supports Markdown extensions. There is a version roll-back capability. You can back up by downloading a zip file. It’s as basic as you can get.
Box is well integrated with Google Drive and Onedrive, but with a 50 gig storage, it’s not really relevant, unless your exporting notes to another platform. Still handy though, because you can use the full functionality of the Microsoft Word and Google Doc create your notes. There’s also Box Notes which has a good but basic edit box with version history. With no tagging system, folders are the way to go. Both apps are available on iOS and Android devices.
With Dropbox, you can create folders and word documents using your own Microsoft online account, but with Paper, you can do this natively. Paper has numerous features to take advantage off. It is folder
Apart from creating a library of notes, Evernote has the added feature of behaving as a research tool via is clipping app extension. You can create notes, organise them into notebooks, and organise those into stacks. The editing interface is not bad, although there is no undo function. The free service is not that limiting, you get 60 MB upload per month. As for backup, you need to use the Evernote desktop app, and there’s no ability to export to a different format. There is functionality to revert to a previous version.
With Gnote you can create folders and then add notes or checklists. You can sort via tags as well. Extremely simple, fast and basic and there are few add-ons but there’s no exporting of notes. Even though a premium service gives you expanded usability, the free version doesn’t impede much in your note-taking. It is alsosupported by Chrome, Android and iOS app.
Supernotecard is designed for writers. You can organise notes under projects and type (fiction, non-fiction, scriptwriting, flashcards) it allows one to export notes to a good selection of formats. You can send a project to other writers. The platform is easy to use. Downside; there are limits on the number of projects, notecards, categories, and references that you are allowed to create. Also, over the long term, if supernotecard disappears, you may have to migrate your notes.
All of the above are decent for building an Idea Library. So it depends on how simple or complex one needs. This also should take into account what drafting platform you decide to use and how you want to integrate the process going from conceptualisation to writing that novel or screenplay.
Hacking robots can be lots of fun. Celebrating April Ghouls Day at horrorscribes.com with this flash fiction entry.
Sawtooth froze.
His clown quartet went from performing a slo-mo at the crossing lights to lunatic postures, ridiculing the angry driver. The black Audi inched closer, but when Mr Axe showed off his plastic hatchet, the motorist reversed and made a wide turn to avoid the colourful foursome.
Continue reading “The Fright Machine”
An excerpt from the book “The Blood Ring.”
“What is the problem?” said Wendy Socorro as she snuggled into the back seat.
“It’s two hours before you stream live. You can’t switch stories on me know,” said her producer, Ethan A. Gerencia. The panic in his voice caused his words to sound awkward and out of tune.
Continue reading “Junknews”
I bought a novel, Robopocalypse (2011) by Daniel H. Wilson, at an airport bookstore for a fast, time-killing read and while I wasn’t totally disappointed with it, it left me once again tackling the question about this ‘robocalypse’ that everyone is fearful about.
As for the book itself…
Continue reading “The Robocaust”
An excerpt from the book “The Blood Ring.”
“I’m gonna feed you to the dogs,” said Fred Greenway brandishing a cleaver. He brought it down and cut into the young punk’s thigh.
Doctor Gus flinched even though he’d seen this a hundred times. Having taken a Lava pill, his brain perceived the high-def images on the screen as real. The narco-psychotic was formulated to assist with augmented reality training. Mindject users take the drug to help them form neurological pathways inside their heads so they can perceive artificial imagery or sound. Ingested without a mindjector, Lava forced visceral emotions to merge with one’s logic. The end result is exhilarating for some users, and terrifying for others.
Continue reading “Year of the Dog”This flash fiction piece took out the inaugural Punk Out: Wattpunk Contests and Prompt challenge.
As the electrical generator housing was hit with a deafening crash, the entire offshore installation was jolted with a sudden, violent force that reverberated through the metal structure. The lights flickered and then went out completely, leaving the interior quarters in pitch darkness. The installation manager, who had been monitoring the situation from his control room, felt his heart sink as he saw the screens go blank and the alarms fall silent.
Continue reading “Offshore”