Hidden Fiction Review
By Flames | May 6, 2008
In 2037 there will be an outbreak (a plague, maybe) that kills a whole lot of people. Don’t say I never warned you.
Excluding the prologue, this novel takes place in 2093. The world is now divided into four parts: the Northern Waste, the Equatorial Band, Africa and the Southern Hemisphere. Born in a laboratory in the icy Northern Waste, Tatiana is now free. But there’s something seriously screwed with her genes, clearly evident when she slices off a bloke’s hand with no weapons other than her own hands.
Review by Tez Miller.
Topics: Fiction Reviews | No Comments »
Bestial: Werewolf Apocalypse now available for pre-order!
By Flames | April 18, 2008
Bestial: Werewolf Apocalypse by William D. Carl pre-order at Horror Mall.
Beneath the dim light of a full moon, the population of Cincinnati mutates into huge, snarling monsters that devour everyone they see, acting upon their most base and bestial desires. Planes fall from the sky. Highways are clogged with abandoned cars, and buildings explode and topple.
The city burns.
Topics: Horror News | No Comments »
Plague of the Dead 2: Thunder & Ashes Fiction Review
By Flames | April 8, 2008
I’ll have to post something of a caveat up front: I’ve never read the first installment of the Morningstar Saga, Plague of the Dead. That will have to change pretty soon though, considering the quality of Thunder & Ashes.
The zombie apocalypse has come and gone, and a handful of survivors–some of them ex-military, and one a brilliant female scientist–are fighting to find a cure that will save the world. Yes, the plot isn’t exactly original, but the quality of the writing and the characters manage to elevate Thunder & Ashes above most novels that share this popular plot.
Review by Leah Clarke
Topics: Fiction Reviews | No Comments »
Flash Fire Mini-Reviews (Post-Apocalyptic)
By Matt-M-McElroy | March 21, 2008
We’ve covered vampires, zombies, magic and more in past Flash Fire Mini-Reviews. This week we’re going to take a look at a genre that often blends Sci-Fi with Horror and Adventure with Mystery…sometimes all at once.
Post-Apocalypse stories often show a bleak future, but can offer a bit hope as well.
The civilized world has come to an end, in the rubble the survivors battle horrors and each other in an attempt to gather resources and perhaps to rebuild their world. Post Apocalyptic settings are the subject of this week’s Flash Fire Mini-Reviews.
We’ve got a mix of games, fiction and a movie to explore this week. Each with a different spin on just what Post-Apocalypse means…
Topics: Flash Fire Mini-Reviews | No Comments »
UNDEAD: HEADSHOT QUARTET now available for pre-order!
By Matt-M-McElroy | January 23, 2008
Permuted Press has posted a pre-order of the fourth Undead anthology. Drop by Horror Mall to scoop up The Undead: Headshot Quartet and get free shipping!
Join authors D.L. Snell, Ryan C. Thomas, John Sunseri, and David Dunwoody as they fire four more rounds into the growing horde of living dead…
The Undead series is a great collection of zombie fiction from veteran and rookie authors alike. Check out Grim’s review of Flesh Feast right here on Flames Rising for a look at one of the other books in the series.
I like that Permuted Press is mixing things up a bit with this book. Instead of another anthology, Headshot Quartet is made up of four novellas. This allows the authors more room for character development and a bigger body count (as should be expected in a zombie tale).
Topics: Horror News | No Comments »
Kitty and the Midnight Hour Review
By Flames | December 15, 2007
Kitty Norville didn’t mean to become a popular radio personality. In fact, she could remember when she didn’t even enjoy having the night shift. But as a werewolf, her habits have gotten more and more nocturnal, and one bored night at the microphone discussing the paranormal becomes a talk-show phenomenon. Suddenly syndicated at two hundred stations, Kitty is the center of attention, and not all good. From a professional werewolf hunter named Cormac, to Arturo, head of the local vampire Family, to her own Pack, Kitty’s meeting opposition on all sides.
Topics: Fiction Reviews, Reviews | No Comments »
Undead: Flesh Feast Review
By Flames | September 27, 2007
Flesh Feast as an anthology of zombie-oriented horror fiction, currently available from Permuted Press, the third in a series apparently. The volume is presented much in keeping with the current, and ongoing, resurgent zombie fad but isn’t truly and entirely a zombie-oriented collection. While the stories do all follow the undead theme, zombie purists (those who foam at the mouth about 28 Days Later) are going to be a little disappointed and, to be honest, they have a point. The stories that stray the most from the more classic zombie fare are the weakest.
Topics: Fiction Reviews | No Comments »
Monster Island Review
By Flames | September 13, 2007
Monster Island opens sometime after the rise of zombies across the world. Most of the civilized nations have already been overrun and there are only a few survivors left. Not surprisingly, larger population centers are early victims of the zombie menace and, as a result, the more developed countries fall more quickly. For example, the sheer population size of a city like New York makes the epidemic difficult to contain. Too many people, coupled with poor “epidemic” containment, prove to be the city’s downfall in Monster Island.
Topics: Fiction Reviews | No Comments »
Dying To Live Review
By Flames | April 19, 2007
Dying To live is not only an intricate novel, but it also makes the reader think. Paffenroth is very intelligent in the way he tells a story, especially how he uses the way people think and react to a situation to make the characters seem more real. He does this by creating Jonah Caine, and by telling his story in first-person.
Topics: Fiction Reviews | No Comments »
Down the Road Review
By Flames | March 16, 2007
Down the Road is a relatively short read, wrapping up in 168 pages or so. I read it in one day while traveling across the state of Wisconsin. The adventure George has throughout the book is a fun and scary read for anyone who enjoys zombie fiction. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on the sequel.
Topics: Fiction Reviews | No Comments »
Twilight of the Dead Review
By Flames | February 10, 2007
Twilight of the Dead takes five years after the initial outbreak of the zombie plague, and it is told through the view of a young woman named Courtney. Courtney is a sad, depressed person who is depressed at the loss of her father and the fact that her life has been ruined by the dead corpses that have now taken over the world, and this is what makes Courtney such an interesting character. Unlike the big, bad guy heros of the zombie genre, Courtney is the center point of Twilight of the Dead , and this helps make the novel different from any ordinary novel.
Topics: Fiction Reviews | No Comments »
Plague of the Dead Review
By Flames | February 10, 2007
Plague of the Dead takes another twist with the zombie genre, showing that the zombies can and cannot be dead at the same time. Z.A Recht, author of the new zombie novel Plague of the Dead brings a new twist to the genre.
Beginning with a strange, if not disturbing, email from a scientist in the army, it tells of the inevitable danger that the new and strange plague may bring. While the scientist tries to warn people about it, it doesn’t do any good, and that means that people are vulnerable. It hits our home of the United States when a medical examiner turns his back for just one moment.
Topics: Fiction Reviews | No Comments »
Torment: an Obsidian: the Age of Judgement Story
By Flames | November 30, 2006
Alright, let’s try this again. Much more slowly than the first time, I attempt to open my eyes. Everything is blurred for a moment, and my stomach heaves, but I swallow hard and blink a few times. The room obligingly comes into focus. First my gaze flickers down and to my left. All I can see is a delicate, bare shoulder under a fine curtain of hair, the strangest silvery-brown color. Squinting painfully against the dim lighting, I notice a small braid, tied with dark blue thread. I smile slightly, though I couldn’t say why. There is something sweet and innocent about that little braid.
An Obsidian: the Age of Judgement story written by Elizabeth Petersen
Topics: Fiction | No Comments »
Schism RPG Review
By Flames | September 4, 2006
Schism both builds on this game and subverts it almost completely. In Schism, there are no demons – instead, characters receive extraordinary psychic abilities that are, partly as a result of the accelerating pace of global change and its effect on the tortured human psyche, suddenly prevalent in society. Indeed, the title page uses the term ‘virulent setting.’ However, the virus of psychic abilities does not come without a price and in Schism that price tends to be psychic disorders and physical deformation. Anyone who has played (or perhaps tried to play) the Nephilim game will be familiar with at least this physical aspect. Characters in Schism progressively become more and more removed from basic humanity but have the advantage of being able to bring about powerful effects to further their own ends and those of the cabal (a kind of more or less secret organization) that they wish.
Topics: Roleplaying Game Reviews | No Comments »
Glint: a Story for Obsidian: the Age of Judgement
By Monica Valentinelli | April 11, 2006
Silas no longer cared if his carefully-sown client was going to do something stupid; his kits were far too valuable and far too difficult to come by to replace. He’d find somebody else, some other paying client to work on. Walking over to the wall, he ripped his sawed-off Nineteen from the wall, and flushed his Boosters. He swore under his breath that he didn’t put on any armor before this appointment. At least he put his shoulder strap on. That strap was like his credbase. He never left home without it.
Topics: Fiction | 1 Comment »
Annihilation | an Obsidian: the Age of Judgement Story Series
By Monica Valentinelli | January 13, 2006
Daniel spat carefully. Damn the Law. Sure, the crisp uniforms were a necessary evil—they needed him just as much as he needed them. The Law’d get into a nasty situation that involved daemons or some other supernatural creature (even though “officially” there’s no such thing as monsters), and then they’d hire him, Daniel Wayward, to clean it up. Sometimes things were good, real good. One time he managed to keep the acrid blood spatter to a minimum and kill the thing with no casualties. In his line of work, that was a miracle. Being a beastkeeper had its ups and downs. Most times he was lucky to have a day that was in between.
Today was not one of those days.
Third in a three-part series
Topics: Fiction | No Comments »
OctaNe RPG Review
By Flames | November 30, 2005
Mad Max - what a trilogy. Dustbowl landscapes, battered old sedans, Australian accents and stubble. It had them all. Plenty of RPG’s have attempted to capture the post-apocalyptic genre in all its glory and few have fully succeeded. Introducing the latest contender: octaNe. Will it roar off into the healthy radioactive glow of sunset on wheels of fire, or will it get a razor-edged boomerang in the forehead?
By the way, the capital N is all part of the product identity. I thought it was going to stand for Nitro or something similar, but according to the introduction it just looks cool. Go figure. It kinda makes me want to pronounce the word oc-tay-NEH. Given the content of the game though, the odd grammar is well in-theme.
Topics: Roleplaying Game Reviews | No Comments »
Hal’s Story | Obsidian: the Age of Judgement Fiction
By Flames | October 31, 2005
“Are you still insisting on hunting him down? This isn’t what your father would have wanted. He would have wanted you to continue helping humanity defend itself against hell.” Hal knew Ayden wanted her fighting with them. After all, they grew up together, even was in schooling together. When Ayden went off with the Spiritual Essence trainers, she was scared, and sad. That’s when Hal’s father started training her as a Mystic. He was very talented, and she was to carry on his knowledge.
Written by Crystal Mazur
Topics: Fiction | No Comments »
a|state Role Playing Game Review
By Monica Valentinelli | August 8, 2005
A/State’s setting is post-apocalyptic futurism, but with a few twists. Unlike other post-apocalyptic settings, there are a lot of unknowns. Something happened, something that ripped the fabric of modern-day reality off from civilization’s spoiled body. Technology is limited, identities are a luxury, and survival of the fittest is a way of life—not just a catch phrase. The City, assuredly a conglomeration of some things that “were”, has no name. In this place with no name, you battle against your greatest enemy—yourself.
Topics: Reviews, Roleplaying Game Reviews | No Comments »
Triad Part II: Absence | Obsidian: the Age of Judgement Fiction Series
By Monica Valentinelli | June 30, 2005
Tara sat at the edge of the abyss. She glanced briefly around her, wondering if something more menacing than the Law guards were lurking in the earthy shadows. Hours earlier, her team breathed a sigh of relief when the Law’s automated attack vehicles returned from the depths of Zone subsector three without a scratch. The Law then pushed her team forward, forcing them to tread where only machines should have gone.
Third in a three-part series
Topics: Fiction | No Comments »