Jason S. Hornsby's Blog

I just found out that, for the next few days, my third and best novel, DESERT BLEEDS RED, is on sale for only 99 cents. This is a great deal for a book that I am exceptionally proud of. If you want it, here is the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Desert-Bleeds-R...

Pick it up now. You won't regret it.

The new novel has been on the market for about three months so far, and I have noticed that some of its potential target audience seems to be missing out on it. This is likely because of my publisher mostly specializing in apocalyptic and zombie-related stuff, which DESERT BLEEDS RED is most definitely not. If folks are going into the online bookstore looking for adventure tales, or survival fiction, or pulpy fun, or acion-packed extravaganzas, then this novel is just not for them.

If, however, what readers are looking for is realism, absolute visceral terror, striking originality, strangeness, epic storytelling, complex world-building, an accurate representation of modern China, outlands and remote oases, constant wordplay, stomach-churning violence, well-drawn and flawed characters, and a tale more akin to Cormac McCarthy than Stephen King, then perhaps DESERT BLEEDS RED is what they are looking for.

I am extremely proud of the writing that's in DBR, and look forward to the day that this novel finds its target audience. This book is not horror in the common sense of the term. More like literary horror, or just straight magic realism, perhaps. It has been said that the new book is, by far, my darkest novel ever. That is quite a bold statement, because I'd never classify any of the three novels as the feel-good tales of the year. But if you like your fiction dark, and serious while still being quite playful at times, and epic, then give this one a try.

Everyone who has had the chance to read it so far has rated this one four or five stars, and it has also been a critical darling. I'm so proud of that, and thank everyone who has given this weird little romp in the wastelands a chance.

This one is not for the escapists. This is for serious-minded, serious readers with a predisposition for heavy morality tales and bizarre originality.

Desert Bleeds Red

I saw the cover for DESERT BLEEDS RED last night. It gave me nightmares. The good kind of nightmares, though.

DESERT BLEEDS RED, the new novel from Jason S. Hornsby, will be on shelves in less than a month.

You will not read a more frightening and absolutely original, haunting novel this year.

A plane crash in the desert. Doubles lurking in the shadows. A missing wife. A clairvoyant mistress. Eight demons. A thousand corpses. One savage journey through the Wastelands of China…

This is the world of DESERT BLEEDS RED, and it will be here soon. Stay tuned!

Upon completion of his film "Apocalypse Now," Francis Ford Coppola exclaimed that it wasn't a movie about Vietnam at all. The movie WAS Vietnam. This was his assertion. Whether it's true or not is up for debate.

Fast forward some 34 years later. My new book, "Desert Bleeds Red," is not about China at all. My book IS China.

A haunting travelogue of the parts of the Motherland never seen or heard of by foreigners; an odyssey through vast wastelands and crumbling cities; a sick and demented thriller; an epic romance; and a modern parable rooted in the King Solomon legends. "Desert Bleeds Red" is finished, edited, and on its way to Permuted Press as I type this. It is the peak of my writing career thus far, my first third-person endeavor, and easily the most ambitious literary undertaking I have ever engaged myself in.

I'm fairly sure that this book will terrify readers. It is a story fraught with anthropomorphic demons, Chinese thugs, numbers stations, bloodthirsty prostitutes, international intrigue, grotesque imagery, lyrical and haunting descriptions of the landscapes of modern China, and a more honest look at the Motherland as seen through the eyes of foreigners than anything else you will ever read.

No exact release date yet, but know this: it's coming. I am so very excited to see its release, especially after the success of "Every Sigh, The End" and "Eleven Twenty-Three." Hope everyone is ready for something completely different.

Jason has a proxy, and has exercised it much here in China.

I'm on page 60 of a new novel, and am really, really excited about it. I've honestly never been so psyched to work on something in my life. This is a project unlike anything I've ever tackled before, and can't wait to see how it all turns out. Imagine an international horror novel that wanders from the poorest provinces of China to the insanely turbulent city of Beijing, the ancient untouched lands of Sichuan, in the desolate wastes of the Taklamakhan Desert, and finally in the tropics of Malaysia. And there are demons. A King Solomon allegory. Doppelgangers. Insane violence. Prose more in the vein of McCarthy and dialogue like a short story by Flannery O'Connor, along with my own typical themes of paranoia, political unrest, and end times. I'm incredibly thrilled to work on it.

In other news, I am getting married to my lovely girlfriend Megan in October! She's an art dealer and painter from Inner Mongolia, and is absolutely wonderful. She's been very supportive of my work and my career as a teacher, and we will be moving to Malaysia in the early part of 2012 (we hope, but who knows in these dark times...).

I will also be attending ZomBCon in late October. The 21st through 23rd, if memory serves me correctly. Hope anyone in the Seattle area at that time can make it out, talk horror, meet the big stars at the Con, and possibly have many beers together!

I hope you can pick up a copy of 1123, my newest novel from Permuted. It's...pretty scary, I think. Hopefully even a bit thought-provoking.

Anyway, world, China has been great, but it's time to spend some time in the States and then begin the next chapter of my life and writing in gorgeous, isolated Malaysia! Keep in touch, and let me know what you think of 1123 (or ESTE, for that matter)!

-Jason S. Hornsby

Hello there. I haven't been able to log onto Goodreads lately, as apparently the discussion of books interferes with the smooth repression of society in China, and the website is blocked. But through the magic of a VPN, I can intermittently post news.

I am hoping to attend ZomBCon in October. That's in Seattle. So if you're out that way and want to come by and say hi, I'd love to meet you.

Eleven Twenty-Three is out there, lingering and waiting for more people to read it. Maybe that person could be you.

And I'd also like to just throw out that I have just finished Part I of the new novel. I don't want to spoil anything, but I can say that the new one takes place in multiple locales in and around China. It's also a horror novel, I suppose, as it scares the hell out of me late at night when I'm writing it. Lastly, I am detecting a subtle Cormac McCarthy influence in this one. Who knows what that means, but it's there nonetheless.

Hope you guys are all safe, and have said your prayers for Japan.

I have just been informed by my publisher that "Eleven Twenty-Three," the new novel by Jason S. Hornsby, will be released in just a few short weeks on August 30.

It will be available for purchase and download, and, well, I hope you like it. A lot of late nights and heart went into it.

Here's a couple of early reviews, if it do please ya.

Jason S. Hornsby stands alongside Cormac McCarthy and Tony Burgess as an author gifted with the rare ability to spin tales of bleakest human horror into literary masterpieces. 11.23 is an utterly terrifying, genre-bending, paranoid nightmare of a novel that should be in line for major genre and mainstream awards.
-Chuck McKenzie, Necroscope

Eleven Twenty-Three begins with a bang, drags the reader along through one horrific moment after another and ends with the kind of soul-crushing whimper that can only be accompanied by nausea...This is one novel you won’t feel comfortable reading alone with the lights dimmed down...Hornsby’s style stays consistent throughout the new work. The snarky asides so abundant in ESTE are still present (thank god, as I found them to be highly entertaining) and the supporting cast all have their moments of introspection and intrigue. Like the novel that came before it, Eleven Twenty-Three still carries the sense of looming dread, helplessness in the face of shadowy conspiracy and hopeless trepidation that is characteristic of the author’s style.
-Jessica Brown, Dark Markets

“In a world so stupid, so mesmerized by dancing clown politics and horrified by the tortured innocents who finally succumbed to years of brainwashing by taking down thirteen or so bastards in a Midwest high school, something like a hundred living dead attacking a New Year's party full of unimportant, nameless young people who probably fuck, smoke pot, and who will not vote in the 2000 election can easily go unnoticed. We can, apparently, contribute nothing to this society, except entertainment for the masses as we die slow, excruciating deaths.”


In my last review (of Book of the Dead), I made a point to mention how bored I am with the whole zombie thing. Then a good friend dumps a huge bag of zombie fiction on me, specifically telling me that I have to have to have to read this book specifically. He normally has good taste and I want him to stop bugging me about it, so I relent. Next thing I know, I'm neck deep in it, thanking whatever apathetic deity is out there that the people at Permuted picked this up (especially after the disappointing and ultimately so utterly boring that I couldn't bring myself to finish it experience of David Wong's John Dies at the End). As melancholy as it is hateful. Misanthropic. Nihilistic. Fatalistic. Paranoid. A direct assault on our society and ourselves. Admittedly a tad pretentious. Damn did I get a kick out of getting my brain munched on by this asshole.

Have you ever looked at the people around and seen nothing but vapid emptiness? Do you find yourself floating through life on inertia alone, too fucking bored with everything to bother doing anything? Do you hate your life, your friends, your family, your lover and the whole spinning mess around it with a detached passion bordering on mania? Are you waiting with bated breath for all of it to go up in flames because, frankly, it needs to? Do you keep catching people watching and filming you out of the corner of your eyes? Welcome to the life of Ross Orriger, an aimless drifter through a purposeless existence who spends his time between his cheating girlfriend, his own mistress, a best friend that may well be one of the bigger dicks on the planet and dubbing grotesque movies he can't stand to sell to people that disgust him. Now it's New Year's Eve, 1999 and change is coming in the form of the shambling, rotten masses that are trudging toward him as we speak.

I know plenty of people that would giggle at the idea of intellectual Zombie fiction (people who never bothered to think about the ramifications of Romero's work or that bewildering bit of genius, Shatter Dead), but that is exactly what Jason Hornsby is aiming at here: a Zombie tale that will force the intellectual elite of Master's English programs to recognize the phenomenon as a legitimate cultural movement. All of the crap that English majors and professors get off on is here. The narrative is temporally fractured, there is both a story within and without the basic plot and there is an admirable philosophical and intellectual depth to the precedings. Writing students and teachers will also get a kick out of the running gag every time someone sighs, such an unoriginal gesture.

Luckily, for people that care more about the actual story than the author's navel-gazing (I'm split between the two), this is all held together by the visceral honesty and rage that is so integral to this tale. I am quite sure that Jason Hornsby really and for true does hate us all and wants to see the world go up in flames or at the very least he is damn good at convincing us that his protagonist does. This vitriol is balanced out with a marvelous sense of wit and dark humor and, oh yes, blood. This is a novel about zombies after all, and no zombie story can exist without gallons that red, red kroovy, loops of blue intestine and grey, chewed up meat. Somewhere in there, he even managed to get me concerned about the perpetually complaining protagonist (I wouldn't dare call him anything as grand as a hero).

The bad thing here is that the intelligentsia Jason seems so eager to address will likely never sully their hands with something as trite and common as a zombie novel and many zombie fans will be put off by the pretentiousness that he can't quite seem to keep completely under wraps. All I can tell either group is to give it a shot anyways, since you'll be missing a hell of a novel, one that manages to bring together the work of Romero and Max Brooks, 28 Days Later and a bit of The Truman Show, if you pass this one by.

“What is the Apocalypse for us may only be a minor inconvenience for a race of living cannibalistic corpses, waiting patiently to move into our houses, cities, and world. And then, once the last of our bones are devoured or thrown into piles and buried, never to be spoken of again, the Earth goes back to business as usual.”

- "Anton Cancre" at www.horrornews.net

I was at dinner at a Beijing Pizza Hut last night when something huge suddenly struck me regarding this new project of mine. I was attempting to write a three-way first person narrative from the points of view of an American pot dealer, a burnt out schoolteacher who was slowly losing her mind, and a confused Chinese college student on the run from the government. I was writing a spy novel as if it were "Rules of Attraction" or something.

But the best spy novels are usually written in third person, I noticed. The cold, collected thought process of a government agent told through the eyes of an unfeeling, omnipotent narrator--it makes sense. So I had to bail on dinner and run home. I've been toying with the third person game lately anyway, since I just finished my first short story told from that angle. I also thought it would be a lot of fun to try a third person novel.

Here's what I did: instead of three different "I"s in the new book, I thought I would now employ two third person stories, and keep one first person. It made sense in regard to the characterizations, and if I kept one of the storylines in my usual style, I wouldn't alienate any fans and I would also keep that comfort zone nearby whilst writing this thing. You'd have this American guy and a Chinese girl, two polar opposites with totally opposite issues (or so it would seem), and each story would be backed away a bit from the protagonists via the third person. Then you'd have the immediacy of a first person narrative in the way of this burnt out schoolteacher character.

But what about the second person? I've taught my writing students that second person is underused in fiction, and it really shouldn't be. So why not heed my own advice? I could do a second person narrative as well, could I not? Then I'd make use of all three styles. The problem is that when I played around with second person present tense, it seemed too fake and gimmicky. I don't know why.

Any advice? Should I stick with the two third persons and a first, or try my hand at one of each narrative style?

How about second person past tense? As in "You made your way across the street and met your friend." Has anyone seen that before?

I need you guys on this one. Thoughts?