Burnt Ends, F*#ked up Stories (e-Book)

Burnt Ends, Fucked Up Stories

About this premium e-Book:

Burnt Ends, F*#ked up Stories, is an anthology of stories that Steve wrote during one year. They represent a mixture of genres and address a variety of difficult themes inspired by some fucked up shit that’s happening in our society. Music maintains an obvious presence in most of these stories and remains influential in all of them.

So, what about the “F*#ked up” part of the subtitle? That has to do with some of these stories being rather fucked up and angry. Steve’s stories are from the heart and about the soul. Odds are that you will dislike at least one of them, because things written from the heart are more likely to garner extreme reactions. This also means you might discover that your reaction is especially positive. What you won’t find here is vanilla writing that lacks inspiration. Sometimes challenging, often insightful, but never boring, this anthology could motivate you to throw the book in the trash or stomp your feet in frustration. But it might instead reveal something that helps you see life in a new and useful way, make you nod in understanding, or smile in satisfaction. This collection offers intriguing possibilities for adventurous readers who want more than just cream and sugar in their coffee.

The anthology includes the science fiction novella, Bounce, and the short essay “Oceanside.”

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1. Purchase author-direct and save!
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Please enjoy an excerpt from Burnt Ends:

Why have I subtitled this collection “Fucked up Stories?” Partly to give warning that readers should not expect anything pedestrian or normal, here, and partly because some of these stories are rather fucked up. I also discovered, after re-reading all the stories in preparation for publishing them as a collection, that music is an echoing, ever-present theme in most of them. 

I often listen to music while writing, and if a particular song pulls me into the flow, I’ll put it on repeat and listen to it dozens of times. Clearly, music influenced these stories in a grand way, such that some of the stories would be completely different without the music or if different music had been playing while I wrote them. 

There is a flow among the stories, and they do connect to each other, though the connections are not necessarily obvious. And they do not fit neatly into any particular genre. They are a collection of genres and themes, including science fiction, horror, free-form, literary, expression, social commentary, who-knows-what, and even one non-fiction essay (Oceanside). Bounce, at more than 10,000 words, is a novella in the science fiction genre.  

I guarantee that you will hate at least one of these stories, and odds are that you will hate more than one. But there’s a good chance that you will also find something to relate to somewhere in these words, something that helps you see life in a new and useful way, or makes you nod in understanding, or smile in satisfaction, or even stomp your feet in frustration. If none of that happens, you might, at least, find some entertainment value here. 

Within a single year, I wrote all these stories and the essay, because each needed to get out from inside me. To be double negative: not writing the words was not an option. And whether or not you hear the words with rhythms and melodies when you read them, they “played” out of me as notes that needed to be sung. I hope you hear the music.

Steve Patchin is an author, photographer, and artist who has been working and running a studio in Las Vegas, Nevada since 1996. Derelict Dreams, an Illustrated Novel is his first novel. It includes more than 80 full-color original artistic photographs that make his apocalyptic story of two young sisters come alive. Steve is a Las Vegas native with an extensive portfolio of photographic images, realistic composites, and impressionistic paintings. He has owned and operated his photography and video business, Patchin Pictures, since 1996, winning eight Emmys for his work.

Steve has never stopped expanding and refining his art, photography, and writing. His resume of images displays an abundance of styles and subjects that are uniquely appealing: from traditional landscapes and cityscapes to his distinctive “photo paintings” that are more impressionistic, sometimes surreal, or other-worldly.