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Book Excerpt: Upir and the Monster Gang by Sharron Thornton & Raymond Thornton

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Upir & the Monster Gang

About the Series, Upir and the Monster Gang, by Sharron & Raymond Thornton:

Upir and the Monster Gang Cover

Coming from a long line of highly respected vampires, Upir knew that going to Neewollah, the Monster Mausoleum, would help him live up to his family’s reputation, but he never anticipated the terrifying turn his stay there would take. Upon entering, Upir befriends several strange creatures and their nights soon become treacherous when they have to dodge flying skulls whose hollow eye sockets shimmer with bright blue lights, avoid huge plants with tongue-like tentacles that devour young monsters, and run from a mad scientist who loves to use the monster students in his experiments. Most of all, they try to stay away from Muriel, an ill-tempered, nasty gorgon girl with slithering snakes for hair. She is the leader of three cantankerous monsters that follow her every command. Her group is bent on destroying Upir and his gang.

Without warning the young monsters find themselves entangled in a plot to destroy the Monster race. Will they escape the clutches of this horrifying villain and alert the Monster world, or will they become his loyal soldiers?

Read an Excerpt from Upir and the Monster Gang:

The Welcoming Committee

“Yeah, you kid!” A monster with an enormous bumpy head, bulbous nose and winged ears pointed at the vampire. A single tooth protruded from the troll’s lower lip as he gaped at Upir.

A wolf-boy, his grin revealing sharp pointy teeth, was with the group. His eyes had a hungry look to them.

Upir swallowed and tried to sound calm. “Yeah, what do you want?” he asked.

A green goblin boy, a skateboard under one arm, shoved his way between the other two and glared at Upir. “We’re the welcoming committee around here,” he said sarcastically.

Upir doubted that. “Okay,” he said slowly.

The goblin boy pointed up at the troll. “He’s Groks. I’m Gordon.” He tilted his head at the wolf boy. “And that’s Raff.”

Raff sneered, “What’s your name?”

Without thinking, Upir said his whole name. “Upir Amarande.”

“Yooper! Yooper!” Groks laughed, slobber spilling down his chin. “What kinda stupid name–”

“Move it!” A girl with dozens of slithering snakes for hair came forward as the other three monsters stepped aside. The gorgon stood before Upir, her breath smelled of swamp water; the snakes on her head hissed and stretched toward him. “What did you say your name was?”

Upir told her.

“Amarande, huh?” She looked Upir up and down and smiled, “Well look what we’ve got here boys, a little monster royalty in our midst.”

Upir started to shake his head, but before he could speak, the gorgon stuck out her hand. “Glad to have you aboard,” she said.

Upir shook her hand as he asked, “Aboard?”

Groks groaned. “Muriel, we don’t need a vamp–”

“Shut up, troll!” She turned back to Upir. “My gang,” she said as her head tilted toward the monsters behind her. “We plan on running this place, and I’m inviting you to join.”

Upir smiled. “Serious?” he asked. He didn’t like the fact that, once again, he’d been befriended because of his name. But to run with the in-crowd, he could deal with that. “Thanks,” he said.

“What’s going on!” a voice screamed behind them. The kids turned. The
hunchback lumbered toward them, his hump weighing him down to the floor. “What are you kids doing in the hall? It’s almost lights out. Get to your rooms!” Turning to his hump he mumbled, “Hugo always has to chase kids all over the place.”

Muriel lowered her gaze and innocently said, “We’re going now, Mr. Hugo.” Turning to her gang she growled, “Let’s go!” She slapped Upir on the arm as she brushed past him. “Welcome to my gang, Amarande. See ya around.”

“Yeah, see ya around,” Groks said hitting Upir on the back so hard that he stumbled into the wall.

Raff snickered and Gordon hooted. Muriel called out another “Shut up!” before they were out of sight.

Upir pushed open the creaky door and entered a dark, stone-like cave.

Jagged pieces of rock, some crooked as bad teeth, protruded from the ceiling and floor. Nestled in an alcove was a bunk bed made of heavily-polished dragon bones. On one wall rested a long narrow desk of stone and against the other wall sat a black coffin, just his size. The room smelled like the dust of ages past. And although there was no window, a strange light emanated across the ceiling. Looking around the room, Upir noticed a ghost hovering above the top bunk. The floating boy wore a long transparent shroud; a green woolen scarf was slung around his neck. A long chain, wrapped around his waist, clinked as it drifted lazily
in the air. Upir saw the rock wall through the boy’s glowing form.

The ghost boy smiled making his blue eyes look bluer and his plain face look mischievous. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Gusty,”

Upir smiled back. “I’m Upir,” he replied, glad he hadn’t offered his last name. He knew everyone would find out soon enough. But until then, maybe he’d have a chance to make friends on his own.

Gusty moved, seeping in and out of form like a genie near the mouth of its bottle. Upir blinked a few times, not sure the boy was really there.

“Yeah, he’s really there,” said another boy who emerged from a pile of blankets on the bottom bunk. He stood up, his rumpled flannel shirt and jeans hung limply from his stick frame. “Gusty likes to show off,” he said. The boy’s head was a carved hollow pumpkin. Light flowed through the triangular holes; the yellowish rays reflected across the room like searchlights. The grin on his face was cheerful. “I’m Payne,” he said to Upir. “Welcome to Neewollah.”

A Message from the Authors, Sharron Thornton & Raymond Thornton:

Upir and the Monster Gang

We’re on our way to be published! My name is Sharron Thornton and I wrote a children’s novel entitled Upir and the Monster Gang. The book has 60 full page, full colored illustrations which were done by my son, Raymond Thornton. We have chosen to use an online, crowdfunding site called Kickstarter to begin this amazing venture.
Beginning October 1st and running through November 16th we are doing a pre-launch, first edition sale of our book. Attached to this email is a link to our Kickstarter page. There you can watch our video and see some of the Upir and the Monster Gang products we have listed. One of the great things about Kickstarter is that it’s like a grassroots campaign that spreads and then builds momentum.

After the Kickstarter we have marketing and distribution lined up to take Upir and the Monster Gang to the next level, but we need your help getting it started. Please share our Kickstarter page with your family and friends on your email lists, social media and any other networks you may have and then ask them to share it also.
http://kck.st/19jvVMG.

Connect with Sharron and/or Raymond:

Web: UpirAndTheMonsterGang.com
Facebook: Upir and the Monster Gang
Twitter (Sharron): @SharronThornton
Twitter (Raymond): @RaymondThornton

Music Review: Dreamland, Brent Spiner & Maude Maggart

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Dreamland
Brent Spiner, Maude Maggart
Get it from Amazon >>

I’ve always been a fan of audio dramas, and have fond memories of rainy winter Sunday evenings, when my mother would make soup or stew, and she, Ira, and I would sit around the kitchen table and listen raptly to the radio plays that were broadcast on the local NPR affiliate. Or maybe it was the Pacifica affiliate. Either way it was a nice break from worrying about heating bills, the merits of tanked vs. tankless water heaters, and any number of other modern subjects.

Knowing this, there is every chance that, had I known to look for it, I’d have fallen in love with Brent Spiner’s newest brainchild, Dreamland, a CD that is more than just music, but really an audio musical with a healthy dash of noir-style characters and settings, and some great American standards, performed by Spiner and his co-star for this production, Maude Maggart.

I’ll confess that, even though I’m not generally given to collecting autographs from actors, no matter how much I enjoy their work, I paid the extra $10 over the $19,99 base price of the Dreamland cd to have Mr. Spiner not only sign it, but also to add the phrase “To MissMeliss” in strong silver writing on the front, because I am that big a geek.

But I digress.

Dreamland is the story of one man’s dream. I’ve often said that I dream not just in technicolor, but in full surround sound with a studio orchestra and backup singers. Apparently, so does the protagonist of this story, because when we meet him he’s preparing for bed in a hotel room, and is asking for a 9:30 AM wakeup call.

For the rest of the 50-ish minute CD, we, and he, are living within the dream, and, as can happen in small-d dreamland, scenes transition abruptly, time is either stretched or compressed as needed, and songs are used to punctuate feelings, but also to further the storyline. At one point, our hero offers the heroine a lift, but instead of car, he has a train. Such is the stuff of dreams.

Spiner’s vocals seem richer and healthier than his previous disc, Ol’ Yellow Eyes is Back, which included similar types of songs. I especially liked “The Moonbeam Song,” and “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning,” but everything was quite pleasing. Of course, he also wrote the script, so it makes sense that he would pick songs he sings well.

Ms. Maggart (who is also Fiona Apple’s sister), has a lovely voice, and it’s so refreshing to hear a female lead who isn’t an over-shrill soprano (though as a mezzo myself, I may be biased). Her “I Remember You” is sheer magic.

Many of the other characters in Dreamland were voiced by Mark Hamill (yes, that one), but you’d never be able to pick out his voice if you didn’t know ahead of time that he was part of the project.

In an age of wall-vibrating dance beats, it’s nice to spend a quiet hour listening to something like Dreamland, and enjoying music from a time when songs were so much more singable than they are now. The only thing missing from the audio experience, for me, was a rainy day.

Dreamland may be purchased at Brent Spiner’s website, The Real Brent Spiner, and he takes paypal.

Shelved

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While I’m on the subject of shopping for bookish things, instead of reading books, I should add that we’ve pretty much shelved the plan to make the library into a library, and are now shopping for bookshelves that will work in other rooms, which has become an important issue, since I hired a cleaning lady who starts on April 3rd, and she can’t vacuum my bedroom if the pile of books that stretches the entire length of the window is still there.

We considered using the free pass to one of those directbuy clubs to look at their stuff, but most of the bookshelves at formal furniture stores are a bit beyond what we can spend when you consider the amount of shelving we need.

I’ve decided that we should all be independently wealthy.
Who’s with me?

Music Review: Stomping Grounds, by Joseph Clinebell

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While I listen to music almost constantly, and have a full 30gig Creative Zen Vision M to prove it (in lime green, thank you very much), I tend to get in ruts where I listen to the same thing over and over. Still, when someone says, “Hey check out this cool Singer Songwriter, I think you’ll like his work,” I’m usually happy to do so. I’ll listen to almost anything once, after all.

Joseph Clinebell’s first CD, Stomping Grounds, is quickly becoming one of the discs I listen to more than once. He calls his collection of mostly-guitar-and-vocals songs “road trip music,” and really that’s the best description I can think of as well. For one thing, while his music is technically on the pop side of rock, there’s a vagabond-esque quality to it stolen from folk and country, that adds depth and dimension to tunes that are essentially pretty simple, with wonderful lyrics “….as a hailstorm draws near…the imperfect falls around…”

His voice is warm, vaguely reminiscent of early Michael Stipes or John Cougar Mellencamp at his most mellow (that folksy appeal coming out, I think), and overall Stomping Grounds is extremely listenable. So far, my favorite song is “Last Dance,” but they’re all good. And yes, perfect for hopping in the car, dropping the top, and enjoying the last warm days of Fall.

You can read more about Clinebell at his website: http://clinebellmusic.com/singer-songwriter.html, and you can grab this CD from CDBaby.