Recent content by AlexanderZPain

I've recently started a serial short story called "The Road Trip" that will be appearing on my blog Sundays and Wednesdays for the next couple of weeks. Its a zombie apocalypse story inspired by country folks that I've met over the years. Everyone is invited to come read and enjoy the trip. I...

I just finished reading the third short story in "Men without Women." It's called "Hills Like White Elephants" and it takes Hemingway's approach to leaving things unsaid to the extreme. It's about a conversation between a couple (a man and a woman) waiting for a train. My take was that the...

I like Empire: Four Kingdoms on my phone.

What do you guys think about gore in horror books? I write zombie books, but I try not to overdo it on the bloody details. To me, a few details suffice to get the point across. It's hard to quantify, but what do you guys think? How much do you expect in the genre?

I just finished S.P. Brown's YA fantasy novel, Fallen Wizard. It's an interesting jaunt into a fantasy world that starts when a wizard falls from the sky into the front yard of 12-year-old little league baseball player Peter Michaels. I found it to be an engaging story that was written with a...

For everyone who writes or aspires to write, I've set up a blogspot site dedicated to providing writing prompts. It's called Prompt Place (https://www.promptplace.com). It's been going for about a year now so there are plenty of prompts to explore. I hope that visitors find it a good place to...

Wow! You have a lot of titles out there, great cover art, and much more experience writing books than me. I usually prefer the simpler writing styles of authors like Kurt Vonnegut, Ernest Hemingway, and Elmore Leonard. I thought your first two sentences were a little awkward due to the...

So far, I've read the first two stories in Ernest Hemingway's short story collection, "Men without Women," and I'm really enjoying it. Here is my spoiler-free take on what I've read so far. The first story, "The Undefeated," is a story about a bullfighter who is past his prime but wants to get...

Greetings! As a member of the #WolfPackAuthors writing group on Twitter, I want to let everyone know that our 2nd charitable anthology was published today (February 29, 2020). Howling at the Moon: A #WolfPackAuthors Anthology contains short stories in a variety of genres. Our proceeds will...

Yesterday, I purchased Ernest Hemingway's Men Without Women for my Kindle. It's his second collection of short stories and was originally published in 1927. I'm looking forward to getting into it.

Have you ever wanted to know the facts about zombies? There's only one way to find out: send a team of scientists into the heart of a zombie horde to gather blood samples and genetic material from zombies. As a writer, I may not say much, but I can say Shark Week's got nothing on me. My...

Marty Robbins - "Big Iron." It's a whole western novel in one song.

My most recent non-fiction reads were - Always Another Dawn by Scott Crossfield - the first man to fly 2x the speed of sound Helmet for my Pillow by Robert Leckie - a classic WW2 memoir by a Marine who fought in the Pacific. I'm currently making slow progress on - Back to Hampton Roads by...

If you enjoy the challenge of the classic, go for it. However, there are plenty of 19th and 20th century classics that shed light on the human condition. You may find some of them meaningful in contemporary times.

I just finished Night Zero by Rob Horner. It's an excellent zombie apocalypse novel. The author has a medical background and uses his inside knowledge of first responders' work as paramedics and in emergency rooms to great effect. His scientific knowledge also helped him create a very...