Seasonal Reads

Do you find yourself drawn to reread certain books during specific seasons? I certainly do. I never think about rereading The Hobbit until the approach of Thanksgiving in late November. I suspect I associate hobbits with rural life and Thanksgiving is kind of a harvest celebration. I can't imagine attempting another pass through Crime and Punishment except in the dead of winter. I associate Russia with winter, which is silly since Russia experiences all the seasons.

When October rolls around I immediately think of two books: Roger Zelazny's A Night In the Lonesome October and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla.

A Night In the Lonesome October is Zelazny's last novel. Set in late Victorian England, the story tells of a "game," a competition between openers and closers, concerning a gate between this world and the realm of the Great Old Ones. The story draws heavily on Lovecraft's mythos as well as characters from Victorian gothic fiction. Frankenstein, Count Dracula, and Sherlock Holmes, among others, populate the tale. Each player in the game has a familiar. Snuff, the guard dog and familiar belonging to Jack, tells the story. It's fun to pick out all the references to other stories within the narrative. For better or worse, this novel inspired me to craft some fantasy tales with a cat as the protagonist.

The title comes from a line in the first stanza of Edgar Allan Poe's "Ulalume."

The skies they were ashen and sober;

    The leaves they were crisped and sere—

    The leaves they were withering and sere;

It was night in the lonesome October

    Of my most immemorial year;

Carmilla first appeared in the magazine The Dark Blue in serial form from December 1871 through March 1872 and later as part of Le Fanu's collection In a Glass Darkly (1872). Laura, the narrator and protagonist of Carmilla, lives with her father and two governesses in a schloss in Styria, an Austrian province near Hungary. Laura and her father are English expatriates. Her mother, a Styrian lady, died when Laura was an infant. Laura recalls that when she was six, she experienced a nightmare vision of a beautiful young woman in her bedchamber who lay beside her and bit her on the chest, although Laura's nurse found no wounds on her. Laura is nineteen when the events of her narrative take place and leads a lonely, isolated life in the Austrian countryside. 

Following a carriage accident a young girl named Carmilla is placed under Laura's father's care for three months. Laura recognizes Carmilla as the woman from her dream. Carmilla responds with a story of a similar dream involving Laura. Carmilla evinces many strange habits, including apparent sleepwalking, and complains of incessant languor. The pair become close friends despite Carmilla's occasional romantic advances towards Laura.

Yes, this is a vampire story so Laura's life is about to take a sharp turn for the very weird. A highly entertaining story.

Do any books call to you at a particular season? Let us know in the comments.

An A to Z of Funny Things About the Paranormal

(Is that a ghost in the old shack or a smudge on the lens?)

April is a busy month in the blogging community with the A to Z Challenge. I love participating in the challenge, but too many real life events are happening in the next few weeks that will steal my time online away. I'll be cheering the participants on, though.

In celebration of the challenge, here's my A to Z list of funny things about the paranormal. I hope you enjoy and maybe find something new to fascinate you!

A - Amazons. Legendary warrior women. One myth says they died out because they interbred with centaurs. Maybe that's why they didn't want human men!

B - Bogeyman. He lurks in children's closets and kidnaps them at night. It could be that's because he's a demented genie and is acting on disgruntled parents' wishes. 

C - Chupacabra. Weird government experiment or coyotes with mange? I don't know, but the chupacabra reports in Russia say it likes to arrange its victims aesthetically. 

D - Djinn. These aren't the genies which are Jinn. The Djinn hate all living creatures and the gods. They want to combine into one powerful Djinn and cleanse the universe of everything else. What they need is a bunch of robots to form one giant robot! 

E - Elves. One of the most popular supernatural beings. But are they friendly or evil? While you're trying to figure that out, watch out for the invisible ones who cause the disease "elfshot." It was once a real medical condition when invisible elves shot people with invisible arrows. 

F - Father Time. A bearded old man who hands over the hourglass to a baby when the calendar changes to a new year. Some believe Father Time and the New Year Baby are one and the same, constant cycle of beginnings and endings. Both in diapers. 

G - Ghosts. Are they imprints left in this world from humans or beings from another dimension? Being haunted has long been a fear of humans, and there are accounts going back 2,000 years of young men playing practical jokes by faking hauntings. 

H - Hellhounds. These fearsome canines guard the world of the dead. There are several tales about headless hellhounds which I think would freak me out more than the ones with sharp teeth! 

I - Imps. Be it a tiny goblin or a lesser demon, these little critters like to pull pranks. All they want is human attention, but their wild nature prevents them from being good companions. Maybe if they stayed off the wings of airplanes, I'd be less afraid of them. 

J - Jackalope. It's not unusual to see myths about animal hybrids. But this one might not be totally fake. The Aztecs worshiped a creature like it, and it's no surprise it had to do with fertility. 

K - Krampus. Originally the Krampus combated white witches at the winter solstice, but then he became the Anti-Santa. He kidnaps naughty children and sucks the evil from them. Maybe he's related to the chupacabra? 

L - Leprechaun. If you capture one of these fairies, they will grant you three wishes. But not all of those wishes are possible. They can only imbue you with good luck to obtain whatever you want, so you still must do the work. Of course, that could mean simply buying a lottery ticket!

M - Mummies. Not zombies. They are born of a curse and have the intelligence they had in life. Also, mummies can gain beauty and immortality by eating human flesh. So not zombies because they are much worse! 

N - Naiads. Beautiful water nymphs. Children coming of age were washed in their waters, but watch out if you're a handsome man. These nymphs are jealous and greedy! And don't realize humans can't breathe water. 

O - Ogre. A giant monster that eats children. But not their feet. They do have some taste, after all! 

P - Pegasus. This divine winged stallion has quite the heroic mythology. He also has a very intimate relationship with the Muses. 

Q - Quetzalcoatl. Say that five times fast! He is the feathered serpent Mesoamerican god of wind and learning. Some legends say he was the only god who was against human sacrifice. Could be why there are several stories about other deities trying to kill him! 

R - Roc. This legendary bird has origins in myths around the world. In one, it shakes the Tree of Useful Things causing the fruit to fall, and that's why humans have useful things. If that tree existed today, you can imagine what "fruit" might grow on it and that is why the Roc only shook it once. 

S - The Stool. And yes, I mean poop! Several different droppings will come together to form one big sentient blob. Don't breathe in. The noxious fumes could kill you. 

T - Trolls. These creatures live isolated in mountains and caves. Many people in northern Europe still believe in trolls and have protected lands for them to live on. So if you're traveling there, always bring a goat. 

U - Unicorns. These magical horses with a single horn are not seen in Greek mythology because the Greeks believed them to be real. Though they described it as a wild donkey which liked to skewer people from behind with their horn! 

V - Vampires. There are so many tales about these bloodsuckers. Once upon a time, they were grotesque and fearsome, but now they are sexy and sparkling. Vampires used to cause mass hysteria through fear, and now they do it with their hot bodies. 

W - Werewolves. Oh look! Another creature that was once feared and is now the hero in several paranormal romances. And yet, women generally still don't like hairy men.

X - Xing Tian. A headless Chinese deity whose nipples are eyes and his belly button a mouth. Yet even without a head, he continues to fight battles. The image in my mind is like some weird Sid and Marty Croft character. Frightening. 

Y - Yeti. The Abominable Snowman. He was once worshiped as a Glacier Being, the god of the hunt. Nowadays, instead of hunting, he's being hunted by eager people with poor photography skills. 

Z - Zombies. Reanimated human corpses. Here's a handy tip: stop a zombie by feeding it salt. You might be stocking up on shotguns for the zombie apocalypse, but I'm buying a salt mine!

The A to Z Challenge 2015 - I is for Instincts

The A to Z Blogging Challenge is underway!

If you haven't heard of it, check out the A to Z blog and join in the fun.

Here at Untethered Realms, we're taking on the Challenge as a group. Each day, one of us will be sharing with you a teaser from one of our books.

Join us for #SpecFicChat:
What happened to the future? The flying cars & time machines? Next #SpecFicChat Fri. April 17th, Noon EDT. Hosted by @UnRealms & @EllieMGarratt

A to Z Challenge - D is for Dead

The A to Z Blogging Challenge is passing time.

If you haven't heard of it, check out the A to Z blog and join in the fun.

Here at Untethered Realms, we're taking on the challenge as a group. Each day, one of us will be sharing with you a teaser from one of our books.

Today is D day!

D is for Dead

From Passing Time: Nine Short Tales of the 

Strange and Macrabre by Ellie Garratt

Join us for #SpecFicChat:

What happened to the future? It's not Star Trek or 2001. Next #SpecFicChat Fri. April 17th, Noon EDT. Hosted by @UnRealms & @EllieMGarratt 

Speculative Fiction with bite!

There are a lot of creatures in speculative fiction that can chomp and nibble you. In more ways than one! In celebration of my newest release, I want to hear about your favorite stories with bite. Give me more great tales to add to my TBR list!

A fledgling vampire wakes in a funeral home run by demons.

Blurb:

Erin Driscol works the perfect job consoling fellow demons by feeding off their grief at Putzkammer & Sons Funeral Home.

When fledgling vampire Nicolas Reese comes to Erin for help, she learns the truth behind the legends and hides him from his sire and the vampire hunters who seek him. But when the Putzkammers begin to die one by one, Erin is caught between her act of kindness and the need to save her adopted family. Only by facing her own personal demons can she stop the slaughter and still rescue Nicolas from his dark fate.

Author: Christine Rains

Editor: Cherie Reich

Cover Artist: Erin Dameron-Hill

Buy links:

Goodreads * Amazon * B&N * Kobo * Smashwords

What Speculative Fiction Shows & Movies Influenced You As A Writer?

Today on Untethered Realms, we're sharing a speculative fiction television show or movie that helped to shape the writers we are today.  What movies or shows influenced you?

Ellie Garratt

Star Trek: The Original Series started my passion for science fiction television shows, movies, and literature. As a young child in the 1970s, I remember begging my parents to watch the show that opened up strange new worlds and alien characters. It was like nothing I'd seen before. The earliest stories I wrote were a kind of fan-fiction, sending Captain Kirk and his crew on yet more adventures. They weren't very good, but they did open me up to the idea that I could write my own stories. More than that, Star Trek made me realise I was different from my female friends, who spent their time playing with Barbie dolls and air stewardess play sets. I didn't want dolls, I wanted a Millennium Falcon and storm troopers. As I look back now, I'm forever grateful to my parents who gave into my begging, though I never did get that Millennium Falcon.

River Fairchild

Among the many decent specfic shows on TV over the years, Star Trek is number one on my list. I love all of the series…well, except for the last one. My favorite, though, is Deep Space 9. It’s so different from the rest of the franchise. The grittiness, the problems, the characters - all converge to grab my imagination and inspire my writing. There are so many non-Federation types on this show, each with their own quirks, flaws, and various agendas. The female characters are strong and unconventional; the struggles are relatable to the viewer. At its core, the theme is about humanity’s survival in an often dangerous environment. This isn’t a nice, clean ship filled with disciplined scientists. It’s a crossroads in space, with cutthroats, thieves, and an ill-mannered assortment of characters guaranteed to win your sympathy as they collide with each other.
And Avery Brooks is certainly easy on the eye…

M. Pax

Although I fell in love with space adventure with Lost in Space at the age of 3 (I remember my parents, older brother, and I gathering in the family room, sitting in certain chairs, and holding the tin foil a certain way to get reception), it was in 5th grade when I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey at the theater that blew me away. The story made my jaw drop and say, "Wow." Then I read the book and kept saying, "Wow." I loved the discovery and mystery. Most of all, I loved how the story made me think and view the universe differently than before.

Christine Rains

Mystery, horror, comedy, and the supernatural. Well, most of the time the villains turned out to be human, but there was always something creepy going on. Scooby-Doo was one of my favorite shows when I was a child. I had a yellow Scooby-Doo lunchbox all through elementary school. I wanted to be the one investigating the haunted houses and monster sightings. So I wrote stories about it. The short tales I wrote as a kid had all the elements of a Scooby-Doo episode including the corny joke at the end. These days, my writing still contains these elements. Except my humor is much drier and there's no joke at the end.

Cherie Reich

Although most of my ideas revolve the realms of fantasy, my first successful story was a paranormal horror tale titled Once upon a December Nightmare. Based off true events that happened to my friends and me and with a paranormal and much more horrifying twist than what happened to us, this novelette also owes a lot to The X-Files. For nine seasons, I faithfully watched The X-Files on Sunday night. I loved delving into the paranormal, supernatural, and the alien as well as watching the great chemistry between Mulder and Scully. I'm a huge fan of the show and own all the seasons and the two movies and some of the books. Most of all, I share Mulder's optimism. I write because I want to believe.


Cathrina Constantine

I wanted to be Jo from Little Women. To cozy up in the attic, writing and putting on plays. As young as 12, I'd write plays, silly plays. My friends and I would have fun acting them out. I don't know if it was due to the death of poor Beth, but I had the tendency to write tragic tales.






Movies have been a big influence in my writing. Especially paranormal, fantasy, sci-fi, and dystopian. I like many genres and could never pick just one as my favorite.



The Harry Potter Series; Marvel Movies, the television show, Supernatural, and the movie, Constantine (0f course) I could go on and on. They light the flame of inspiration.

T.F. Walsh

Werewolf movies... I'm pretty certain I've seen almost everything out there related to the furry beasts. I grew up watching a lot of horror, mainly monster related. My friends and family were subjected to Underworld, An American Werewolf in London, Dog Soldiers, The Howling, Blood and Chocolate, The Monster Squad, Ginger Snaps, and so on. Yep, I can keep going. Anyway, the thing about werewolves is that one could be hiding anywhere, even next door to you, in his or her guise. Whether a person's lycanthropy is beyond their control, or whether they maintain their control, when they change, they are equally frightening. Traditional movies of werewolves were used to inspire fear, but they have since been romanticised in popular culture. I love both of these sides of wolf shifters, and if there's a new paranormal or horror movie, you can bet I'll be there watching it.


Julie Flanders

Source

I've been totally in love with all things vampire ever since I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer during its original run. I was initially hesitant to watch it because I thought it was just a silly show for teenagers, something I was a long way away from at the time. I got over that quickly though, and Buffy became one of my favorite shows of all time. My favorite season of the show is the second, the poster for which is shown in the above photo. I was blown away by the story of Buffy and Angel's evil alter-ego Angelus, and to this day the season 2 finale is one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever watched. I re-watched the show a few years ago and when I got to that finale I thought, that's the kind of story I want to tell. To me, the writing for that arc is as close to perfect as it gets. While my vampire stories are not at all like the Buffyverse, I did enjoy writing my own evil, sarcastic vampire as an homage to my beloved Angelus. I can't deny that when it comes to fiction, I love the bad boys. :D 

Gwen Gardner

  I didn't know I wanted to be a writer when I was a child. But I was an avid reader and some of that spilled over into television. Books, comic books and cartoons sparked my imagination and made me crave more. Wendy the Good Little Witch, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Scooby Doo. I loved those worlds. What inspired me most to write as an adult was first the Harry Potter books and then the Harry Potter movies. I love them all. The world of possibilities really appeals to me.

A Discovery of Russian Witches

When I sat down to write this post I couldn't resist playing with the title of Deborah Harkness' 2011 book, as it fit so perfectly. I felt like I discovered my own special witches when I was coming up with the stories for my latest release Polar Day and its prequel The Turnagain Arm.

I knew I wanted to use a witch as the antagonist in Polar Day but I also knew I wanted the character to be male as opposed to the more popular or traditional female witch. While doing a little research on the history of witchcraft, I learned that when witch hunts swept across Europe during the seventeenth century, a different kind of witch hunt inspired terror in Russia. Unlike the religious-based trials in Europe, the Russian trials were concerned with stopping "witches" who they feared would use magic to inspire revolt against the system of serfdom and aristocracy that ruled the land. The Russians weren't worried about devil worship; they were worried about social agitators. And their primary targets were men.

I couldn't believe how perfectly this real world history fit in with the history of my fictional universe. Aleksei Nechayev, the antagonist in my first novel Polar Night, was Russian, so I had already established a Russian backstory. Once I discovered this history, my new characters came to life and the stories played out from there.

A line of male Russian witches is introduced in my novella The Turnagain Arm through a saloon owner named Vasyl Dzubenko. While he is a witch, he's not the antagonist of that story. Vasyl is a good man who uses his power reluctantly and only to stop evil. Unfortunately his descendant Jamie, the Polar Day witch, is a very different story.

As a history buff, I couldn't have asked for better inspiration for my story than a real life horror such as the Russian witch trials. History never ceases to fascinate me.

Any other history nuts out there?

Polar Day is now available in paperback and on Amazon Kindle. To celebrate my new release, I'm offering The Turnagain Arm free this week, through Friday, 2/13. If you'd like to get to know my witches, get your free download here.

About Polar Day:

The midnight sun bakes Fairbanks, Alaska as residents gather for the annual summer solstice baseball game. Amidst the revelry and raucous shouts of “Play ball,” a spark alights and a jogger bursts into flames. Detective Danny Fitzpatrick, still reeling from his near death at the hands of vampire Aleksei Nechayev, watches in horror as the man burns alive.

Someone is burning Fairbanks and its residents and leaving nothing but smoldering embers behind. As the city sweats under a record-breaking heatwave and unexplained fires claim more victims, Danny and his colleagues struggle to find an arsonist who can conjure fire out of thin air.

To Danny’s horror, the only one who may be able to help him stop the arsonist is his nemesis Nechayev. Will the vampire help in the hunt for a witch?

All Aboard for The Turnagain Arm

The Turnagain Arm on Kindle

The neighborhood where I live is situated along the Ohio River, directly up a very steep hill that ends at the train tracks that run along the riverbank. On clear mornings and nights, we can hear the whistles of the trains as they make their way along the river. I've always found the whistles eerie and for whatever reason the empty tracks have always been a bit creepy to me. An old abandoned train station used to sit along the tracks and when I was a kid I always imagined all kinds of scary things going on in that deserted station and on the tracks behind it. It seemed to me that station probably had lots of tales to tell.

I got the idea for my latest tale, The Turnagain Arm, after hearing a train whistle coming up from the river while I was walking my dog Clancy early in the morning. Later, I heard another whistle to end the day. It was fall and the night was crisp and chilly, and the whistle lingered in the air long after the train had moved past us. 

I wanted to write a story about what my Polar Night vampire Aleksei Nechayev was up to before the events of that book and after his human experiences as a Russian soldier in World War I. When I read that the Alaskan Railroad construction began in 1914 and reached its peak in 1917, the same year Aleksei became a vampire, my interest peaked. When I then learned that the Trans-Siberian railway from Aleksei's home of St. Petersburg to the far east town of Vladivostok was completed in 1916, I knew I had the beginnings of my story. Suddenly it became crystal clear how Aleksei left the ravages of World War I in the Russian West for a new start in Alaska, as freighters regularly went from Vladivostok to the Western United States and to the Alaskan territory. Like the day that gave me this idea, the story begins and ends with the haunting whistle of a train. 

While researching the time period and the area, I found this great video put out by the Alaska Film Archives showing early footage of the rail's construction, which started in a tent camp that is now the city of Anchorage. 

There are also great historical photos of the early days of the railroad camps, such as this picture of two women who ran their own waffle house. I was so intrigued by the thought of two women running their own business in those days that I created a character who ran a waffle stand of her own.

Source

About thirty miles south of Anchorage was the most difficult stretch of the railroad's construction, the area known as the Turnagain Arm. The tracks had to be constructed at the base of steep vertical cliffs that ended in the body of water that gave the area its name.

This is what the tracks at Turnagain look like in the present day, so it's impossible to imagine how difficult and dangerous it must have been to construct them back in the 19-teens.

Source: alaskarails.org

This photo from the Alaska Digital Archives gives some idea of the conditions the rail workers were working under.

Source

I loved the idea of setting my story in such a hostile and forbidding place. The characters who live and work in the Turnagain Arm camp are a hearty and tough lot by necessity, but they also find time to relax and enjoy themselves in the Turnagain Arm saloon.

Unfortunately for them, the vampire named Aleksei Nechayev finds himself drawn to the saloon as well. And the workers who call the camp home soon learn that the brutal conditions of the Alaskan wilderness are nothing compared to the danger they face now.

Want to take a trip to The Turnagain Arm? Find the novella on Amazon Kindle and on Goodreads

A to Z Blogging Challenge: V is for Vampire

We're almost to the end of the alphabet and the A to Z Blogging Challenge.

If you haven't heard of the A to Z Blogging Challenge, check out the A to Z blog. Why not visit a few of the participants or look back over some of our creature-themed posts?

Here at Untethered Realms, we are taking on the Challenge as a group. Each day, we are sharing a fantastical creature that may be from one of our books, a favorite movie, or something we just came up with as entertainment.

For today's post we have...

V is for Vampire

Polar Night's Aleksei by Heather Holden

When we decided on a theme of magical creatures for our group A to Z I knew right away that I wanted to take the letter V. Vampires are my favorite creatures by far, and a vampire named Aleksei Nechayev is the antagonist of my debut novel Polar Night. 

I admit, I'm not a big fan of the love struck vampires that have become so popular in recent years. I love vampires as monsters and in most cases the more evil they are the better as far as I'm concerned. 

Aleksei is definitely evil. If I had to choose a vampire from popular culture that I think Aleksei is most like I would say Angel's soul-less alter ego Angelus from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is the show that first got me hooked on vampires. Aleksei is arrogant and vicious, and he sees humans as nothing more than toys for him to taunt and tease. He revels in his vampire nature rather than brooding over it. In short, he's not a nice guy at all. 

If you like evil vampires, you may like getting to know Aleksei in Polar Night. 

Only four more days (and creatures) to go!