Author: Ederyn Khushrenada
Genre: Dark Fiction
How long it's been on sale: Feb 2011
Current price: $.99
Marketing: I mention it now and then at the MOA forum on Amazon; listed it on the blog of Mistress of the Dark Path and 1500 Authors; have a page for it on Goodreads; created a thread for it at Kindleboards
Total sold so far: 18
Link to book on Amazon: Edgy Hours
Product Description:
Horror doesn't need zombies or vampires; the most frightening animal in the universe is man. This anthology of five short stories explores the disturbing side of human nature:
Wire: A terrorist questions the ethics of his cause as he wires a small child with explosives for a suicide mission.
Always Mine: A secretary finds herself in an awkward position when her employer confesses his romantic interest.
Canvas: A farm boy from a close-knit family suffers nightmares while away from home for the first time.
The Kiss: After watching two friends kiss, a gay soldier seeks therapy.
Six Minutes: A condemned prisoner reviews the events that brought him here as he awaits execution for an accidental murder.
Not intended for young readers, some of these stories contain homosexual themes and possible triggering material if you're a trauma survivor. Reader discretion is advised.
840 pages
15k words
This complete collection is also included in the anthology 'Blue Forest'
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0057HCEVE
First 300 Words:
The last one had gone off without a hitch. Why did things have to f*** up today of all days, when the new so-called commander was here? Commander my ass. He's nothing but a squat walrus with a mustache and a power fixation. How much longer before they'd have to genuflect before this poor man's Kommissar? This was a small separatist faction, not a military superpower. They didn't need a damn commander. Commander or no, the bastard was the one who now claimed the title and no one was arguing with him, so Bodin wasn't about to make waves. He'd been trying for years to impress the people who mattered, so why the hell did everything have to go wrong the day his first opportunity for advancement came along?
Not that it'll make any difference, he reflected as he stripped the rubber coating from the tips of the wires and rolled the ends together. The only real advancement around here was a better bed to sleep in and a little more respect from the grunts than you'd normally get. Still, a decent bed was worth dying for, and lately he'd been waking up every morning with a backache from Hell. How did they expect him to do his job without mistakes when his back was killing him like this?
Camp commander. Ha! Talk about a Napoleonic complex. What was it Korać used to say? "Don't step on the runts; they go off." Yeah, that was it. Korać knew the lay of the land, which was more than he could say for this pinheaded dictator from Sarajevo. He was going to miss Korać. Korać had never called himself commander of anything, but everyone knew he was the boss. He simply commanded respect, and Bodin hadn't lost any respect for him when he died, unlike some of the guys. Anyone could have been ambushed like that—anyone. They all had to bite the bullet in the end, and Korać had died heroically as far as he was concerned.
Vicki's Comments: I think the cover is a real problem. It doesn't define the book for me, and I can't read the word "dark" at the bottom. I don't see an author's name on it, which is odd to me. The gradient of color makes the cover appear home made, which is definitely not the look you want to go for when trying to sell a book. I would suggest an overhaul of the cover.
Since this is a short story collection, I think boiling down the stories into succinct one liners is a good idea. The descriptions right now don't hook me, so I might suggest working on the descriptions. Let's just take the first one for example. "A terrorist questions the ethics of his cause as he wires a small child with explosives for a suicide mission." The main conflict in this story is the terrorist questioning the ethics of his cause. That's not very exciting for me. Someone questioning the ethics of something probably means a lot of internal dialogue. Does this stop him from his task? Does he let the boy go? The description doesn't say either, it just says he questions the ethics. So I'm thinking the story will be a bunch of monologue from one character thinking about ethics. If this accurately describes the story, then that's fine, but the problem might be in the story then rather than just the description. It doesn't grab me as a must read.
The writing in itself I think was fine, but I couldn't get a sense of the setting at all, and if this guy is strapping a bomb to a young kid, I would want to know this from the start. Unless that's the big reveal at the end. But for me, this story isn't hooking my interest. It's pretty much what I figured when I read the description. It's a monologue of a terrorist. I'm probably not the target audience for this book, though, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
My only other concern is in the description it lists "840 pages, 15K words." If you have 200 words per page, 15K words should be in the 75 page range. If you list that it's 840 pages, that means you've got about 17.8 words on each page. There's a major error in here somewhere, and I would hate for someone to think they're getting a 840 page book when it's only 15,000 words. Maybe it's supposed to say 84 pages?
What do you guys think?
Cover.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's getting past first base.
If they're not clickin' the stamp, nothing after that matters.
The gradient is muddy, the image is emo, and the font is largely illegible.
For the rest, I think you hit it pretty well, Vicki.
But I'm also not even sure what "dark fiction" is. This might be a good example of it, but I don't think anybody is actually seeing beyond the cover.
The cover is a non-starter. Most of the books we've seen here have cover problems and this is no exception. The sub-title isn't clear at all. It's jammed against the title. The author should also have her name on the cover.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, that face on the cover and the font made me think of zombies.
Not sure I understand what the story is about here.
"The Kiss: After watching two friends kiss, a gay soldier seeks therapy."
That must have been some kiss to send a soldier into therapy.
Taglines are good for an anthology, but these don't have enough of a punch.
Generally speaking, anthologies don't sell well. Three of the stories in mine are published separately at 99 cents each and they sell better individually than the anthology at $1.99 with seven stories including a novella.
OK, this isn't obvious, but it REALLY throws me off to the point where I wouldn't OneClick because it makes NO sense.
ReplyDeleteThe book blurb claims it's 840 pages, but only 15K words.
At 15K, the book should be around 50 pages long. To run 840 pages, it could only average about 18 words a page.
So either that's a typo, or something's really wrong here.
Either way, I see that in the listing, I avoid it. Sorry.
I am sure there are people out there who like short stories where nothing happens, in fact I know a few of them. They're very happy reading literary stuff. If that's what this anthology is, and it gives that impression, then they're your target. But nothing about the cover it is going to attract them.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who wants to read literary isn't likely to look at horror. But maybe I'm getting totally the wrong impression, however, that's the impression reading your blurb and sample: that basically nothing happens.
Why would a gay soldier seek therapy after seeing a kiss anyway? Poor guy has never seen a kiss before?
I’m afraid the cover doesn’t grab me, and the story descriptions seem to lack a hook that would make me want to read them.
ReplyDeleteWire: A terrorist questions the ethics of his cause as he wires a small child with explosives for a suicide mission. – While it’s an interesting premise, the description lacks that certain something that would make me go, wow, I need to read this.
Always Mine: A secretary finds herself in an awkward position when her employer confesses his romantic interest. – While it’s a succinct description, she’s in an awkward position, and I’d have to say, so what? What makes the story interesting?
Canvas: A farm boy from a close-knit family suffers nightmares while away from home for the first time. – He’s away from home and having nightmares. Is that the real crux of the story? If that’s all that happens, it’s really not much of a story.
The Kiss: After watching two friends kiss, a gay soldier seeks therapy. – One kiss makes him seek therapy? Really? What’s so special about this kiss?
Six Minutes: A condemned prisoner reviews the events that brought him here as he awaits execution for an accidental murder. – This sounds interesting but the description needs more punch.
The word 'edgy' might be a problem. It's used so often to mean 'hip, cool, cutting-edge' that that's almost overwhelmed the meaning of 'uneasy', which is presumably what the author meant by it.
ReplyDeleteSmall point: I don't think there's such a thing as an accidental murder, since it's only considered murder if it's a deliberate act.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for all the good suggestions, everyone! I think I'll combine all these fics into my other book and thus do away with the need for this cover and title altogether. The descriptions will take a good deal of thought since I can't think how else to describe the stories without giving away too much of the plot. But I'll implement your ideas as soon as possible. Thanks so much for your help!
ReplyDelete^ᴗ^