That Which Grows Wild by Eric J. Guignard Book Tour and Giveaway :)
That
Which Grows Wild
by
Eric J. Guignard
Genre:
Dark Fantasy, Short Stories
That
Which Grows Wild collects sixteen dark and masterful short stories by
award-winning author Eric J. Guignard. Equal parts whimsy and weird,
horror and heartbreak, this debut collection traverses the darker
side of the fantastic through vibrant and harrowing tales that depict
monsters and regrets, hope and atonement, and the oddly changing
reflection that turns back at you in the mirror.
Discover
why Eric J. Guignard has earned praise from masters of the craft such
as Ramsey Campbell (“Guignard gives voice to paranoid vision that’s
all too believable.”), Rick Hautala (“No other young horror
author is better, I think, than Eric J. Guignard.”), and Nancy
Holder ( “The defining new voice of horror has arrived, and I stand
in awe.”)
Stories
include:
• “A
Case Study in Natural Selection and How It Applies to Love” - a
teen experiences romance, while the world slowly dies from rising
temperatures and increasing cases of spontaneous combustion.
•
“Dreams
of a Little Suicide” - a down-on-his-luck actor unexpectedly finds
his dreams and love in Hollywood playing a munchkin during filming of
The Wizard of Oz, but soon those dreams begin to darken.
•
“The
Inveterate Establishment of Daddano & Co.” - an aged undertaker
tells the true story behind the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, and
of the grime that accumulates beneath our floors.
•
“A
Journey of Great Waves” - a Japanese girl encounters, years later,
the ocean-borne debris of her tsunami-ravaged homeland, and the
ghosts that come with it.
•
“The
House of the Rising Sun, Forever” - a tragic voice gives dire
warning against the cycle of opium addiction from which, even after
death, there is no escape.
•
“Last
Days of the Gunslinger, John Amos” - a gunfighter keeps a decimated
town’s surviving children safe on a mountaintop from the incursion
of ferocious creatures… until a flash flood strikes.
Explore
within, and discover a wild range upon which grows the dark, the
strange, and the profound.
LAST NIGHT, THE MOON TURNED FULL.
Last night, the world stopped turning. Last night, the cosmos froze, like the
slow-moving cogs of an ancient clock that finally grind down. Perhaps
the great horologist of the universe simply forgot to rewind the
mechanism of its gears. Perhaps he will appear at any moment to lift
the stop lever and turn back its counter wheel. Perhaps he has
decided the clock is broken and not worth his patience to tinker with
any longer. The earth hangs motionless now, peering
to the sun from one face which, presumably, must begin to burn. Is
the other side of the planet in flames or is it simply cooking like a
slow-roast oven? I cower in North Vancouver, across the Burrard Inlet
and, here, it is only night. My own watch has outlasted the mechanism
of the universe and ticks away, telling me it’s three in the
afternoon. The sky shows otherwise, black and interrupted by a soft
moon which rests high above like a pool of cream. The temperature had fortunately been
warm, golden months of Canadian summer that were just beginning to
fade into autumn’s auburn embrace. But I feel it cooling already.
The red mercury on my thermometer outdoors drops steadily—forty-eight
degrees and slowly sinking. The electricity is still on to generate
heat but, once that goes out, there will remain nothing to warm this
part of land relegated to nocturnal shadows. Lest that great
horologist return, I can only image the arctic wasteland all of Vancouver will soon become. If the sinking cold were not grim
enough, the howl of werewolves chills me even more. It’s true they exist, but they’ve
been of little consequence. One night a month, they transformed and
ran wild through the piney wilderness above Lion’s Bay. Their
victims were homeless vagrants found sleeping in ravines or drunken
hunters, piss-proud they killed a rabbit with a shotgun. Poetic
justice, if you ask me, and their deaths unmourned. We all knew of
the creatures and simply stayed home those nights with doors locked
and shutters bolted. The werewolves were people of the town,
members of families with long-standing roots to the indigenous men
and women who first settled this country. When the time of month
came, they did their business elsewhere, and we let
them be. Now, however, the moon does not fall.
It no longer cycles the earth, while the earth no longer cycles the
sun. That beguiling orb in the sky has petrified and casts its
strange call permanently over mortals who would transform into
howling beasts: those mortals who will never be mortal again. As the
cosmos are stuck in their current alignment, so too are the creatures
stuck in their transformation. The moon may stay full on this part of
land for the remainder of eternity, and the wolf-men will run wild. LAST WEEK, the moon turned full. Last week, the world stopped turning. Last week, time fell meaningless as
calculations based on the rotation of the planet ceased. My watch
ticks onward, the quartz crystal in its center vibrating at a steady
frequency to tell me the hours, the days that have passed. It matters
not for, outside, it is still midnight . . . always midnight. I look out the window and see the dark
ocean far away, its surface illuminated by the moon’s reflection.
Burrard Inlet is motionless, flat as a sheet of glass. There are no
tides to pull the waves in or out, motions I once let myself be
hypnotized by, dreaming upon their quiet, steady roar. Little moves
outside, except for glimpses of fleeting shadows that dart across the
hills—shadows that quickly melt into darkness and, once they are
gone, cause me to wonder if they were ever there to begin with. The werewolves have grown bold. In the
past they relegated themselves to the wilderness, but now they roam
the city. Their number is multiplying. I hear howling often, and
screams too, but can never tell where the sound comes from as it
echoes in the cold, still night air. I have gone outside my house only twice
since the world stopped moving.
Eric J. Guignard is a writer and editor of dark and speculative fiction, operating from the shadowy outskirts of Los Angeles. He's won the Bram Stoker Award, been a finalist for the International Thriller Writers Award, and a multi-nominee of the Pushcart Prize. His stories and non-fiction have appeared in over one hundred genre and literary publications such as "Nightmare Magazine," "Black Static," "Shock Totem," "Buzzy Magazine," and "Dark Discoveries Magazine." Outside the glamorous and jet-setting world of indie fiction, Eric's a technical writer and college professor, and he stumbles home each day to a wife, children, cats, and a terrarium filled with mischievous beetles.
Tell us a bit about yourself?
I’m a writer and editor of dark and
speculative fiction, operating from the shadowy outskirts of Los
Angeles, where I also run the small press, Dark Moon Books. By day
job, I’m a technical writer and college professor, and before that
I worked in mortgage banking. I’m married, with a young son and
daughter. Plus I’ve a dog, cats, desert tortoise, and a terrarium
filled with mischievous beetles. I’ve survived 42 years on this
Earth, although I feel half that age mentally. I’ve travelled quite
a bit, but I’ve lived in the same 25-mile radius in Southern
California my entire life. I’m a pretty normal suburban White dude
(third-generation Swiss-American), mostly passive, mostly
introverted, pretty easy-going. I can jump rope all day long. I
founded a hackysack club, that’s long gone under. My wife and I
grew up together. I feel more comfortable in a dive bar than a fancy
club. Outside other life responsibilities, I enjoy hiking and I study
entomology (insects) and genealogy (family history); I woodwork in my
garage; model miniatures; and read, read, read!
What was the inspiration for this
collection?
The book is a collection (my first!) of
previously published works, the stories having first appeared in
various anthologies, magazines, etc. Each story in itself had its own
inspiration or aim, so the collection is more about which stories
would work well together in a grouping. I worked with editor Norman
Prentiss at Cemetery Dance to select ones that showed a range, but at
the same time weren’t too far “out of the box”. Originally I
had some other choices that were more “weird” or satire or dark,
and Norm suggested switching out those to ones a bit more in the same
mood, so voilà, the finished product, which I’m happy with!
Story ideas and inspirations come,
literally and figuratively, from everywhere: Dreams (both night and
day), global news and current affairs, conversations with people,
personal observations of the world, and playing the “What If?”
game.
General inspirations for my creative
works also stem from The Twilight Zone television show, comic books,
and authors such as Cormac McCarthy, George Orwell, Dan Simmons,
Seanan McGuire, Joe R. Lansdale, Neil Gaiman, and many, many others.
Follow
the tour HERE
for exclusive excerpts, guest posts and a giveaway!
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