Strangers,
Happy to announce the publication of The Blumhouse Book of Nightmares. These stories’ transcendent genius has so overwhelmed the fragile human consciousness of early readers, most have been reduced to a fugue state of compulsive scrutiny intense enough to render them helpless to control even the most basic bodily functions.
So get your copy today!
Strangers,
It’s been a while. My apologies, but Strange things have been afoot, of course. Much thanks to the masses howling for my return here, and I promise I will do so when I have something for you worthy of report. It is not necessary for any of you to set yourselves on fire… though of course one always appreciates the gesture.
In any case, what’s prompting this lapse in the contemplative silence is a subject of no less importance than The End of the World.
My very good friend Dustin Thomason has published this excellent book today that gives a marvelous fictional précis of the rapidly approaching end times. I hereby command all Strangers to purchase this immediately.
Yes. Right now.
Strangers,
Of course I predicted long ago that in the Future ALL books will be titled Strange Flesh.
But I never imagined the Future would arrive so soon….
A scintillating yammer with Blogcritics wherein we discuss several topics crucial to your continued functioning as human beings. Yes.
http://blogcritics.org/books/article/an-interview-with-novelist-michael-olson/
Strangers,
You’ll all be thrilled to know that SF appeared on “Teaser Tuesday” at:
http://www.myshelfconfessions.com
Which is a book blog run by this apparently really cute vampire named April.
The verdict you ask? Our prologue is “Creeptastic.”
Normally I might equivocate concerning my feelings about such an ambiguous portmanteau, but in this case I’m happy to report I’ve already worked it into my canned response to the remarkably prevalent question, “What is your book about?”
A brief history:
1) Curious that I was more or less unprepared when first asked the question. My initial response,
“Uh….well…It’s about a lot of things.”
2) Next I went with:
“This is a novel about sex and games.”
But only because when I was surprised yet again, that phrase is written on the jacket of the book, which I happened to be holding.
3) Finally some preparation. I came up with this enchanting phrase:
“Strange Flesh is a sanguinary mystery concerning the dawning age of Neterosexuality.”
Enchanting, but nobody has any idea what it means.
4) Here’s where I am this week:
“Who cares? It costs two bucks and it’s creeptastic! Just buy the fucking thing.”
A writer’s life, so…
Strangers,
Thanks to all of you who flooded me with Strange Flesh sightings in its natural habitat. I finally got out this weekend to make my own observations. Which were:
1) I did not care for the way a few local urchins were handling Chardahlia [my name for the cover model].
2) I was nonplussed by the following exchange with a bookseller:
“Sir, are you photographing the books?”
“Yeah. That OK?”
“It’s really not. You mustn’t photograph the books. We can’t have it.”
3) I spent a while trying to parse why this might be, and was poised to argue. But then I realized: Chardahlia deserves to be treated like a celebrity.
So I left her to her work.
Strange Flesh mentioned in an interesting article at:
http://www.xojane.com/entertainment/today-interesting-literary-trends-torture-porn
No, we did not pay them to upload that photo.
That said, having one’s book enter into a discussion about “torture porn” ah…. hurts.
An article I’m supposed to be writing sent me back to reacquaint myself with the ineffable delights of David Levy’s Love and Sex with Robots. Wherein, Strangers, you will find gems like this:
“Clockwork vibrators, for example, tended to run down rather quickly, and often just at the moment when the woman needed them most, while a stem-driven vibrator invented in the United States in 1869 was inconvenient for doctors to use because they repeatedly had to shovel coal into its boiler.”
Yes.
As my pub date approaches, and Strange Flesh bursts forth to be fruitful and multiply, it feels appropriate to spend a moment to commemorate the thousands of sentences that perished in its at times gruesome fight for survival. Here then, I exhume a few valiant snippets to honor the dead:
I can’t help stopping to listen, but it appears that the proceedings have been waylaid by a debate about whether the league’s mandate covers exclusively poetry written in PERL or whether it also includes using PERL to write poetry in other languages, such as Old Elvish. Chairs were set up for a much more ambitious turnout than they received.
– – –
“So the guy was no Van Gogh right. Who checks himself out with untold millions in the bank?”
“Kurt Cobain?”
“That was murder dude. And I never saw Billy hanging around with any psychopathic coke whore.”
– – –
“Given the utter sterility of the stage in the nineties, I elected to pursue my interests in interactive automata.”
Ave brave phrases! Your sacrifice was not in vain.
michaelolsonbooks 