This is a very short story, and the first in The Folds series. I was very curious because it is written by a South African author, and I noticed I very seldom read books written by African authors.

After a chemical war left many of the survivors scarred, this is the first year where they once again hold a Miss Universe contest.

While there are hints of larger things at play it was extremely difficult for me to focus because it was so short. Especially since there are three additional stories/book I don't see why they couldn't have been one story together. This story basically just covers the Miss Universe contest. I think it had a potential, but didn't fully use it.

*only $2.99 at Amazon

**free at NoiseTrade

about the book:

After a devastating chemical war, the scarred survivors of Earth are drinking Prozac Beer and live with clunky mechanical limbs. At the first Miss World pageant since the war, everyone is glued to their TV's to get a glimpse of beauty, of elegance, of life before the horrific flesh-eating disease that changed everything. The stage is set to reveal a mysterious resistance movement that can bend the laws of physics to achieve its goals.

In the first book of the The Folds series, Mico Pisanti horrifies us with a dystopian future scarred by chemical warfare and too-powerful corporations. What would you be willing to do for The Folds, if it meant you could reclaim your life, your limbs, your child?

Publishers have been vocal recently about the fact that you can now buy a book for the same price as a cup of coffee. Isn't that sad, they lament? How will it last? Well, of course we'd also like to make big profits and pay rent and eat something other than 2 Minute Noodles. But for now, we need to get more people with those eyeballs of theirs onto our books so that their minds can also be blown by how incredible (and sometimes a little scary) our authors' minds are.

To do list:
#1: blow people's minds
#2: make money when Hollywood comes a-knocking
#3: eat something other than 2 Minute Noodles

So therefore, the point, dearies, of this rant: Look at what you get for a measly R20 these days. It's not much. OR you can spend R20 on a book which will blow your mind, broaden your horizons and leave you looking down at your old school friends who clearly are not as impressive as you are.

Below shows: you can buy a Woolies smoothie, a cup of coffee (not even a double shot anymore), a song on iTunes, a cheapass app or ten diapers. OR you can do better.

In the spirit of Halloween and the SA Horrorfest Bloody Parchment event tonight, we've asked horror writer Mico Pisanti to give us three great books that are guaranteed to get your creeps on. Also, you can  click on the images to get your horror fix sent straight to your ereader/door.

This is Mico, and here are his reads:

 The Road by Cormack McCarthy

The Road is so stark, so dark and so minimalistic that the reader can hear the empty footsteps of the unnamed father and son who walk through an apocalyptic world of an unspecified cataclysm. This slim novel has so much weight, that you can literally hear it clunk when you put it down. And yet you as the reader cannot look away, cannot stop following these two bleak characters as they walk along the other constant in this book, the road....it is beautiful and terrible...and scary. A masterpiece.

 

Birdman by Mo Hayder



Birdman introduces the world to Detective Jack Caffrey and his drive to find a killer who sows live birds into the chests of young women's corpses. This is more than a crime novel, Mo Hayder has the power of true horror on her side. She knows how to get under one's skin and not only to raise gooseflesh, but to raise hell in the dark recess of the mind. She is a true horror writer thinly disguised as a crime writer.





Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

 
Stephen King returns the favour to crime fiction by writing about a long marriage between a husband and a wife, Bob and Darcy Anderson. In it he explores the way people can be married to one another and never truly know each other. One night while Bob is away on business, Darcy rummages through Bob's belongings for batteries, and she stumbles across a pornographic magazine of sadomasochism. It is the first step to Darcy discovering she has been married to a serial killer for nearly thirty years. This is a truly frightening story, as it shows that there are rabbit holes  in life which we all can fall down into, and this changes everything we thought to be real and solid. Creeping dread at its best.



Mico Pisanti's work has appeared in Something Wicked and Bloody Parchment and his sci-fi/horror series The Folds: Miss Universe is out now on Amazon. 
Check out the Bloody Parchment event - featuring big-name local writers offering their strange tales on the night.