8Fold/Acra: Haunted Man #2 "Condemned" and "The Hemophile"

[Jamie Rosen]

I didn't mean to post so soon.

Tom Russell wrote:
>
> Though the Haunted Man is a host in the classic EC tradition (spooky
> name, love of bad puns), one couldn't really call these stories EC-
> type tales.
<snip>
> The stories featured in the first two issues of the Haunted Man remind
> me more of the fiction of Lovecraft, in which atmosphere, mood, and a
> sort of hallucinogenic fever take precedence over plot, character, and
> logic.

While I appreciate a good comeuppance story (and I've written and sold
one or two), I find lately that my worldview and thus my fiction has
been leaning more and more towards a world where the best we can
manage is only a fleeting glimpse at understanding.

That being said, despite its nightmarish qualities, I think
"Condemned" really is a tale of a bad man getting his comeuppance --
it's just one that is told obliquely, rather than directly.

> Consider this sentence:
> > His entire body hurt: joints ached,
> > muscles cramped and stiffened from having lain in so awkward a
> > position.

I suppose I should technically have used a semi-colon, not a comma,
between "ached" and "muscles". But a lot of the time when I'm writing
a story like this I'm writing it with a very definite voice in my
head, and I sometimes structure sentences based on how they sound in
that voice.