Travis King is a poet, fiction writer, and essayist from the Pacific Northwest. His works have been published both in print and online. An advocate of copyright reform, he offers most of his work through Creative Commons licensing.

Website: http://www.twitter.com/travisking
Blog: http://rexscribarum.wordpress.com

• Book Review: Bukkake Brawl
• Farrago: The Michael Bekemeyer Project
• Weekly Writer’s Report – 29 Oct 2010
• Artist Exposed, October 2010: Marc Nash
• “No Homo” – Just a Turn of Phrase?

alchemy    alcohol    aqua vitae    creative commons    creative nonfiction    cryptozoology    dark poems horror    demons    dissolution    extraterrestrials    fantasy poetry    friendship    ghosts    goddess    horror    interpersonal relations    leviathan    lovecraftian    nature    nissology    paganism    poetry    religion    seasons    short story    spiritual alchemy    vampires    water    werewolves   

James Melzer
Latest book: The Other Side. Published on February 16, 2011.
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Jennifer Hudock
Latest book: From the Dark Side: A Charity Anthology. Published on July 8, 2010. (4.00 from 1 review)
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Made in DNA
Latest book: Bukkake Brawl. Published on December 2, 2010. (4.00 from 4 reviews)
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S. P. Elledge
Latest book: I, Simon, A Soldier. Published on May 9, 2009.

• Sam Rusoe on Feb. 09, 2009
  (no rating)
  THIS FILE IS EMPTY! THERE'S NOTHING THERE TO READ!
  
• Secrets of the Night on Feb. 10, 2009
  
  I'm not a fan of gory horror (I prefer more psychological horror instead) so I haven't read much of it, but I'd have to say this is a pretty good story if that's the sort of thing you like. It's fast-paced and draws the reader through, and though the ending is a bit weak, it is satisfying. My only major complaint is that the grammar and punctuation should really have been checked over better before publication. If that had been done, I'd advocate the purchase of this book to all fans of Stephen King and other similar horror authors.
  
• The Han Shan Poems on Feb. 11, 2009
  (no rating)
  These poems seem to be interesting. I started reading them, but I found it annoying to scroll through all the blank space between them. A double or triple space, or something like *** would have been enough of a separator. If a new version is uploaded with such a change implemented, I'd gladly read it and rate the book.
  
• Ensemble on Feb. 13, 2009
  
  Amazing! The thirteen stories in this collection are beautifully written and speak to the reader on the deepest level. I can't imagine why the author is offering his books for free when they could easily turn a profit but I'm glad he is. I've already downloaded his other books and can't wait to read them. I'm an Elledge fan for life.
  
• A Day With The Dead on March 11, 2009
  
  "A Day with the Dead" is a brief but interesting piece. It's not as frightening as I expected from the short description, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. The story was well told--I liked the metafictional approach the author used--and the ending was satisfyingly mysterious.
  
• Good Fairy on March 11, 2009
  
  This modern fairy tale packs a lot of punch into such a short space. Eddie Heaton grasps subtlety, and this story shows that. Its gritty, fast-paced storyline takes the reader into the seedier side of society, and its wry ending is a poignant insight into human nature, its subtleties and its tragic expedient ways. Altogether, "Good Fairy" is a well-told tale.
  
• Henry's Will on March 11, 2009
  
  Is it too much to bestow upon Eddie Heaton the epithet of "a modern O. Henry"? Read this story and decide for yourself. The carefully crafted characters within its pages, along with its delightfully unexpected ending, are sure to please.
  
• Immortal Blush on Feb. 25, 2011
  
  I actually enjoyed this story. With a few exceptions, the writing is pretty solid. The sole sexual encounter in the story is well described, not too bland or clichéd. I'm no expert on Ancient Greece, but I've read my fair share about its history and mythology, and it seems to me that the story's setting and characters are well researched, which I appreciate. Since the first reviewer has already seen fit to discuss the story's ending, I'll add my own take on it. I was ambivalent at first, and for a while I thought I hated it, that it showed, perhaps, a lack of imagination on the author's part, but for some reason I couldn't get too worked up about it, and so, after some deliberation, I decided that it worked for me. Although it's not an epic tale from the past, it is a myth of sorts, or a modern attempt at mythography--and as with any myth, it contains a lesson. In this case, as with Greek fables, the lesson is explicitly stated at the end, and although it isn't one of great life-changing importance, it is a lesson about the protagonist of the tale, the goddess Pyrrhia, in the tradition of actual Greek myths. The fact that the goddess' embarrassing situation is never revealed actually fits the lesson imparted and, moreover, allows the reader to use his or her imagination--which, after all, is what an erotic fantasy is all about.
  
• Bukkake Brawl on June 25, 2011
  
  With each new medium, there comes new content tailored for it. One such form that has cropped up in the last few years is “twitfic,” or Twitter fiction, and one early adopter is the mysteriously named Made in DNA, whose e-book, Bukkake Brawl, collects four stories originally published serially on Twitter between 2006 and 2010. The original Twitter format, in which fully-fledged ideas had to be presented in fewer than 140 characters, guarantees a quick pace and a tight plot without irrelevant filler. The eponymous novella is set in a future plausibly extrapolated from our own present. The lead character, Mei, is a professional fighter in the island city-state of Yue Fong, where anything goes. But she is not a typical fighter; she is a Jizzabel, indentured and trained to fight in the Bukkake Brawl, “the fiendishly genius marriage of extreme sports and porn.” Her opponents are the Jackals, men from all walks of life who purchase spots in the brawl pits and band together to make up “a mob of howling contestants ready to hump anything….” Trained to fight from an early age, Mei has accepted her lot in life, hoping one day that she just might earn enough to buy her freedom. But when a brawl claims the life of a friend and fellow Jizzabel—and almost kills Mei herself—she bucks the system and goes underground, seeking revenge against the man responsible. Hardcore, fast-paced, full of sex, violence, and violent sex, Bukkake Brawl is sexpunk at its best. Many modern writers feel the need to load their novels with gratuitous sex and gore, but the author has managed to craft a piece driven by such content. Take away the sex and violence, and the story collapses. The same can be said about each of the tales in the book. Moreover, the protagonists of these stories are all strong female leads who either fight to overcome degrading sexual situations or utilize sexuality to their own advantage. Although I was initially wary about reading this book, it exceeded my expectations, and I’m glad I decided to give it a chance. The stories are well written, the words deftly crafted, the plots and characters strong and memorable. If it were possible, I'd give it 3.5 stars rather than just 3, and I feel confident that I will seek out more work by this author in the future.
  
• The Boy Who Drew In The Mud and other parables on Sep. 26, 2011
  
  At first, I thought this was going to be at least a two-star book. The prose parables with which it begins were decent, even if I didn't necessarily agree with their lessons as I interpreted them (I'm not sure I interpreted them correctly, however; I had difficulty extracting the intended meaning), and the only flaws I found were of the typographical kind, as is common with today's self-published e-books. Once the prose parables stopped, however, and the verse began, I struggled to keep reading. There were a few poems that I could have liked or at least respected, since, again, I found myself disagreeing with their messages, but to be brutally honest, they were poorly constructed. I always try to give an author more than one chance to impress me, however, and since this author has other works available, I intend to delve further into his oeuvre, in hopes of finding something I like better.
  
• Fenton: The Loneliest Vampire (Lost Realm #1.5) on June 04, 2012
  
  The bland title, which sounds more appropriate for a children's book, is the least of this story's problems. There were also technical errors which should not have passed the editing process—although, this being a self-published piece, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there was no editing process. The main quibble I have, however, is that this story just doesn't work. With few exceptions, a short story should be compact in its timeline; it should not be a summary of a series of events that occur over a span of centuries—and once the reader has reached the end of that sequence of events, it should present itself as an end; even if there are further adventures or predicaments or conflicts to follow, the current one(s) should be wrapped up neatly, which did not happen here. From the beginning (or, rather, from the middle—because there's an unnecessarily lengthy span during which Fenton is a mere mortal), the main character is lonely, and he remains so when the narrative is over; nothing has changed, and nothing to speak of has been gained or learned. Though there is narrative, there is no story. So, while the character of Fenton, asexual and lonely, is, as far as I know, unique in vampire fiction—and therefore potentially interesting—this work simply comes nowhere near to reaching the potential such a character truly presents in terms of emotion and conflict.