God Decays by Benjamin Cain

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Benjamin Cain

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« Reply #15 on: December 16, 2013, 08:02:02 pm »
Actually, I'm not so much into blood and gore myself. I put some in the first chapter to establish some zombie horror credibility, and there's some more gore in other chapters, but I've read zombie novels with a lot more gory descriptions. I'm more into psychological and philosophical horror. There's more action than gore in this novel, I'd say. Although when I write gore I try to do it in an original way, to get at what it would really feel like to be in such horrific situations.

Benjamin Cain

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« Reply #16 on: December 18, 2013, 11:15:02 pm »
I have never been fond of zombies, but since I enjoy your blog very much, I will give this a go:)

I wonder how you'd pirate the book without buying it first. Do you mean you can break into Amazon and steal the eBook?

I understand about the blog, though, assuming you're serious. It's not for everyone.

Callan S.

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« Reply #17 on: December 20, 2013, 08:44:44 am »
I think an opportunity was missed with the cackler, in terms of the touchy politics of whether the main characters shared any food with him. Also his rant could have been one paragraph (the usual size of a paragraph) shorter - I think it tested my capacity (which might be low, who knows, but I thought I'd mention it)

Benjamin Cain

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« Reply #18 on: December 21, 2013, 03:36:30 pm »
How about the content of his rant, though? Was it amusing? There's the possibility of a spin-off book that centers on him and follows his story. I like that crazy character. Maybe I wouldn't make all of his rants into such long paragraphs, but I wanted to separate his dialogue from the rest in the book.

Callan S.

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« Reply #19 on: December 21, 2013, 10:30:58 pm »
I guess I'm a bit of a miser in my responce.

I thought his was a tragic story, with perhaps wierd thematic subtexts about why he survived (despite being semi blinded) is because just before it all went to hell, he'd already given up on people. And how if someone had cared - well, he'd be dead, but he wouldn't have become so lost from humanity. And the irony of the only way to have won that is to have died amongst all the other screaming humans as one, instead of surviving as a laughing hyena.

It almost seems I have a melancholy reading of it while your own is sort of upbeat in a 'crazy character' way?

I wonder if my losing track of that explains anything about how little I write...?

Anyway, I thought it was really sad. That's in no way missplaced in a work of literature, of course.

Benjamin Cain

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« Reply #20 on: December 23, 2013, 10:16:08 pm »
No, I agree with you Callan, the Cackler's story is largely a sad one. He's in there for black comic relief, with the emphasis on "black." (Actually, I added him late in the writing process, after about the third draft, because I wanted more dialogue in the beginning). Your interpretation of the Cackler is quite interesting. Like I said, I haven't figured out his whole back story, but I'd love to have an excuse to rant more in a fictional setting.

I haven't read the book in a while, but as I recall, he was fed by Eric and Hernando. But the way I imagined his survival, he's like an old-school Cynic who blends in with the chaos because he thinks of himself as an animal. Of course, that wouldn't suffice to save him from the zombies, so there's got to be more to it. An animal would have much less pride than a person, though, so the Cackler could resort to ugly means of surviving, sort of like the Jews who hid in outhouses during the Holocaust.

It's a little awkward commenting on the book since you haven't read it all yet, but there's another, more major character later on who likewise thinks of himself as somewhat less than human.

Madness

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« Reply #21 on: January 05, 2014, 09:53:47 pm »
So I mistakenly purchased both a kindle copy and a paperback. I probably won't read it until the paperback gets to me but at least I can read the kindle version on my computer or my android in the interim (I detest screen reading).

Yay, new fiction :).
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Benjamin Cain

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« Reply #22 on: January 08, 2014, 09:31:11 pm »
Ah well, sorry about that. Maybe if you like it, you can pass along a copy to a friend when you're done.

Davias

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« Reply #23 on: January 08, 2014, 09:47:30 pm »
 ;D +1 madness
When I ordered my book on amazon, I accidently ordered also both paperback and kindle edition. But I checked my order some hours later and canceled the paperback.
But when I read the ebook and God Decays is as good as I hope, I will order the paperback again to add it to my library :D

Madness

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« Reply #24 on: January 08, 2014, 10:32:27 pm »
Lol - bank error in your favor, Ben.

I will definitely spread the word but I'll be keeping my paperback ;).

I'm glad that this is getting Second Apocalypse love.
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Callan S.

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« Reply #25 on: January 10, 2014, 06:55:32 am »

Madness

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« Reply #26 on: January 17, 2014, 12:58:46 am »
When I got my phone back from repair, I loaded up Kindle and started reading. Two days of reading on the bus and I'm almost half-way through it. I'll have you know Ben, your book is about 3,500 paragraphs - guestimating for relative size of page on my phone and averaged across paragraph length.

Then I got my paperback copy from Amazon a week early.

So it'll probably be done tomorrow so I can focus on midterms next week.
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Madness

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« Reply #27 on: January 17, 2014, 06:26:04 pm »
Nevermind, it didn't even make it til today, finished it last night.

I definitely had zombie nightmares.

I'll post thoughts later - and though, of course, I have some critical gripes (I liked it, despite it being outside my genre niche), I'll certainly give it a favorable review.

Ben, this is your opportunity to quietly step away from involving yourself in fan discussions (the comments you make here and now will haunt your fiction-writing persona forever ;)).
The Existential Scream
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carnificibus: multus sanguis fluit
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Callan S.

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« Reply #28 on: January 17, 2014, 10:46:10 pm »
Naw, fan discussions are just another genre to muss with! Why step away when you can litter them with various other rants! Scott's blunt as hell right now, with a blog that might be taken to be in regard to the books - but he just bombs it with BBT.

Anyway, I'm scared of potentially having zombie nightmares!

Benjamin Cain

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« Reply #29 on: January 21, 2014, 12:29:31 am »
Thanks all for reading the book! If you do have a strong enough reaction to it, I hope you'll post your review on Amazon. I don't want to sway the reviews either way with my comments. But I think I achieved what I wanted with the content of my first novel--although that's a weaselly thing to say since the question might be whether my goals were best. Authors are known to be very ambitious with their first novels, but that's with respect to authors who have deals with big publishers, since then they figure they have to put everything they have into that first book in case they don't get another chance. With POD, there's no need for that. I plan to keep writing novels and I have a huge narrative arc in mind, but I don't see a need to put it all in one book.

I'm sure my novel isn't for everyone, but that too isn't saying much. Who would want to read a novel that's fit for everyone? There are those classic novels with universal themes, but I think the more distinguished the reader's ideas are, the less likely she'll find an author who makes no wrong moves in the reader's judgment. I'm having a devil of a time finding a novel I can actually enjoy, so I read mostly nonfiction.