Sept 1st - Launch Day at Damnation Books!

Not long to wait now...for the grand opening of Damnation Books, a superb new dark fiction publisher! As the author of Val and Tyne, one of the twenty-five inaugural titles, I can honestly say this has been the smoothest pre-publication process I've been a part of. My story was treated with care and respect from day one, and the owner, Kim Richards, has gone to great lengths to ensure all our titles reach the widest possible online readership. I haven't read the other stories yet, but if the management is anything to go by, Damnation deserves to go far.

Here’s the opening line up of authors and titles. Every single book will be offered in ebook and digital formats beginning September 1st. Only novels and novellas will be available in trade paperback.

Amy Grech - Blanket of White - Horror Novel length Short Story Collection
Christian Saunders - Apartment 14F: an Oriental Ghost Story - Paranormal/Horror Novella
Collette Thomas - Deadly Games Book 1 in Todd Hollow Series - Thriller/Erotica novel
Cory Cramer - Symptoms of a Broken Heart - Horror/Erotica Novella
Edward M. Erdelac - Dubaku - Horror Novella
Edward P. McDermott - On the Lake where the Loons Cry - Thriller Short story
Mark Edward Hall - The Haunting of Sam Cabot - Horror/Psychological Novella
Geoff Chaucer - Concubine - Horror/Erotica Short story
James Dorr - The Garden - Science Fiction Novella
Jason Kahn - The Killer Within - Thriller Short story
Joel Arnold - The Siege - Science Fiction/Paranormal Short Story
John B. Rosenman - Green in our Souls - Science Fiction Short story
John W. Podgursky - The One-Percenters - Psychological/Thriller novella
Lawrence Dagstine - Visitation Rights - Paranormal Short Story
Lily - Eden Fell - Dark psychology/philosophy Novella
Michael McLarnon - Dark Isle - Horror Novel
Noel Hynd - The Prodigy "Author's Revised Edition" - Thriller Novel
Robert Appleton - Val and Tyne - Horror Short Story
Alan Spencer - The Body Cartel – Thriller/Horror Novel
S. A. Bolich - Who Mourns for the Hangman? - Dark Fantasy Short Story
Ted Kehoe - Trip Trap - Horror Short Story
Tim Marquitz - Armageddon Bound - Urban Fantasy Novel
Yolanda Sfetsos - Faithless Book 1 - Erotica Novella
The Zombie Cookbook - Horror/Comedy AnthologyContributing authors include: Lisa Haselton, Cinsearae Santiago, Becca Butcher, Carla Girtman, Scott Virtes, Karina Fabian, Dawn Marshallsay, Lin Neiswender, & Kate Sender.

Where can you find our books September 1st?

Definitely here at our own website. http://www.damnationbooks.com/

We will have books for sale at Fictionwise, Mobipocket, Amazon digital, Shortcovers, as well as, a host of online bookstores.

However, we want you to shop here first. http://www.damnationbooks.com/

So much so, we’re offering variable pricing on ebooks from our website only. What the heck is variable pricing? It works like this: At 12:01 A.M on the day a new book goes live on our site, it’s offered free. Yes, you read correctly. The first copy is FREE! With each download the book rises in price by five cents until it reaches its full retail price. At that time, the book remains at full retail price. Coupons and discount codes are not applicable for any book until it reaches its full retail price.

This means that every single one of the books listed above will be launched using the variable pricing at 12:01 A.M. on September 1st 2009. Awesome, huh?

One more thing—we’re hosting a launch party at Killercon http://www.killercon.org/ in September. We invite you to join us for some fun, free stuff and a chance to meet a few of our authors. While you’re at the convention, be sure to visit our table in the Dealer’s Room.

Sunset on Ramree Available on Amazon!

Great news! My WW2 crocodile thriller is now available in paperback from Amazon.com, priced $4.50.

Sunset on Ramree, published by Eternal Press, is a novelette based on history's deadliest crocodile attack. You can learn facts about the incident here, and I've put together some trivia on saltwater crocodiles here!

Sunset on Ramree Out Now at Eternal Press!!

It was always a case of finding the right publisher. Thank you to all those who have waited patiently for Sunset on Ramree. I'm pleased to announce it is now available for purchase, priced $3.95, at Eternal Press, and also at Amazon (paperback or Kindle).

SUNSET ON RAMREE

It is the deadliest crocodile attack ever recorded. On February 19th, 1945, a thousand Japanese soldiers retreated into the fetid mangrove swamps of Ramree Island. Days later, only twenty were found alive.

Inspired by true events during WW2, Sunset on Ramree follows young musician-turned-soldier Shigeatsu Nakadai and his best friend, Kodi, as they head ever deeper into danger. Will friendship be enough to keep them alive in the deadliest place on Earth?


EXCERPT # 1

Lance-Corporal Hokuto Mayazuki has always been one of the luckiest soldiers in the Japanese Imperial Army. The scars of no less than six shrapnel cuts and bullet wounds tattoo the left side of his neck, all the way from ear to shoulder. So many miraculous escapes over a three-year tour of duty in the Pacific. Yet he will be among the first to die this evening—according to the medical officer—though not from any wound. Today is February 19th, 1945, and he is succumbing to a strange, horrid fever. If one so tough can fall easily, I tell myself, what chance have any of us, retreating into these deadly marshlands of Ramree Island?

It is 16:45 and the British forces have outflanked us. Word spreads throughout our battalion that there is no escape. The mangrove swamp—a thick, stifling, fetid place of only damp reprieve—suddenly provides our only protection. And it is here, in the coming hours, that from the jaws of our defeat, Nature will try to snatch us for Herself. There are a hundred unseen ways for a man to die. We can never give in and time must therefore be the grind of the blade, that by our own hand we draw death—an honourable death. What end waits for me, I wonder? My name is Shigeatsu Nakadai. I do not want this sunset to be my last.

The water I pour onto my neck to drown a dozen large ants is drinking water. I curse the decision. From here on, saltwater is all we’ll find. When my canteen runs dry, I’ll start to die of thirst. The thought occurs to me to pilfer some of Mayazuki’s—he’s almost dead anyway—but the reasoning proves double-edged. What if he contracted his disease from that water? Is it worth the risk? Thirst or fever: in prolonging life by one means, might I not simply protract death by another? I decide to leave him his flask and take his can opener instead.

We’ve been rushing for hours. Our battery stronghold is now miles to our rear. Colonel Ojihoru is a determined man, but determined to do what? If we are not permitted to surrender, and there is no way through the British lines, what is his hurry? Suicide now or suicide later, it seems academic. Stoicism is my only refuge. It’s as much a performance as those I give each night in my dreams—in the orchestra of Chadwick Hall in Canberra, where I play the clarinet—except this performance is to myself. Of all the ways to leave this swamp, suicide is the most impossible, at least to me. I’m quite sure that when the time comes to die with honour, I’ll cry in front of the whole regiment. Will I be the only one?


EXCERPT # 2

I try to conjure a memory of before the war—something, anything to distract me—but draw a blank every time. I purse my lips to whistle a familiar tune, but nothing comes out. I shut my eyes tight and roll them inward until they ache and release a heavy pulse. The screams and shots and calls for surrender are still there. Kodi and Sobiku are still there. I imagine the reed of a clarinet between my lips and the long, sustained breath given to making sweetly aching music. But nothing comes out. No tune, no melody, no woodwind to soothe the mangroves. Just the damp, cold harmonics of the night. I’m lost without music, and there is no music on Ramree.

EXCERPT # 3

Though you wouldn’t know it to look at them, crocodiles are among the quickest animals on the planet. There’s a split-second between an impala bending to drink and a crocodile leaping up with a sideways swipe, clamping its jaws around its prey, and starting the dreaded submergence. Once those jaws are locked, the hold is ironclad. It’s almost impossible to pry them open. On land, though only for short sprints, they can move extremely fast. In water, they are kings. Their muscular legs and tails propel them upward with shocking speed toward their prey. It’s not hard to see why they’re feared even more than sharks in many Indo-Pacific regions. And as Ramree Island lies in the Bay of Bengal, we are at the heart of their domain.

It starts with one or two attacks. A quick cry of pain, a splash, limbs thrashing, and if the water is too shallow for the crocodile to pull its man down for drowning, it will roll him over and over on the surface. There is nothing more terrifying than hearing that sequence—the staggered scream, the tail lashing, the loud spurts of water being thrown aside. There might as well be a hundred crocodiles for the sheer panic that ensues on the bank ahead of us. As men trample vegetation while fleeing the water’s edge, their flesh is torn on the sharp bracken. The smell of blood is now in the air. On top of that, we have wounded soldiers among us, casualties of both British bullets and the previous crocodile attack. If these reptiles are attracted by open wounds, every last one ought to be headed this way.

What’s worse, they like to feed at night.


You can buy Sunset on Ramree at the following link:

http://www.amazon.com/Sunset-Ramree-Robert-Appleton/dp/1926704274/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272726396&sr=8-2

Hope you enjoy it!

Robert

Damnation Books - Artwork for Val and Tyne

Check out the new artwork for my upcoming release, Val and Tyne. The talented artist is Matt Truiano and you really should take a look at his portfolio:

http://www.matttruiano.com/

Val and Tyne is a short horror story filled with black comedy and gruesome special effects (literally). It will be released on September 1st at the grand opening of Damnation Books, as one of twenty-five inaugural titles.

http://www.damnationbooks.com/

The CEO, Kim Richards, and her team have done a fantastic job setting up this new publishing house. If you have a dark tale you'd like to submit, check out the guidelines at the above link.

See you on the dark side,

Rob

Saltwater Crocodiles in WW2

UPDATE! Sunset on Ramree is now available for purchase (priced $3.95) at:

www.eternalpress.biz (eBook)

AND as a paperback novelette (priced $4.50) at Amazon.com

With just three weeks to go until the release of Sunset on Ramree, my WW2 crocodile thriller based on true events, I've compiled a few facts about saltwater crocodiles. If you're curious, head on over to the webpage for a look at these fascinating creatures. They really are the closest thing we have to living, breathing dinosaurs!

www.robertappleton.co.uk/saltwatercrocodiles.htm

An Early Review for The Basingstoke Chronicles!

My time travel adventure novel The Basingstoke Chronicles won't be released until August at Uncial Press, but I've just received a very early (and glowing) review. Check it out:

A Caribbean Adventure to Dream Of

Appleton, Robert. The Basingstoke Chronicles. Aloha, OR: Uncial Press, 2009.

Who does not long for “an impromptu Caribbean adventure, without a care in the world”? For the armchair traveler who yearns for days of yore, The Basingstoke Chronicles by Robert Appleton is the perfect answer. After being introduced, in the prologue, to this first-person account by Lord Basingstoke on a “winter’s night [December 16th, 1901] on the shingle of Ten Gulls Beach in Devon, southern England”, the first chapter transposes the reader to a more recent, though still distant, “grey evening in 1979, a few miles outside Bucharest…”

Arriving at a semi-annual Archaeological Society get-together with his good friends, the guileful Lord Brooke and the beautiful Lady Brooke, “fine archaeologists both”, the slightly tipsy Lord Basingstoke finds the gothic stone decorated home of Georghe Dumitrescu, “a wealthy industrialist of some note in Eastern Europe”, much smaller than he had imagined. Immediately establishing rapport with Lord Basingstoke by swigging in tandem from his hip flask, his seemingly empathetic host horrifies the distinguished gathering by presenting the riddle of a partly decomposed body as the centre point in his “personal prologue to the evening”. Most startling of all was the fine Incan embroidered clothing in which the partially incinerated and fully drowned victim had been found drifting off the Cuban coast two weeks before.

The next setting, naturally, is Cuba, in which less rarified environs the narrator at once becomes Baz, Lord Brooke Sam, and Lady Brooke Ethel, whose flirtation with Baz adds a touch of spicy romanticism to the tale. Meeting up with Rodrigo, his companion for the adventures to come, the focus is from now on fully directed towards the scuba diving expedition on which they are about to embark. But first, the author reveals his familiarity with Cuban topography in his description of Jagua Bay, in Cienfuegos, the “Pearl of the South”, as “once a stalking ground for pirates and corsairs”.

Appleton’s cracking pace of narration flows smoothly and poetically, faster than the tides, while, at the same time, conjuring up visions of the Caribbean, always alert to “savor the pungent balm of a saline breeze”. The reader is inevitably drawn into the narrator’s love of the sea, a love that surely embodies the author’s own admiration for the underwater realms.

At the core of this fast-paced novel lies the questioning of the stabilizing nature of time as “embedded in the fabric of cause and effect” emanating from Baz’s discovery of a time machine lying at the bottom of the ocean. And so to pre-existing times…The scientific explanations of phenomena present in Appleton’s fictional scenarios not only show how knowledgeable he is about such natural features as tropical rainforests, but also add significantly to the realism of the scenes depicted. Baz’s sense of affinity with the bear, that he later names Darkly after the forest in which he appears, strengthens the reader’s awareness of the narrator’s (read author’s) appreciation of the natural environment. The keen interest shown in other lands and places reveals itself in the detailed descriptions of the village life that the chief protagonists encounter on the island of Apterona.

Possessing the descriptive power of a modern day Jules Verne and the narrative pace of a twenty-first century Sir Rider Haggard, don’t let Robert Appleton’s easy flowing, yet thoughtfully worded, adventure just drift on by!

--Lois C. Henderson

Movie Catch-Up - May 2009

I saw quite a few films this month, some old, some spanking new. I don't necessarily subscribe to the nostalgic view of cinema, that pre-Star Wars Hollywood films were on average better than modern efforts. Filmgoers have probably said that in every decade. We have always produced fodder. Remove the gems from Golden Age Hollywood and you're left with an awful lot of garbage. This decade has been no different. The few exceptional films each year tend to define the year. The rest is quickly forgotten.

Slumdog Millionaire won 8 Academy Awards this year and made a truckload of money. The poster quote whores endorsed it as "the feel-good movie of the decade" blah blah blah. Whatever. The tone of this film never sat right with me. It was clearly meant as a rags-to-riches fantasy, but the sheer weight of unending hardships suffered by the hero--who literally suffers all his young life--completely killed any uplift for me. This shouldn't have a fairytale ending. Most of the story is told in flashback, and it is a harsh and fairly realistic overview of slum existence. The boy loses his girl time and again, his brother spirals into criminality. It is a bleak tale.

And then there's the gameshow. An utterly contrived storytelling device links each question to a chapter in the boy's life, gifting the director free reign to jump back and forward far more often than is necessary. This is becoming a tiresome trend in modern moviemaking. Is there anything wrong with a linear narrative? One or two flashbacks is fine. But this sort of time-jumping mosaic hasn't made a single film I can recall more engaging, affecting, or dramatically powerful. Quentin Tarantino films are playful pastiches. A film like Slumdog should make the heart soar. Unfortunately, what I took away from it was an admiration for the technical virtuosity, an appreciation for the nimble screenplay, and a feeling of utter indifference toward the characters. I realise it's a fantasy, but it felt like a rigged game from minute one. If you want an honest slumdog film, forget this fake uplift and watch Fernando Mereilles' City of God.

Bette Davis' classic 1938 meldrama Jezebel hasn't aged well. She is tremendous as an egotistical southern belle who wrecks the lives of all around her before a Yellow Fever epidemic hits her home town. No one beats Bette in that kind of role (except maybe Vivien Leigh), but the rest of the film is fairly quaint. It's very much of its time--a woman's picture of stoic manners and mercurial temperaments and a scorned title character. Bette is never referred to as a screen beauty, but in these early movies, she is a stunner.

Jennifer Garner charms her way through 13 Going on 30, a kind of girl's version of Tom Hanks' Big. I wasn't expecting much from this one, but Jennifer's brilliant performance and what amounted to a nice, heartfelt ode to innocence really hit the spot. The ending perhaps should have been more bittersweet, but I give this one high marks. Mark Ruffalo plays another of his lovable sadsack boyfriend roles. He has great chemistry with beautiful Jennifer.

Drag Me To Hell is a return to his roots for Sam Raimi, after his brilliant Spider-Man trilogy. The Evil Dead formula, with which he made his name, mixed twisted humour with even more twisted scares. They're so fun to watch, even now, that I really think he's one of our better directors. Such low budgets yet so much creativity. And the films play superbly well to audiences. You can tell he's dying to entertain us (so to speak). Such is the case with his new one, a kitchen-sink-included horror rollercoaster starring Allison Lohman as the unfortunate victim of a gypsy curse. In three days, her soul will be taken by a demon. Cue lots of jumps, funny gross moments, and a rollicking good time. Though for my money, it would have been infinitely better with Bruce Campbell in the lead. Allison does well, but Bruce would have made this pure classic.

Tomorrow I'm off to see Terminator: Salvation. Middling hopes for this one, but I've a feeling I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Till next time...

Rob