Hollow Hills Presents: Raining Cats and Dogs

 

Raining Cats and Dogs is a collection of fantasy short stories and poetry that feature an animal as a main character. Stories may be dark and full of strife but a happy ending is always in sight! Lovers of pets or animals in general will enjoy these fantasy tales.

All proceeds for this anthology will benefit Good Old Tails Senior Animal Rescue based in Hanover, PA, USA. This non-profit helps save the lives of older pets by finding them homes.

"Tales of the Siblings Not-So-Grim" from Hollow Hills

BOOK TITLE: Tales of the Siblings Not-So-Grim

AUTHORS: Aurora Styles, Marie Krepps, David Quesenberry, Jennifer Quail, Larry Fort, and Jacob Mahurien

YEAR: 2019

GENRE: Fictional Short Stories and Poetry

SUBGENRE: Sci-Fi/Fantasy Anthology

GRADE: Pass

Choosing favorite stories and poems from this anthology wasn’t an easy task. Everybody who was fortunate enough to be published in this book deserved to be there. There’s no such thing as choosing a least favorite, because that option doesn’t exist. Sure, there are a few noticeable typos here and there such as misplaced quotation marks and paragraphs without indentations, but it’s not enough to keep this reading experience from being enjoyable. And yes, your heart will break many times even though the title has the words “not-so-grim” at the end, but it’s a welcome heartbreak that’s a sign of well-written literature. I encourage all of my fantasy-loving audience members to buy a copy and read it from cover to cover. It’s a decision you can’t regret no matter how stubborn you might be.

While choosing favorites from this collection wasn’t easy, it could be done. One of them is Larry Fort’s contribution, a science fiction short story called “Eigenlicht”. One of the protagonists, a punk rock intellectual named Stephen Langer, resonated with me more than any other character. He rebels against society without fully contemplating the consequences of his actions. He feels with some justice that he’s disenfranchised from his peers and that he’ll never earn the respect he desires. The more he listens to the schizophrenic demons in his head, the more he becomes seduced by his darker urges. Ouroboros, the dark matter being that transcends space and time, is the one planting these ideas in his head. Will Stephen snap out of it long enough to see the good in the world again? That’s a question that can only be answered by reading through this beautifully-written piece of prose. You don’t even have to agree with Stephen all the time to relate to him in some way. That is the nature of flawed three-dimensional characters, after all.

Yet another favorite story in this anthology is Marie Krepps’ contribution entitled “The Blacksmith’s Quest”. When you see Blacksmith and Mara take on the world together, you’ll root for them to finally make their relationship official. It’s a slow burn with many ups and downs. Blacksmith can’t forgive himself for his violent rage when he’s protecting others. Mara can’t forgive herself for not seeing through her former master’s lies. There’s a vast difference between two characters completing each other and complimenting each other. Completing each other means becoming codependent. But that’s not how Blacksmith and Mara’s friendship works. Though vastly different in skill sets, they see each other as equals. They save each other’s lives not just physically, but also emotionally. They can do all of this while finding their own places in the world. This is what a healthy, strong relationship looks like. Will it become official? We can only hope and pray. And when you do pray for this to happen, make sure the villainous Priest isn’t holding a knife to your back. Seriously, that guy is worse than a Catholic pedophile.

If you’re looking for something awesome and imaginative to read, look no further than Tales of the Siblings Not-So-Grim. Hollow Hills, the book’s parent company, is notorious for pumping out lovable pieces of fiction. The CEO’s know exactly what they want in their characters and won’t settle for anything less than three-dimensional people. We’re all human beings with our own flaws, strengths, interests, and opinions. Then again, so are the characters in this book and every other Hollow Hills book out there. A passing grade will go to this collection! Hooray!

Beautiful Monster Announcement

***BEAUTIFUL MONSTER ANNOUNCEMENT***

Good evening, everybody. I hope things are going well for you all. I only have one more chapter of Incelbordination left to write and then it’s on to new horizons. I’ve been deliberately putting off writing these chapters because I needed something to submit to the WSS every week. I know joining the WSS contests isn’t a requirement, but I still want to play a huge role in the group that changed my life in so many ways. Once Incelbordination is over, I’ll need a new project. For the public eye, that project will be unofficial additions to Poison Tongue Tales 2, my collection of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror short stories.

The third draft of Beautiful Monster, on the other hand, will have to be written privately. I have aspirations of publishing this novel through Hollow Hills Books, LLC, the company owned by my wonderful beta reader Marie Krepps and her longtime business partner Aurora Styles. Part of the conditions for publishing with them is that I can’t publish it anywhere else and that includes social media. They’re a business and they have to make money somehow, so I understand that. I don’t begrudge them for that and neither should any of you. Publishing with Hollow Hills will be a good move for me since they’re better at marketing books than I am. They also do formatting, book covers, and of course, critiquing and editing.

Though I can’t post any of the new chapters on social media, I can let you all know what some of the changes are going to be. For starters, Tarja Rikkinen and Windham Xavier’s relationship will be mostly platonic and any romantic movements will be slow and steady. This means Tarja will actually respect Windham’s personal boundaries instead of prodding him with nosy questions and trying to seduce him into doing something he doesn’t want to do.

Another change is that Windham won’t be a loose cannon at any point in the story. On the contrary, he will never raise his voice when he speaks even during angry moments, which makes him more intimidating to fight against, actually. He’s also going to refrain from swearing unless he’s quoting other people. When the one moment happens where he yells and swears, it’ll be special to read about and it won’t seem forced.

Names will also be changed. Instead of being called Michelle Xavier (a plain and boring first name), Windham’s queen sister will be called Llewellyn. Instead of Paladin Cross (an honorable and righteous name), the mercenary outfit that employs Windham and Tarja will be called Shadow Asylum. Instead of being a nameless city, Shadow Asylum’s headquarters will be located in an urban sprawl called Morgan Town. Instead of being a nameless client, Orpheus will be employed by a gigantic king named Lars Stonewall, who despises Shelly Atwood for her sex trafficking business.

That’s another thing that needs to change: the evil characters need reasons for being evil. For Shelly’s sex trafficking and Orpheus’s mercenary guild, it’s not personal, it’s business. Money talks, bullshit walks. Profits before people. Ninety percent of the wealth is in ten percent of the population. Who cares if it disenfranchises the poor? While some people might find this mindset to be agreeable, I don’t. Income inequality brought on by shady business practices is one of my berserk buttons.

Instead of just twenty chapters, the new version of Beautiful Monster will have twenty-eight, counting a prologue and epilogue to bookend those chapters. This means there will be more action and less easy victories for the heroes, now that I have more space to work with. This also means there will be more room for back-stories, subplots, and hobbies for characters to enjoy. Everything happens for a reason and those reasons will be made clear in this new version.

Instead of wearing trench coats and heavy armor, Shadow Asylum members will wear red tunics with the company’s logo on the chest and black baggy pants. Trench coats can be yanked on during combat and can give an opponent an easy advantage. Heavy armor will weigh the mercenaries down when they try to get a cheap shot in on their foes.

Instead of psychedelic mushrooms that make him act like a loony toon, Windham will consume medicinal leaves to calm his mind down. These leaves are the medieval equivalent of Xanax in the modern world. I was going to have Windham undergo EMDR as a supplement to eating leaves, but that wouldn’t exist in medieval times (even with the liberties I plan on taking).

Last but not least, everybody will have unique speech patterns instead of screaming and cursing at everything. I’ve already mentioned that Windham won’t raise his voice or swear and the same will be said for Llewellyn. Kody and Christian Savage won’t even have dialogue; they’ll just grunt and make animal sounds, which makes them even creepier than they originally were. Orpheus Rinehart will still talk like a medieval version of Alex Jones. Shelly Atwood will still speak like a high class lady in her seductive tone. Am I leaving anybody out?

If you want to get an early start on Beautiful Monster, be sure to pick up a copy of the Still Standing anthology by Hollow Hills when it comes out on December 14^th. The anthology includes a prequel to Beautiful Monster called Savage Beatings, a story that chronicles Windham’s early days in Shadow Asylum. The other stories in that anthology are awesome to read as well, including works by Marie Krepps, Aurora Styles, Larry Fort (psychology major), and David Quesenberry (poet). One hundred percent of the proceeds will be donated to the Crisis Text Line, which is appropriate considering the theme of the book is anti-bullying phenomena. The combination of the worthy cause and lovable reads make Still Standing a must-buy for the holiday season (and every season after that).

I’m Garrison Kelly! Even when you feel like dying, keep climbing the mountain!

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“I’ve been cast out, sequestered, and pushed the fuck around. Blindsided, beaten, locked up, and bound. Always thought I was human, but maybe I was wrong. Been treated like an animal since the day I was born. The wounds that I wear are like a crown upon a king. So heavy they lie with all the pain that they bring. My life is full of longing, but for what I’ll never know. I’ve been drawn into the fire as I reap what I sow. The ruler of a kingdom that ends up the pawn. So tired of thinking of where it all went wrong. Friendships, they come and go and sometimes they end. Wouldn’t dream in a million years that this would be one of them. Faith in the life, belief in the end. Failure’s not an option, but the options exist. I gave up on everything; I gave ‘til I bleed. Take it all, take everything, just take it from me! You’re pushing me, I’m pushing back. Falling down my heart attacks. Compassion is lost. No more hope, no more trust. I tore it down and burned it up. All faith is gone. Respect. Devotion. Dead. Disgust. Hate. Lies. I’m not a hero or a villain. Not a god, I’m just a man. Staring through the hourglass and the footprints in the sand. I’m stripping off my armor. My battles here are done. Wave my white flag to surrender and fly into the sun. Like a moth to a flame, my wings burn away. When things are too beautiful, I smash them to pieces. The more that you love me, insecurity releases. I’ll be the one that’s to blame. So I’ll sell my soul to blaze like a moth to a flame.”

-Hellyeah singing “Moth”-

Hollow Hills Presents: Still Standing

***HOLLOW HILLS PRESENTS: STILL STANDING***

Bullying comes in many forms. It could be an immature insult. It could be a punch to the face. It could be a lifetime of negative messages. It could be an all-out sexual assault. The pain a victim feels from bullying has lasting psychological repercussions and in many cases has led to suicide. I know this because I too was bullied once upon a time. In other words, you’re not alone. In fact, nobody should have to face this horrible social crisis alone. And thus, we have the anthology known as Still Standing. Four short stories and one poem where the victims become the conquerors. They will go through pain, torture, and torment, but will always come out the other end empowered and emboldened. If you want to read about relatable characters who will always be there for you, grab a copy of this book when it’s released to the public on December 14^th, 2018. All profits from the anthology’s sales will be donated to the Crisis Text Line.

Good Reads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41969929-still-standing

Hollow Hills Author Bios: https://www.hollowhillsbooks.com/meet-our-authors

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“My friends are so depressed. I feel the question of your loneliness. Confide, ‘cause I’ll be on your side. You know I will. Ex-girlfriend called me up, alone and desperate on the prison phone. They want to give her seven years for being sad. My friends are so distressed and standing on the brink of emptiness. No words I know of to express this emptiness. Imagine me taught by tragedy. Release is peace. I heard a little girl and what she said was something beautiful. To give your love no matter what is what she said. I love all of you. Hurt by the cold. So hard and lonely too when you don’t know yourself.”

-Red Hot Chili Peppers singing “My Friends”-