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- Dear Edgar 55 ~ The Power of Words
- All we are saying, yet again…
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- Dear Edgar 54 ~ Some Words With a Mummy
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- Dear Edgar 52 ~ The Purloined letter
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- Dear Edgar 51 ~ The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq
- Casting Auguries
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- Dear Edgar 50 ~ Thou Art the Man
- Preludes in Obscurum
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- Minoan Dreams
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- Overload
- The Also By Anomaly
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Author Archives: Mark Hayes
How to kill a hero
Electrophorus electricus, or to give it is none Latin name, the Electric Eel, is one of those things that keeps cropping up in pulp fiction’s. It’s what the hard up bond villain type puts in his shark tank, if he can’t afford sharks and doesn’t want to fork out the cost of piranha food. Continue reading
Fascinating Folklore, Taurus and the book pile
fascinating insight as that may be to the beside cabinet of a bibliophile, on to some reviews, starting, as a delightful Flemish research witch has me on a folklore kick at the moment with with Fascinating Folklore… A book that answers a question much on the lips of the zeitgeist these days. Did anything good ever come out of Twitter..? Continue reading
Posted in amreading, book reviews, books, rites
Tagged amreading, book, book reviews, book-review, bookblog, books, fiction, folklore, read, reads
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Terrifying Joy from the Forests of Flanders
Terrifying joys, and glimpses into Europe’s our collective cultural past. For while these are all Flemish tales, they are tales that are echoed throughout Europe. Which is only natural, as travels tell tales of their homelands and those tales get retold and made anew. A such this book is tales of the kind told around the camp fire, on the edge of the woods, with twilight all around. Told to frighten, and to warn. The woods are dark, the wise do not wander there.
But who wants to be wise… Continue reading
Posted in amreading, book reviews, books, druidry, Europe, pagan, reads, rites, supernatural
Tagged amreading, books, folklore, ghosts, history, horror, read, reads, supernatural, writing
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Lucifer Mandrake ~ Not a cover reveal…
*my entire contribution to the Finch Ministries were the words ‘octopus catapult’ , I am ridiculously proud of this fact… Continue reading
Posted in amwriting, books, Harvey Duckman, indie, indie novels, indie writers, reads, self-publishing, steampunk, writing
Tagged book-review, bookcovers, books, fiction, reading, steampunk fantasy, writerslife, writing
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Yer, so about the tower…
The Tower is one of those stories… A story that people tend to remember and ask about. It has a perfect ending in my opinion. Which is to say the ending is open to the readers imagination. This tends to generate the same question from almost every reader “What is the tower?” Continue reading
Posted in amreading, amwriting, books, fantasy, fiction, Harvey Duckman, indie writers, reads, writes, writing
Tagged amreading, anthology, books, fantasy, fiction, sciencefiction, writer, writers, writing
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Supporting your local itinerant author
I throw words into the wind and what them swirl around me and hope to catch them again, I am a writer, writing is what I do, occasionally quite well, it defines me in many ways and I believe through my writing I add to the zeitgeist of humanity in positive ways.
But I don’t always believe any of that to be true… Continue reading
Posted in #amwriting, amwriting, indie novels, indie writers, indiewriter, reads, writes, writing
Tagged amwriting, books, creative-writing, fiction, writer, writers, writerslife, writing
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Music and words
Passing Place remains the book of which I am most proud. I love all my novels but this one is the one with the most blood in the ink, the most slivers of my soul between its pages. Its a tale of loss and love, of hope and grief , and of choices, the choice we all have….
Also, there really is a forest in the cellar. As well as a Dryad waiting tables when she is not in the back garden with her tree. A gunslinger with a tale of the mythology in the old west. An Inuit whose spear is dropping blood on the bar and speak of tears like diamonds. The wisest doorman in all the universe who will teach you many things, including how to drink brandy the right way. A girl in the corridor with eyes in her hands. A literal devil called Lyal. A grey man form a grey world marveling at the colour in the swirl of his mop water. A chef who understand how to may causality sandwiches. Continue reading
Posted in amreading, amwriting, books, fantasy, fiction, indie novels, indie writers, novels, Passing Place, reads, sci-fi
Tagged amreading, books, fantasy, music, playlist, reads, sciencefiction, writerslife, writing
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The fate of Eels
When inspiration flows, it creates cycles. We might think about this as being akin to other natural cycles, like the way water moves through the world. Inspiration is supposed to flow and move, hoarding it doesn’t work. The person who jealously guards their creative energy will find they have less of it, not more. Continue reading
Posted in amreading, humour, opinion, pointless things of wonderfulness, politics
Tagged blog, eels, interviews, music, politics, songwriting, writing
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Dear Edgar #22 The Fall of the House of Usher
The themes of three earlier stories in particular are each echoed in this story, those being Morella, Berenice and Ligeia. Which is not to say that Edgar was obsessed with putting female characters into soporific states that seem death like, decaying, and wasting away, but it is a theme that comes up time and time again in the early tales. What is odd is that these themes were so prevalent before the wasting disease that would take his wife from him not many years later was diagnosed. Equally the male characters in all these stories react to these tragedies with obsession and madness that echoes how the death of Victoria was to plunge him into a deep alcohol fuelled depression and began his own downward spiral to an early grave.
Occasionally life imitates art in dreadful ways. Continue reading
Posted in book reviews, Dear Edgar, Goth, horror, opinion, Poe, reads
Tagged amreading, book-review, books, Dear Edgar, gothic, horror, Poe, reads
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Dear Edgar #21 The Man That Was Used Up
All of which is no way as humorous in these latter days than it was intended to be when Poe wrote it and as much as Poe needs to be read with him being ‘of his time’ in mind, sometimes that excusing of the writer doesn’t make the reading of their tales any easier. Continue reading
Posted in amreading, Dear Edgar, humour, Poe, sci-fi, steampunk
Tagged amreading, book-review, books, Dear Edgar, Poe, reads, sciencefiction, writing
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The Passing Place 