Gord Rollo's Blog, page 4

For years now I’ve been considering releasing a collection of my best short fiction but never made it around to actually doing it. Well, the time has finally come. Trouble is, once I started looking I found I had a lot more stories that I loved than could be easily narrowed down to just one book. Why bother then? I’ve decided there’s no reason to only have one collection so over the next few months I will be publishing three volumes of my best short stories.

Gods & Monsters collects my best religious based horror fiction including my personal favorite short story I’ve ever written. If you’re a fan of short stories, you won’t want to miss out on this book. I’ve even included story notes for each tale, just because I love story notes. Hopefully you do too.



Here’s a little more about the collection:

Gods & Monsters: Short Fiction Collection Vol. 1

Since storytellers first put pen to paper, religious dogma and spiritual beliefs have always played key roles in the various genres of dark fiction. Humanity’s obsession with mortality and what might or might not happen after our inevitable deaths has long been tantalizing fodder for authors and dreamers alike.

REGARDLESS OF OUR FAITH, EVERYONE FEARS DEATH…

Now collected together for the first time ever, acclaimed horror and fantasy author Gord Rollo shares his own dark visions about the cruel gods and vicious monsters that wander his imagination and keep him awake at night. Grab your bible, your crucifix, your holy water, and whatever else makes you feel comforted and safe – you just might need them. Within this volume you’ll find stories of shattered faith, drowned hopes, haunted spirits, fallen angels, and the paralyzing fear of the unknown abyss that awaits us all after we’ve taken our final breath…

Special content: This collection includes Story Notes on each individual story from the author as well as an Introduction.

Gods & Monsters features the following short stories:

– Divine Intervention

– Chamber of the Gods (Co-written with Brett Savory)

– Chopper’s Hands

– Love; In Pieces

– Breath of an Angel/Touch of the Devil (Co-written with Gene O’Neill)

– The Last Straw

– Moving Pictures

– The Face of an Unlikely God

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Back by popular demand, my most popular novel to date, and one of the more extreme story ideas I’ve ever written about. Jigsaw is about a homeless man who decides to sell a body part in the hope he can finally turn his life around. Long story short… it’s not going to happen!

Available in ebook and trade paperback versions and you won’t have to sell an arm or a leg to get hold of a copy. All you have to do is order one. Or better yet, two!

Here’s a little more about the book:

The Jigsaw Man

A BROKEN MAN DOWN ON HIS LUCK…

Michael Fox is a homeless man living in a garbage dumpster beneath the Carver Street Bridge in Buffalo, NY. He’s bitterly depressed and ready to commit suicide; anything to put an end to his miserable existence.

AN OFFER TOO GOOD TO REFUSE…

When a mysterious billionaire surgeon offers Michael two million dollars for his right arm, he thinks his luck might be about to change. Little does he know that the surgeon has other plans for him. His arm is only the beginning. Bit by bit other pieces of Michael’s body are surgically removed; his natural body stripped away and then reassembled using other harvested parts from thirteen different ‘donors’.

A MODERN DAY FRANKENSTEIN…

Now Fox isn’t sure if he’s a man or a monster, or whether or not he’d be better off dead. One thing he is sure of though, he’s not checking out of this world until he finds a way to make the people responsible pay for turning him into the experimental nightmare known as… The Jigsaw Man.

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Some stories take a while to make it to paper (or ebook, as the case may be). Some ideas need to roll around in my head for a while until I can figure out what to do with them. Crowley’s Window was one of those ideas. For years I had this image in my head about a blind fortune teller who could actually see out of the tattoos she’d had inked on the palm of each hand. Trouble was, I didn’t have the story to go along with the image, so the fortune teller sat waiting for me to let her loose on the world.

And now I have…

Crowley’s Window is an occult/supernatural/police procedural novella that is available in ebook as well as trade paperback formats. Go grab yourself a copy today!



Here’s a little more about the book:

Crowley’s Window

Abby Hawkins was never normal. Born with a birth cowl—a rare birth defect thought to predict psychic abilities—she is haunted by horrible visions. Shortly after her 13th birthday, Abby’s parents call in the mysterious Crowley to help their daughter. His interventions rid her of the visions…and her eyes. Now a beautiful young lady, Abby Hawkins works as a blind fortune teller in a traveling Carnival. When she receives a powerful vision—one depicting the abduction of a little girl—she becomes the sole witness to the crime. Only a young police officer believes her bizarre story, and with his help she embarks upon an investigation that will ultimately reunite her with the madman from her past and bring her to the hellish threshold of Crowley’s Window.

“Rollo is the best new horror writer I have come across in years. If he continues to horrify us with his brutal and amazing tales of the macabre, then I believe we have a new master of horror on the rise.” –The Horror Review

-“[Strange Magic has] scares aplenty and a couple twists and turns you will not see coming.” –Peter Schwotzer (Famous Monsters Of Filmland)

“…will make the reader cringe and his flesh crawl right off his scalp.” – Dread Central

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The Dark Side of Heaven is a dark fantasy/horror novella that I was commissioned to write as part of a military horror novella collection to be called BEHIND ENEMY LINES. The book is still in production but it will include novellas from myself, Gene O’Neill, Michael McBride, and Weston Ochse. In the meantime, I’ve released my novella (as has Gene and Michael) and it is ready for you to read now.



Here’s a little more about the book:

The Dark Side of Heaven

War can do terrible things to the hearts and minds of even the best of men, but for U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Tyrone Banks the senseless deaths and unnecessary violence in Vietnam have beaten him down and smothered the compassion and good that was once inside of him. Grief stricken and suicidal; the extreme guilt over the awful things he’s done pushes the young Marine beyond his breaking point until death feels like his only remaining option.

Rather than eating a bullet, Tyrone volunteers for Tunnel Rat duty hoping to finally find release but instead of his carefully planned honorable death, what the Marine finds down in the dark is a backdoor to Purgatory, a secret entrance into the afterlife where he’ll get one last chance to right all the terrible wrongs that constantly haunt him. It won’t be easy, though. Nothing worthwhile ever is. If Tyrone thought the things lurking in the jungle of Vietnam were bad, what’s waiting for him on the dark side of Heaven is worse.

Much, much worse…

“The beginning of [The Dark Side of Heaven] made me sweat and shake, I had to put it down for a few minutes to catch my breath. I am claustrophobic, and once you read it you will understand what I am talking about.” – Peter Schwotzer (Famous Monsters Of Filmland)

“Gord Rollo is a writer of amazing–and dark–talent. Guaranteed to keep you turning the pages!” – Brian Keene

“If this is what we can expect from Rollo – the future of Canadian horror is in great hands.” – Pat Dreadful (Dreadful Tales)

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Just wanted to post about my recent book release. This novel, which is a homage to all the great slasher/monster movies I grew up loving in the late 1970′s and 1980′s. We all watched and loved Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and Pinhead, but it’s been a long time since the world had a new creepy monster/killer to sink their teeth into (or is it the other way around???) Anyway, I’ve always had a love/fear of scarecrows and have enjoyed reading or watching films about them, regardless of how cheesy they sometimes were. I wanted to write my own version, my own slasher movie if you will, and the novel got tied up in the Dorchester Publishing closure and never seen the light of day other than a handful of copies. Here now, ready to drag you into the tall, thick, blood-smeared rows of corn, Reverend Joshua Miller is back in all his gory glory for you to enjoy. Run away while you still can, dear reader. The midnight hour comes…

Valley of the Scarecrow

During the great depression, a small backwoods community in Iowa face even more difficult times than most, having to endure the slowly fading sanity of their leader, Reverend Joshua Miller. When it is clear the man has slipped beyond the edge of reason and perhaps signed a deal with the devil, the citizens unite to stop him any way they can, breaking into the church to lash the reverend to his wooden alter cross then boarding up the windows and doors to leave him to fate and God’s judgment. The people of Oak Valley then abandoned their town to the cornfields and woods; ending the madness for what they hoped was forever.

They were wrong!

Seventy-four years later, the corn and trees have taken back the area and not much is left of the once thriving little community but Joshua Miller’s desecrated church still stands, and within its boarded up and sun-baked walls something that used to be a holy man waits for whoever is unfortunate enough to release him from his cross…

THE SCARECROW WILL WALK AT MIDNIGHT

“[Valley of the Scarecrow] is fun and depraved while moving at an unrelenting pace.” – Pat Dreadful (Dreadful Tales)

“This is a book that just proves Gord Rollo is a horror master that is flying under the radar. I give [Rollo] credit once again for bringing us into another nightmare and taking us on one hell of a wild ride.” – Horror Bob (Horror Review)

“You just can’t escape it: old school horror leaves you knowing what is about to happen, but you still MUST turn that page!”  – CK Webb (Horror The Deepening)

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Hi folks,

Things are heating up and starting to get exciting. I’m just about ready to start relaunching my novels and novella through a great small press called EnemyOne, which is owned and run by a highly talented friend of mine named Adam Geen. If all goes well, we will be releasing nine titles in the next three or four months before Christmas. Most will be available in both print and ebook versions and I’ll keep you posted as things progress.

The plan as it stands, is to release the books in three waves of three titles, and will include all four of my Leisure Books novels, three novellas, and two story collections. I may juggle the order of release around a bit but the first wave of books is set to launch and will include new versions of:

1. THE DARK SIDE OF HEAVEN (novella)

2. CROWLEY’S WINDOW (novella)

3. VALLEY OF THE SCARECROW (novel)

If you are interested, I’ll be setting up a mailing list here on my website soon to keep track of things easier as well as give me a place to have contests and giveaways. I’ll post on here when that is ready to go. In the meantime, you should also pop over to the EnemyOne page on Facebook and LIKE it as well. They’ll be releasing lots of other great stuff soon.

You can find it here: EnemyOne Facebook Page

If you’re on Twitter or Pinterest, they’ve got you covered too! You can find them here: Twitter | Pinterest

Really looking forward to getting back into the game with these new releases, folks. Here’s hoping you support me and stick around for the ride…

Cheers!

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I have a lot of things I’d like to talk about and say on my new site in the days and months to come, but before we move on to the future I think it might be a decent idea to take a quick trip into the past. I won’t bore you with too much here, but this blog/website is all about my writing career and I think the events of the last few years deserve a recap.

I’ve been writing for a long time now – hell, since I was about seven years old – but I never got serious about writing as a potential career until about 1992. I’d been working on lots of short stories, a play, a few bad movie scripts, and some other forgettable stuff, but when I was in the middle of writing what would eventually become my novel CRIMSON something seemed to click for me. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but somewhere in that novel I began to believe I was going to be a REAL writer. We can debate all day about what becoming REAL means, but for me it was an honest belief in my abilities and the drive to pursuit this dream to the bitter end.

Well, that end nearly came last year. I’d worked hard – really hard – to improve my writing to the point where I’d finally had 4 novels published by a major New York publisher and there was talk of movie deals and foreign translations and all sorts of other fabulous things. I wasn’t making big bucks or being sent on lavish book tours around the world but for the most part I was satisfied with my progress and still had that dream burning within me that things were going to keep steadily building and the best was yet to come.

We all know what happened with Dorchester Publishing and Leisure Books so I’ll spare you those sad details, but I will say I don’t really harbor any bad feelings toward anyone there. Yes, I was screwed out of money that was owed to me but that can really only be blamed on the corporate black hole that swallowed everyone’s royalties. Don D’Auria (my editor at Leisure Books) was and still is fantastic to me and I have nothing but respect and admiration for everything he did building such a great line-up of top notch talent. I didn’t have a lot of contact with many of the other employees but in the end they were all just doing their job and none of them can be blamed for what ultimately happened. It’s just business. Ebooks rose up out of nowhere and bit Dorchester on the ass. They weren’t the only ones and they won’t be the last, but they weren’t prepared or set up to deal with this strong new publishing force of nature and they couldn’t survive. For me, I was admittedly only a small cog in the big wheel of New York publishing but I am extremely proud to have been published beside the ranks of such notable authors as Ramsey Campbell, Tom Piccirilli, Brian Keene, Michael Laimo, Ed Lee, John Skipp, Jeff Strand, Sephera Giron, Tim Lebbon, John Everson, Wrath James White, Richard Laymon, and so many wonderful others.

But as they say, that was yesterday. What happens now? I’ll be honest here, for a time I thought about packing it all in. It wasn’t that I didn’t still love writing or that I wasn’t happy with the many fine people I’ve worked with in the small press because that simply wasn’t true. Guys like Joe Morey at Dark Regions Press, Roy Robbins at Bad Moon Books, and Tom Moran at Sideshow Press have been (and hopefully will continue to be) great to me. Better than great, actually, and I’m honored and blessed to be published by them. My decision to stop writing had more to do with my dream dying a little. Dying a lot, I guess. Maybe it’s just writers my age (I’m 44 btw) but I grew up dreaming of seeing my books in the big bookstores alongside Stephen King and Dean Koontz; not some tiny thumbnail picture on Amazon.com. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an ebook hater and I’m not so much of a dinosaur as to not see how powerful and important e-publishing is for authors and their careers. Without a doubt, ebooks are the future and a decent writer can make a lot of money in this new day and age. It’s just not the same dream I grew up with – if that makes any sense. So for a while I wallowed in self pity and hardly wrote a word but writers are writers for a reason – it’s in us to create things and damned if I could let that part of me die.

So I didn’t. It has honestly been hard for me to get back up on the horse but I’ve done it. In the last year I’ve finished a new novel I’d been working on (it’s called THE TRANSLATOR -but I’ll give you more on that later) and I’ve finished a novella (THE DARK SIDE OF HEAVEN) that was released at this years World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City. I’m currently working on a new novella and a brand new novel too so I have lot of things to keep the fires burning for a while. I have no idea if I will ever get another New York publishing deal or whether I will be diving head first into the deep end of the ebook pool. In a perfect world I’ll get to do both, but for now all I can do is go back to the beginning and write for the sheer love and joy it brings me, because it does. Nothing in the world makes me feel as good as sitting at my computer when that vague story idea suddenly comes together and I know – I just KNOW – where the story is headed. It’s a thrill I never want to stop having.

So onward and upward, I guess. I have no idea what lies ahead career-wise but what the hell, I’ll figure it out as I go.

Cheers!

Gord

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Hi Folks,

Nothing much to see here yet, but we’re working on it. The above picture is of my friend, mentor, and all around trouble-maker Gene O’Neill and I taken in a hotel bar a few years back in Hollywood, California. The only reason it is here is because I’m trying to see if I can learn how to upload a picture on my new site. I like to consider myself a decent writer but one thing I am definitely NOT is a good web designer. To be brutally honest I’m hopeless at it, but with the help of my friend and colleague, Adam Geen, we’re slowly putting my new site together and I hope you check back often to see how things are progressing.

I’ve got a lot of things I want to talk about and share with everyone but for tonight I’m just doing a little test drive to see if I can actually post something on here myself without screwing it up. If all goes well, I’ll be back soon with more interesting things to say. Promise:)

Cheers,

Gord

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