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Bleeding Empire
"Are you ready to end the world?"
It's supposed to be the greatest Apocalypse the world has ever known. But the death of mankind isn't as headline-grabbing as who laundered their last load on Celebrity Dirty Washing. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse’s offspring want to tear up the biblical rulebook with style, sexiness and smiley face achievement stickers.
There's one problem with rebooting legends: nobody recognises them.
Health and Safety forbade horses (and there's nowhere to park them), so they ride motorbikes. And budget cuts only allow one Travel Inn room between them. Their arrival breaks four seals. And a streetlight. It’s hardly the epic, end-of-the-world entrance they'd imagined. Less 'world-wide media coverage', more 'notice in the personal ads'.
Death excelled at reaping, not reproduction, so there are five Horsemen: twins Morgan and Aeron are in charge but couldn’t lead a conga line; Marsden would be the hero if slaughter wasn’t his favourite hobby; Demi prefers destroying people’s confidence to destroying crops; Mac’s low self-esteem and pacifism hinders his pestilent plans.
Fallen angel Drew fights to stop them. But as usual, love arrives to cock things up for everybody. And what better time to host an Apocalypse than Christmas, while mortals are distracted by the contents of Santa’s sack. Instead of Jingle Bells, there’ll be abject screams. Providing they stop getting drunk on sexually-named cocktails…
It's supposed to be the greatest Apocalypse the world has ever known. But the death of mankind isn't as headline-grabbing as who laundered their last load on Celebrity Dirty Washing. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse’s offspring want to tear up the biblical rulebook with style, sexiness and smiley face achievement stickers.
There's one problem with rebooting legends: nobody recognises them.
Health and Safety forbade horses (and there's nowhere to park them), so they ride motorbikes. And budget cuts only allow one Travel Inn room between them. Their arrival breaks four seals. And a streetlight. It’s hardly the epic, end-of-the-world entrance they'd imagined. Less 'world-wide media coverage', more 'notice in the personal ads'.
Death excelled at reaping, not reproduction, so there are five Horsemen: twins Morgan and Aeron are in charge but couldn’t lead a conga line; Marsden would be the hero if slaughter wasn’t his favourite hobby; Demi prefers destroying people’s confidence to destroying crops; Mac’s low self-esteem and pacifism hinders his pestilent plans.
Fallen angel Drew fights to stop them. But as usual, love arrives to cock things up for everybody. And what better time to host an Apocalypse than Christmas, while mortals are distracted by the contents of Santa’s sack. Instead of Jingle Bells, there’ll be abject screams. Providing they stop getting drunk on sexually-named cocktails…
421 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 21, 2018
1 person is currently reading
6 people want to read
About the author
C.L. Raven
48 books51 followersC L Raven are identical twins from Cardiff who love all things horror. They spend their time looking after their animal army and drinking more Red Bull than the recommended government guidelines. Along with their friend Neen, they prowl the country hunting for ghosts for their YouTube show, Calamityville Horror.
Their work has featured in 8 Hours Anthology, published by Legend Press; August 2010 issue of Writing Magazine (winning ghost story); The Pages Anthologies; Dark Fire Fiction, Dark Moon Digest, Siren’s Call and the Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper. They also contribute articles to Haunted Digital Magazine and Oapschat. They have self-published six short story collections, one novella and one novel, which was shortlisted in the National Self-Publishing Awards. Their unpublished novels, Bleeding Empire and Silent Dawn were longlisted in the 2013 & 2014 Exeter Novel Prize.
Their work has featured in 8 Hours Anthology, published by Legend Press; August 2010 issue of Writing Magazine (winning ghost story); The Pages Anthologies; Dark Fire Fiction, Dark Moon Digest, Siren’s Call and the Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper. They also contribute articles to Haunted Digital Magazine and Oapschat. They have self-published six short story collections, one novella and one novel, which was shortlisted in the National Self-Publishing Awards. Their unpublished novels, Bleeding Empire and Silent Dawn were longlisted in the 2013 & 2014 Exeter Novel Prize.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 24, 2018
Funny, epic, and Ewww all in one.
Bleeding Empire rocked! It was funny, C L Raven have a great sense of humour and it translated well to this story and the characters in it.
It’s definitely one that has a more humorous vibe to it, but it was heart felt and serious when it needed to be, and in some scenes was epic! A couple chapters in particular would look amazing on a cinema screen.
The characters were fun, although I felt sorry for Mac. But he did give me a proper ‘ewwwwww’ moment.
It is funny, it is also quite horrific in places and has a lot of depth to it about our society.
The last chapter was awesome as well!
Bleeding Empire rocked! It was funny, C L Raven have a great sense of humour and it translated well to this story and the characters in it.
It’s definitely one that has a more humorous vibe to it, but it was heart felt and serious when it needed to be, and in some scenes was epic! A couple chapters in particular would look amazing on a cinema screen.
The characters were fun, although I felt sorry for Mac. But he did give me a proper ‘ewwwwww’ moment.
It is funny, it is also quite horrific in places and has a lot of depth to it about our society.
The last chapter was awesome as well!
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December 31, 2018Humour's a funny thing, until it isn't. Then, it's a complete waste of time.
I started "Bleeding Empire" hoping for a zany and original approach to the Apocalypse,
The opening fitted the bill. The Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse (five because Death is twins) arrive in a city centre (without horses - banned by Health and Safety - but with motorbikes) to find that everyone is so busy with Christmas shopping that their, slightly bumbled, entrance goes unnoticed. Then they checked into a cheap TravelInn and bickered endlessly about what to do next.
By the 20% mark, I was beginning to realise this book might not be for me. I felt it was trying too hard. There was lots of brittle, clever-clever dialogue exchanged between the five horsemen of the apocalypse as they behaved like sadistic, murderous, children on a sugar-high with a tendency to sulk or throw tantrums when not killing people. This got old VERY quickly.
The graphic violence had already palled. The witty dialogue had slipped into juvenile jibes with a bleeding edge vocabulary. There was some gleeful anarchy at the heart of everything but it was SO anarchic that the story seems to have no purpose or direction.
I hoped that a plot might emerge or, failing that a character or two I might care about, or even a clever twist that explained why this video game level carnival of carnage was interesting.
I gave up at 38%, after a series of murders and a violent riot that were described in detail but without any flair. Who knew that blood and gore and pointless, spiteful aggression could be so boring?
Now I'll never know if this bunch of back-biting, sulky, incompetent demi-gods ended the world. The upside is, I won't have to spend any more time with them in my head.
I started "Bleeding Empire" hoping for a zany and original approach to the Apocalypse,
The opening fitted the bill. The Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse (five because Death is twins) arrive in a city centre (without horses - banned by Health and Safety - but with motorbikes) to find that everyone is so busy with Christmas shopping that their, slightly bumbled, entrance goes unnoticed. Then they checked into a cheap TravelInn and bickered endlessly about what to do next.
By the 20% mark, I was beginning to realise this book might not be for me. I felt it was trying too hard. There was lots of brittle, clever-clever dialogue exchanged between the five horsemen of the apocalypse as they behaved like sadistic, murderous, children on a sugar-high with a tendency to sulk or throw tantrums when not killing people. This got old VERY quickly.
The graphic violence had already palled. The witty dialogue had slipped into juvenile jibes with a bleeding edge vocabulary. There was some gleeful anarchy at the heart of everything but it was SO anarchic that the story seems to have no purpose or direction.
I hoped that a plot might emerge or, failing that a character or two I might care about, or even a clever twist that explained why this video game level carnival of carnage was interesting.
I gave up at 38%, after a series of murders and a violent riot that were described in detail but without any flair. Who knew that blood and gore and pointless, spiteful aggression could be so boring?
Now I'll never know if this bunch of back-biting, sulky, incompetent demi-gods ended the world. The upside is, I won't have to spend any more time with them in my head.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews