12/17/13: Dark Visions, Volume 2

Find my short story, "Variations of Soullessness," alongside other hand-picked horror stories in Dark Visions: Volume 2, a new anthology available from Grey Matter Press!

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12/14/13: A Conspiracy of HA!: Humorous Tales

A new short story collection from A.A. Garrison: A Conspiracy of HA!: Humorous Tales

Blurb:

“Laughter is a form of redemption.”

This is the credo of author A.A. Garrison, applied liberally to these stories in ‘A Conspiracy of HA!’ Under it, anything goes.

Earwax-loving aliens. Eyeball-chewing pets. Instructions on killing your zombified clone. Hypnotized boxers. How to get a free lunch using only creamer and a fork. Stephen King doing battle with a werewolf editor. Bridge-jumping, everyone’s doing it!

See it all and more in this diverse collection of 25 stories, which showcases A.A. Garrison’s quirky brand of humor. The conspiracy is real, and you’re the target!

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12/9/13: The High Illogical: A Collection of Strange Tales

Now available from A.A. Garrison: The High Illogical: A Collection of Strange Tales

Blurb:

“When I write bizarro fiction, my goal begins and ends with a concept I’ve come to know as ‘the High Illogical’ ...”

This isn’t your everyday weirdness. When it comes to the High Illogical, think David Lynch conducting Beethoven in space. Think sculpting mathematics into a prettier color. How might the Louisiana Purchase taste, Batman?

First appearing in various bizarre-friendly publications, these stories pursue the High Illogical in a whirlwind chase. Call them absurd. Call them grotesque. Call them outright incorrect. Just don’t call them normal, unless you want to see a book frown.

(Note:

The preceding introduction is at least 50% untrue, perhaps more. This book’s true title is 'Dick’s TV,' and you’d do well to heed this, traveler. See prologue for details ...)

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11/29/13 Synchronicity

Yet another instance of word-synchronicity, this one. It started the morning of November 29th, 2013.

I was going through some old short stories I'd had published over the last few years, is what triggered the incident. About a year ago, I pledged to assemble my published stories into collections to be self-published as eBooks, for the hell of it. Now, all these months later, I'm finally getting around to it, which meant combing my archived stories and assembling them into the said collections.

While I was doing this, one story in particular caught my eye: "Borborygmus."

It was a goofy, lighthearted horror story I'd written on a lark and then had published in a low-key anthology some time ago. But on the morning of the 29th, as I encountered it for the first time since I'd dragged the Word file into my computer's "published" directory, I had the thought: Borborgymus -- what a clunky, obnoxious word. The word, which I'll let the reader look-up at their leisure, thus impressed itself upon my mind, enough for me to absently take notice.

Also worth mentioning: it was the first I'd seen the word "borborygmus" since the anthology my story appeared in was published, years ago. And why should I see it? It's a rigid, non-descriptive medical term probably not used outside of a Bible-thick tome of procedural jargon.

I soon finished up perusing my short stories, and then, less than a half-hour after encountering "Borborgymus," I checked my email. And there, in my inbox, I was met by this subject line: "borborygmus: Dictionary.com Word of the Day‏." The email was sent on the 28th, but I hadn't checked my inbox until the morning of the 29th -- so there's no way I could have known it would be there ahead of time.

A classic, synchronistic recurrence: Within the span of minutes, I'd by chance encountered the same rare, obscure word in two different, unconnected places -- after I'd Noticed it specifically in my folder of short stories, and after I'd been putting off going through those stories for a full year. And, let's not forget, after I'd experienced dozens upon dozens of nearly identical incidents, all fitting the same pattern of distinct, precognitive-like recognition and then recurrence.

Being jaded by past experience, I just chuckled and then opened my synchronicity log to make a new entry. "Borborgymus" will be appearing in an upcoming short-story collection, I've decided.

11/28/13: The Storms of Pemberton

New fiction from A.A. Garrison: The Storms of Pemberton, a novel of paranormal horror.

Blurb:

Pemberton? Yeah, I been there. Take a right at the light, and you’ll see the sign. There’s not much to it, I’m afraid. Still, they got a right nice hospital, darned if I know why. It rains there, I hear.

Me? I don’t go down there, if I can help it.

You hear things about Pemberton, if you reckon. My cousin, Annie, she popped a flat coming down that valley last year, and, well ... I shouldn’t say no more about that, with her still in the psych ward.

You know they never did find that mayor that went missing? And he ain’t the only one – are all kinds of people who’ve got gone around Pemberton, if you can believe what you hear.

But, it don’t prove nothing, I suppose. You hear these things; but you hear lots of things. And as for Annie, she’s had her one right hard time, with the doctors talking about ‘post-trauma’ stress and delusions. And, well ... you hear lots of things.

I’ll say this, mister. If you’re heading through them parts, keep your windows up and your doors locked. And take a spare tire. Ain’t nobody should go around without a spare.

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11/19/13: Welcome to Ford

Now available: Welcome to Ford, a short story collection.

Blurb:

In this collection of 14 speculative short stories, author A.A. Garrison takes us to Ford, North Carolina, a sleepy little mountain town named after a Civil War deserter. Though out of the way, the town seems to attract an immoderate share of the fantastic and the macabre.

Amongst Ford’s citizens are:

• Blake (“The Fifty”), who purchases revenge with a fifty-dollar bill
• Candy Patrice (“Cloyed”), a young woman who adopts a most unorthodox diet-plan
• Mara Dees (“Additive Free”), the unlikely star in a grisly scheme to appease visitors from outer space
• Johannes Bitter (“Half Dead”), an undertaker with an exceptional case of lady trouble
• Kay Barry (“The Minutes”), a woman on her way to a fateful real-estate closing
• The Doctor (“See Sick”), a roving voyeur who sees more than he bargains for
• Roy Mitchell (“The Imaginal”), a professional shipper who spends an enlightening night with himself
• Frank Belmont (“Dead End”), who goes hunting for nostalgia and finds trouble
• Patrick Timothy (“Hoodoo”), a Charlotte reporter investigating the mysterious Bailer cult headquartered in Ford
• Brian (“Brian, Destroyer of Worlds”), who becomes the first man to commit murder by coffee
• Zedok Crane (“The Package”), amnesic serial killer extraordinaire
• Don Frangipani (“The Gardener”), Ford’s only retired cookbook author, and the victim of a subterranean horror’s malefic horticulture
• And The Narrator (“The Center”), a man who saw the face of God and forgot his own name

But don’t let them scare you off. The town isn’t all bad. We’ll grab a bite at the Burger Boy and then see the Cado Kid show tonight. It’s really a fine little burg, a place you could settle down. Welcome to Ford.

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11/11/13: Other

Just released: Other, my new sci-fi novel!

Blurb:

Cross Ghost in the Shell with Alice in Wonderland, and you’ll come to appreciate Hildy’s situation.

What is the mysterious stone column? Where did it come from? And why did she have to find it? These are the questions which confront Ms. Hildy Turner, small-town dog groomer and the stone-column doohickey's unfortunate inheritor. There are no answers, but she knows this: pressing the column's end opens a doorway to another world, which she and her best friend have mistakenly entered. Can they find their way back home? And just what's with the dreamlike nature of the places they end up in?

It's a long, strange trip, with sidetracks into the future, the distant past, and everywhere in between, a journey that can only be described as other.

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