Tag Archives: Justin Coates

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT, Cool stuff, Editing, publishing, Ramblings, SNAFU

SNAFU: LEVEL UP AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT – JUSTIN COATES & PATRICK FREIVALD

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Well, lookee here! It’s a two-for! That’s right, the next in Cohesion Press’ Author Spotlight is a double-whammy with Justin Coates and Patrick Freivald penning us a tale (I’m pretty sure they fought over the pen). Which means this Author Spotlight will be a little longer than all the previous. Still, we are continuing our tour of the States with these two.

So, first up, we’re barging into Justin’s house (he said I could), shoving a mic in his face, and ushering him on stage to do his thang. <flaps hands> Go, go!

The son of a bean farmer and a chupacabra, Justin Coates accidentally joined the U.S. Army in 2008 and spent two years stumbling around Afghanistan. During and since, he’s been writing wild tales of military misadventures in horror and sci-fi, including short stories that have been adapted by Netflix’s Love, Death and Robots and a mysterious Amazon streaming show the NDAs won’t allow him to mention by name (for now). A graduate of the University of Southern California, he works as a trauma therapist and suicide prevention specialist by day (you know what he does at night). He lives in Michigan with his smokeshow wife, two feral sons, and the dumbest orange cat this side of the Sulemain Mountains. He also has a kick ass found-footage horror screenplay, and wants to know whose #@!% he needs to !#%@ to get an agent. 

While Justin sorts out his… let’s go with… sweetner? … (yeah, that works?), Patrick has now taken the stage with an entourage of bees…

Patrick Freivald is a four-time Bram Stoker Award® finalist, the author of ten novels and dozens of short stories for publications such as Weird Tales and Dark Discoveries, a high school teacher (physics, robotics, American Sign Language), and a beekeeper specializing in hot pepper infused honey. He lives in Western New York with his beautiful wife, parrots, dogs, cats, chickens, and several million stinging insects. A member of the Horror Writers Association and the International Thriller Writers, he has a soft spot for slavering monsters of all kinds.

For SNAFU: Level Up, Justin and Patrick dragged over to us the festering corpse of RESPAWN: As a team of misfits battles their way toward the grand prize of a virtual death match, there’s only one question on everyone’s mind: this game is fair, isn’t it?

Right, let’s get on to where you can find these fiends:

Justin is on Facebook (if you dare)

Patrick, you can find on Facebook and Insta.

When it comes to upcoming works, Justin apparently doesn’t have shit coming out (his words, I swear, and yes, I laughed a little… okay, a lot), while Patrick has a spooky tale for tweens coming out real soon – Mitchcraft, Vacation Magic School. Check it out!

Seriously, these two are a menace – what’s not to love?

Editing, publishing, Reading, SNAFU

SNAFU: PUNK’D AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT – JUSTIN COATES

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Hoo boy! SNAFU: PUNK’D is getting ever closer to publication at the end of October! Which means we’re author-spotlighting our… umm… authors (hence spotlighting and authors). So, if you’ll mosey on over to take a wee peek into the dark imaginings of storytellers, a little tease of their tales, and then follow the arrows toward their other authorly spawnings, that would be swell!

Buckle-up for the next in our SNAFU: PUNK’D author spotlight: JUSTIN COATES!

Justin Coates is a colony of half-sentient spiders in a man suit. His military sci-fi and horror stories have been featured in multiple anthologies and a previous SNAFU story, Kill Team Kill, was adapted by the hit, Emmy-winning Netflix animation series Love, Death and Robots. When he’s not powerlifting, he’s spending time with his ridiculously hot wife and two demonspawn sons.

For SNAFU: PUNK’D, Justin has Frankenstein’d together some Babylonpunk with his tale THE REAPER OF HOUSE SHADAREK: imagine a world with modern comforts powered by the myths and magic of ancient Babylon and Sumeria, where blood is currency, and the guy selling fried food at the corner shares his body with a shedim

You can find Justin on his socials below:  

Facebook:  facebook.com/justinacoates

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JustinCoates 

All of Justin’s stories are part of the Pharos Saga, a slowly-expanding universe of interconnected media. Check out the latest entries over on his Patreon.

Festivus, publishing, Ramblings, Reading

Festivus Book Pimping. SNAFU: Last Stand (Cohesion Press)

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Yes, yes, I know. I am still shit at the regularity of Festivus Book Pimping, but get ready for a deluge! It’s gonna rain books, my friends! And while that may appear painful… BOOKS!

Right then, let’s get this party started.

Today, we’re going to settle into some military horror in the form of SNAFU: Last Stand, the latest release from Cohesion Press. Fourteen stories from fourteen amazing writers from all over the world, and with a foreword written by Hollywood director, Tim Miller (Terminator: Dark Fate, Deadpool). Tim loves the SNAFU series, and stories from some of its tomes have been reimagined in Netflix’s Emmy-winning animated series, Love, Death & Robots (you really should check it out, it’s killer), in both season one and the upcoming season two.

As the editor-in-chief of Cohesion Press, I’m partial to the books, and this one especially. Working with editor, Matthew Summers, the stories cover the gamut of ‘last stand’, and with a linear timeline, we move from Neanderthals right through to future warfare. There’s cosmic horror and voodoo, Sumerian gods and biological ‘gone-wrongs’, giant maggots, killer ‘skitters’, and huge fucking bats… to name but a few.

With the theme of ‘last stand’, you get to the best and the worst in people, the heroics and sacrifice – survival is very much on the table but those pickings be slim. Last Stand shows the mettle of those thrown into untenable situations and what they’ll do to beat back that tide. Each is a law (lore?) unto itself, and it’s a hell of a ride.

Here’s the blurb:

“This is it, mofos. This is the end game. We’ve got nowhere else to go, and no bugger’s coming to save us.
We’re either doing this or we’re gonna die trying, because it all depends on you. There is no going back. So lock, load, and get ready to rumble!”
SNAFU: Last Stand is a collated anthology of short stories of a final battle, no matter where it is or who it involves.
It’s the Battle of Thermopylae, the Alamo, the Battle of Mirbat, the First Battle of Mogadishu, the Battle of Hel, and Custer’s Last Stand, all rolled up into one badass monster-fighting basket of SNAFU-style action.

SNAFU Last Stand

And here’s the ToC, with links to the authors (who have them) for anyone wanting to dive into more of their work:

Beast Trap by JG Grimmer

Skitter by Anna Stephens

Seeing the Elephant by B Michael Radburn

Midnight in the House of Bats by Josh Reynolds

Leapfrogging by Buck Bloomingdale

Firefall by Mike Barretta

Katadesmos by Amanda Dier

The Throat by Alan Baxter

Breach by JW Stinson

Canute by RPL Johnson

Of Meat and Man by Jason Fischer

Jawbreaker by Justin Coates

Final Harvest by Justin Bell

Conditioning by Patrick Freivald

 

Biased I may be, but that’s a hella bang for your buck. Currently available in e-formats, although print copies will be coming soon.

Recommended for (everyone) those who like horror, military horror, cosmic horror, fantastical themes, big fuck-off monsters, nightmares.

Festivus, Ramblings, Reading, Reviews, Uncategorized

Festivus Book Pimping – The Long War: Tales from the Pharos Saga by Justin Coates

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All right, I have been Sucky McSucky-Claus (clause?) when it comes to Festivus Pimpage these last few days, but in my defence, there just aren’t enough hours in my smoke-haze-filled days. Also, smoke haze gives the shit gift of headaches.

PIMPAGE! IT’S PIMPAGE TIME!

For a change of pace, it’s story collection time! One of the authors I’ve worked with a few times in the SNAFU series is a hell of a writer and I wish more people knew just how talented he is so I’m gonna shout this from the rooftop… carefully, you know, ‘cause we have a pitched roof…

Right then, Justin Coates’ collection, The Long War: Tales from the Pharos Saga, hits all the marks for edge-of-your seat horror. Fast paced and action-filled, it covers a gamut of monsters and themes that cover an array of time periods that are all linked within this crazy cosmic world of his. This is a mix of previously published stories as well as original content that is melded perfectly together to form one hell of a reading experience.

 

The Long War

Here’s the blurb:

Demons. Aliens. Vampires. The undead. These and more prey on humanity from the shadows, and from the shadows, arise those brave or foolhardy enough to stand against them. These are their stories: a disgraced priestess on a mission to kill a god, an agent from a secretive government organization sent to investigate a series of grisly murders, a soldier on the front lines of an apocalyptic war, a slave haunted by the whispers of a dark spirit, a reluctant serial killer desperate to stop a far greater danger, and more. Featuring stories previously published in military horror anthologies, as well as exclusive content not published elsewhere, the Long War collection introduces the reader to the world of the Pharos Saga, a setting that spans from the distant past to the not-so-distant future, and invites them to stand against the night in a battle for the very soul of humanity.

 

Even knowing the skill with which Justin can craft a story, I flew through this collection and it cemented an even greater appreciation for the imagination and unadulterated visceral connection he can make between character and reader. I fucking loved it. And as this is Volume One of the Pharos Saga, I cannot wait for him to get Volume Two done and dusted.

Recommended for those who enjoy horror, military horror, cosmic horror, thrillers, dark fantasy, weird horror, sci-fi, short story collections, and just general bad-arsery (or assery for those of the US persuasion).