Deep Blue, Flesh Welder, New Macabre Ink Digital

I’ve been busier doing e-books than I have been writing (though I’ve still managed to move ahead on two projects – more on that in a later post). What I have accomplished is to bring another author into the world of Macabre Ink Publishing – Ronald Kelly. I will be posting several digital books by Ron in the near future, but we’ve started it off with FLESH WELDER – previously available only in a very wel-received chapbook and complete with an exclusive interview with the author.

Flesh Welder

by Ronald Kelly

2017… the not-so-distant future.

Chaos reigns supreme. Social and economic upheaval, rampant terrorism, and nuclear annihilation have turned the earth into a vast wasteland. And, in Texas, the gates of Hell have been cracked open, unleashing its evil and fury upon the undeserving.

The inhabitants of Ruin Town find themselves as unwilling pawns, trapped between warring forces, desperately attempting to survive. Even when the bombing and gunfire cease, they can find no refuge, no relief, for afterwards, Satan himself descends mercilessly upon them… in the form of General Payne and his band of sadistic mercenaries.

It is then that the suffering truly begins. Murder, rape, racial intolerance, mutilation… all are heaped upon those who dwell in Ruin Town, if only to feed the General’s insatiable lust for power and sadistic pleasure. Afterward, the broken and dying seek out the only one who can deliver them from the horror that their world has become. The one who can miraculously meld flesh to flesh, and bone to bone.

He is the healer supreme, the medico grande… the Flesh-Welder.

~***~

Also new is the digital edition of my well reviewed and popular novel, Deep Blue.  This one was tied up in a bad contact somewhere else.  No details, but I decided to pull it and digitize it myself.  That way if it fails, at least the only person to be angry with is myself.

Deep Blue

by David Niall Wilson

Brandt is a down-and-out guitarist andvocalist who believes his life has hit rock bottom.  He can barely make the rent on his apartment, he drinks so much he can barely make it to the crappy gig that keeps his band afloat, let alone play when he gets there.  When he leaves the bar one dark night with a bottle of Jose Cuervo in one hand and his guitar case in the other, he finds he’s locked out of his apartment with no where to go.

As he stands alone in the dark and feeling sorry for himself, he hears a lone harmonica being played in the distance.  The sound is deep and powerful, and something in the music draws him away from his doorway and into an old alley where the homeless gather around garbage-can fires.

In that alley, Brandt meets the harmonica player, Wally, an old black man who can play the music that Brandt dreams of – the blues.  Not the blues as you hear them on the modern radio, but they way they were once played – filled with an extra “something” that can’t be taught.  Despite Wally’s warning, Brandt begs the old man to teach him the songs he is playing, and in the ensuing encounter, Brandt is gifted – or cursed – with new abilities.

He feels the pain building up around him and inside him.  Not his own pain, but the pain of others, the pain of those who have passed away, the pain of those who died with no one to hear their stories.  Wally explains it.  The music will release the pain, and it is the only thing that will release the pain.  Brandt must play, or the pain will build up inside until he destroys his own mind from the weight of it.  He becomes a conduit for the pain of the world, and then he is left alone.

Brandt plays one last concert with his band, and his performance draws them all, audience and musicians alike, into another world.  They witness a panoram of pain and horror, and Brandt plays it up and out of himself, then walks away from the bar and the band, leaving them to wonder what just happened.

What follows are a series of revelations, one for each member of the band, and one for a young girl named Liz, drawing them together, and ultimately reuniting them with Brandt.  Together, Brandt, Sinthia, Shaver, Dexter and Liz take off to the mountain town of Friendly California for a date with pain, destiny, and a silver haired Reverend who would like to see them dead.

In the final showdown, they must meet the challenge of the music, the pain, and their mingled histories and stand, or fall, with the pain of the world in the balance.

“From Publishers Weekly
The first in a series of paranormal vampire mysteries begins with the abduction of a sexpot vampire with “the smooth, flawless skin of a seventeen-year old,” and a dress that “rippled with every shift of her well-muscled form.” Several more impossible crimes follow, complete with near-endless descriptions of effortlessly subverted security hurdles. Detective DeChance is brought in by the vampires’ council of elders to find the perpetrator. Tall, dark and handsome, DeChance is also an accomplished wizard whose spells protect him from vampires, and his girlfriend (also tall and beautiful) is an expert in the magic of crystals. As the kidnapper taunts his victim with details of his plot (in a voice “empty of mirth but dripping with contempt”), the flat plot spins out predictably with mystical smoke and plenty of explosions, but little real craft.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ”

There’s more to come.  Stop by the Macabre Ink Store today!