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Glen Krisch

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The Nightmare Within Kindle Edition

by Glen Krisch (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.0 324 ratings

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Maury has the supernatural ability to pull dreams into the waking world, giving the dreams physical form. Once exposed to the real world, the dreams evolve, adapting to their surroundings.

From a boy named Kevin, he removes Mr. Freakshow, a nightmare feeding on the trauma of Kevin having recently witnessed his father's murder. Kevin will do whatever it takes to be free of his nightmare, once and for all. Mr. Freakshow will do whatever it takes to realize his immortality.

Will Kevin survive his nightmare?

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Krisch writes with sheer force and raw power-a welcome entry to the horror ranks."
-- Scott Nicholson, best-selling author of The Red Church

"Every new book by Glen Krisch is a reason to celebrate. He writes with the kind of assured, lyrical style that makes other writers salivate. He knows what makes a story tick. He knows the value of character. And he knows how to scare you."
-- Kealan Patrick Burke, author of The Turtle Boy and Kin.

"Where Darkness Dwells, is fast paced with a lot of twists and turns that will keep you turning the pages, wanting to find out what happens next. Even with such a large and varied group of characters as well as all the twists and turns I never felt that Glen lost focus as the story moved along quickly, and didn't lag for me at all."
-- Famous Monsters of Filmland

From the Author

Q & A with the author

Q. Giving dreams physical form? That's a pretty wild idea.
I hope so! I wanted to write a story about monsters, but one that hadn't been done to death. I also wanted to write about something everyone has experienced. Who hasn't woken up in a cold sweat, terrified by what only the imagination could create?

Q. Are there any limits to what these dream-people can do?
Sure, there are certain rules the dreams live by, even if they aren't aware of them.
1. A dream-person achieves immortality by killing its dreamer.
2. If a dreamer dies for any other reason, the embodied dream disappears forever.

Q. So, even though Mr. Freakshow is removed from Kevin, he isn't ever safe, is he?
Now what fun would that be? lol. Kevin has plenty to fear once his nightmare escapes from its confinement.

Q. So, once the dreams have been removed from the dreamer, what happens next?
Maury collects the dreams to display at Lucidity, the Museum of Dreams. It's just unfortunate that the dreams don't feel like being contained for very long.

Q. So, for real, isn't this just a ridiculous idea?
Yes, of course it is, but on the surface, so are many other supernatural tropes. What I think makes The Nightmare Within stand out are the characters. I tried to create living, breathing human beings (at least the human characters. lol). If you like fast-paced supernatural thrillers in the tradition of early King or Koontz, you won't be disappointed.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B004GNFTSA
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Stray King Publishing (December 18, 2010)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 18, 2010
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 985 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 281 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1481250949

Best Sellers Rank: #1,541,479 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #8,128 in Paranormal Suspense
- #18,223 in Supernatural Thrillers (Books)
- #31,531 in Horror (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
4.0 324 ratings

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Glen Krisch

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A native of the Chicago suburbs, Glen Krisch hopes to add to his list of ghosts he's witnessed (two), as well as develop his rather pedestrian telekinetic and precognitive skills. His novels include Amazon Bestseller WHERE DARKNESS DWELLS, THE NIGHTMARE WITHIN, NOTHING LASTING, ARKADIUM RISING, ECHOES OF VIOLENCE, and LITTLE WHISPERS.

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Frank Errington

Original and entertaining horror

Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2012

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Glen R. Krisch is a strong new voice in the horror genre. The Nightmare Within was his first book, released in December of 2010., and one I won't soon forget.

Maury Bennet has a gift -- the ability to draw dreams from the mind of the dreamer and bring them into the real world -- a gift he discovered after a fire gutted his family's apartment building, killing seven people and leaving Maury with severe burns over thirty percent of his body.

Now a practicing psychiatrist, Maury is brought into contact with Nolan Gage who is engaged in dream research. Together they embark on a project to open a museum of dreams, nightmares included, to be called Lucidity. What could possibly go wrong?

One of the things I liked most about this work is the author's skill at taking ideas and situations that seem crazy and making them believable, something Krisch seems to do with ease. His characters are rich and diverse in nature...and expendable. More than once, someone you would expect to see at the end of the book, doesn't quite make it.

The Nightmare Within is imaginative, compelling and original and was a very enjoyable read. A very fine first book and I look forward to more from Glen R. Krisch. I've already read Where Darkness Dwells, which I can also strongly recommend.

The Nightmare Within is available from Amazon.com and if you subscribe to Amazon Prime, you can borrow for free from the Kindle Lending Library.

The Nightmare Within

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All our worst nightmares!!!

Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2011

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4 Stars Stars....

After putting aside my early apprehension of my disbelief over the premise of the story, I found myself drawn into the life of our protagonist Kevin. It is funny but for as much as I love the horror genre, I find that I have quite a few prejudices and I am somewhat picky as to what I "believe" to be good horror. Zombies, ghosts, all things undead, and monsters in just about any form are my cup of a tea. But I guess that I have hard time buying into them when they are taken out of our dreams. There was never A Nighmare on My Street.

My prejudices aside let's talk about what worked well for me. The early scene with Kevin and in his father is taut, scary, and memorable to the story. It is the reason that I decided to push through and read this one. Kevin's whole life changed at this moment and we the reader are made to feel the weight and remorse of this tragedy. Well done.

There are many big concepts explored in this book which is both a good thing and a bad thing. Maury is an interesting character that I found myself confused over whether or not I liked him and empathized with him, or if I despised him. The whole museum idea is interesting but it is done too quickly and does not provide quite enough ideas behind it, to give us something meaty to believe in. The plot twists with this character left me feeling a bit cheated, but I can see the why's behind it. Maury was a very real character to me and was a reason that I enjoyed this read.

The scene that explored a fathers love for his daughter was quite good. He had very touching interactions with his comatose daughters dreams, playing, loving, and caring for them. Kirsch made this story line work by giving us a backstory to try and touch us emotionally and it payed off. Even when things go to hell I felt that this story line was done right and I enjoyed it all.

Kevin, was a seriously emotionally damaged protagonist that I liked from the very beginning. Glen Krisch does the most important thing a horror novelist must do and that is he gave us a character that we believed in. This horror story works as a whole because Kevin is someone that I cared about and that I felt invested in his outcome. His relationship with his Mom, his Grandma, and his father add depth and character to him. I really enjoyed the scenes with Kevin making friends, playing baseball, and having intimate conversations with his Grandma. I felt Kevins fears, his courage, and his determination.

Fast paced, too fast really as some big concepts are not explored enough and they only touch at bigger meanings. Freakshow is a bad a** monster that we would all fear. There are some high tension moments written here and I can see that Glen Krisch has what it takes to write a good horror novel. I both liked and disliked the ending as I feel it was a bit too safe for me. There are many questions that were left unanswered and plot lines left unfinished. This is an example where more is sometimes better as this is a short novel that could have benefitted from several more chapters.

For horror lovers that like character based monster stories this one is for you. With a young protagonist this one would also find an audience with the YA crowd, and the book would be an appropriate read. Glen Krisch is an author to watch and I will be sure to read his other works.

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Roxanne Crouse

You'll enjoy Mr. Freakshow's show

Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2012

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The Nightmare Within by Glen Krisch is about a man named Maury who has the unique ability to pull dreams and nightmares from peoples heads and trap them in the real world. He uses his ability to create a museum of dreams and nightmares. One particularly nasty nightmare named Mr. Freakshow, a dream from a small boy's imagination, escapes and sets all the other nightmares free to cause havoc on the city of Chicago.

This story mostly takes place in the city of Chicago at the museum of dreams called Lucidity. Other parts take place at the home of the boy's grandmother where the mom and son move after the murder of the boy's father. The story is well written and easy to follow. It is also blessedly free of typos and formatting errors. The author definitely put his time in to present a professional product.

The characters in this story are well developed and have extensive histories. On occasion, it's too developed. I found myself getting bored as the characters rambled on about their pasts that had no connection to the plot, especially the part where the boy returns to his home town and reflects on his past every time he sees something familiar. Some readers may disagree enjoying the extra information. I found that it slowed the pace of the novel especially toward the end when events could have moved much faster to keep it exciting. I found myself skipping through paragraphs to get to the good stuff.

The plot is a tight one and well developed even if it is predictable. Nothing surprising happened, but I did enjoy the idea of this story which was unique from my perspective. I even think this book would make an interesting movie, especially if the same people who filmed, The Cell, made it.

I thought the ending dragged too long. There was an entire chapter about the major I felt could have been cut and a part about a serial killer on a train that didn't tie into the bigger plot in any way and could have been cut. Although, I did enjoy the contrast between how the serial killer viewed himself and how others around him viewed him. IT would make a great short story on its own, but wasn't needed in this story.

Overall I do recommend the book for its unique idea using dreams, and its professional writing style I enjoyed reading.

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