David Dubrow

Author

End of Year Post

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I’m going to take the rest of the year off to spend Christmas with my family.

Yes, I’m Jewish, but my wife celebrates Christmas, and I don’t feel like trying to make my little boy pick between Judah Maccabee and Santa Claus for holiday heroes, so we do both, and now’s the time when things get busy: holiday meals to be cooked, Christmas cookies to be baked, house to be cleaned, presents to be wrapped.
(Though he should totally pick Judah Maccabee as his holiday hero; I mean, what’s cooler: a guerrilla fighter or a fat old guy who slithers down chimneys?)
It’s been an eventful year.  Some of the highlights include:
2016 is shaping up to be a good year, too. I’ll release The Nephilim and the False Prophet in the first quarter of the new year, and I hope to be finished the entire Armageddon trilogy by early 2017 at the latest. I continue to meet new readers and writers, which is great fun, and it’s a joy to watch my son become his own person every day.
Best to all of my readers, both new and familiar. 
See you in 2016!
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And There Was That One Time I Ate Roadkill Squirrel

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Several years ago I produced an instructional video series on survival skills; we grouped these videos under the term “neo-tribal”: taking modern, easily-scrounged materials and using primitive or less-modern skills to make them into tools.

We made the rebar knife in this video series, among many other useful things. I also learned shiv-making, weaving discarded plastic bags into rope at least as strong as nylon cord, how to knap and flake stone and glass to make cutting implements, and a lot more. 
While we were finishing a scene on cooling a forged, red-hot knife in ash rather than oil, the author’s wife came in, holding a dead squirrel in a handkerchief. Half of its head had been crushed, and its remaining eye stared at us like an onyx marble.
“A UPS truck ran over it right outside the house,” she told us. “It’s still warm!”
After some discussion, we decided to use the dead squirrel to show how our knapped pieces of glass could be used to dress a small animal. So, in the waning light of mid-afternoon, we went outside and filmed the author skinning the squirrel and removing its organs with flaked shards of glass.  As I was not familiar with the process, never having watched or done it myself, I found it an interesting experience.  There wasn’t as much blood as you might expect, though I was a little bothered by the sight of the squirrel’s guts sort of dangling from its esophagus and rectum when the author lifted the skinned corpse up.
Later that day, as we packed up for the evening, the author’s wife came back to the workshop with a plate bearing a small pile of little gray pieces of meat, cooked and glistening.
It was the squirrel, you see.  She had butchered and fried it in a pan.
“Try some,” said the author, smiling.
The gleam in his eye told me he was testing us to see if the citified boys from Colorado would actually chow down on roadkill squirrel. My production assistant and I shared a look. I shrugged, nodded, and picked one of the larger pieces. It was mostly bone, and a bit greasy, but not bad. The andouillette sausage I had eaten in Paris was much, much worse, consisting of stinking flaps of intestine and tripe.  This was just little bits of rodent meat.
I didn’t suffer any ill effects (that I know of), and the rest of the shoot went swimmingly. I would probably eat squirrel again if offered, though I have no plans to make it a frequent meal unless circumstances require it.
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My Top Five Horror Books of the Year

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I had sent my list of top five favorite horror books of 2015 to Ginger Nuts of Horror before learning that the site’s owner had kicked me out, so rather than let it languish unpublished, I am presenting this list here.

I read a lot, and not just in the horror genre. History, literary fiction, science fiction, politics, current events: they all go into my brain’s mill to be ground into thought-flour, and…um…

Well, maybe that metaphor doesn’t work so well. Anyhow, here are my top five horror books of the year:

  • 5) My Early Crimes by Paolo Di Orazio: This anthology of stories about children and murder was uniquely horrifying, both for the subject matter and the skill the author displayed at telling each tale. Every story worked on some level, making the reading experience a long, agonizing squirm. As the father of a little boy, I found the author’s ability to put the reader into the minds of disturbed and victimized children particularly disquieting.
  • 4) Joe Coffin: Season One by Ken Preston: If you think you’re vampired out after reading the classics, Joe Coffin is a breath of fresh, coppery air.  Each character had depth, making you care about even the most worthless ones (Tom in particular): they read as real as you or me. Everything everyone did had an effect on the plot and the other characters, adding complexity to a story about a vampire outbreak in Birmingham, England.
  • 3) The Scarlet Gospels by Clive Barker: While I wrote long paragraphs of criticism about this novel, I still very much enjoyed it; a notion that might have gotten lost in the flurry of mediocre reviews it received. Barker took a movie figure we all knew and loved, reclaimed him, and gave him a history and homeland all his own.  The Hell of The Scarlet Gospels really wasHell, and not just some nightmarish dimension. I hope and pray we’ll see more stories about Harry D’Amour, the dead, and the vastly changed world Barker created in future works.
  • 2) Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet by Adam Howe: Three novellas, three visions of hard-boiled horror. The less said about the title story the better: read it with a fresh eye and you’ll thank me later…once you stop ralphing. Gator Baitreally puts you into the setting, making you dirty and sweaty and hoping against hope everything will turn out all right. Damn Dirty Apes is absolutely hysterical, with lines you’ll repeat to yourself later and laugh about when nobody’s around. Howe knows his pacing, keeping you on the edge of your seat the whole read through.
  • 1) Stuck on You and Other Prime Cuts by Jasper Bark: Not since reading Clive Barker’s Books of Blood in the late 1980’s have I found a short story collection that’s as fresh, horrifying, and consistently imaginative as Jasper Bark’s work. They say that the greatest torturers are the most empathetic, and Bark proves this: he knows people inside and out, and is able to describe humanity’s pathos and absurdity with equal expertise. These are stories that will stay with you for a long time…perhaps forever.
I’m looking forward to 2016’s crop of books!
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WE’RE NUMBER ONE!

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I spent part of last week and the weekend up north visiting family. Travel, especially with a small child, can be exhausting, so Sunday night after my son went to bed and we were able to relax for a bit, I thought to check how the Get the Greek Hanukkah giveaway did.

Getting to #1 in Kindle Short Reads for the Humor and Entertainment category isn’t so bad, even if it was in the Free section. And #7 in the Religion and Spirituality category! I’ll take lucky seven.
Here’s another photo:
Yes, it’s a free book, and there’s nothing easier than giving away free e-books. People often collect free e-books and never read them. Still, I’m pleased with how well the giveaway did, especially for the money I put into marketing it ($0.00). 
So yay me, and thanks to everyone who liked, shared, plus oned, tweeted, re-tweeted, Instagrammed, MySpaced, Tindered, and generally word-of-mouthed my humble effort. It’s very much appreciated.
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The Blessed Man and the Witch 2nd Edition

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I’ve released a Second Edition of my novel The Blessed Man and the Witch that includes a new cover and an excerpt of the sequel The Nephilim and the False Prophet.

While the Second Edition doesn’t change any of the story in any way, I have cleaned up some of the grammar and added back matter like About the Author and Author’s Note sections. That’s one of the great freedoms of digital publishing: improving the product as you go.

It’s likely that I’ll improve the blurb, but after that, no more tinkering. I’m moving forward. The Nephilim and the False Prophet should be ready for publication early next year, and I’m already working on the outline for the third and final volume in the Armageddon series.

If you haven’t already, pick up your copy of The Blessed Man and the Witch today!

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