A Little Break to Savor the Season

To all my friends who regularly visit this, my humble e-bode, I feel an enormous gratitude to you for being here, for reading and offering advice, for helping me grow as a writer and blogger, for offering your friendship. I know the past few days I fell off the radar unexpectedly but I have a house full of family visiting from Mexico. It has been loads of fun but there's little time to write, thus the radio silence. I will be back full force come January 3rd, but in the mean time I just want to wish you a joyous season. I hope you are having a great time surrounded by those closest to your hearts and may next year bring all kinds of blessings to us all.

Never forget to laugh for laughter is the key to the soul.

Best wishes!

Best Five Horror/Scary Animated Shorts

I love the feeling of being scared, of having my heart missing a bit, of holding my breath and covering my eyes in complete and unashamed cowardice. Not in the real world, of course, but in the fantastical world of my imagination--You may doubt it but I'm not that crazy.--Whenever I want to kick back, relax, and have a fun time, my mind inevitably drifts to the genre. Books, TV shows, movies, short movies, anything and everything good enough to cause any of the things I told you before brings me joy. So, it is no wonder that many of my Friday Fun posts relate to the genre and I hope you enjoy them as much as me.

Today I want to share with you more awesome animated shorts. Most of them were made by small independent filmmakers just trying to reach viewers. In that aspect we, writers, are no different than the hordes of artists fighting to make a living off their art.--Not that I can call what I do "art" but you get my drift.--In an effort to bring what little recognition I can to those unknown artists, I highlight today five of the horror/scary/suspenseful animated shorts that have given me the most joy to watch. Hope they do the same for you and you decide to share their work with someone else.

5. IN SICKNESS - This short has been critically acclaimed for the message of love it conveys. Though not strictly horror, it has a preternatural element and it is indeed scary and sad--being that it talks about sickness and death.


4. THE LADY AND THE RIPPER - Another short that's not really horror but that deals with the theme of death, this time in lighthearted manner that will get more than a chuckle out of you.


3. THE GIRL WHO WAS FORGOTTEN - This one is more into the gothic spectrum and hauntingly beautiful. Not horrific at all and even a little sad.


2. THE PASSENGER - This short is scary and hilarious all at the same time. It made me jump a couple of times and what fun I had!


1. BEHIND CLOSED DOORS - In this case the subject matter gets darker dealing with domestic abuse and monsters--both, imaginary and real.-- It gave me the creeps and I hope it does the same for you. =)


Bonus. THE BLACKWATER GOSPEL - This short is not only scary and disturbing, but gruesome. The pacing is phenomenal, the writing amazing, and the animation a treat, so I couldn't pass it. I think it has a deeper message that is worth repeating but I do have to say it gets bloody towards the end. Totally worth it, still: Viewer be warned.

Have an awesome weekend, everyone!

The Black Death of Babylon, A Review

The Black Death of Babylon starts with two death bodies, darkened and decayed a few hours after their deaths by an invisible killer that hasn't seen the light of day in over 5000 years. That's where Don Oberbier fits. He's a seasoned investigator of anomalies, none as frightening as The Black Death of Babylon, now he must run against time to find the person who set free this bacteria before fear runs rampant at Babylon University and the real killer finishes up his horrific work.

A dark mystery/suspense, The Black Death of Babylon is atmospheric, enigmatic, and a thrill. Imagine the lovechild of Fringe, The X-Files, The Masque of the Red Death, and Indiana Jones. Weird? You'll be surprised at how well McFadden manages to pull this one out.

The characters are interesting and the reader is treated not only with the mystery behind the killings, but with the many secrets every character seems to be holding up. However, I must say the main character, Don Oberbier, is a hard sale for the reader. He is rude, arrogant, and a jerk who puts people through hell just for the kicks. Now, this is the guy we will follow through the ordeal and the one for which the reader must root...like I said, a tough sell. The supporting characters are better rounded, though, and they are in fact the ones with whom I connected and for which I rooted, so I still enjoyed the ride.

As much as a mystery, The Black Death of Babylon is a Science Fiction that uses the world of Scientific Investigation to propel us into the fear of technology and knowledge without moral boundaries. The science behind the story is pretty sound and allows the reader a rare insight into the dog-eat-dog world of scientific discovery. A nice treat that will also let you wonder just how scary it is to know that a handful of people are in absolute control of the deathliest viruses/bacterias known to mankind. True story kids. Ask the CDC.

My regular readers know I review horror mostly and when I dare out of the genre the results are a gamble. With McFadden's work I was pleasantly surprised and I'm happy to say to my non-horror-readers that this is a great book for everyone. If you enjoy Fringe, this is a book for you, its mysteries will have you all guessing to the very last page. 

If you are interested in Edward McFadden or wish to buy the book, just follow the links back there.

And That's a Wrap on 2012 IWSG

I can't believe how fast the year went by. It's already December, the holidays are almost here, and the last of this year's ISWG post is knocking on our doors. Where did the eleven previous months go?

Given the time of year, I guess the most appropriate thing for this post is to analyze how far I went on my endeavors this year, what did I learn, but most of all, where did I fail. It's not that I want to brood but it is only through an honest appraisal of our mistakes that we will grow. So here I go...

I'm happy with the way I'm writing now. I've found my groove through organization of what little time I have to write and now I'm moving faster with my current novel. I wrote down a schedule for the whole week and then broke it down for each day and when I actually follow it, I go to bed feeling like I accomplished something; like it was a happy, productive day. It is a great feeling that inspires me to keep writing every day.

What I learned was that even small, tiny progress needs to be put on a schedule. Because I have few hours to write I thought it wasn't important to actually organize my time into slots. "It's so little, anyway"I kept repeating. That only made me feel like I was failing everyday. So organization is key for my spirits and now that I know, I will carry this lesson into next year.

Where did I fail... Well, I kept excusing myself for my lack of progress in the complicated schedule that I have. I repeated to myself that I was doing everything I could but in my heart I knew I could do better. The thing that paralyzes me is fear. Fear to not meet my own standards. What if I raise the bar only to fall flat on my face? That prevented me from asking myself to do more. And sadly, that fear is something I haven't conquered. I know it's there, I know it cripples me, and I know sometimes it wins. What I want to work on for next year is in winning more than it does.

And talking about fear, I would greatly appreciate your ideas and opinions in another matter that has been troubling me for some time now. A few months ago I was talking to my husband about how I wanted to be of more help in the financial aspect of the house, maybe not a big thing but just to buy my books and stuff, you know? He then suggested me to look for a job as a writer, either writing reviews or articles in general for a magazine. The idea to work as a freelance writer implies in my mind a lot of work. It is not something you do in your odd hours, I think. But writing for a specific magazine with an expected number of articles/reviews per month might be doable. I mean, I've been reviewing for free all this time, right? Thing is, I don't have ample experience--only half a year with Dark River Press and a year and a half in this blog--and my only credentials are my published works (only two, so far). My university background is not related to the field AT ALL, not even a Creative Writing curse... so should I do it? Will it take too much out of my time? Will someone give me work? And are there even magazines that pay its reviewers? I don't know... This one is giving me cramps. Any help, please?

I hope your year was, all in all, good and productive. That you learned a lot and are looking forward for more. I wish your holidays are full of love and great memories, and that next year will be even better, grander, and happier for all of us. Cheers IWSG!

About Hospitals and Ghosts

Many of you know I was Physician back in Mexico and that I stopped because I didn't want to miss my kids' childhood. I dedicated my time solely to my two girls for four years and once they were a bit more independent, I started this trip of becoming an author three years ago. Still, I spent most of my youth between the white walls of hospitals and I remember those years fondly. It all felt like an adventure to me. I mean, learning insurmountably big books was not, as it wasn't dealing with somebody else's pain. But there was a lot of fooling around, too, because when you are twenty and sleep-deprived, trapping your friends inside the morgue's freezer sounds like a great idea.

Anyway, when we weren't hiding around to scare one another, we were talking. Most of it was about boys, girls, or sex, but sometimes we would tell ghost stories we had heard. And sometimes ghost stories happened to us.

The way it worked in my school, every six months or so the university would put us in a different hospital. In each one, we would do a rotation through every service during the day, but we would only work the night shift in the services that were the period's main subject like OBGYN, Surgery, ER. You get my drift. This story happened when I was about half-way through my surgery rotation.

Now, hospitals are inherently creepy. People suffer and die in them, so there's never a shortage of scary stories among the staff. Besides, what can be more fun that scare the crap out of the new student, right? So, anyway. In this particular hospital rumor said Basement 1, where all the surgery rooms were located, was haunted. The identity of the ghost varied greatly from a patient who had died thanks to the incompetence of his doctor, to Death itself who came looking for the souls of the recently deceased patients (the morgue was in Basement 2, beneath the surgery floor).

And like idiots that we were, we wanted to see. So, one night that work was low we decided to go into one of the surgery rooms, sit there, and chat until something happened or morning came. Something happened alright, and it wasn't the morning.

I was sitting on a chair, my boyfriend at the time next to me, and on top of the surgical table were my best friend and her boyfriend. We had been sitting there for quite a while and the conversation drifted to the plans for a weekend getaway, so no ghosts were in our mind at this particular hour. My friends sitting on the table were facing the only entrance which was closed (it's impossible to keep a surgery room open because the swinging doors are designed to always close). Each of the folding doors had a square window on top through which they could see the empty hall. It was then that, out of the blue, a person passed by. He did not walk along the hallway toward our room but side to side. Only problem was, our room was the last one of the hall. To our sides were only walls.

Needless to say, my friends cried bloody murder and we all jumped to our feet, confused and scared. Then, to my left, the Mayo Table (an aluminum table used to set the surgical instruments) spun on its little plastic wheels with force.

We all yelled and I didn't stop running until I saw the night sky out of the ER. We talked about it many times, trying to find a logical explanation but there wasn't one. It couldn't have been a joke because no one could get to our room without being seen walking down the hall, because no one--living, that is--can walk through walls, and because none of us moved that table. It was one of the scariest things ever and the following three months I spent in that hospital, I avoided the surgical floor like the plague.

Funnily enough, two years ago I found a video taken in the same hospital where something similar happened a couple of students. In the video they are on the hallway, talking and making jokes. The boy filming with his phone is facing the doors to the last surgery room, where we were that night. I don't know the people in the video and I don't know if they faked it, but it resounds so much with my own experience that I decided to add it to the post. Hope you enjoy being scared =)

Have an awesome weekend!

Is Katniss Really Better Than Bella? Feminism in Present Day Literature

In order to know what is considered hip these days all you have to do is take a look at what the social media is blabbing about. There will be haters and lovers to everything under the sun but when a fad sweeps by, the loudest side will be the one to direct the sea of opinion. With the final Twilight movie, Breaking Dawn, setting box office record, the fad sweeping the entire country is hating the Twilight brand. All of it. Movies, books, author, actors, not a soul gets out unscathed by the masses brought together in their common disdain.

There are pictures in Facebook, reviews in Goodreads, and punch lines with pictures in Pinterest (some of them are quite funny, really). And though Twilight seems to be at the butt of every joke, a few would argue that the joke's really on the haters, since none of Meyer's, Lautner's, Patinson's, or Stewart's checks seem to be bouncing. All part of the Hollywood game. 

I tend to agree. You see, I'm a Twilight lover (the books, not the movies AT ALL) but, as a long time horror fanatic, I see why Edward Cullen’s sparkling, lean, lovin' machine has made every hardcore vampire lover retort in disgust. Then, there's Bella. The pathetically insecure teenager that can't help but fall for the broody vampire has faired even worse in the court of public opinion, taken the blunt of the hatred. And what is it about this character, you may ask, that has offended the delicate taste of the crowds? Well, Kristen Steward's uninspired acting (let's call it that) hasn't helped, and her clearly uncomfortable stance against the media does nothing for her either, but it goes deeper. In fact, the character--even the actress herself--has come to equate everything the Feminist Movement fights against.

Fast forward to the release of The Hunger Games movie. As always, the books were widely popular way before the movie broke out, but the simple knowledge that a movie was about to be made drove thousands of new fans to the saga and soon the inevitable happened. Katniss Everdeen and Bella Swan were at forefront of every discussion, not jokes anymore, but true symbols of what our youth is and admires. Katniss, whose prowess with a bow was a long shot from the whiny starstruck Bella, became her the antithesis and, therefore, the image that defines Feminism for the present generation.

Now, I have a bone to pick with this. I get why Bella is such a nightmare for many women. She is whinny, insecure, and unable to stand for herself. I’m an unapologetic fan of Meyer's books and even I wanted to choke her sometimes.

But let’s check Katniss’ character through The Hunger Games Saga: 

KATNISS	BELLA	SCORE
The sole provider of her family in a post-apocalyptic world where you need to fight for every morsel of food.	Regular teenager trying to find her place in the lives of her divorced parents.	Katniss starts strong and, though Bella’s problems are much more relatable for our teens, I’ll give this to Katniss.
Knows how to handle a weapon and isn’t afraid to do so.	Irremediably clumsy. She can’t play ball to safe her live and constantly injures herself.	Once more, point to Katniss.
Unknowingly, becomes the symbol of rebellion; yet, she fights hard to show the world she is, in fact, in favor of keeping the status quo.	She falls in love with a vampire and fights hard to become one herself.	Here Katniss’ character starts to fall through. When the stakes are raised, she proves to be a run-of-the-mill, insecure, scared teenager. Bella is improving, though very slowly, she has made clear she will get what she want, even if those closest to her don’t approve.
Completely uninterested in having a boyfriend, first because she doesn’t want to have a family in that messed up world, and second because she isn’t sure if she would pick her best friend or the boy who saved her life.	Bella, too, is torn between the love of two boys. Oh, but she’s into it. Even though she says she isn’t.	Teenage drama, plain and simple. Both the same, neither comes above.
When it becomes clear no one’s stopping the rebellion, she not only doesn’t embrace the movement, but lets everyone use her image the way they please and becomes a puppet in the power struggle that ensues.	When the powers that be threaten the safety of her family, she decides to fight against them, even if it means her life. In fact, she and her immortal family lead a rebellion against the oldest, more powerful vampire clan.	Katniss becomes a sad figure, broken and damaged beyond repair by the third book while Bella has found herself. I will give it to the Twilight haters, it is merely a few thousand words in a four book saga and hardly the theme. Then again, Twilight is a Paranormal Romance, THG is a Dystopian Adventure. So I say point for Bella…

Fact of the matter is Katniss spends half of the saga breaking to pieces and most of the third book literally hiding in a closet. I fail to see how this is any better than Bella’s obsession with her boyfriend.

The problem when talking about Feminism is that getting married and tending a home was the only career path available to us back in the days, hence its present bad rep. We look for specific traits in our females in order to select them as our new standard of ‘Girl Power’ like physical strength and open disdain (or disinterest) for men. Katniss is both, lethal and uninterested in boys, but is she truly the incarnation of empowerment? I don’t think so.

Let me tell you it was hard to come across a female character in modern literature that met my idea of Feminism, which is very sad and goes to show you why it is that our teen girls hold so hard to the few outstanding female characters they have available, however faulted these might be. But I finally found it: Hermione Granger.

Think for a moment. She is intelligent, determined, strong, and she might not be able to take a life with her magic wand, but she is powerful nonetheless. Her power comes not from magic, but from within. She is strong because she knows what she wants, what is good for her, where her weaknesses are, and she has a great moral compass. All these traits make her, in fact, a much better symbol of Feminism. A role model for our youth they can actually hope to become.

When we decide to bash a fictional character such as Bella Swan because of its interest in having a boyfriend, we are sending the message that worrying about boys is a sign of times past and a weakness. When we sing praises to characters like Katniss Everdeen for her physical strength we tell our teen girls that this one trait is so positive, it actually compensates the clear shortcomings the character shows in other areas.

Do you think I am being ridiculous? Giving way too much importance to fake and clearly fantastic novels? Well, yes! And therein lies our main trouble. We read too much between the lines. Teenage girls will worry about boys, that’s just how it is, very few of them are the actual providers of their household, and even fewer know how to shoot a gun, forget about a bow. Let’s not make the mistake of confusing physical prowess with strength of character. They like Bella? Sure, why not. Then, show them a book where the female character is worthy of being emulated and talk about it. That will take you a lot farther that trashing the latest fad. Communication is the ultimate way to empower our youth and help them travel the murky waters of adolescence and external influences. It is the final weapon that trumps even books and that’ll make of our kids true Feminists.

The Ring Series. Spiral Book Review

Some time ago I reviewed Koji Suzuki's novel The Ring, the first of a four book series immortalized by the movies. I won't go into much detail about the first book, so you may want to follow that link if you're interested in the whole series. I'll just say I loved the book and reading it was a much more fulfilling experience than watching the movies. And that the ending has a twist you will never see coming. I double dare you. If you manage to tell me Sadako's secret, say, by page 220--out of 286 because I'm generous like that--I'm buying you any book you want. And that's a deal.

Now, back to the review. The Ring Series are different from most series in that they don't have many of the same characters from book to book; it also moves between genres, slowly going from horror in book one, to Sci-fi in book three.

In SPIRAL, book two in the series, Sadako is an important piece of the story, of course, but that's pretty much it. The rest of the characters are new. Time-wise, SPIRAL starts right after RING finished. It follows Mitsuo Ando, a man who lost his kid in a drowning accident and whose life has become unhinged as a consequence. Unable to cope with his loss, he hides behind his work as a Coroner. That's when he's faced with the corpse of his previous nemesis Ryuji Takayama, the professor who helped solve the mystery of the tape in book one. The mysterious circumstances of the professor's death intrigue him, and guided by what seems to be Ryuji's ghostly presence, Ando will find himself facing a horrific reality that threatens the future of mankind.

Suzuki's talent for setting the mood, creep you out of your sleep, and crazy-imaginative storytelling are evident once more. The characters grab you from the first page and make you feel their pain, flaws, and their terror as it becomes clear to them that the monster has just begun exerting her vengeance. Once you finish the book and think about it, you realize just how far the author has gone from the original premise and how deep he is getting into craziness. You can also call it Sci-fi, if you want to legitimize it. Truth is, many will find the story in this second book too far fetched and might hate it, but if you are tired of vampires, zombies, werewolves, and witches; if you are looking for out of the ordinary stories, then you can't miss SPIRAL.

If you ask me, I did like it. I thought Suzuki did an amazing job changing everything he made classic with RING and spinning a new different tale from it. I can't stress enough how neither of the subsequent books to Ring have anything in common with the movies. Not even with the japanese ones. SPIRAL will shock you once more and leave you with a very uneasy feeling under your skin.

Soon to come to this blog, a review of LOOP, book three of The Ring Series.