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Mental Shrillness - 10 twist ending short stories dealing with the mind Flash O' Lantern - 13+ Flash Fiction stories, 13 October facts Mental Shrillness available in paperback and eBook
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Welcome to the official blog of horror, thriller and suspense author Todd Russell. He's written under various pen names including the name of this website, taken from AOL in the mid 1990s where he posted numerous twist ending short stories, six of which can be found in the horror short story collection Mental Shrillness. For Halloween 2011, he shared 13+ new stories in a collection called Flash O'Lantern: 13+ Halloween Stories. His debut novel Fresh Flesh - the debut psychological thriller horror novel by Todd Russell is now available in paperback and eBook.


What Scares Author Tim C Taylor
Date Published: 2011-09-18 20:11:43
Summary: What Scares Authors series #14, learn in his own words what scares author Tim C. Taylor.

What Scares Author #13: Tim C. Taylor My son scares me the most. I guess my wife does too, but mostly my son, and he's only five.

I blame Rudyard Kipling.

When I was very young, I used to love Kipling's Just So Stories; these old-fashioned and rather silly parables about animals delighted me, and intrigued me with the way the author addresses the reader as 'dearly beloved'. Years later, when my wife was pregnant, I watched a TV documentary about Kipling and rediscovered that sense of delight when I learned that Kipling wrote 'dearly beloved' to address his daughter, Josephine. He made up the Just So Stories as bedtime tales for her; she would quietly hold his hand as he wrote them down to sell to periodicals.

Then, having built this picture of blissful family life, the documentary shattered it because Josephine died very suddenly of pneumonia when still a little girl. Kipling was devastated. A few years later, in 1915, his only son was killed at the Battle of Loos.

No More Than Human by Tim C. TaylorThanks, BBC, for screening that, just as I was about to become a dad.

So what scares me most is the thought of my son being damaged. Falling off a cliff, bird flu, mugger, Martin invasion: in my darkest moments I've imagined all of them (except the last one). Wife and son in a car crash: 100 points, game over!

I don't let it show; I don't let him know. Most of the time I don't worry about him but always lurking in the back of my mind...

Maybe I'm just soppy, maybe I'm just a dad, maybe it was all those dad hormones when I watched that TV program -- I don't know. What I am sure about is that the thing that scares me most is my son.

I wrote a science fiction story about those fears. It's a short story called No More than Human after the Theodore Sturgeon classic More than Human. In it, the future for unmodified people, as we largely are today, looks very bleak indeed. Something cracks when the main character watches his wife brutalized (I couldn't bring myself to portray a child damaged so). In the end he deliberately endangers his children and the generations to come after, but in doing so he buys hope.

Where To Buy No More Than Human
Amazon US | Amazon UK | Smashwords (multiple e-formats) | Barnes & Noble (NOOK) | iTunes US | iTunes UK

About the Author
Tim writes science fiction, though latterly people are calling his work steampunk or fantasy. When he lost his job in February 2011, his co-workers gave him a Kindle as a leaving present. A few weeks later he had set up Greyhart Press and begun to publish other authors of horror, science fiction, and fantasy.

Tim's blog: www.timctaylor.com On Twitter: @TimCTaylor


Thanks Tim!
- Todd

Read what scares the last 10 authors in the What Scares Authors series:
  1. LeAnna Shields
  2. Sarah Woodbury
  3. Jeannie Walker
  4. Joshua Mays
  5. Athanasios
  6. Steven R. Drennon
  7. Heather Marie Adkins
  8. Sue Owen
  9. Laura Yirak
  10. Arshad Ahsanuddin


Mental Shrillness by Todd Russell - 6 twist ending horror short stories
Buy Mental Shrillness at:
Amazon US | UK | DE Germany
Barnes & Noble | Apple iBookstore
Kobo | Sony | Diesel | OmniLit
Also available through Smashwords
Paperback


Todd Russell's books on Goodreads
Fresh FleshFresh Flesh (Fresh, #1)
reviews: 3
ratings: 281 (avg rating 4.33)

Mental ShrillnessMental Shrillness
reviews: 4
ratings: 88 (avg rating 4.25)

Flash O'Lantern: 13+ StoriesFlash O'Lantern: 13+ Stories
reviews: 2
ratings: 4 (avg rating 4.50)


WIP (Works In Progress)
Novella #1 (1st draft)
11,127/30,000 (37%)

NOVEL: Pain Plane (final)
(20%)

NOVEL: Fresh Fetus (1st draft)
(56%)


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Copyright 2011 Todd Russell All Rights Reserved (contact Todd Russell)