Ask the Author: Wm. Mark Simmons
Answered Questions (2)
Wm. Mark Simmons
Nothing original.
Here's a golden oldie from 1948:
"The last man on earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock at the door."
It's a short-short story by Frederick Brown who then goes on to use it as the first two sentences of a short story entitled "Knock." The two sentences are actually boiled down from an extended three-sentence concept by Thomas Bailey Aldrich.
There was actually an anthology of stories generated by this two-sentence masterpiece--I believe it was back in 1982 under the title of...The Last Man on Earth. SF and Horror writers were given these two sentences as a springboard to complete the story and the results were quite compelling. However, the original still remains the best.
If you think about it.
The other two-sentence story that I know is not a horror story but a poem by Strickland Gillilam, entitled: "Lines on the Antiquity of Microbes" and goes:
Adam
Had 'em.
Here's a golden oldie from 1948:
"The last man on earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock at the door."
It's a short-short story by Frederick Brown who then goes on to use it as the first two sentences of a short story entitled "Knock." The two sentences are actually boiled down from an extended three-sentence concept by Thomas Bailey Aldrich.
There was actually an anthology of stories generated by this two-sentence masterpiece--I believe it was back in 1982 under the title of...The Last Man on Earth. SF and Horror writers were given these two sentences as a springboard to complete the story and the results were quite compelling. However, the original still remains the best.
If you think about it.
The other two-sentence story that I know is not a horror story but a poem by Strickland Gillilam, entitled: "Lines on the Antiquity of Microbes" and goes:
Adam
Had 'em.
Wm. Mark Simmons
Well, better late than never...
My late summer reading consisted of slam-dancing through C.T. Phipps' "Supervillainy" series via Audible.
A lot of my recent fiction (and non-fiction) is consumed through the Audible app as I'm working on various projects.
I actually went back and restarted a couple of the books as they are deceptively light reads with subtle complexities that you can miss if you're skimming along the surface.
I especially admired the way Phipps creatively mirrored the whole comic book mythos (DC, Marvel, and beyond) within his own worldbuilding and lovingly sent them all up, tropes and all. And, hey: I'm a sucker for giant robots, Nazi scientists, Amazons riding dinosaurs and old sci-fi/fantasy movie serials dropped in a literary blender with a snarky protagonist and lots of self-aware, genre-related introspection.
Aside from all the stuff to love, ya gotta hand it to a man who can come up with alternate names and costumes for nearly a hundred (if not more) copyrighted superheroes (and villains) of every stripe, cape, tights, spandex, and mask! If you haven't read a comic book, don't worry; you'll not be lost. If you are a fan of the genre, prepare to be gobsmacked (in a good way)!
My late summer reading consisted of slam-dancing through C.T. Phipps' "Supervillainy" series via Audible.
A lot of my recent fiction (and non-fiction) is consumed through the Audible app as I'm working on various projects.
I actually went back and restarted a couple of the books as they are deceptively light reads with subtle complexities that you can miss if you're skimming along the surface.
I especially admired the way Phipps creatively mirrored the whole comic book mythos (DC, Marvel, and beyond) within his own worldbuilding and lovingly sent them all up, tropes and all. And, hey: I'm a sucker for giant robots, Nazi scientists, Amazons riding dinosaurs and old sci-fi/fantasy movie serials dropped in a literary blender with a snarky protagonist and lots of self-aware, genre-related introspection.
Aside from all the stuff to love, ya gotta hand it to a man who can come up with alternate names and costumes for nearly a hundred (if not more) copyrighted superheroes (and villains) of every stripe, cape, tights, spandex, and mask! If you haven't read a comic book, don't worry; you'll not be lost. If you are a fan of the genre, prepare to be gobsmacked (in a good way)!
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