Simone Allyne is the Weird Things eBook reviewer focusing on readily available, affordable Science Fiction and Fantasy. If you have a book you’d like reviewed, please email WeirdThingsMail@Gmail

The gift giving season is upon us and I thought I’d give you my top five favorite books I’ve read so far for Weird Things in case you’re in need of a great book for someone on your shopping list.

Honestly it’s hard for me to pick just a few, but I’ve narrowed it down to my top five books and short stories that I’ve read.  Hopefully you will agree!

My first suggestion would be The Old Man and the Wasteland. This stands as far and away my favorite story that I have read since starting doing these reviews.

It’s not often that a book brings me to tears, but The Old Man and the Waste Land by Nick Cole did just that.  Cole’s writing is so incredibly beautiful you cannot help but cry over the awe inducing descriptions of a sunset… only to realize that it’s a sunset in post apocalyptica.

Dead Dwarves Don’t Dance is an awesome read! It is a fantastic mash up of the pulp fiction and sci-fi genres.   Action abounds as you join Noose on his mission to hunt down neo human terrorists who attacked a dwarven dance club and in the process killed someone close to him.

After enjoying Dead Dwarves Don’t Dance so much, it should come as no surprise that I love to read detective stories.

That’s why I enjoyed Hard Day’s Knight by John Hartness so much! Plus it’s about vampires!!! Hartness writes a story that feels like a cross between Moonlight and Cara Lockwood’s Every Demon Has His Day.  His writing is witty, culturally relevant and has a good dose of pop culture references to keep you turning the pages to see just how bad it can get for these two self-professed nerdy, permanently college-aged vampires.

Another book I really enjoyed was Deadly Intent by Laura Eno.  In fact I’ve continued to read her work for my own personal enjoyment.

Deadly Intent is a story with emotionally driven characters that are very easy to relate too.  You can’t help but feel for Jonathon and sympathize with his granddaughter Abbie as they both fight for what they hold dear.

And if I am being totally honest with you I love a good story with a strong female lead, hence my love for the short story Freak Show by Richard Jones.

Jones creates a world of horrible wonder with Frankenstein heads in boxes, mysterious eggs, and an otherworldly beautiful man that is hell bent on tempting Natalie to join him and his nefarious ends.

If you have a book lover on your Christmas shopping list who is into science fiction or fantasy, then these books would make a great choice for a gift!

We’ve talked at length on the podcast about the intelligence and possible threat presented by Octopi. This will do nothing to bury those very real, justified fears.

Two deep-ocean species of cephalopod, an octopus and a squid, can go from transparent to opaque in the blink of an eye, a new study finds.

This impressive camouflage swap is an adaptation that likely keeps the cephalopods safe from two different types of predators. The first are deep-sea creatures that hunt by looking upward for prey silhouetted against the light filtering down through thousands of feet of water. The second are fish that spotlight prey in “biological” headlights. These fish use bioluminescence, their own body-driven light source, to hunt for food.

They can go invisible now? Maybe it is time to align with the sharks…

[Live Science]

Would you rather an adaptation of a source material be a literal copy or a totally new story with the same characters and themes?

It’s a fundamental question, which I believe is at the heart of the ever raging debate amongst The Walking Dead viewers and fans of the Robert Kirkman funny book. Do you want to see actors portray stories you know on sets that resemble what you’ve seen before? Or do you want the story to surprise you, like the source material once did, with new twists and turns?

If your answer is the latter, then there is nothing that could shake up the story in the AMC series than to kill our hero Rick Grimes. I explain AFTER THE JUMP… (more…)

Houdini was a hack.

The following photo comes from a new campaign by the World Wildlife Fund. In an effort to save endangered black rhinos from rampant poaching, the WWF is trying to expand their range. The problem? Getting the big lugs from one place to another.

Thankfully for fans of awesome things, the safest way is also the most hilarious. Workers sedate the beasts and hook their legs up to a waiting helicopter. They then transport them in a 10-minute flight before depositing the gigantic creatures in their new homes.

[Live Science]

A modern day tale of Icarus! The burning need to see an asteroid pass between the Earth and the moon led one man to do his best impression of Father Christmas one and a half months early.

Translated from French paper Est Republicain:

A madman who wanted to see the passage of the asteroid “grazing” the earth from the top of a disused factory chimney Crevéchamps in Meurthe et Moselle got stuck in “altititude” last night in Lorraine.
The young man, named Yoan, guided by an indescribable curiosity, climbed the chimney in the dark, with a backpack and his computer.

Unfortunately for him, in his rise to dominate the stars and make the transition from the “asteroid”, he did give rungs of the ladder under his weight. The man found himself a prisoner of his observation site. Impossible indeed down: 5 meters separated him from other levels…

It could be worse. Just ask Pheobe Cates in Gremlins.

[Improbable Research]

A 45-year-old Russian historian kept a collection of 29 human-sized dolls comprised of mummified corpses wearing the clothes they were buried in. The man was a well renown expert on cemeteries in the region and was published in the local newspapers.

Police began investigating the string of grave robbing two years ago, believe it was an extremist political organization.

Video released by police showed an eerie collection of what looks like life-sized dolls, outfitted in shabby dresses and headscarves, their hands and faces wrapped in fabric. Authorities say the man also stole clothes from the graves when he took the bodies.

Check out the video below…

Thanks to Weird Things reader David.

[CNN]

The Obama administration has formally responded to an online petition signed by over five thousands respondents demanding the acknowledgement of alien visitation.

Here is what they said…

“The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race,” said Phil Larson from the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, on the WhiteHouse.gov website.

“In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public’s eye.”

So, no big bombshell. But it would have been really funny if they slipped in one last line like “unless you’re talking about Grornorp, in that case we have no comment.”

But don’t get soured on the White House’s new petition initiative. You can always sign on to the ““We Demand a Vapid, Condescending, Meaningless, Politically Safe Response to This Petition” petition.

[UFO Casebook]

The Canadian Loch Ness Monster equivalent Ogopogo is back in the news with this curious clip. A man on vacation gets the shot from an elevated perspective which seems to depict a large, if unmoving, object just underneath the gentle lapping water. But what could be that big and that still? Was Ogopogo playing hide and seek?

[MSNBC]

A resident of Washington DC suburb Woodbridge, VA called the cops when a werewolf was sighted last night.

There wasn’t even a full moon Monday night, but an anxious neighbor on Colchester Road told police he saw a werewolf. Police responded to the scene and searched the woods, but there was no sign of the mythical creature, or even a coyote.

Gives new meaning to the phrase Vote Or Die.

[WMAL]

In a story about a band of survivors in constant peril the sin of safety is major one. Thankfully, this episode did a little bit to shake things up in this frustratingly slow season but some major issues still remain.

Well… one issue. Which is driving me insane.

Seriously crazy.

Glen causes a clean up on aisle four, Daryl picks a lovely metaphor for a lady in need and splish splash someone is taken a bath AFTER THE JUMP… (more…)

It’s a painted picture of a paranormal photograph. But aside from alliteration, it’s also haunted by the headless ghost captured in the photo and immortalized in the artwork.

Office Havoc. I took the framed painting with some others for a display in a business location. We hung the ghost painting on the wall behind an office desk. Three days later, people from the office called and asked me to come pick up the ghost painting. Every morning, they claimed, the painting was crooked. They would straighten it, and the next morning it would be crooked again. Also, appointments were inexplicably messed up and papers went missing. They were actually afraid of it. I took the painting back.

Sure, a few mussed papers, no biggie. But wait! It even communes with zombies from the deep!

My husband and I were sitting in the garage talking to the little neighbor girl who had come over to visit. On the garage wall were three large dried starfish. They were hanging securely on roofing nails. The garage door was open, but there was no wind blowing or air movement. Suddenly, the largest starfish came sailing off the wall and landed on the concrete floor. It sailed across the floor about six to seven feet.

And still more! It cheats at cards! This spectral fiend has a missing sportsmanship to go along with the lack of head.

Our neighbor wanted to show his mother-in-law the photos of my paintings and took them home with him. They left the pictures laying on the table and started playing a three-handed card game in which a dummy hand must be dealt. When they picked up the dummy hand, every card of the dummy hand was in one suit. That scared them to death, he told me.

If you have any information on this, please pass it along.

[About]

It’s a painted picture of a paranormal photograph. But aside from alliteration, it’s also haunted by the headless ghost captured in the photo and immortalized in the artwork.

Office Havoc. I took the framed painting with some others for a display in a business location. We hung the ghost painting on the wall behind an office desk. Three days later, people from the office called and asked me to come pick up the ghost painting. Every morning, they claimed, the painting was crooked. They would straighten it, and the next morning it would be crooked again. Also, appointments were inexplicably messed up and papers went missing. They were actually afraid of it. I took the painting back.

Sure, a few mussed papers, no biggie. But wait! It even communes with zombies from the deep!

My husband and I were sitting in the garage talking to the little neighbor girl who had come over to visit. On the garage wall were three large dried starfish. They were hanging securely on roofing nails. The garage door was open, but there was no wind blowing or air movement. Suddenly, the largest starfish came sailing off the wall and landed on the concrete floor. It sailed across the floor about six to seven feet.

And still more! It cheats at cards! This spectral fiend has a missing sportsmanship to go along with the lack of head.

Our neighbor wanted to show his mother-in-law the photos of my paintings and took them home with him. They left the pictures laying on the table and started playing a three-handed card game in which a dummy hand must be dealt. When they picked up the dummy hand, every card of the dummy hand was in one suit. That scared them to death, he told me.

If you have any information on this, please pass it along.

[About]

Simone Allyne is the Weird Things eBook reviewer focusing on readily available, affordable Science Fiction and Fantasy. If you have a book you’d like reviewed, please email WeirdThingsMail@Gmail

As much as I love to read, sometimes I just don’t have time to read a full-length novel.  That is where a well-written short story comes in handy.  Scott Burgess’ The Plague: Dead Solstice fits the bill very nicely!

Burgess’ Dead Solstice is the first chapter of a 14 part series. It follows the story of Dean Gothurd as he wakes up in a now zombie-infested Southern California and must work with his friends, and others he meets along the way, to find safety from the brain-hungry hordes of the undead in what is Burgess’ interpretation of the culturally popular idea of the Zombie Apocalypse.

The Plague has a good, solid story line and is filled with inspired writing, which made for a fun read. I enjoyed Burgess’ use of dry humor and intriguing character development. It was not as much a predicable read as many zombie books could be and I literally laughed out loud at Burgess’ humor and attention to the characters’ details. He definitely kept my attention throughout the story.

I thought it was also a funny read; funny but with the whispers of a clever plot just ahead. I like the pay as you go route that Burgess has chosen, because there is nothing worse than putting out hard earned money for a dead fish book… unless of course your down with necrophilia, which might be possible because you are considering buying a zombie story! Let’s just hope there are no overbearing romantic tropes to trudge through in the rest of the series.

I was wrapped up in the story all the way until the end. It had a great balance of suspense, true to life dialogue, and humorous color. Zombies aren’t a genre that I am normally interested in; they really genuinely creep me out… but I can’t wait until the next episode. This is a winner, in the right place and just in time for a quick read before Halloween!

[Amazon]

What I wouldn’t give to be in this car.

A Missouri mom was taking her children out trick or treating when she saw what looked to be an unidentified flying object. She followed the craft around for well over an hour with her excited kids cooing in the background.

UFO Casebook has the full video.

Here is her description:

When we first saw it, it was as if it was approaching us with its bottom facing us, (as if on a vertical orientation, and as it retreated, it turned flat (or horizontal), at times moving very slowly, then accelerating very quickly.

It would completely disappear from time to time. We followed it, both of us taking turns videotaping it with our phones. It at times acted as if it was playing a game with us, hiding, then appearing very close so we could see details, including a dome-like appendage on the bottom-center.

Then it would speed off, eventually making a complete circle over our area and winding up hovering over the neighborhood where we had originally been headed. It disappeared again, as we got out of the car to go tell our friends, and many people in the neighborhood came running up asking if we saw it, too!

Check out the full video at Casebook…

[UFO Casebook]

They’ve travelled from far off destinations, they abduct and return specimens to their natural habitat and can out maneuver our best aircraft.

But… do they have wifi?

When you think about it, if we believe everything that comes along with aliens observing us from our own skies in whisper quiet craft why wouldn’t they be surfing the internet? It would only stand to reason. This is the theory of Diane Tessman writing for Conspiracy Journal:

The aliens can no doubt hack into personal “e” communications, too, and see the light and dark aspects of we common folk. They can read how much we value special friendships, how much we love our families, our dogs and our cats, how much we worry about being able to provide for those we love, and so much more.

Tessman does allow for the caveat that aliens had computers in centuries past but have since jettisoned them after they became self-aware and tried to kill their fleshy masters.

[Conspiracy Journal]

A Zimbabwe man arrested on bestiality charge initiated a very curious defense for his heinous crime. He claimed the donkey he was busted getting frisky with was in fact a hooker who magically transformed overnight.

‘I had hired a prostitute and paid $20 for the service at Down Town nightclub and I don’t know how she then became a donkey… but I am seriously in love.’

The magistrates have ordered the man get a psychiatric evaluation. Although maybe this works like the prince/frog thing and you have to kiss the donkey so it turns into the glorious hooker you once met.

[Metro]