Tag: Horror

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Introducing ‘Little Monster’

Hello Readers,

I’ve been quite busy of late but I now have some exciting news for you. I’m delighted to let you know that I’m very close to releasing my next short story for your reading enjoyment. The story is called Little Monster and is scheduled to be released in the near future. I wrote this story for a writing competition some time ago and while it didn’t win, it did receive an honourable mention. I’ve made a few changes to the story since then in the hope of improving it.

But that’s not all. I also plan to release a collection of my short stories in an anthology over coming months. The anthology will include this story, plus many more. And to whet your appetite, I’ll be doing a cover reveal next week. So keep an eye out for that post in the coming days.

Happy Reading

Allan

Allan Walsh writes Fantasy and Horror. If you’re looking for something new to read in these genres, why not check out his books here. You can also find his titles available in libraries.

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Book Review: The Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King.

The Bazaar of Bad DreamsThe Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King is a compilation of short horror stories.

The Cover: There are a couple of different covers for this book; a black one with a hollow face and a white one with an array of colour. I have a copy of the white cover version, and while I do like this cover, it is not a good fit for the genre. It is a crisp well-presented cover, but this is a book of horror stories! The bright, cheery image does little to convey that. The font works for me, but the impact is totally diminished by the kaleidoscope of colour behind it. I feel the other version of the cover is a far superior one for this genre.

The Good Stuff: I’m probably going to upset a few Stephen King fans here, but I didn’t find much to talk about here. It is a professionally presented book, but for me, the stories are slow, they are not very interesting, and the ones that did tweak my interest fell short of the mark at the end.

The Bad Stuff: I have tried to read King before, and never been able to get into his stories. I do enjoy the movie adaptations of his books, yet I’m not a big fan of his writing style. But there are thousands who rave about his writing and hail him as the king of horror, so it would seem he just doesn’t work for me. I wasn’t hooked into any the stories I read in this book. I must admit that this one is going onto my DNF list (only the second book to land on this list to date). I got to page 189 and that is enough for me. That covers 8 of the 21 short stories within the book, and only 2 of those I read caught my interest, yet turned out to be disappointing in the end for me.

Overall, I found it a labour to read as much of this book as I managed to get through. I kept going for as long as I did in the hope that I would connect with one of the stories and really start to enjoy it. But this just wasn’t meant to be. I’m comparing this to an old horror movie where the ghosts are just actors wearing sheets with eye holes cut out, this one gets an unexciting, fright-fizzling 1 out of 5 golden bookmarks from me.

Allan Walsh writes Fantasy and Horror. If you’re looking for something new to read in these genres, why not check out his books here. You can also find his titles available in libraries.

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Dracula; Here’s What I Think So Far. What Are Your Thoughts?

Hello Readers,

***Spoiler Alert***

So, Dracula has started on Netflix. I’m 3 episodes in already and they run for around an hour each, so they cover a fair bit of ground. Episode 1 got off to a great start with me. It really came across like Bram Stokers Dracula. The make-up/effects are pretty good and it starts close to the original story, but as it got further into the episode it started to go a little down hill for me. Episode 2 again starts pretty well and then dwindles some. And don’t get me started on episode 3.

In my opinion the series tries to be both scary and funny, but doesn’t quite pull either off. I find Agatha Van Helsing really annoying (but to give full disclosure, my better half – AKA “My Amazing Woman” – really likes Van Helsing’s character). And that’s not all I don’t like… The vampire tropes are confused, the story jumps into the future, and apparently all a known deadly vampire needs to be released into the human-smorgasbord-of-a-world, is a good lawyer. No arguments. That’s it. Bon appetite!

I wanted this show to be truly dark and scary, I wanted to love it, I wanted it to be great, but in fact I find I have an ambivalent relationship with it. Sometimes I like it and sometimes I don’t. It isn’t awesome, but it isn’t that bad that I won’t watch it. There are some great scenes in it. It just isn’t what I wanted it to be.

So what do you think? Feel free to comment below.

Allan Walsh writes Fantasy and Horror. If you’re looking for something new to read in these genres, why not check out his books here. You can also find his titles available in libraries.

Or if you’d rather read Bram Stoker’s Dracula, you can purchase yourself a copy from the links below (P.S. There are so many versions out there I will leave it up to you to pick which one is for you):

Amazon.com.au
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Kobo

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Do You Like Fantasy Creatures? Here’s A Few To Cast Your Eyes Over.

Hello Readers,

I’ve come to my last post depicting some of the miniatures I painted when I was younger. I’ve saved a group photo for this last post. I hope you enjoy it.

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This one is a band of orcs and goblins. These are a mixture of plastic and metal cast figures. Personally I prefer to work with metal figures, but I also do not mind the resin ones. Plastic is my least favourite, they just don’t have the same feel to them and I find they tend to lack the level of detail you get on the metal cast figures. At least they did when I used to paint them many tears ago.

I wish the picture quality was better, but alas this was the best I could do with photos that were taken on film many years ago. None the less, I hope you got some satisfaction out of them and that somehow they have tweaked your creativity.

If you’re looking for some more modern Orc’s, I recommend you check out Games Workshop.

What are you’re favourite fantasy creatures? Leave a comment to let me know.

Happy Reading!

Allan Walsh writes Fantasy and Horror. If you’re looking for something new to read in these genres, why not check out his books here.

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Do You Like Fantasy Creatures? If So, Here’s A Few More Miniatures For You.

Hello Readers,

Here’s another post in my miniature series. Unfortunately I only have one more photo that is clear enough to put up and I will do that in a final post in this series. I have started all my previous miniature posts with a dragon, so I thought I would keep that trend going in this post.

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This first photo is of a baby Green Dragon, I love how the reptilian features stand out on this one. The base was made with an old lid of a jar covered with Plaster-of-Paris. The mushrooms and chili like plant were made by carefully heating/melting the plastic frame the skeletons in the last post came in (they were plastic moulded figures that come in pieces so you can mix and match to make personalised figures). The tree was from a model railway set.

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This one is a Hill Giant. You can’t really tell from the picture, but he is missing a finger on his left hand – hence the blood splatter. This one reminds me of a cross between a Muppet and Ben Grimm. Still, I wouldn’t like to bump into him in a dark valley.

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This next one is another Minotaur. I really like the way this one turned out, but the quality of the picture doesn’t do it justice here… Sorry!

If you are looking at getting some miniatures yourself, why not have a browse online.

Anyway, once again I hope you’ve enjoyed the pictures. If they help stimulate your imagination at all, then it has been worth posting them.

I have one more photo for my next post, until then.

Happy Reading!

Allan Walsh writes Fantasy and Horror. If you’re looking for something new to read in these genres, why not check out his books here.

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Do You Like Fantasy Creatures? Then have A Look At These.

Hello Readers,

Here is my third post on fantasy miniatures. Again, I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures, but these are digital photos, of paper photos, of the minatures I painted many years ago.

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This first one is a Red Dragon (Pretty obvious really). I like to think of this one as a nephew of Smaug. A fraction of the size, but just as mean.

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This one is a Cave Giant. You probably can’t appreciate the size of him because there is no reference to gauge it against, but it is probably about 3 times the size of a human figure.

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And here we have a Minotaur, fearsome guardian of the labyrinth. The strange thing about this one is he has one clawed hand and one human hand. Still a scary Mo-Fo if you ask me and I’m guessing his breath isn’t too good, but I’m sure never getting close enough to one to find out!

I like to browse through the figures in store to choose the ones I like, but you can find a great selection of miniatures and the gear you need to paint them online.

I reckon I’ve got enough photos left for one or two more posts, we’ll see. Either way, I hope you’ve enjoyed them so far and that they have kicked your imagination into gear.

Happy Reading!

Allan Walsh writes Fantasy and Horror. If you’re looking for something new to read in these genres, why not check out his books here.

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Do You Like Fantasy Creatures? Here’s A Few More Fantasy Miniatures For You.

Hello Readers,

On the back of my last post I have a few more fantasy miniatures to share with you. These can make good writing prompts if you’re a writer and if you like fantasy I think you’ll appreciate them too.

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Here is a Black Dragon and the Sorceress that is controlling it.

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A graveyard of undead rising up to grow their army,

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And a Balrog, possibly a cousin of the one Gandalf slayed, who’s come looking for his vengeance.

Looking for your own dragon to paint? You can find some fearsome creatures online.

I hope these inspire you, whether it is a prompt for your writing or a piece of art, motivation to watch a good movie, or inspiration to pick up your next great book.

Happy Reading!

Allan Walsh writes Fantasy and Horror. If you’re looking for something new to read in these genres, why not check out his books here.

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Do You Like Book Quotes? Here’s One From ‘Low Life’.

Hello readers,

Here is another quote I’ve dug up for you, this one is from the short horror story ‘Low Life’.

FB Quote 3 LL

What are your favourite book quotes? Let me know in the comments.

Allan Walsh writes Fantasy and Horror. If you’re looking for something new to read in these genres, why not check out his books here.

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Have You Found Your Halloween Read Yet?

Hello Readers,

Halloween, All-Hallows-Eve, Samhain, what ever you call it, it is almost upon us. It is a night renowned for spooky happenings, scary sights, and frightening tales. It is a time where the boundary between the spirit world and the physical world can more easily be crossed. Making it a night where ghosts are more likely to come visit. This is any true horror readers dream night to get stuck into a scary tale. So what have you chosen to read? Something a little frightening? Something a bit Gorey? or something that will plain old scare the pants off you and have you hiding under your covers all night?

If you haven’t found anything yet, why not check out one of my short horror tales listed below:

Low Life
Easy Prey
Making Magic
Darkness in Shadows

And here’s a little book trailer I’ve resurrected from the past to whet your appetite:

Allan Walsh writes Fantasy and Horror. If you’re looking for something new to read in these genres, why not check out his books here.

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Love Fantasy and Horror? So Who is Your Favourite Author?

Hello Readers,

It’s no secret that my favourite fantasy author is Joe Abercrombie. I’ve said it before and no doubt I will say it again. I just love his writing style, the way he crafts his characters, the way he plots, do I need to go on? I could but I will save you from my ravings. The point is I thought I would throw the question out to you and see what comes back. So, here it is. Who is your favourite fantasy or horror author? You can let me know in the comments below.

Happy Reading!