It’s June, which means only two months-ish before the next three books in my Pocket Guide series release. I’ve been wondering how to continue to tease them to keep you interested until that date, and had an idea. What if I took a random chapter from one of the books, and then listed a bunch of random phrases which occur in that chapter?

I’m fairly biased, but I think it would be fun.

So just now I combed through the first chapter of Pocket Guide to the Afterlife. This chapter is called “The Cosmic Lexicon: A Glossary of the Hereafter,” and it contains some seriously weird phrases. I was kinda surprised. I had forgotten about some of this stuff. (Then again, I wrote most of it more than a year ago.)

Here are a few of my favorite random phrases, lifted entirely out of context. To find out what they mean or what they’re referring to…well, you’ll have to read the book. Pre-order yours now at Amazon.

22 Random Phrases from Pocket Guide to the Afterlife (Chapter 1):

a throne of human carcasses

become familiar with the “gnashing of teeth”

ghoulish Gene Simmons-like death masks

incinerating the soft parts of a dead body

shape-shifting cannibalistic rakshasas

hunting lodges filled with stuffed-and-mounted elk heads

“Eternal Flame,” a tormenting mid-80s song by the Bangles

famously incorrupt body of Saint Catherine of Bologna

even good karma results in, like, the worst vacation ever

having molten lead poured down your throat

72 beautiful, virginal, sexual companions

nothing more than brain-generated hallucinations

shine a flashlight in his face and start yelling “The light! The light!”

inside a circle made of strips of squirrel flesh

Craig shanked his Frisbee throw

already booked on the smoky train

no matter how good you are at the Zarrow Shuffle

devoured by large jungle cats

cat-like reflexes, passion for tuna

incinerated Kevin with a blast of sulfuric breath

let me introduce you to my lovely female companion, Death

die around any wicked Voodoo sorcerers

————

I think I’ll do this again. There are a lot more chapters to draw from…