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Download UNCOMMON ASSASSINS free through Sunday.

Smart Rhino Publications, which released my short story “The Little Things” in ZIPPERED FLESH 2 on February 6, is offering the Kindle edition of its thriller anthology, UNCOMMON ASSASSINS, as a free download now through Sunday, March 3.

Hired killers. Vigilantes. Executioners. Paid killers or assassins working from a moral or political motivation. You’ll find them all in this thrilling anthology. But these are not ordinary killers, not your run-of-the-mill hitmen. The emphasis is on the “uncommon” here—unusual characters, usual situations, and especially unusual means of killing. 

UNCOMMON ASSASSINS features many of the same twisted writers familiar to those initiated into the ZIPPERED FLESH readership, as well as some terrifying newcomers:

• “Nightshade” by Stephen England
• “The Pepper Tyrant” J. Gregory Smith
• “Everybody Wins” by Lisa Mannetti
• “Fat Larry’s Night With the Alligators” by Ken Goldman
• “Thyf’s Tale” by Christine Morgan
• “Misconceptions” by Matt Hilton
• “Second Amendment Solution” by Billie Sue Mosiman
• “Killer” by Ken Bruen
• “For the Love of Boys” by Rob M. Miller
• “Bloodshed Fred” by Monica J. O’Rourke
• “Slasher” by F. Paul Wilson
• “Fire & Ice” by Joseph Badal
• “Madame” by Doug Blakeslee
• “The Man Who Shot Hitler” by Elliott Capon
• “Mercy Killing” by Laura DiSilverio
• “Scrub” by Michael Bailey
• “The Wellmaster’s Daughter” by James S. Dorr
• “Wish I’d Never Met You” by Jonathan Templar
• “The Bluelight Special” by J. Carson Black
• “Welcome to the Food Chain” by Weldon Burge
• “Inside Out” by Al Boudreau
• “Katakiuchi” Charles Colyott
• “Taking Care of Business” Lynn Mann

Download UNCOMMON ASSASSINS for free this weekend, and while you’re at it, pick up a copy of ZIPPERED FLESH 2, available now in paperback and Kindle eBook at Amazon.com.

ZIPPERED FLESH 2, now available at Amazon.com.

ZIPPERED FLESH 2, featuring my short story, “The Little Things”, and Jeff Strand’s STALKING YOU NOW will be one of the “Books of the Month” at Cinephobia Presents: The Mortuary throughout the month of March.The Mortuary has been “dissecting the horror genre since 2003,” so it made sense that ZF2 be a featured text.

The “Book of the Month Club” is a discussion where writers talk about that month’s selection, with The Mortuary’s Meli Hooker acting as the MC.

Starting March 1st you’ll be able to find out more about some of the stories behind the following stories about body enhancements gone horribly wrong:

• “The Modern Adonis” by Bryan Hall
• “Taut” by Shaun Meeks
• “The Hunger Artist” by Lisa Mannetti
• “Skin Deep” by Carson Buckingham
• “The Sun-Snake” by Christine Morgan
• “Knowledge” by Kate Monroe
• “Prosthetics” by Daniel I. Russell
• “After Darque” by M.L. Roos
• “The Affair of the Jade Dragon” by Rick Hudson
• “The Future of Flesh” by J.M. Reinbold
• “We’re All Mad Here” by E.A. Black
• “Seeds” by L.L. Soares
• “Perfection” by Doug Blakeslee
• “Underneath” by Kealan Patrick Burke
• “The Perfect Size” by A.P. Sessler
• “Piper at the Gates of Dawn” by David Benton & W.D. Gagliani
• “BabyDaddy” by Jonathan Templar
• “The Little Things” by Christian A. Larsen
• “Clockwork” by Shaun Jeffrey
• “Luscious” by Jezzy Wolfe
• “Rapture” by Charles Colyott
• “Primal Tongue” by Michael Bailey

Steroids from Hell. Horrendous piercings. Bizarre brain modifications. Obscene amputations. Facial reconstruction. Self-mutilation. Implants. Read about them on your Kindle or as a trade paperback in ZIPPERED FLESH 2, now available at Amazon.com.

The Horror Writers Association announced over the weekend that Gene O’Neill’s novella, THE BLUE HERON, has made the final ballot for the 2012 Bram Stoker Awards® in the long fiction category. THE BLUE HERON is about the surviving members of a six-man USMC Force Recon team who’s brothers-in-arms are now dying off one by one under strange circumstances, with a blue heron origami left at each death site.

O’Neill has previewed my upcoming novel, LOSING TOUCH, and flattered me with these words:

It’s been said there are amateur writers and unpublished/unknown pro writers. Christian A. Larsen’s writing was unknown to me. But after reading LOSING TOUCH I can recommend his work without reservation. He is indeed a solid pro. The novel has an unusual premise, the prose precise, the plot compelling, and the story has satisfying closure. Do yourself a favor, read this interesting novel. Then you, like me, will watch for his byline.

LOSING TOUCH, with a foreword by Piers Anthony, coming June 2013 from Post Mortem Press.

O’Neill, who won a Stoker Award in 2010 for his short story collection, TASTE OF TENDERLOIN, has written for Cemetery Dance Magazine, Twilight Zone Magazine, The Magazine of Science Fiction, and his “The White Quetzal” appears in CHIRAL MAD, which also features my short story, “Mirror Moments.”

June will not only bring LOSING TOUCH from Post Mortem Press and O’Neill’s latest, DANCE OF THE BLUE LADY from Bad Moon Books, that’s also when we find out who won Stoker Awards for their work done in 2012.

Congratulations and good luck to all of the nominees, each one of them worthy of your attention. Click here for the final ballot, and happy reading…

Post Mortem Press has sent me the preliminary cover art for my upcoming novel, LOSING TOUCH, debuting in June at the World Horror Convention in New Orleans.

New York Times Bestseller Piers Anthony wrote a terrific foreword for the novel, and I owe many, many thanks to Gary McClusky for his outstanding artwork:

LOSING TOUCH, with a foreword by Piers Anthony, coming June 2013 from Post Mortem Press.

This is the version of the cover that will appear in the World Horror Convention 2013 Program Book, which will be available to attendees at the weekend convention June 13 through 16 at the Hotel Monteleone.

While continuing to work on the spine and back cover, McClusky is also tweaking the image to give it more detail and a different font for the book’s publication in June. Watch for updates in this space.

To celebrate the release of ZIPPERED FLESH 2, featuring my short story, “The Little Things”, Smart Rhino Publications is offering the original ZIPPERED FLESH as a free Kindle eBook download from Amazon.com today and tomorrow only (February 21-22).

The paperback editions of ZIPPERED FLESH and ZIPPERED FLESH 2.

Like ZIPPERED FLESH 2, the first installment features bizarre body enhancements playing pivotal roles in the plots, and things are never pretty or pain-free. The ZIPPERED FLESH series is not for those who are faint of heart or squeamish, or who are easiliy offended by disturbing imagery, bloody violence, and freakish body augmentations. Love chilling tales? You’ll savor ZIPPERED FLESH:

• “Bootstrap—The Binds of Lasolastica” by Michael Bailey
• “Idol” by Michael Laimo
• “Unplugged” by Adrienne Jones
• “Comfort” by Charles Colyott
• “You With Me” by Christopher Nadeau
• “The Shaping” by Scott Nicholson
• “Something Borrowed” by J. Gregory Smith
• “Equilibrium” by John Shirley
• “Sawbones” by L.L. Soares
• “Whirling Machine Man” by Aaron J. French
• “Sex Object” by Graham Masterton
• “The Sad, Not-So-Sad, Ballad of Goat-Head Jean, Ambivalent Devil Queen” by Michael Louis Calvillo
• “Locks of Loathe” by Jezzy Wolfe
• “By Hook” Elliott Capon
• “Creeping Death” by Armand Rosamilia
• “Paraphilia” by Lisa Mannetti
• “Independence Day” by P.I. Barrington
• “Marvin’s Angry Angel” by Jonathan Templar
• “Change of Heart” by Rob M. Miller
• “Hearing Mildred” by Weldon Burge

Download the original ZIPPERED FLESH, and whet your appetite for the sickly disturbing, the only cure for which is ZIPPERED FLESH 2, now available in paperback and Kindle eBook at Amazon.com.

Perpetual Motion Publishing Machine has provided the contributing authors to SO IT GOES: A TRIBUTE TO KURT VONNEGUT with the galley proof for a final editing pass through, so if all goes well, the anthology should be available early this spring.

SO IT GOES: A TRIBUTE TO KURT VONNEGUT, coming spring 2013 from Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing.

Edited by Max Booth III, SO IT GOES will feature my short story, “The Fountain of Relative Youth” in its table of contents:

• “The Grand Tour” by Frank Roger
• “Saving God” by Jay Wilburn
• “How to Succeed in Academia” by K. A. Laity
• “Critical Thinking Skills” by James W. Hritz
• “The Unhappy Accident or Feelin’ Fine” by T. Fox Dunham
• “The Truth” by Jonathan Balog
• “You’re Toast” by E.E. King
• “The Joke’s on You” by Philip Simondet
• “It Takes Four to Tango” by Mike Sheedy
• “The Policy” by Thomas Messina
• “Riding” by Aric Zair
• “Corrective Action (or Illegal Discharge Legally Charged)” by Tony Wayne Brown
• “Dead Girls, Dying Girls” by James Dorr
• “Modern Science Has Yet to Find a Cure” by Michael Lee Smith 
• “The Fountain of Relative Youth” by Christian A. Larsen
• “My Best Friend is a Robot” by Brady Gerber
• “Fido” by James Wymore
• “Responsibility is Key”
• “Megastar Hopper” by Sue Lange
• “Dog. Girl. Armless Karaoke Maniac.” by Joseph McKinley
• “Nedserd” by Eli Wilde
• “A Tribute to Ernest Glipp” by C. M. Chapman

In his book BAGOMBO SNUFF BOX: UNCOLLECTED SHORT FICTION, Vonnegut listed eight rules for writing a short story:

• Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
• Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
• Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
• Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
• Start as close to the end as possible.
• Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
• Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
• Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Watch these rules in action in SO IT GOES: A TRIBUTE TO KURT VONNEGUT, coming this spring from Perpetual Motion Publishing Machine.

Watch for “Sight Unseen”, coming to THE GLASS COIN.

I wrote a flash piece of weird science fiction a couple of years ago that, at the time, I really enjoyed not just writing but re-reading. There are those special pieces sometimes, that appeal to us as fans and creators equally. “Sight Unseen” was one.

Unfortunately, a number of editors didn’t see it in as favorable a light, and after submitting it to several magazines, it drifted out of my life, gathering dust.

Last night, after not thinking about “Sight Unseen” for months, I received an email from the managing editor of THE GLASS COIN, Paul Phillips, who said he was impressed with the story and would like to publish it in an upcoming science “themed week” in the near future.

THE GLASS COIN is a weekly eZine of short works, publishing fiction, essays, prose, articles, visual art, videos and audio tracks that are less than 1000 words or five minutes in length.