He knew as much pain as anyone I'd ever known yet this man had hell to look forward--you're all apart of me now, now. Just in time. 

Wavering Knife

I started a band.

http://waveringknife.bandcamp.com/releases

Black God is on sale for $6 (including shipping).

http://mudlusciouspress.com/blue-square-press/

(Scroll down a little on the page)

The Psycho House Girl

My thoughts on the video game Gone Home.

(The screens below were captured by me.)

I knew what I was getting into here, a Dear Esther type game, a game that is less game and more of a vehicle-for-a-story.  Gone Home, like Dear Esther, has very little in common with modern video games. It reminded me a little-bit of a Sega Saturn point and click game, or at a stretch, MYST.

Gone Home takes place entirely inside of an abandoned house. The atmosphere is eerie and still, but nothing scary ever happens. There are warnings of a terrible storm incoming, it never stops raining and thundering, lights flicker and shadows move, but there are no enemies to fight, nothing to run from.

Game play: You move with W,S,A,D and click on objects with the mouse. You can open a journal with J and see a map with M, that's it. 

Gone Home is all about story. Without giving anything away the story here is progressive and refreshing for the medium. It took me about two hours to complete. Would I want to be longer then that? No. I enjoyed the two hours, I was immersed, but after an hour and a half I was looking for the ending.

The game takes place in 1995. There are a lot of things in this home that reminded me of my own childhood (Nirvana, X-Files, Blade Runner, SNES, Pulp Fiction). I enjoyed exploring most of the house. I thought of House Of Leaves as I looked for secret passages and found evidence of teenage seances.

I don't want to talk about the family of the house because that's the whole reason to play, to figure out what's what and who's who. But there are a lot of interesting details here about a mother, a father, a sister, and a few others. You play as Kaitlin Greenbriar the oldest sister of the family, just returned home from Amsterdam.

You're home and everyone is gone. Why? Piece it together.

Before I pressed start I just listened to the title screen's hum-music and felt transported.

Then: the load screen as a cassette tape, a voice-mail beep, the rain, the empty home and the first note taped to the first door.

Made by a small team of three people Gone Home is an interesting exploration of what a game can be. More "experiments," like this are welcome in this landscape of Call of Duty. 

Wrote a review of James Pate's novel The Fassbinder Diaries for The Small Press Book Review.

ebook freaks

Open Road Media lists all the different ways we offer ebooks:

http://www.openroadmedia.com/irritant

http://www.openroadmedia.com/black-god

http://www.openroadmedia.com/theater-state

Hard copies available directly from us:

http://mudlusciouspress.com/blue-square-press/

(New web address coming soon-ish)

An Interview With c. vance

I interviewed c. vance for Heavy Feather Review. C vance is a cool man. I really enjoyed chatting with him.


Here: http://heavyfeatherreview.com/2013/07/15/we-an-interview-with-c-vance/

Irritant ebook

Irritant by Darby Larson is available as an ebook on Amazon.

Monkeytown

I wrote a review of Monkeytown by Chris Vola for The Small Press Book Review.

Machineries of Oblivion

Machineries of Oblivion: Chris Moran reviewed Black God for 3:AM Magazine. Thanks Chris!

Ways to buy Black God

Ebook available from Amazon, Kobo and itunes.

Physical copy available from Blue Square Press.

Irritant Reviews

The Small Press Book Review

"Irritant [is] an inexhaustible and invigorating work."

Fanzine

"Because of the intricacy of the images that Larson employs, the book is universal in scope..."

The Philadelphia Review of Books

"What you find between its periods, that’s the whole journey."


http://mudlusciouspress.com/blue-square-press/

DZANC's rEprint Series

Black God is now an ebook "rEprinted," by DZANC / Blue Square Press. The physical book is still available from bluesquarepress.com.

The ebook can be purchased from Amazon or from Kobo and soon directly from the DZANC website.   

Review of Black God

I am very thankful to T.C. Porter for writing such a thoughtful review of, Black God for Sundog Lit. This is the type of review that would make any writer feel "understood."  Thank you T.C. for the kind words and for the time you put into this.

"[Spivey's] work is rich in illusory, allegorical or metaphorical imagery. A single or double read falls short. I found myself spending an hour (a day) on a page. The result is a more collaborative experience between author and reader, because much is left to imagine. And long after the reading, we might share Spivey’s (Cooper’s) experience..."

"...we are still left to ponder our very interface with all of existence, our senses, and the nature of reality as we sense it, and the role of art in the process." 

The full review is here.

Review of Black God

"Lynchian domestic dynamic...dreamy existential dread, blood...slime...gore felt taxing...illness...no occupation, friends, or social life to speak of...isolated in illness...occasional bouts where his eyes and ears bleed...religious iconography...despair before redemption."

Reviewed by Wyatt Sparks. Entire review here: http://thesmallpressbookreview.blogspot.com/2013/05/review-of-ben-spiveys-black-god.html

Beasts and Men

I wrote a review of Curtis Smith's book 'Beasts and Men' for The Small Press Book Review.

I wrote a review of Fondly, two novellas by Colin Winnette at Heavy Feather Review.

Darby Larson's Irritant

Darby Larson's book Irritant is a 711 page manuscript that's going to be somewhere between 520 and 700 pages when published in the next few weeks.

This is a massive book for an indie press to pursue and publish. It has taken a lot of time and planning. I am so proud, excited and thankful for so many people who've supported this book with pre-orders and press. Thank you! Thank you!

Pre-orders are here for $20 (domestic) including shipping: http://mudlusciouspress.com/blue-square-press/  

I wrote a review for Kevin Catalano's book The Word Made Flesh at The Small Press Book Review.