Audiobook Review: Creature Feature: A Horrid Comedy by Steven Paul Leiva

CREATURE FEATURE--named a top book of 2020 by the Montreal Times, Steven Paul Leiva's horrid comedy is now being turned into an audiobook, read by Seamus Dever (better known as Detective Kevin Ryan on ABC's CASTLE) and Juliana Dever (known as Jenny Ryan on ABC's CASTLE)

Creature Feature: A Horrid Comedy

by Steven Paul Leiva

Narrated by: Seamus Dever and Juliana Dever

April 13, 2021

Estimated Length: 4.4 hours
Publisher: Magpie Press; (Spring 2021)
Publication Date: TBD
Genre: Horror/Comedy
Language: English
Available on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes

THERE IS SOMETHING STRANGE HAPPENING IN PLACIDVILLE!

It is 1962. Kathy Anderson, a serious actress who took her training at the Actors Studio in New York, is stuck playing Vivacia, the Vampire Woman on Vivacia’s House of Horrors for a local Chicago TV station.

Finally fed up showing old monster movies to creature feature fans, she quits and heads to New York and the fame and footlights of Broadway.

She stops off to visit her parents and old friends in Placidville, the all-Ameican, middle-class, blissfully normal Midwest small town she grew up in.

But she finds things are strange in Placidville.

Kathy’s parents, her best friend from high school, the local druggist, even the Oberhausen twins are all acting curiously creepy, odiously odd, and wholly weird. Especially the town’s super geeky nerd, Gerald, who warns of dark days ahead.

Has Kathy entered a zone in the twilight? Did she reach the limits that are outer? Has she fallen through a mirror that is black? Or is it just—just—politics as usual!

"Steven Leiva not only promises but delivers. Bravo!" -- Ray Bradbury, Author of Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles.

$.99 ebook/free on KU

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This is the first time I have reviewed an audiobook even though I listen frequently while traveling (or cleaning house). It was also my first foray into this comedy-horror style and I must say after acclimating myself with the first chapter I decided I would hang in there and see where this was headed.

Outrageous, fantastical, eye-rolling, teenage boy-type storytelling in the dark or maybe sitting around a radio program in the ’50s are some of the thoughts that came to my mind. Mindless would be another...ha. 

A young actress returns to her hometown to find it overtaken with 6th-dimensional creatures and she is clueless until she becomes their “personal choice” for leader to help take over the world. See...fantastical plot.

But never fear, there is also a geek hero to help save the day with his outrageous inventions (more young boy imagination)! I didn’t feel the “comedy” as straightforwardly as just whimsy and wit but the title “A Horrid Comedy” seems rather appropriate. Short listen and could be the right fit for a short drive to bring companionship and not a mind-boggling script.

The narrations were great and easily understood. I felt like if there were a few more “clang”, “bang”, “shoe clops” and old-time sound effects I would have no problem imagining myself in front of that radio listening to a “horrid” short of “War of the Worlds”.

Getting 4 whimsical sheep from me.

Jeanie G

About the Author:

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A refugee from the silly fields of Hollywood where he cavorted with such luminaries as Bugs Bunny and Betty Boop (although the latter was but a brief affair), Steven Paul Leiva has authored nine novels and one novella since 2003. His work has been praised by literary great Ray Bradbury, Oscar-winning film producer Richard Zanuck, NY Times bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize finalist Diane Ackerman, and Star Trek actor John Billingsley, the greatest bookworm in Hollywood. He has received the Scribe Award from the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers. A traveler among several genres, his books include his witty Hollywood thrillers, BLOOD IS PRETTY and HOLLYWOOD IS AN ALL-VOLUNTEER ARMY, his novelization of the indie family film; the Scribe Award-winning 12 DOGS OF CHRISTMAS; his Sci-Fi satire of first-contact told from the point-of-view of the aliens, TRAVELING IN SPACE; his comic look at happy-ever-afters, BY THE SEA; his surreal political fantasia, IMP; his bizarre, possibly audacious, somewhat Sci-Fi novella, MADE ON THE MOON; JOURNEY TO WHERE, a contemporary "scientific romance" written in the tradition of H.G. Wells and Jules Vern; CREATURE FEATURE: A HORRID COMEDY; and his latest, BULLY 4 LOVE, a rather odd love story

Voice actors

Seamus Dever - Juliana Dever

$.99 Preorder: Creature Feature Anthology + excerpt

Jo: Hello sheeples! My name is Joleene Naylor, and I’m the god of the Amaranthine Universe—

amazon link for the Amaranthine Series

Jorick: Someone’s let power go to their head.

Jo: As I was saying before my character interrupted me, I’m the author (better?) of the Amaranthine Universe. I’m here today with Jorick to tell you about the Creature Feature Anthology—

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Jorick: Long story short, she has a story in it. Blah, blah, it’s available for pre-order for only $.99, and the proceeds go to Book Born’s Children’s Book Fund, so if you’re interested in reading my torture—

Jo: Would you behave? Geeze. I’m sorry I brought you along. I just thought it might be fun, considering the story is about you. And no, it’s not torture. It’s just an origin story where

Jorick: Where you make horrible things happen to me?

Jo: It’s not my fault. You’re the one who falls for the” old mysterious stranger that needs help around his farm” bit. I could have told you it was a bad idea to work for Malick.

Jorick: I didn’t fall for anything—he was an ancient vampire with mind control abilities! I didn’t have a chance against him!

Jo: True, but you were the one who had to know what was killing his sheep. If you’d just left it alone like he told you to...

Jorick: I’m sorry, but a person gets tired of tending a flock that is dying off one by one. It reflects badly on their abilities to protect the creatures in their charge.

Jo: And were you happy when you found out what it was? *shakes head* Your trouble is you always have to stick your nose into things.

Jorick: No, my trouble is that my author is sadistic. You weren’t content to just torture me, but you do horrible things to my entire family!

Jo: Just be glad you had a family. I could have made you an orphan. Though that would create some crazy continuity issues, but hey, I am the god of the Amaranthine Universe, so…

Jorick: Are you going to share an excerpt or just prattle on all day?

Jo: As a matter of fact, I chose a nice one. Just for you. This takes place after Jorick finds out what his employer is doing to those poor sheep. He returns to Malick’s farm the next day, expecting to find the old man dead of a gunshot wound, but he’s very much alive and sealed up in his house.

Excerpt

A wild idea danced its way into Jorick’s consciousness. With nothing else, he embraced it full-tilt. Malick was a monster. As the only one who knew, it was his job to eradicate him. The bullet hadn’t done it, but nothing could withstand fire.

It didn’t take long for him to construct a torch and light it. He marched to the house ready to fling it through a window, when the front door opened.

At the sound of Malick’s voice, Jorick went stiff. “So you came back. How interesting. I didn’t think you would.”

Jorick’s hand tightened on the torch. He could see the shape of Malick, partially obscured by the door, his face hidden by the heavy hooded cloak.

Malick chuckled. “Nothing to say, child? No apologies, perhaps? No? Just a murderous plan. You would burn me alive as I sleep, and you call me the monster.”

Jorick tried to reply, but the words wouldn’t come. He could only stare, the torch gripped in his white knuckled fist.

“But you have no need for that, do you?”

Jorick wanted to fling the torch at him, watch the fire catch his robes, except…except why? Why would he want…

I saw what he is!

“Did you?” Malick asked. “I doubt very much that you have any concept. But come, put down your torch and think reasonably.”

Reasonably. Jorick felt the desire sucking at him, bleeding away his will. But he couldn’t give in.

“I saw you!” he shouted. The volume gave him strength, and he added, “I saw you in the barn!”

Malick laughed, a sound half music and half terror. “So you did. Ah, but I could make you forget. With a snap of my fingers you’d remember only drinking last night, perhaps a nightmare, nothing more. And yet, isn’t it more amusing if you do remember?”

Jorick scoffed, drawing himself up. “You can’t make a person forget.”

“Can’t I? Is there anyone in the town who remembers me? Anyone who can say they’ve seen me, that they’ve spoken to me? Many have, but their minds were malleable and I relieved them of the memories. You, on the other hand, your mind is strong, willful, and infinitely entertaining.”

Jorick wanted to deny the truth in the words, but he felt them at his core. No one knew who Malick was, no matter how many times he explained him.

Could it really be some dark magic?

“It is the magic of a god, child, as is my miraculous healing. You were right, you did hit me, a good mark too, just here.” He pressed a finger to his chest, below his heart. “Unlucky for you, such wounds cannot destroy me. But come, put down the torch, continue to work for me and I will reward you in ways you cannot imagine.”

Jorick’s fingers wanted to relax but he refused to let them. “You’re a demon.”

The master laughed, flashing fangs. “Better to work for the demon than to be fed upon. Besides, what is a demon but a god by another name? Hmmm? One man’s evil is another man’s good. Come, the sun tires me. I’ll give you until sundown to make your choice. Will you continue to serve me, as you have been, or will you walk away?”

“How can you ask such a question! I’ll-”

“Think carefully,” Malick cut in. “Because of your service, your family has plenty of food; a bad harvest, a flood, those things have starved you in the past, left your sister and brother hungry, your mother desperate, your father forlorn. Not now. They have meat enough to sell. And with the addition of my garden, your sister has her own income, money she can save against a future of drudgery. Not to mention the wage you command. How much longer will it take you to save up the funds for passage on a ship? Don’t look so surprised, child, I can read your thoughts like a book, and flip through the chapters at leisure. I’ve done so, many times, not that you remember them. That aside, I ask you what harm is there in serving me? I’ve required nothing objectionable of you, made you commit no crime. If I wish to kill my own livestock, whose concern is that? Have you not helped butcher animals yourself?”

“It isn’t the death-”

“But the manner?” Malick finished. “Why does it matter which method I choose? Mine is painless. The beast passes into sweet dreams, never to wake. Is that not better than screams and the terror as you slit their throats and they watch their blood run? Ask yourself, which of us are the monsters.”

Jorick felt the words, saw the logic behind them, the order, the reason. He has a point, his mind whispered to him. Memories surfaced of the first pig he’d seen killed, of the horror he felt, the way he’d run to hide behind his mother’s skirts. The laughter of his father and his uncle.

“He’ll have to get over that.”

“He’s only three,” his mother chided. “Let him be gentle awhile longer.”

Jorick shook away from the past, the smell of the pig’s blood, the gurgling sound of its dying breaths. “You are not a man.”

“No,” Malick agreed. “You are right. I’m not a man. I am a god. And now I will rest. Either burn the house to the ground or drop the torch and return this evening. The choice is yours.”

Jo: I hope you enjoyed the excerpt! Thanks so much for stopping by, and thanks to I Smell Sheep for hosting us today!

Pre-order for $.99

proceeds go to Book Born’s Children’s Book Fund

Creature Feature: an anthology

by Gabriella Messina, Amber Naralim, Joleene Naylor

June 21, 2018

Vampires… Werewolves… Monsters… They stalk our dreams and nightmares… the stuff of legends and fantasies…

Featuring short stories by Joleene Naylor (the Amaranthine series), Amber Naralim (the Monsters series), and Gabriella Messina (the Bloodline series), CREATURE FEATURE invites you to take a taste of the worlds these three authors have created, and the creature characters you will never forget.

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About the Author:

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Joleene Naylor is the author of the glitter-less Amaranthine series, a world where vampires aren't for children. As a compliment to the novel series, she has also written several short stories, including the Vampire Morsels collection, and the Amaranthine Handbook.

In what little time is left she watches anime and updates her blogs, all from a crooked Victorian house in Villisca, Iowa. Between her husband and her pets, she is never lonely, and should she ever disappear one might look for her on a beach in Tahiti, sipping a tropical drink and wearing a disguise.