According to the blog “Diabolical Plots“, my story “The Metal and Its Mold” was one of the best on Pseudopod last year, in such company with James Tiptree Jr., Elizabeth Hand, Ferrett Steinmetz, and Charles Dickens.
That story is Chapter Five of “The Flesh Sutra”, available on Amazon.
“The Flesh Sutra” has been submitted into the Novel and First Novel categories! I’m excited because I believe in a world filled with zombies, vampires, and subtle surrealities, “The Flesh Sutra” offers something deeper, more insightful, and vivid.
Keep your eyes open, as I plan to submit to the Compton Crook and the Shirley Jackson Awards.
Meanwhile, take a glimpse of something that weirded out the editors of Pseudopod. Click the image.
Reggie Oliver is way underrated, for example. He writes great suspense.
“The Flesh Sutra” is a work filled with fascinating characters, surprising, sometimes horrific, events and a very sweeping, cinematic style.”
In Fin de siècle Boston, the mystic healer Alecsandri Keresh falls into the desperate embrace of his lover, Mrs. Olivia Spalding, as he is shot dead. In those final moments before the soul passes through the gateway of death forever, Alecsandri’s rage transforms his power and he forces his way back. But he does so through ghastly means and returns to life – as an abomination.
Another reader is absorbed by “The Flesh Sutra”. See what the editor of Pseudopod called “a beautiful, precision timepiece of unease.”
and here is another comedy sketch from My Long Ago,
written by Steve Mamlin, I co-star with James Dempsey, who went on to become James and The Breakpoints.
On Amazon, Steve Wilson said, ”
The Flesh Sutra carries the reader through very colorful places (not all of them pleasant) and introduces him to some intriguing characters. Although Burke’s style is a bit slow for my taste he creates powerful and arresting scenes that can ensnare his audience. Mixing horror and the erotic is a tricky business and requires finesse to balance the genres, and Burke walks that line carefully so as not to give the reader more shrieks of fear than gasps of pleasure.”
The funny thing is that I feel awkward writing sex. All of the sex is more implied than described. But if people enjoy it, then I’m glad to have done a service.
Have a look and download a sample:
From Cynthia: “Two days flew by as I was pulled into a new world.”
Read the erotic horror that Jason V. Brock and the editors of Pseudopod have called “genius”.
The end of Chapter Two, “The Mother and The Worm”, helped me realize that the best themes and symbols are totally accidental. Right now, I believe the best thing artists can do is present their own secret, lonely religions.
I toast. I read. By all accounts, I kicked ass. Here’s the opening toast with Tom Doyle, who launched “American Craftsmen”.
“The Metal and Its Mold” is Chapter Three of “The Flesh Sutra”, a novel to be released later this Spring from NobleFusion Press.