The tales in this anthology examine the many forms of Evil. Evil is in our relationships, on the streets we travel, in the news, and in our entertainment. At times it's right in front of us and we don't even recognize it. No matter what the circumstances, Evil surrounds us in our daily lives. Evil. It is all around us. It takes many forms. It patiently waits. Choose your next step well... We may find Evil in a relationship with a close friend, or in the odd neighbor down the street. We may one day wake and find that it has included us in its grip before we get out of bed, or even before we wake. It may be found in the life of a religious defender or an enforcer of the Faith. Not infrequently throughout History, following Divine law has required us to do Evil in supporting those beliefs. Whether it be in ancient times at the burning of a witch, or in abandoning one's family, or turning your back on your Faith for the sake of status and position, or survival. Sometimes we may find we are immersed in Evil and even the best that we can do simply isn't good enough. For at every turn we find that there is simply no good choice, only ones that get us deeper and deeper into the darkness. Evil can be found in a twisting of our mental processes through situation or disease in the actual formation of our thoughts. We may find at times, in choosing the best option available to us, that we have chosen to be Evil while not even knowing our decision was based upon faulty information. And so we find that we are doing Evil, with no Evil desire or ill intent; perhaps even directing it against our most dearly beloved ones. Sometimes love itself makes us do Evil things out of pain or fear of losing that loved one. There are times in following Divine inspiration where it may require of us that greatest of all sacrifices, to offer up one's most precious of all beings, that of a child. Abraham found himself in that situation when his God asked him to sacrifice his own son Isaac. Then at the last moment, God recanted. But what if he hadn't? What if Abraham had killed his son? Was it God or Abraham who had requested of a Father such a vile deed? Or, in one of our most primal of fears, what would you do to keep from losing your parents? Would you sacrifice yourself, your own child, to save them? What if your parent's didn't give you a choice in the matter? No matter what the circumstances, Evil surrounds us in our daily lives. What choice will you make? Published by Zilyon Publishing 2012.
Since the start of the new Millennium I have been living and writing from my home, tucked away on some very pleasantly forested acreage, just across Puget Sound from Seattle.
So far, I've survived a strange and wonderful life. Okay, not always so wonderful. I just wanted to escape my childhood, my parents, my past. I used to escape into my books, especially when I was "grounded". Which was, a lot. I wasn't a bad kid, just a kid, kid. My High School teachers first discovered I could write. But I didn't get it. Not until after drifting around America. Not till after the military, not till I was almost out of a University.
And so, I write....
What do I write? You can get an idea viewing my book trailers on my YouTube Channel (TheJZMurdock) at - http://bit.ly/WeMe98
Reading has been in my blood since childhood. Writing too has been in my blood. I was just slow to accept it. After all, to me as a youth, Writers were Gods.
One day, intense fiction started bleeding out onto the page. This was back in college when I attended Western Washington University. I graduated that beautiful campus with regret and trepidation and a degree in Psychology that was focused in their Awareness and Reasoning Division.
One could argue that I wrote my first short Speculative Fiction story in 1972 as a sophomore. This happened right after I had read Frank Herbert's seminal novel, "Dune". This took place during a week I spent sick in bed, out of school with bronchitis, sipping a very nasty tasting codeine cough syrup medicine and listening to Black Sabbath's "Master of Reality" album, that had just been released that week.
That was a mind blowing experience.
As I had grown up watching Horror movies from perhaps a bit too young of an age, it was only natural that I would be inclined toward Horror, as well as intense Fiction and Science Fiction. My childhood seemed pretty intense. There was a lot of tension in our home. Reading HG Wells, HP Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Edgar Allen Poe and others of that type, probably had something to do with it, too. But they gave me the escape I needed to survive.
Later I discovered along with the rest of the world, Stephen King and the other usual suspects, finally graduating (in my mind) to Clive Barker. I tended to move in cycles from being fascinated by Horror, then Science Fiction, then Fantasy, then Science Fact, then cycling back around to Horror, and so on. I ran through that cycle over most of my lifetime.
For some years I wrote Horror stories alone, in the middle of the night in the sub, sub-basement of the University of Washington Medical Center. I worked night shift on a Digital Equipment VAX mainframe computer over the five years when my son was born.
I had gotten into reading horror novels at work and could get pretty spooked at times. Commuting back then to work and back took me through the seemingly unending empty hallways under the massive hospital and over the Burke Gilman trail and bicycle path. That path took me through the dark nighttime woods to and from my home, an apartment in a six unit "shoebox" with neighbors window eight feet from our picture window. They were an ancient couple who liked to parade around in their underwear. It wasn't pretty.
So the thought occurred to me one night at work, to write Horror stories there, too. My thought was, if I got spooked writing in that situation, perhaps the reader would one day feel that tension bleeding back through the page at them.
I sold my first short story in 1992. Then through the 1990s I worked as a Senior Technical Writer. In 2004, the actor Rutger Hauer ("Roy Batty in "Blade Runner") selected my story "Poor Lord Ritchie's Answer to a Question He Knever Knew", as good enough to be a winner in his international short story of the week contest. He said he chose the winning stories, and his acting roles, based on whether he felt that they had, "heart".
So it seemed that I had a knack for this writing thing.
Among my published fiction is: "Death of Heaven", a massive Horror / Speculative Fiction novel hybrid; "Anthology of Evil", a collection of my short Horror tales from over the years, some written for a college fiction writing class and some during my time at the Medical Center.
I am also now in several other Anthologies.
Many of my short stories are now available as individual ebooks and I am also producing them as audio books.
Screenplays
I started writing screenplays in college when I got chosen for a special year long class with seven other talented individuals who were actors, writers and comedians. All theatre majors and I, the only Psych. Major.
My screenplays include a screen adaptation of TL Mitchell's paranormal romance novel, "Dark of kNight"; and Author Kelly Abell's, "Sealed in Lies", a spy romance novel.
Of those original screenplays of mine currently roaming the world for a home is a Horror/Comedy titled, "Gray and Lover: The Hearth Tales". A story about two very interesting Steampunk females who are Demon Fighters and named Gray and Lover. They may very well have adventures in a sequel as they seem to be very popular among those who have read this screenplay.
It is about a famous Horror writer being stalked by a murderously defective Demon, conjured up by his Gold-digger wife in order to kill him. It opens with the death of a very famous terrorist we all know and an alternative explanation for what "really" happened that fateful day, May 2, 2011 in, Abbottabad, Pakistan.
I do hope you enjoy my works as much as I've enjoyed the hard worked I've put into them.
Cheers!
jzmurdock.com / jz@jzmurdock.com
http://DeathOfHeaven.com / http://AnthologyOfEvil.com
Blog: http://murdockinations.com
Twitter as: https://twitter.com/jzmurdock
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Murdockinations
Goodreads as: JZ Murdock
Screenplays on MovieBytes: http://bit.ly/jRBaL5
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheJZMurdock
