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The CultDen’s Top 5 Self-Published books of 2013

3024AD Cover

Today our friends over at The Cult Den released their Annual for 2013. In it they look back at 2013’s films, games, TV shows, books and comics. They tell you what they loved and what they didn’t, and talk about some of their favourite parts of the last year. Included is a list for their Top 5 Self-Published books of 2013. All of these books we are lucky enough to Showcase here on our site.

So without further ado…

5. Alexandra Amalova’s Literal Fantasies (Erotica)

Literal FantasiesHarry, heartbroken and newly single, turns to the Internet for solace. A chat room exchange inspires him to try his hand at erotic writing and he soon has steamy stories posted on several sites.

Harry receives an email from a woman saying how much she and her three friends enjoy his work. She explains how the four shop workers also write erotica and have weekly ‘Literal Fantasy’ evenings where they drink wine, exchange and enhance their stories then embellish them with saucy snaps. Harry says he would love to be a fly on the wall at one of their get-togethers and offers to write a story that involves them all, yet the women counter with something more enticing.

As the day they get-together progresses, parameters change and boundaries are stretched, Harry has to deal not only with his own insecurities and uncertainties, but with those of the disparate females with whom he must bare all. What are the expectations of these four very different women? And how on Earth will Harry ever be able to live up to them?

Amazon

4. Those Poor, Poor Bastards: Dead West #1(Fantasy/Horror)
Authors Tim Marquitz, J.M.Martin, Kenny Soward

DEAD-WESTIn 1868, Nina Weaver and her pa, Lincoln, came down out of the Sierra Nevada to trade at Coburn Station, and to check out the newfangled “iron road” those bastards of the Central Pacific were stabbing right through the mountains with pickaxe, hammer, and black powder.

Just another damned thing to put the tribes on the warpath again, Nina reckoned. And with her being a half-blood, Pa cautioned her more than a few times to keep her dadgum hat on and her head down.

Being taken for an “Injun” becomes the least of their concerns, however, when the impossible happens. Hordes of walking dead, that’s right—“deaduns”—overrun Coburn Station, forcing Nina, Pa, and a few other hard-bitten survivors to hightail it dead west into the hostile hills to escape this dark Devil’s plague.

Amazon

3. Vicki Case’s Forever Love (Poetry)

Forever LoveTo lose someone you love through death is tragic. Losing someone you love—your soul mate and best friend—via an ambiguous and unexpected text message is devastating; it can destroy your soul. When you lose a loved one, you go through the process of grieving that enables you to accept their loss and eventually let go. When the person you love severs you from their life and walks away without offering an explanation, how can you do the same? How can you understand and accept the loss so that you can move on with your life?

Forever Love is a collection of poetry that considers the process of rebuilding a life after such a callous and devastating loss. The fourth volume in a series, it explores how author Vicki Case worked through this dark period in her life, searching for closure and answers to her questions. In the midst of her grief, she discovered the power of the written word in healing and began composing poetry that reflected the raw emotions she was experiencing.

Forever Love contains soul-revealing and vividly honest descriptions of her emotions as she looked for a way to move beyond the hurt and devastation of a love lost.

Balboa Press

2. James Knight’s Head Traumas (Poetry)

Head TraumasSnowmen are clowns
in sinister stasis.
While you sleep
they smother cats
and feast from bins.

At dawn
their paunches drip.
(from “The snowmen”)

Head Traumas is the latest collection from the author of The Madness of the Bird King, a book described by acclaimed novelist Jeff Noon as “a brilliant piece of work”. This substantial but very inexpensive collection contains poems, prose poems and pictures. It includes a revised version of The Madness of the Bird King, Mr Punch Dreams, nine Oneiroscope pieces (combining text and image), numerous 13-part prose poems, and more.

Lulu

1. D.E.S Richard’s 3024AD – Series 1 (Science-Fiction/Short Stories)

3024AD-CoverIn the future, humanity is still much itself. The modern world has expanded into outer space, and thousands of businesses and corporations possess planets instead of factories. Slavery is common. Frontier planets, barely livable, are worked only by the bravest. Titan Station, once mankind’s greatest achievement, orbits Jupiter, abandoned to gangsters. New York City is a commonly known archaeological dig. The conquered universe is a political powder-keg, ready to explode on dozens of stations and planets. Meanwhile, Badger chases freedom. Magdalena Aznar chases ideals. Sabrina Trent chases the past. Digger is simply an anomaly.

Kindle Kobo Nook

Download the 2013 Cult Den Annual

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