"can I take your picture?"
"do I have to stop playing Civilizations?"
Saturday, March 31, 2012
07 March 12
Didn't take a photo on the sixth, so here are two from the seventh, which was cookoff day!
As always, check out the blog to see all the entries and the winner.
As always, check out the blog to see all the entries and the winner.
Friday, March 30, 2012
FRESH MEAT: The Staying Power of the Zombie Genre-- A Guest Post by Jonathan Maberry (with a shambling horde of friends)
Not too long ago I had the opportunity to read "Dead of Night" by Johnathan Maberry- a book that ended up on my "Best of" list for 2011. So when I had the opportunity to host a guest blog by Johnathan-- I jumped at the chance. What I didn't anticipate was that I would get a seven-for-one deal with commentary by a host of authors talking about zombies! Big thanks go to Johnathan for going to so much trouble and putting this together. Enjoy! (And keep watching the blog for another giveaway featuring "Dead of Night" tomorrow!)
~SQT
While considering my guest post I thought about the public perception of the zombie phenomenon. Like the living dead themselves, the genre’s popularity keeps coming in waves. There was the initial outbreak in 1968 with George Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, then a bit of a European tour as England, Italy, German, Spain and a few other countries began churning out zombie flicks (the BLIND DEAD are my personal favorites, along with the UK’s LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE).
Then we had an almost fatal lull until Romero breathed new life into his own genre with the landmark DAWN OF THE DEAD. That flick, possible more so than NIGHT, made the genre immortal. That was a bigger worldwide hit. That redefined the ‘rules’ of zombie stories. It had better actors, it had color, it had a bigger budget, and it had a better script. It was also copied by everyone. After that, we had wave after wave of zombie films. And around the same time John Skipp and Craig Spector unleashed the first anthology of zombie stories, BOOK OF THE DEAD, which gave birth to the literature of the living dead. Without that antho, a whole lot of my colleagues (and I) would be writing about something else.
Then we got DAY OF THE DEAD, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, RESIDENT EVIL, SHAUN OF THE DEAD, the remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD, and on and on. As well as tons of zombie books, zombie comics, zombie TV shows, zombie toys, and on and on. An invasion of zoms. A plague of them.
But…some folks think that the genre has hit a wall. Or, to use the Happy Days reference (which most people don’t KNOW is a Happy Days reference), some people say that zombies have ‘jumped the shark’. This is a comment I hear, in one form or another, at least once a week. You see it in reviews (by people who don’t understand the genre), in publishing or movie industry commentary (by people who don’t understand the genre), on TV news (by people who don’t understand the genre), and even at genre con panel discussions (by people who don’t understand the genre). Are you noticing a trend here?
The people who keep saying this don’t really get why zombies are today’s hot (well, room temperature) monster. They’ll be hot tomorrow, and they’ll be hot next year. Sure, popularity may wax and wane, but the same is true of vampires (who always return to popularity), ghosts (ditto), demons (ditto), giant monsters (ditto, ditto, ditto…)
I asked a bunch of my colleagues to comment on this question. Have zombies actually jumped the shark?
JOE McKINNEY: Why isn’t that true? When was the last time you read Orwell’s 1984? Remember Big Brother’s M.O. for controlling the populace? They did it, and continued to do it, through language. Change the way a culture speaks and you change the way that culture thinks. That’s one reason why Orwell included an appendix on language at the end of the book. Now look at how thoroughly entrenched zombies have become in our language over the last few years. They have crossed over from mere pop culture references to accepted mainstream groupspeak. For example, following WWII we described people in shock as having the “2000 yard stare,” after the Tom Lea painting of a Marine from the Battle of Peleliu. But today, we’re just as likely to say “that person looks like a zombie,” or has that zombie look in his eyes. The corporate world has now recognized zombie businesses, something the forensic mechanics of yesteryear would have lumped in with financial shell games and fishy bookkeeping. Computer science has given us zombie terminals. Contemporary literature has appropriated the term, as in Joyce Carol Oates’ novel Zombie and Thomas McGuane’s story “The Zombie,” just to name a few. These works, and others, don’t mention the shambling undead hordes per se, but rely on the concept of a zombie, a person suffering from a personality lobotomy. So, really, the term is fairly well established. I think zombies are going to be part of the horror business for a long time to come because the concept is now so familiar. Your question suggests that some reviewers think zombies have crested some sort of hill and that, quality-wise, it’s all downhill from here. I don’t think that’s true. Zombies have always enjoyed a sort of dual nature as both the harlequin and the horror. Sometimes they get lampooned. Sometimes they get exalted. It goes in waves. (Joe McKinney is a homicide detective for the San Antonio Police Department who has been writing professionally since 2006. He is the Bram Stoker-nominated author of Dead City, Quarantined, Dodging Bullets, Apocalypse of the Dead, Flesh Eaters, and The Red Empire. As a police officer, he’s received training in disaster mitigation, forensics, and homicide investigation techniques, some of which finds its way into his stories. He lives in the Texas Hill Country north of San Antonio.)
JOHN R. RUSSO: Well, because just as zombies can't die unless shot in the head, I guess the fascination with zombies won't die either, unless we shoot each and every zombie fan in the head. Just kidding. But seriously, this flesheating zombie thing has tapped into a raw atavistic dread that we all feel. For over forty years now, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD has given rise to all sorts of sequels, spinoffs, rip-offs, derivatives (not the stock market kind), and merchandising and marketing items and ploys that will probably go on as long as there are books and movies. Just when people think the phenomenon has run its course, up pops a fresh, new concept like 28 DAYS LATER or SHAUN OF THE DEAD. My own screenplay, ESCAPE OF THE LIVING DEAD, goes right back to the roots of the whole thing, and audiences seem to be ready for that, judging by the fact that the comic book has spawned ten sequels already, two graphic novels, and an array of tie-in products like tee-shirts, coffee mugs, beer mugs, shot glasses, etc. (John Russo wants everyone to know he's a really nice guy even though he loves to scare people. He started it by co-scripting the horror classic NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. one of the greatest fright flicks of all time. He also wrote the screenplays and/or stories for MIDNIGHT, SANTA CLAWS, THE MAJORETTES, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD and INHUMAN. He has authored fifteen terror-suspense novels, including LIVING THINGS, THE AWAKENING, VOODOO DAWN and HELL'S CREATION. His nonfiction books, SCARE TACTICS and MAKING MOVIES, are considered bibles of independent filmmaking by film students and horror fans. With long-time friend and partner, Russ Streiner, who produced NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and is chairman of the Pittsburgh Film Office, he directs a top-notch movie making program at DuBois Business College in DuBois, PA. His screenplay, ESCAPE OF THE LIVING DEAD, was made into a five-part comic book that made the Top Ten nationally, and is soon to be made into a movie that he will direct. He resides in a suburb of Pittsburgh and to his knowledge none of his neighbors are zombies, although "there is one guy around the corner who is rumored to have devoured the mailman a few years ago.")
KIM PAFFENROTH, PhD: They’ve been saying that since I published Gospel of the Living Dead. I guess maybe someday it might come true, but on the other hand, I don’t see it as necessary. Do vampires “jump the shark” when they turn into romantic, sparkly creatures? Well, sort of, but it doesn’t seem to limit their popularity, or stop someone from reinventing them next year as something else. So if zombies ever go “too far” then I’ll just expect them to be remodeled and reconfigured soon thereafter. I mean, if you think of fads that disappeared, it’s because they were just a one note kind of song, and once you “got” the joke or the appeal, it was over. Take a pet rock – once you laugh at it, the gimmick is over, and you really can’t reinvent it as a pet paperclip or a pet stick or whatever. Zombies have way more adaptability and appeal than that. (Kim Paffenroth is a professor of religious studies at Iona College. He is the author of Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero’s Visions of Hell on Earth (Baylor, 2006), which won the Bram Stoker Award. Since then he’s been writing zombie fiction, including Dying to Live (Permuted, 2007), and its sequel, Dying to Live: Life Sentence (Permuted, 2008). His most recent novel, Valley of the Dead (Permuted, 2010), combines his theological and literary interests, taking us back to the 14th century, where the medieval Italian poet Dante is in a life and death struggle with a zombie infestation.)
FRED VAN LENTE: Because nothing ever jumps the shark, so long as writers are out there trying to make new and interesting thing happen in the genre. People who provide commentary on art have two basic refrains, and that’s a.) They’ve discovered the newest/hottest/best thing before anybody else or b.) They’re the first to spot blight on the vine before those who lack their keen insight. This is why authors should pretty much ignore every single thing they say because they don’t really know anything about our profession or how to live it. (FRED VAN LENTE is the New York Times bestselling author of three entries in the Marvel Zombies series, as well as Incredible Hercules (with Greg Pak) and the American Library Association award-winning Action Philosophers. His original graphic novel Cowboys & Aliens (co-written with Andrew Foley) was adapted into motion picture form by Dreamworks and Universal, starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford.)
Chuck McKenzie: This is the sort of statement that tends to accompany any perceived 'cult' phenomenon that suddenly becomes extremely commercially popular, whether it be South Park, zombies, or rapping grannies, and seems to be motivated more by a desire to put back in its box something the reviewer perceives as somewhat unpleasant or embarrassing, rather than by the facts of the matter. Okay, rant over. Zombies aren't even close to jumping the shark yet, because authors, illustrators, toymakers and scriptwriters haven't yet run out of new takes on zombiedom. The last couple of years alone has given us movies as brilliant and diverse as Pontypool, Dead Snow and Zombieland, as well as books such as S. G. Browne's Breathers, John Ajvide Lindqvist's Handling the Undead, and Patient Zero by whatshisname; all absolutely unique in their approach to zombies. Sure, there's bound be a fair bit of dross along the way, but with so much *quality* product still reaching a wider-than-ever audience, it's obvious to me that we've only just scratched the surface of all the zombie genre has to offer. (Chuck McKenzie is a staff reviewer for HorrorScope (http://ozhorrorscope.blogspot.com/), and additionally manages a large general bookshop in Melbourne, which - due to his predilections - has gained a reputation with local horror readers as being THE place to pick up zombie-related literature.)
J L BOURNE: I guess I don’t get out much. I didn’t get the memo on this, as I’m still writing about zombies and the end of the world. Although zombies may see a sine curve shift in popularity as do vampires, werewolves and large Cloverleaf monsters, they never quite sink out of popularity altogether. People still love to read about survivors and the decisions they make against an army that never rests and only wants one thing. (J L BOURNE: Born in a small town in the rural south, J.L. Bourne balances his time as an active duty military officer with writing fiction based in a post-apocalyptic world overrun with the dead. He is the author of the classic Day by Day Armageddon zombie series.)
JONATHAN MABERRY: I’ve written about zombies for years now, and in a variety of different forms –novels, nonfiction books, magazine articles, comics, and short stories. I find that the ‘zombie’ is an infinitely fresh storytelling trope. Unlike vampires, who have become the story to the point where they’ve crowded the human characters out, zombies have no personality. They don’t intrude, they don’t hijack the novel. They represent a massive, shared threat that every human character in the story must react to. As such, they create the foundation for stories about real people in stressful circumstances, which is pretty much the basic description of ‘drama’. As long as zombie stories continue to be about the human experience, the genre is never going to get cold. I look at the zombie stuff I’ve written and it’s all radically different. ZOMBIE CSU: The Forensics of the Living Dead is a nonfiction book that views the concept of a zombie apocalypse through the lens of real world infrastructure and science. PATIENT ZERO is a technothriller that explores issues of corruption, terrorism, ideological clashes and the psychological cost of violence. ROT & RUIN and its sequels, DUST & DECAY, FLESH & BONE (Sept 2012) and FIRE & ASH (2013) are Young Adult novels that explore the value of human life, the nature of corruption and the phenomenon of heroism. The short story, “Pegleg and Paddy Save the World” is historical comedy. Another short, “The Wind Through the Fence” is a nihilistic meditation on despair; and its companion piece, “Chokepoint”, is a character study of how disparate personalities react to stress. The novella, “Jack and Jill”, explores how a terminally ill child views his own impending death. And my recent novel, DEAD OF NIGHT, explores the social and political implications of mismanaged bioweapons research. They’re all zombie stories. None of them are remotely the same. The genre? Yeah…it’s here to stay. (Jonathan Maberry is a NY Times bestselling author, multiple Bram Stoker Award winner, and Marvel Comics writer. He’s the author of many novels including Assassin’s Code, Dead of Night, Patient Zero and Rot & Ruin. His nonfiction books on topics ranging from martial arts to zombie pop-culture. Since 1978 he has sold more than 1200 magazine feature articles, 3000 columns, two plays, greeting cards, song lyrics, poetry, and textbooks. Jonathan continues to teach the celebrated Experimental Writing for Teens class, which he created. He founded the Writers Coffeehouse and co-founded The Liars Club; and is a frequent speaker at schools and libraries, as well as a keynote speaker and guest of honor at major writers and genre conferences. Jonathan lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with his wife, Sara and their son, Sam. Visit him online at www.jonathanmaberry.com and on Twitter (@jonathanmaberry) and Facebook.)
******************
Praise for DEAD OF NIGHT:
~SQT
Then we had an almost fatal lull until Romero breathed new life into his own genre with the landmark DAWN OF THE DEAD. That flick, possible more so than NIGHT, made the genre immortal. That was a bigger worldwide hit. That redefined the ‘rules’ of zombie stories. It had better actors, it had color, it had a bigger budget, and it had a better script. It was also copied by everyone. After that, we had wave after wave of zombie films. And around the same time John Skipp and Craig Spector unleashed the first anthology of zombie stories, BOOK OF THE DEAD, which gave birth to the literature of the living dead. Without that antho, a whole lot of my colleagues (and I) would be writing about something else.
Then we got DAY OF THE DEAD, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, RESIDENT EVIL, SHAUN OF THE DEAD, the remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD, and on and on. As well as tons of zombie books, zombie comics, zombie TV shows, zombie toys, and on and on. An invasion of zoms. A plague of them.
But…some folks think that the genre has hit a wall. Or, to use the Happy Days reference (which most people don’t KNOW is a Happy Days reference), some people say that zombies have ‘jumped the shark’. This is a comment I hear, in one form or another, at least once a week. You see it in reviews (by people who don’t understand the genre), in publishing or movie industry commentary (by people who don’t understand the genre), on TV news (by people who don’t understand the genre), and even at genre con panel discussions (by people who don’t understand the genre). Are you noticing a trend here?
The people who keep saying this don’t really get why zombies are today’s hot (well, room temperature) monster. They’ll be hot tomorrow, and they’ll be hot next year. Sure, popularity may wax and wane, but the same is true of vampires (who always return to popularity), ghosts (ditto), demons (ditto), giant monsters (ditto, ditto, ditto…)
I asked a bunch of my colleagues to comment on this question. Have zombies actually jumped the shark?
JOE McKINNEY: Why isn’t that true? When was the last time you read Orwell’s 1984? Remember Big Brother’s M.O. for controlling the populace? They did it, and continued to do it, through language. Change the way a culture speaks and you change the way that culture thinks. That’s one reason why Orwell included an appendix on language at the end of the book. Now look at how thoroughly entrenched zombies have become in our language over the last few years. They have crossed over from mere pop culture references to accepted mainstream groupspeak. For example, following WWII we described people in shock as having the “2000 yard stare,” after the Tom Lea painting of a Marine from the Battle of Peleliu. But today, we’re just as likely to say “that person looks like a zombie,” or has that zombie look in his eyes. The corporate world has now recognized zombie businesses, something the forensic mechanics of yesteryear would have lumped in with financial shell games and fishy bookkeeping. Computer science has given us zombie terminals. Contemporary literature has appropriated the term, as in Joyce Carol Oates’ novel Zombie and Thomas McGuane’s story “The Zombie,” just to name a few. These works, and others, don’t mention the shambling undead hordes per se, but rely on the concept of a zombie, a person suffering from a personality lobotomy. So, really, the term is fairly well established. I think zombies are going to be part of the horror business for a long time to come because the concept is now so familiar. Your question suggests that some reviewers think zombies have crested some sort of hill and that, quality-wise, it’s all downhill from here. I don’t think that’s true. Zombies have always enjoyed a sort of dual nature as both the harlequin and the horror. Sometimes they get lampooned. Sometimes they get exalted. It goes in waves. (Joe McKinney is a homicide detective for the San Antonio Police Department who has been writing professionally since 2006. He is the Bram Stoker-nominated author of Dead City, Quarantined, Dodging Bullets, Apocalypse of the Dead, Flesh Eaters, and The Red Empire. As a police officer, he’s received training in disaster mitigation, forensics, and homicide investigation techniques, some of which finds its way into his stories. He lives in the Texas Hill Country north of San Antonio.)
JOHN R. RUSSO: Well, because just as zombies can't die unless shot in the head, I guess the fascination with zombies won't die either, unless we shoot each and every zombie fan in the head. Just kidding. But seriously, this flesheating zombie thing has tapped into a raw atavistic dread that we all feel. For over forty years now, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD has given rise to all sorts of sequels, spinoffs, rip-offs, derivatives (not the stock market kind), and merchandising and marketing items and ploys that will probably go on as long as there are books and movies. Just when people think the phenomenon has run its course, up pops a fresh, new concept like 28 DAYS LATER or SHAUN OF THE DEAD. My own screenplay, ESCAPE OF THE LIVING DEAD, goes right back to the roots of the whole thing, and audiences seem to be ready for that, judging by the fact that the comic book has spawned ten sequels already, two graphic novels, and an array of tie-in products like tee-shirts, coffee mugs, beer mugs, shot glasses, etc. (John Russo wants everyone to know he's a really nice guy even though he loves to scare people. He started it by co-scripting the horror classic NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. one of the greatest fright flicks of all time. He also wrote the screenplays and/or stories for MIDNIGHT, SANTA CLAWS, THE MAJORETTES, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD and INHUMAN. He has authored fifteen terror-suspense novels, including LIVING THINGS, THE AWAKENING, VOODOO DAWN and HELL'S CREATION. His nonfiction books, SCARE TACTICS and MAKING MOVIES, are considered bibles of independent filmmaking by film students and horror fans. With long-time friend and partner, Russ Streiner, who produced NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and is chairman of the Pittsburgh Film Office, he directs a top-notch movie making program at DuBois Business College in DuBois, PA. His screenplay, ESCAPE OF THE LIVING DEAD, was made into a five-part comic book that made the Top Ten nationally, and is soon to be made into a movie that he will direct. He resides in a suburb of Pittsburgh and to his knowledge none of his neighbors are zombies, although "there is one guy around the corner who is rumored to have devoured the mailman a few years ago.")
KIM PAFFENROTH, PhD: They’ve been saying that since I published Gospel of the Living Dead. I guess maybe someday it might come true, but on the other hand, I don’t see it as necessary. Do vampires “jump the shark” when they turn into romantic, sparkly creatures? Well, sort of, but it doesn’t seem to limit their popularity, or stop someone from reinventing them next year as something else. So if zombies ever go “too far” then I’ll just expect them to be remodeled and reconfigured soon thereafter. I mean, if you think of fads that disappeared, it’s because they were just a one note kind of song, and once you “got” the joke or the appeal, it was over. Take a pet rock – once you laugh at it, the gimmick is over, and you really can’t reinvent it as a pet paperclip or a pet stick or whatever. Zombies have way more adaptability and appeal than that. (Kim Paffenroth is a professor of religious studies at Iona College. He is the author of Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero’s Visions of Hell on Earth (Baylor, 2006), which won the Bram Stoker Award. Since then he’s been writing zombie fiction, including Dying to Live (Permuted, 2007), and its sequel, Dying to Live: Life Sentence (Permuted, 2008). His most recent novel, Valley of the Dead (Permuted, 2010), combines his theological and literary interests, taking us back to the 14th century, where the medieval Italian poet Dante is in a life and death struggle with a zombie infestation.)
FRED VAN LENTE: Because nothing ever jumps the shark, so long as writers are out there trying to make new and interesting thing happen in the genre. People who provide commentary on art have two basic refrains, and that’s a.) They’ve discovered the newest/hottest/best thing before anybody else or b.) They’re the first to spot blight on the vine before those who lack their keen insight. This is why authors should pretty much ignore every single thing they say because they don’t really know anything about our profession or how to live it. (FRED VAN LENTE is the New York Times bestselling author of three entries in the Marvel Zombies series, as well as Incredible Hercules (with Greg Pak) and the American Library Association award-winning Action Philosophers. His original graphic novel Cowboys & Aliens (co-written with Andrew Foley) was adapted into motion picture form by Dreamworks and Universal, starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford.)
Chuck McKenzie: This is the sort of statement that tends to accompany any perceived 'cult' phenomenon that suddenly becomes extremely commercially popular, whether it be South Park, zombies, or rapping grannies, and seems to be motivated more by a desire to put back in its box something the reviewer perceives as somewhat unpleasant or embarrassing, rather than by the facts of the matter. Okay, rant over. Zombies aren't even close to jumping the shark yet, because authors, illustrators, toymakers and scriptwriters haven't yet run out of new takes on zombiedom. The last couple of years alone has given us movies as brilliant and diverse as Pontypool, Dead Snow and Zombieland, as well as books such as S. G. Browne's Breathers, John Ajvide Lindqvist's Handling the Undead, and Patient Zero by whatshisname; all absolutely unique in their approach to zombies. Sure, there's bound be a fair bit of dross along the way, but with so much *quality* product still reaching a wider-than-ever audience, it's obvious to me that we've only just scratched the surface of all the zombie genre has to offer. (Chuck McKenzie is a staff reviewer for HorrorScope (http://ozhorrorscope.blogspot.com/), and additionally manages a large general bookshop in Melbourne, which - due to his predilections - has gained a reputation with local horror readers as being THE place to pick up zombie-related literature.)
J L BOURNE: I guess I don’t get out much. I didn’t get the memo on this, as I’m still writing about zombies and the end of the world. Although zombies may see a sine curve shift in popularity as do vampires, werewolves and large Cloverleaf monsters, they never quite sink out of popularity altogether. People still love to read about survivors and the decisions they make against an army that never rests and only wants one thing. (J L BOURNE: Born in a small town in the rural south, J.L. Bourne balances his time as an active duty military officer with writing fiction based in a post-apocalyptic world overrun with the dead. He is the author of the classic Day by Day Armageddon zombie series.)
JONATHAN MABERRY: I’ve written about zombies for years now, and in a variety of different forms –novels, nonfiction books, magazine articles, comics, and short stories. I find that the ‘zombie’ is an infinitely fresh storytelling trope. Unlike vampires, who have become the story to the point where they’ve crowded the human characters out, zombies have no personality. They don’t intrude, they don’t hijack the novel. They represent a massive, shared threat that every human character in the story must react to. As such, they create the foundation for stories about real people in stressful circumstances, which is pretty much the basic description of ‘drama’. As long as zombie stories continue to be about the human experience, the genre is never going to get cold. I look at the zombie stuff I’ve written and it’s all radically different. ZOMBIE CSU: The Forensics of the Living Dead is a nonfiction book that views the concept of a zombie apocalypse through the lens of real world infrastructure and science. PATIENT ZERO is a technothriller that explores issues of corruption, terrorism, ideological clashes and the psychological cost of violence. ROT & RUIN and its sequels, DUST & DECAY, FLESH & BONE (Sept 2012) and FIRE & ASH (2013) are Young Adult novels that explore the value of human life, the nature of corruption and the phenomenon of heroism. The short story, “Pegleg and Paddy Save the World” is historical comedy. Another short, “The Wind Through the Fence” is a nihilistic meditation on despair; and its companion piece, “Chokepoint”, is a character study of how disparate personalities react to stress. The novella, “Jack and Jill”, explores how a terminally ill child views his own impending death. And my recent novel, DEAD OF NIGHT, explores the social and political implications of mismanaged bioweapons research. They’re all zombie stories. None of them are remotely the same. The genre? Yeah…it’s here to stay. (Jonathan Maberry is a NY Times bestselling author, multiple Bram Stoker Award winner, and Marvel Comics writer. He’s the author of many novels including Assassin’s Code, Dead of Night, Patient Zero and Rot & Ruin. His nonfiction books on topics ranging from martial arts to zombie pop-culture. Since 1978 he has sold more than 1200 magazine feature articles, 3000 columns, two plays, greeting cards, song lyrics, poetry, and textbooks. Jonathan continues to teach the celebrated Experimental Writing for Teens class, which he created. He founded the Writers Coffeehouse and co-founded The Liars Club; and is a frequent speaker at schools and libraries, as well as a keynote speaker and guest of honor at major writers and genre conferences. Jonathan lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with his wife, Sara and their son, Sam. Visit him online at www.jonathanmaberry.com and on Twitter (@jonathanmaberry) and Facebook.)
******************
Praise for DEAD OF NIGHT:
“Jonathan Maberry is the top gun when it comes to zombies, and with DEAD OF NIGHT, he's at the top of his game. Frankly, I'm shocked by how effortlessly he moves between the lofty intellectual heights of T.S. Eliot's poetry and the savage carnality of the kill. DEAD OF NIGHT develops with the fevered pace of a manhunt, and yet still manages to hit all the right notes. Strap in, because Maberry's latest is one hell of a wild ride. I loved it.” - Joe McKinney, author of Dead City and FLESH EATERS
“Jonathan Maberry has created an homage to death itself and an homage to the undead that is as poetic as it is terrifying. It's a brand new and intriguingly fresh slant on the zombie genre that we all love!” -John A. Russo co-screenwriter of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
“Maberry is a master at writing scenes that surge and hum with tension. The pacing is relentless. He presses the accelerator to the floor and never lets up, taking you on a ride that leaves your heart pounding. It’s almost impossible to put this book down. Dead of Night is an excellent read.” —S.G. Browne, author of BREATHERS
"It would be enough to say that Jonathan Maberry had topped himself yet again with an epic zombie novel that is as much fun as it is terrifying. But that he has also created a story of such tremendous heart and social relevance only further cements his place as a master of the genre. It also doesn't hurt that in DEAD OF NIGHT he has created one of the most compelling heroines I've read in years. Dead of Night blew me away!" --Ryan Brown - Author of PLAY DEAD
“Once again, Jonathan Maberry does what he does best; Take proven science, synthesize it and create something truly terrifying. In DEAD OF NIGHT, Maberry lays the groundwork for a Bioweapon that could very well create zombies in the real world. Combining great characters (I fell in love with Dez Fox from the moment she was introduced) and taut, blindingly fast action, DEAD OF NIGHT, is a runaway bullet train of a ride. This is Jonathan Maberry's best writing yet.” –Greg Schauer, owner Between Books, Claymont, DE
“Dead of Night stands drooped head and lurching shoulders above most zombie novels. The nightmare increases exponentially - from minor outbreak to major crisis with unstoppable speed, building to a heart-stopping climax you won't be able to put down.” --David Moody, author of the HATER and AUTUMN books
FRESH MEAT: The Staying Power of the Zombie Genre-- A Guest Post by Jonathan Maberry (with a shambling horde of friends)
Not too long ago I had the opportunity to read "Dead of Night" by Johnathan Maberry- a book that ended up on my "Best of" list for 2011. So when I had the opportunity to host a guest blog by Johnathan-- I jumped at the chance. What I didn't anticipate was that I would get a seven-for-one deal with commentary by a host of authors talking about zombies! Big thanks go to Johnathan for going to so much trouble and putting this together. Enjoy! (And keep watching the blog for another giveaway featuring "Dead of Night" tomorrow!)
~SQT
While considering my guest post I thought about the public perception of the zombie phenomenon. Like the living dead themselves, the genre’s popularity keeps coming in waves. There was the initial outbreak in 1968 with George Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, then a bit of a European tour as England, Italy, German, Spain and a few other countries began churning out zombie flicks (the BLIND DEAD are my personal favorites, along with the UK’s LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE).
Then we had an almost fatal lull until Romero breathed new life into his own genre with the landmark DAWN OF THE DEAD. That flick, possible more so than NIGHT, made the genre immortal. That was a bigger worldwide hit. That redefined the ‘rules’ of zombie stories. It had better actors, it had color, it had a bigger budget, and it had a better script. It was also copied by everyone. After that, we had wave after wave of zombie films. And around the same time John Skipp and Craig Spector unleashed the first anthology of zombie stories, BOOK OF THE DEAD, which gave birth to the literature of the living dead. Without that antho, a whole lot of my colleagues (and I) would be writing about something else.
Then we got DAY OF THE DEAD, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, RESIDENT EVIL, SHAUN OF THE DEAD, the remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD, and on and on. As well as tons of zombie books, zombie comics, zombie TV shows, zombie toys, and on and on. An invasion of zoms. A plague of them.
But…some folks think that the genre has hit a wall. Or, to use the Happy Days reference (which most people don’t KNOW is a Happy Days reference), some people say that zombies have ‘jumped the shark’. This is a comment I hear, in one form or another, at least once a week. You see it in reviews (by people who don’t understand the genre), in publishing or movie industry commentary (by people who don’t understand the genre), on TV news (by people who don’t understand the genre), and even at genre con panel discussions (by people who don’t understand the genre). Are you noticing a trend here?
The people who keep saying this don’t really get why zombies are today’s hot (well, room temperature) monster. They’ll be hot tomorrow, and they’ll be hot next year. Sure, popularity may wax and wane, but the same is true of vampires (who always return to popularity), ghosts (ditto), demons (ditto), giant monsters (ditto, ditto, ditto…)
I asked a bunch of my colleagues to comment on this question. Have zombies actually jumped the shark?
JOE McKINNEY: Why isn’t that true? When was the last time you read Orwell’s 1984? Remember Big Brother’s M.O. for controlling the populace? They did it, and continued to do it, through language. Change the way a culture speaks and you change the way that culture thinks. That’s one reason why Orwell included an appendix on language at the end of the book. Now look at how thoroughly entrenched zombies have become in our language over the last few years. They have crossed over from mere pop culture references to accepted mainstream groupspeak. For example, following WWII we described people in shock as having the “2000 yard stare,” after the Tom Lea painting of a Marine from the Battle of Peleliu. But today, we’re just as likely to say “that person looks like a zombie,” or has that zombie look in his eyes. The corporate world has now recognized zombie businesses, something the forensic mechanics of yesteryear would have lumped in with financial shell games and fishy bookkeeping. Computer science has given us zombie terminals. Contemporary literature has appropriated the term, as in Joyce Carol Oates’ novel Zombie and Thomas McGuane’s story “The Zombie,” just to name a few. These works, and others, don’t mention the shambling undead hordes per se, but rely on the concept of a zombie, a person suffering from a personality lobotomy. So, really, the term is fairly well established. I think zombies are going to be part of the horror business for a long time to come because the concept is now so familiar. Your question suggests that some reviewers think zombies have crested some sort of hill and that, quality-wise, it’s all downhill from here. I don’t think that’s true. Zombies have always enjoyed a sort of dual nature as both the harlequin and the horror. Sometimes they get lampooned. Sometimes they get exalted. It goes in waves. (Joe McKinney is a homicide detective for the San Antonio Police Department who has been writing professionally since 2006. He is the Bram Stoker-nominated author of Dead City, Quarantined, Dodging Bullets, Apocalypse of the Dead, Flesh Eaters, and The Red Empire. As a police officer, he’s received training in disaster mitigation, forensics, and homicide investigation techniques, some of which finds its way into his stories. He lives in the Texas Hill Country north of San Antonio.)
JOHN R. RUSSO: Well, because just as zombies can't die unless shot in the head, I guess the fascination with zombies won't die either, unless we shoot each and every zombie fan in the head. Just kidding. But seriously, this flesheating zombie thing has tapped into a raw atavistic dread that we all feel. For over forty years now, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD has given rise to all sorts of sequels, spinoffs, rip-offs, derivatives (not the stock market kind), and merchandising and marketing items and ploys that will probably go on as long as there are books and movies. Just when people think the phenomenon has run its course, up pops a fresh, new concept like 28 DAYS LATER or SHAUN OF THE DEAD. My own screenplay, ESCAPE OF THE LIVING DEAD, goes right back to the roots of the whole thing, and audiences seem to be ready for that, judging by the fact that the comic book has spawned ten sequels already, two graphic novels, and an array of tie-in products like tee-shirts, coffee mugs, beer mugs, shot glasses, etc. (John Russo wants everyone to know he's a really nice guy even though he loves to scare people. He started it by co-scripting the horror classic NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. one of the greatest fright flicks of all time. He also wrote the screenplays and/or stories for MIDNIGHT, SANTA CLAWS, THE MAJORETTES, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD and INHUMAN. He has authored fifteen terror-suspense novels, including LIVING THINGS, THE AWAKENING, VOODOO DAWN and HELL'S CREATION. His nonfiction books, SCARE TACTICS and MAKING MOVIES, are considered bibles of independent filmmaking by film students and horror fans. With long-time friend and partner, Russ Streiner, who produced NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and is chairman of the Pittsburgh Film Office, he directs a top-notch movie making program at DuBois Business College in DuBois, PA. His screenplay, ESCAPE OF THE LIVING DEAD, was made into a five-part comic book that made the Top Ten nationally, and is soon to be made into a movie that he will direct. He resides in a suburb of Pittsburgh and to his knowledge none of his neighbors are zombies, although "there is one guy around the corner who is rumored to have devoured the mailman a few years ago.")
KIM PAFFENROTH, PhD: They’ve been saying that since I published Gospel of the Living Dead. I guess maybe someday it might come true, but on the other hand, I don’t see it as necessary. Do vampires “jump the shark” when they turn into romantic, sparkly creatures? Well, sort of, but it doesn’t seem to limit their popularity, or stop someone from reinventing them next year as something else. So if zombies ever go “too far” then I’ll just expect them to be remodeled and reconfigured soon thereafter. I mean, if you think of fads that disappeared, it’s because they were just a one note kind of song, and once you “got” the joke or the appeal, it was over. Take a pet rock – once you laugh at it, the gimmick is over, and you really can’t reinvent it as a pet paperclip or a pet stick or whatever. Zombies have way more adaptability and appeal than that. (Kim Paffenroth is a professor of religious studies at Iona College. He is the author of Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero’s Visions of Hell on Earth (Baylor, 2006), which won the Bram Stoker Award. Since then he’s been writing zombie fiction, including Dying to Live (Permuted, 2007), and its sequel, Dying to Live: Life Sentence (Permuted, 2008). His most recent novel, Valley of the Dead (Permuted, 2010), combines his theological and literary interests, taking us back to the 14th century, where the medieval Italian poet Dante is in a life and death struggle with a zombie infestation.)
FRED VAN LENTE: Because nothing ever jumps the shark, so long as writers are out there trying to make new and interesting thing happen in the genre. People who provide commentary on art have two basic refrains, and that’s a.) They’ve discovered the newest/hottest/best thing before anybody else or b.) They’re the first to spot blight on the vine before those who lack their keen insight. This is why authors should pretty much ignore every single thing they say because they don’t really know anything about our profession or how to live it. (FRED VAN LENTE is the New York Times bestselling author of three entries in the Marvel Zombies series, as well as Incredible Hercules (with Greg Pak) and the American Library Association award-winning Action Philosophers. His original graphic novel Cowboys & Aliens (co-written with Andrew Foley) was adapted into motion picture form by Dreamworks and Universal, starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford.)
Chuck McKenzie: This is the sort of statement that tends to accompany any perceived 'cult' phenomenon that suddenly becomes extremely commercially popular, whether it be South Park, zombies, or rapping grannies, and seems to be motivated more by a desire to put back in its box something the reviewer perceives as somewhat unpleasant or embarrassing, rather than by the facts of the matter. Okay, rant over. Zombies aren't even close to jumping the shark yet, because authors, illustrators, toymakers and scriptwriters haven't yet run out of new takes on zombiedom. The last couple of years alone has given us movies as brilliant and diverse as Pontypool, Dead Snow and Zombieland, as well as books such as S. G. Browne's Breathers, John Ajvide Lindqvist's Handling the Undead, and Patient Zero by whatshisname; all absolutely unique in their approach to zombies. Sure, there's bound be a fair bit of dross along the way, but with so much *quality* product still reaching a wider-than-ever audience, it's obvious to me that we've only just scratched the surface of all the zombie genre has to offer. (Chuck McKenzie is a staff reviewer for HorrorScope (http://ozhorrorscope.blogspot.com/), and additionally manages a large general bookshop in Melbourne, which - due to his predilections - has gained a reputation with local horror readers as being THE place to pick up zombie-related literature.)
J L BOURNE: I guess I don’t get out much. I didn’t get the memo on this, as I’m still writing about zombies and the end of the world. Although zombies may see a sine curve shift in popularity as do vampires, werewolves and large Cloverleaf monsters, they never quite sink out of popularity altogether. People still love to read about survivors and the decisions they make against an army that never rests and only wants one thing. (J L BOURNE: Born in a small town in the rural south, J.L. Bourne balances his time as an active duty military officer with writing fiction based in a post-apocalyptic world overrun with the dead. He is the author of the classic Day by Day Armageddon zombie series.)
JONATHAN MABERRY: I’ve written about zombies for years now, and in a variety of different forms –novels, nonfiction books, magazine articles, comics, and short stories. I find that the ‘zombie’ is an infinitely fresh storytelling trope. Unlike vampires, who have become the story to the point where they’ve crowded the human characters out, zombies have no personality. They don’t intrude, they don’t hijack the novel. They represent a massive, shared threat that every human character in the story must react to. As such, they create the foundation for stories about real people in stressful circumstances, which is pretty much the basic description of ‘drama’. As long as zombie stories continue to be about the human experience, the genre is never going to get cold. I look at the zombie stuff I’ve written and it’s all radically different. ZOMBIE CSU: The Forensics of the Living Dead is a nonfiction book that views the concept of a zombie apocalypse through the lens of real world infrastructure and science. PATIENT ZERO is a technothriller that explores issues of corruption, terrorism, ideological clashes and the psychological cost of violence. ROT & RUIN and its sequels, DUST & DECAY, FLESH & BONE (Sept 2012) and FIRE & ASH (2013) are Young Adult novels that explore the value of human life, the nature of corruption and the phenomenon of heroism. The short story, “Pegleg and Paddy Save the World” is historical comedy. Another short, “The Wind Through the Fence” is a nihilistic meditation on despair; and its companion piece, “Chokepoint”, is a character study of how disparate personalities react to stress. The novella, “Jack and Jill”, explores how a terminally ill child views his own impending death. And my recent novel, DEAD OF NIGHT, explores the social and political implications of mismanaged bioweapons research. They’re all zombie stories. None of them are remotely the same. The genre? Yeah…it’s here to stay. (Jonathan Maberry is a NY Times bestselling author, multiple Bram Stoker Award winner, and Marvel Comics writer. He’s the author of many novels including Assassin’s Code, Dead of Night, Patient Zero and Rot & Ruin. His nonfiction books on topics ranging from martial arts to zombie pop-culture. Since 1978 he has sold more than 1200 magazine feature articles, 3000 columns, two plays, greeting cards, song lyrics, poetry, and textbooks. Jonathan continues to teach the celebrated Experimental Writing for Teens class, which he created. He founded the Writers Coffeehouse and co-founded The Liars Club; and is a frequent speaker at schools and libraries, as well as a keynote speaker and guest of honor at major writers and genre conferences. Jonathan lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with his wife, Sara and their son, Sam. Visit him online at www.jonathanmaberry.com and on Twitter (@jonathanmaberry) and Facebook.)
******************
Praise for DEAD OF NIGHT:
~SQT
Then we had an almost fatal lull until Romero breathed new life into his own genre with the landmark DAWN OF THE DEAD. That flick, possible more so than NIGHT, made the genre immortal. That was a bigger worldwide hit. That redefined the ‘rules’ of zombie stories. It had better actors, it had color, it had a bigger budget, and it had a better script. It was also copied by everyone. After that, we had wave after wave of zombie films. And around the same time John Skipp and Craig Spector unleashed the first anthology of zombie stories, BOOK OF THE DEAD, which gave birth to the literature of the living dead. Without that antho, a whole lot of my colleagues (and I) would be writing about something else.
Then we got DAY OF THE DEAD, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, RESIDENT EVIL, SHAUN OF THE DEAD, the remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD, and on and on. As well as tons of zombie books, zombie comics, zombie TV shows, zombie toys, and on and on. An invasion of zoms. A plague of them.
But…some folks think that the genre has hit a wall. Or, to use the Happy Days reference (which most people don’t KNOW is a Happy Days reference), some people say that zombies have ‘jumped the shark’. This is a comment I hear, in one form or another, at least once a week. You see it in reviews (by people who don’t understand the genre), in publishing or movie industry commentary (by people who don’t understand the genre), on TV news (by people who don’t understand the genre), and even at genre con panel discussions (by people who don’t understand the genre). Are you noticing a trend here?
The people who keep saying this don’t really get why zombies are today’s hot (well, room temperature) monster. They’ll be hot tomorrow, and they’ll be hot next year. Sure, popularity may wax and wane, but the same is true of vampires (who always return to popularity), ghosts (ditto), demons (ditto), giant monsters (ditto, ditto, ditto…)
I asked a bunch of my colleagues to comment on this question. Have zombies actually jumped the shark?
JOE McKINNEY: Why isn’t that true? When was the last time you read Orwell’s 1984? Remember Big Brother’s M.O. for controlling the populace? They did it, and continued to do it, through language. Change the way a culture speaks and you change the way that culture thinks. That’s one reason why Orwell included an appendix on language at the end of the book. Now look at how thoroughly entrenched zombies have become in our language over the last few years. They have crossed over from mere pop culture references to accepted mainstream groupspeak. For example, following WWII we described people in shock as having the “2000 yard stare,” after the Tom Lea painting of a Marine from the Battle of Peleliu. But today, we’re just as likely to say “that person looks like a zombie,” or has that zombie look in his eyes. The corporate world has now recognized zombie businesses, something the forensic mechanics of yesteryear would have lumped in with financial shell games and fishy bookkeeping. Computer science has given us zombie terminals. Contemporary literature has appropriated the term, as in Joyce Carol Oates’ novel Zombie and Thomas McGuane’s story “The Zombie,” just to name a few. These works, and others, don’t mention the shambling undead hordes per se, but rely on the concept of a zombie, a person suffering from a personality lobotomy. So, really, the term is fairly well established. I think zombies are going to be part of the horror business for a long time to come because the concept is now so familiar. Your question suggests that some reviewers think zombies have crested some sort of hill and that, quality-wise, it’s all downhill from here. I don’t think that’s true. Zombies have always enjoyed a sort of dual nature as both the harlequin and the horror. Sometimes they get lampooned. Sometimes they get exalted. It goes in waves. (Joe McKinney is a homicide detective for the San Antonio Police Department who has been writing professionally since 2006. He is the Bram Stoker-nominated author of Dead City, Quarantined, Dodging Bullets, Apocalypse of the Dead, Flesh Eaters, and The Red Empire. As a police officer, he’s received training in disaster mitigation, forensics, and homicide investigation techniques, some of which finds its way into his stories. He lives in the Texas Hill Country north of San Antonio.)
JOHN R. RUSSO: Well, because just as zombies can't die unless shot in the head, I guess the fascination with zombies won't die either, unless we shoot each and every zombie fan in the head. Just kidding. But seriously, this flesheating zombie thing has tapped into a raw atavistic dread that we all feel. For over forty years now, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD has given rise to all sorts of sequels, spinoffs, rip-offs, derivatives (not the stock market kind), and merchandising and marketing items and ploys that will probably go on as long as there are books and movies. Just when people think the phenomenon has run its course, up pops a fresh, new concept like 28 DAYS LATER or SHAUN OF THE DEAD. My own screenplay, ESCAPE OF THE LIVING DEAD, goes right back to the roots of the whole thing, and audiences seem to be ready for that, judging by the fact that the comic book has spawned ten sequels already, two graphic novels, and an array of tie-in products like tee-shirts, coffee mugs, beer mugs, shot glasses, etc. (John Russo wants everyone to know he's a really nice guy even though he loves to scare people. He started it by co-scripting the horror classic NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. one of the greatest fright flicks of all time. He also wrote the screenplays and/or stories for MIDNIGHT, SANTA CLAWS, THE MAJORETTES, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD and INHUMAN. He has authored fifteen terror-suspense novels, including LIVING THINGS, THE AWAKENING, VOODOO DAWN and HELL'S CREATION. His nonfiction books, SCARE TACTICS and MAKING MOVIES, are considered bibles of independent filmmaking by film students and horror fans. With long-time friend and partner, Russ Streiner, who produced NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and is chairman of the Pittsburgh Film Office, he directs a top-notch movie making program at DuBois Business College in DuBois, PA. His screenplay, ESCAPE OF THE LIVING DEAD, was made into a five-part comic book that made the Top Ten nationally, and is soon to be made into a movie that he will direct. He resides in a suburb of Pittsburgh and to his knowledge none of his neighbors are zombies, although "there is one guy around the corner who is rumored to have devoured the mailman a few years ago.")
KIM PAFFENROTH, PhD: They’ve been saying that since I published Gospel of the Living Dead. I guess maybe someday it might come true, but on the other hand, I don’t see it as necessary. Do vampires “jump the shark” when they turn into romantic, sparkly creatures? Well, sort of, but it doesn’t seem to limit their popularity, or stop someone from reinventing them next year as something else. So if zombies ever go “too far” then I’ll just expect them to be remodeled and reconfigured soon thereafter. I mean, if you think of fads that disappeared, it’s because they were just a one note kind of song, and once you “got” the joke or the appeal, it was over. Take a pet rock – once you laugh at it, the gimmick is over, and you really can’t reinvent it as a pet paperclip or a pet stick or whatever. Zombies have way more adaptability and appeal than that. (Kim Paffenroth is a professor of religious studies at Iona College. He is the author of Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero’s Visions of Hell on Earth (Baylor, 2006), which won the Bram Stoker Award. Since then he’s been writing zombie fiction, including Dying to Live (Permuted, 2007), and its sequel, Dying to Live: Life Sentence (Permuted, 2008). His most recent novel, Valley of the Dead (Permuted, 2010), combines his theological and literary interests, taking us back to the 14th century, where the medieval Italian poet Dante is in a life and death struggle with a zombie infestation.)
FRED VAN LENTE: Because nothing ever jumps the shark, so long as writers are out there trying to make new and interesting thing happen in the genre. People who provide commentary on art have two basic refrains, and that’s a.) They’ve discovered the newest/hottest/best thing before anybody else or b.) They’re the first to spot blight on the vine before those who lack their keen insight. This is why authors should pretty much ignore every single thing they say because they don’t really know anything about our profession or how to live it. (FRED VAN LENTE is the New York Times bestselling author of three entries in the Marvel Zombies series, as well as Incredible Hercules (with Greg Pak) and the American Library Association award-winning Action Philosophers. His original graphic novel Cowboys & Aliens (co-written with Andrew Foley) was adapted into motion picture form by Dreamworks and Universal, starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford.)
Chuck McKenzie: This is the sort of statement that tends to accompany any perceived 'cult' phenomenon that suddenly becomes extremely commercially popular, whether it be South Park, zombies, or rapping grannies, and seems to be motivated more by a desire to put back in its box something the reviewer perceives as somewhat unpleasant or embarrassing, rather than by the facts of the matter. Okay, rant over. Zombies aren't even close to jumping the shark yet, because authors, illustrators, toymakers and scriptwriters haven't yet run out of new takes on zombiedom. The last couple of years alone has given us movies as brilliant and diverse as Pontypool, Dead Snow and Zombieland, as well as books such as S. G. Browne's Breathers, John Ajvide Lindqvist's Handling the Undead, and Patient Zero by whatshisname; all absolutely unique in their approach to zombies. Sure, there's bound be a fair bit of dross along the way, but with so much *quality* product still reaching a wider-than-ever audience, it's obvious to me that we've only just scratched the surface of all the zombie genre has to offer. (Chuck McKenzie is a staff reviewer for HorrorScope (http://ozhorrorscope.blogspot.com/), and additionally manages a large general bookshop in Melbourne, which - due to his predilections - has gained a reputation with local horror readers as being THE place to pick up zombie-related literature.)
J L BOURNE: I guess I don’t get out much. I didn’t get the memo on this, as I’m still writing about zombies and the end of the world. Although zombies may see a sine curve shift in popularity as do vampires, werewolves and large Cloverleaf monsters, they never quite sink out of popularity altogether. People still love to read about survivors and the decisions they make against an army that never rests and only wants one thing. (J L BOURNE: Born in a small town in the rural south, J.L. Bourne balances his time as an active duty military officer with writing fiction based in a post-apocalyptic world overrun with the dead. He is the author of the classic Day by Day Armageddon zombie series.)
JONATHAN MABERRY: I’ve written about zombies for years now, and in a variety of different forms –novels, nonfiction books, magazine articles, comics, and short stories. I find that the ‘zombie’ is an infinitely fresh storytelling trope. Unlike vampires, who have become the story to the point where they’ve crowded the human characters out, zombies have no personality. They don’t intrude, they don’t hijack the novel. They represent a massive, shared threat that every human character in the story must react to. As such, they create the foundation for stories about real people in stressful circumstances, which is pretty much the basic description of ‘drama’. As long as zombie stories continue to be about the human experience, the genre is never going to get cold. I look at the zombie stuff I’ve written and it’s all radically different. ZOMBIE CSU: The Forensics of the Living Dead is a nonfiction book that views the concept of a zombie apocalypse through the lens of real world infrastructure and science. PATIENT ZERO is a technothriller that explores issues of corruption, terrorism, ideological clashes and the psychological cost of violence. ROT & RUIN and its sequels, DUST & DECAY, FLESH & BONE (Sept 2012) and FIRE & ASH (2013) are Young Adult novels that explore the value of human life, the nature of corruption and the phenomenon of heroism. The short story, “Pegleg and Paddy Save the World” is historical comedy. Another short, “The Wind Through the Fence” is a nihilistic meditation on despair; and its companion piece, “Chokepoint”, is a character study of how disparate personalities react to stress. The novella, “Jack and Jill”, explores how a terminally ill child views his own impending death. And my recent novel, DEAD OF NIGHT, explores the social and political implications of mismanaged bioweapons research. They’re all zombie stories. None of them are remotely the same. The genre? Yeah…it’s here to stay. (Jonathan Maberry is a NY Times bestselling author, multiple Bram Stoker Award winner, and Marvel Comics writer. He’s the author of many novels including Assassin’s Code, Dead of Night, Patient Zero and Rot & Ruin. His nonfiction books on topics ranging from martial arts to zombie pop-culture. Since 1978 he has sold more than 1200 magazine feature articles, 3000 columns, two plays, greeting cards, song lyrics, poetry, and textbooks. Jonathan continues to teach the celebrated Experimental Writing for Teens class, which he created. He founded the Writers Coffeehouse and co-founded The Liars Club; and is a frequent speaker at schools and libraries, as well as a keynote speaker and guest of honor at major writers and genre conferences. Jonathan lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with his wife, Sara and their son, Sam. Visit him online at www.jonathanmaberry.com and on Twitter (@jonathanmaberry) and Facebook.)
******************
Praise for DEAD OF NIGHT:
“Jonathan Maberry is the top gun when it comes to zombies, and with DEAD OF NIGHT, he's at the top of his game. Frankly, I'm shocked by how effortlessly he moves between the lofty intellectual heights of T.S. Eliot's poetry and the savage carnality of the kill. DEAD OF NIGHT develops with the fevered pace of a manhunt, and yet still manages to hit all the right notes. Strap in, because Maberry's latest is one hell of a wild ride. I loved it.” - Joe McKinney, author of Dead City and FLESH EATERS
“Jonathan Maberry has created an homage to death itself and an homage to the undead that is as poetic as it is terrifying. It's a brand new and intriguingly fresh slant on the zombie genre that we all love!” -John A. Russo co-screenwriter of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
“Maberry is a master at writing scenes that surge and hum with tension. The pacing is relentless. He presses the accelerator to the floor and never lets up, taking you on a ride that leaves your heart pounding. It’s almost impossible to put this book down. Dead of Night is an excellent read.” —S.G. Browne, author of BREATHERS
"It would be enough to say that Jonathan Maberry had topped himself yet again with an epic zombie novel that is as much fun as it is terrifying. But that he has also created a story of such tremendous heart and social relevance only further cements his place as a master of the genre. It also doesn't hurt that in DEAD OF NIGHT he has created one of the most compelling heroines I've read in years. Dead of Night blew me away!" --Ryan Brown - Author of PLAY DEAD
“Once again, Jonathan Maberry does what he does best; Take proven science, synthesize it and create something truly terrifying. In DEAD OF NIGHT, Maberry lays the groundwork for a Bioweapon that could very well create zombies in the real world. Combining great characters (I fell in love with Dez Fox from the moment she was introduced) and taut, blindingly fast action, DEAD OF NIGHT, is a runaway bullet train of a ride. This is Jonathan Maberry's best writing yet.” –Greg Schauer, owner Between Books, Claymont, DE
“Dead of Night stands drooped head and lurching shoulders above most zombie novels. The nightmare increases exponentially - from minor outbreak to major crisis with unstoppable speed, building to a heart-stopping climax you won't be able to put down.” --David Moody, author of the HATER and AUTUMN books
Graphic Novel Review – A Game of Thrones
It seemed fitting to do a review of this just before the premiere of Season 2 of the show on HBO. I loved my recent foray into graphic novel adaptations of books (with Uglies: Shay’s Story) and A Game of Thrones is the perfect follow up to that. In this case it’s a book series that I’m just never going to be able to read – 800+ pages in book 1, 900+ pages in book 2 – I struggle to get through a 300-400 page novel in a few weeks. I’d spend half my year trying to read these two books alone. And the TV series didn’t really interest my wife, and since we’re usually watching together, there just hasn’t been much opportunity to me to see more than the first few episodes.So I come to this comic adaptation with a little knowledge from the series, but little else in terms of expectations. I’m not going to do my familiar summary of the story, at this point I’m guessing most people (unlike me) have read the books or seen the show. I’m going to talk about specific parts of this adaptation instead, to give you an idea of what I liked and to see if those same things might be appealing to you.
It should come as no surprise that this adaptation has some differences from the HBO series, and those sometimes subtle differences are mostly for the better. Scenes are expanded or extra bits of dialog are included in this graphic novel that just helped me understand the story that much better. Daenerys marriage to Drogo isn’t quite as smooth at first as it’s portrayed in the TV show, though eventually they both get to the same place of peace. But because of the limitations of budget on TV and the lack thereof when drawing, here we get to see Daenerys visions of Dragons and a wickedly wonderful Iron Throne that just needs to be seen to be believed.There’s something about the format that just worked better for me as well. It adds a visual layer to the original manuscript, it’s an adaptation sure, but closer to the original than I think a TV show can capture. Still, if there’s something I have to give to HBO, the Others (the creatures of Winter) are much spookier on the show than how they were presented in the graphic novel. The only other thing that I felt didn't quite live up to my expectations was The Wall, I expected it to be even more impressive than it was on the show (because the sky's the limit in a comic) but there's only one small scene in this book featuring it, and we may get a better view in the next volume.
In all ways though, I was blown away by the artwork. I’ve never heard of Tommy Patterson before, but with a style very reminiscent of Michael Turner, I’ll be looking out for more work from him in the future. There is a substantive look at the making of this comic at the end of the book, which is a very worthwhile read. There were things I didn’t notice about the art until after reading this section – and it made me appreciate all the work going into the detailed backgrounds that the reader just takes for granted when reading the story. Most comics don’t look like this, and most artists aren’t drawing with this kind of attention to detail. It puts A Game of Thrones at a whole different level from everything else.I finished this volume and immediately wanted to be able to pick up the next (which isn’t coming out until Dec) which should be telling enough on its own. I didn’t particularly care about catching up on the TV series, or reading these books, but if the comic continues to be as engaging as Volume 1 was, I can’t wait to read more. If you’re a fan of the show but don’t have the time to read the books, I can say this adaptation is worth your time – you’ll get more than what you’ve seen in the episodes, and the behind the scenes information will give you a better appreciation for what George RR Martin’s vision for this series really is.
Graphic Novel Review – A Game of Thrones
It seemed fitting to do a review of this just before the premiere of Season 2 of the show on HBO. I loved my recent foray into graphic novel adaptations of books (with Uglies: Shay’s Story) and A Game of Thrones is the perfect follow up to that. In this case it’s a book series that I’m just never going to be able to read – 800+ pages in book 1, 900+ pages in book 2 – I struggle to get through a 300-400 page novel in a few weeks. I’d spend half my year trying to read these two books alone. And the TV series didn’t really interest my wife, and since we’re usually watching together, there just hasn’t been much opportunity to me to see more than the first few episodes.So I come to this comic adaptation with a little knowledge from the series, but little else in terms of expectations. I’m not going to do my familiar summary of the story, at this point I’m guessing most people (unlike me) have read the books or seen the show. I’m going to talk about specific parts of this adaptation instead, to give you an idea of what I liked and to see if those same things might be appealing to you.
It should come as no surprise that this adaptation has some differences from the HBO series, and those sometimes subtle differences are mostly for the better. Scenes are expanded or extra bits of dialog are included in this graphic novel that just helped me understand the story that much better. Daenerys marriage to Drogo isn’t quite as smooth at first as it’s portrayed in the TV show, though eventually they both get to the same place of peace. But because of the limitations of budget on TV and the lack thereof when drawing, here we get to see Daenerys visions of Dragons and a wickedly wonderful Iron Throne that just needs to be seen to be believed.There’s something about the format that just worked better for me as well. It adds a visual layer to the original manuscript, it’s an adaptation sure, but closer to the original than I think a TV show can capture. Still, if there’s something I have to give to HBO, the Others (the creatures of Winter) are much spookier on the show than how they were presented in the graphic novel. The only other thing that I felt didn't quite live up to my expectations was The Wall, I expected it to be even more impressive than it was on the show (because the sky's the limit in a comic) but there's only one small scene in this book featuring it, and we may get a better view in the next volume.
In all ways though, I was blown away by the artwork. I’ve never heard of Tommy Patterson before, but with a style very reminiscent of Michael Turner, I’ll be looking out for more work from him in the future. There is a substantive look at the making of this comic at the end of the book, which is a very worthwhile read. There were things I didn’t notice about the art until after reading this section – and it made me appreciate all the work going into the detailed backgrounds that the reader just takes for granted when reading the story. Most comics don’t look like this, and most artists aren’t drawing with this kind of attention to detail. It puts A Game of Thrones at a whole different level from everything else.I finished this volume and immediately wanted to be able to pick up the next (which isn’t coming out until Dec) which should be telling enough on its own. I didn’t particularly care about catching up on the TV series, or reading these books, but if the comic continues to be as engaging as Volume 1 was, I can’t wait to read more. If you’re a fan of the show but don’t have the time to read the books, I can say this adaptation is worth your time – you’ll get more than what you’ve seen in the episodes, and the behind the scenes information will give you a better appreciation for what George RR Martin’s vision for this series really is.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
The Book Club-- Year One
In Snowbrush's post he muses on group dynamics and how often, from one group to another, the behaviors among people don't really change. Oh sure, people are different, by and large, but when we group ourselves together there are always the talkers and the wallflowers. Not to mention the interactions that come from multiple people trying to be polite (some of the time) and trying to get a word in edgewise from the alpha dogs that always seem to dominate the conversation.
I was ambivalent when I joined my book club for a variety of reasons. Obviously I'm a book lover, but my tastes are not very similar to that of my peers. I was invited into the group by a friend with whom I had swapped books- with some success. She's a love story kind of person, which is low on my list of necessary plot points, and doesn't much care for anything violent (she still won't read "The Hunger Games.") I didn't know the other members of the group before joining and I remember scrolling through the list of books on the bestseller lists and tried to decide whether or not I could stand to read the popular-literature I was sure someone would end up picking. Only one book stood out as too cliché in the unfortunate woman with a horrible life kind of way (the favorite pick of housewives everywhere in my limited experience) so I thought I'd take a chance on reading books picked by people who are nothing like me.
When the group first got together I started breaking the group down. The extrovert of our group made herself known quickly, as extroverts do, while the rest of us diffidently tried to figure out where we'd fit in the pecking order. We had our career woman, our teacher (the extrovert's mom), the part-time working mothers and the stay-at-home moms (my group). We assiduously avoided anything controversial like politics and talked about our kids. I noticed right away that no one shared my taste in books, though I did find a few "Twilight" fans (which did not give me any comfort whatsoever).
My friend was the first to pick a book and I soon found myself reading Cutting for Stone
by Abraham Verghase. I was sure I'd hate the book when I read the description about twin orphans born of a pregnant nun. (A pregnant nun? Really?) But was shocked to absolutely love the book. I think I liked it more than anyone else in the group. At this point I was feeling hopeful about this whole thing. We went on to read books like The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
by Mary Ann Shaffer, The Art of Racing in the Rain
by Garth Stein and The Good Daughter by Jasmin Darznik and I liked them well enough. Then someone picked the book I dreaded (it had to happen) and, well, I'm not proud of it, but I lied and said I couldn't make it that month. Then it was my turn and I mulled over my choices. I couldn't pick a standard fantasy because no one would enjoy it-- trust me on that. So, knowing we had some "Twilight" fans in the group I went for the YA dystopia Divergent
by Veronica Roth. I was sure the group would think I was nuts-- to my surprise it was a hit. They loved it and have been reminding me that the sequel will be out just in time for my next pick.Wow. This was turning out much better than I had anticipated. Not too long after that I read Daughter of Smoke and Bone
by Laini Taylor and fell in love with it so much that I raved to my group that they had to read it-- and got three of them to read it outside of being an "official" pick and they loved that too! Look at me-- influencing the group and everything. But I knew I had made an impact when one of the moms toyed with the idea of picking Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
by Seth Grahame-Smith. Whoa!We still avoid politics in our discussions. The only time the topic has come up was when it was revealed that Arnold Schwarzenegger fathered a love child-- and really, politics was not the main point of that conversation. Though I guess our conversations about the seamy underbelly of the school's PTC (parent teacher club) could count as political in nature- who knew we had our own version of "Desperate Housewives" around here? I didn't until I joined the
Our extrovert still has the tendency to dominate the group, but as the sole book reviewer I get more than my fair share of good points in (it's what I do after all). The teacher, who is basically the wise woman of the group, has turned out to be one of my favorite people in the world. She's a world traveler who knows a little bit about everything-- it does my heart good to know she's teaching. The friend who brought me into the group has started to hint that she might be interested in reading some erotica (who knew?) and the neat-freak of the group (her house is spotless) has shared some interesting stories about her crazy in-laws (let's just say that it involves Megan's Law and leave it at that.)
If I've learned anything in the last year, I've learned that I'm not as different from the other moms as I thought I was. It sounds trite, but I don't make friends easily and since I'm not a joiner, who sits on every council or organizes every fund-raiser, I don't tend to be in the "in-crowd." I'm a class volunteer-- in and out in an hour. I'll donate money, but please don't make me sit on a committee. But after a year of still-tentative conversations I've learned that I'm lugging around the same insecurities as everyone else. We all dart in-and-out of the conversation, trying hard not to step on each other's toes, and fret over what we say after we leave. I've also learned that I like it when some people are absent from the group because it allows me the opportunity to really get to know the other members rather than just having two hours of polite chit-chat. I've also learned that I kind of resent it when the host doesn't serve wine- I like my social lubricant thankyouverymuch. I've realized that getting together with a group of women on a monthly basis completely satisfies my urge for girl-talk. Sometimes I even consider skipping a month because I find it a little overwhelming.
Mostly I've come to the conclusion that joining the book club was a very good thing. It makes me venture into the world, whether I want to or not, and it doesn't allow me to hold on to my assumptions about the suburban moms I see everyday. I still think I'm a different breed that most of the women I know- but I'm learning to integrate.
The Book Club-- Year One
In Snowbrush's post he muses on group dynamics and how often, from one group to another, the behaviors among people don't really change. Oh sure, people are different, by and large, but when we group ourselves together there are always the talkers and the wallflowers. Not to mention the interactions that come from multiple people trying to be polite (some of the time) and trying to get a word in edgewise from the alpha dogs that always seem to dominate the conversation.
I was ambivalent when I joined my book club for a variety of reasons. Obviously I'm a book lover, but my tastes are not very similar to that of my peers. I was invited into the group by a friend with whom I had swapped books- with some success. She's a love story kind of person, which is low on my list of necessary plot points, and doesn't much care for anything violent (she still won't read "The Hunger Games.") I didn't know the other members of the group before joining and I remember scrolling through the list of books on the bestseller lists and tried to decide whether or not I could stand to read the popular-literature I was sure someone would end up picking. Only one book stood out as too cliché in the unfortunate woman with a horrible life kind of way (the favorite pick of housewives everywhere in my limited experience) so I thought I'd take a chance on reading books picked by people who are nothing like me.
When the group first got together I started breaking the group down. The extrovert of our group made herself known quickly, as extroverts do, while the rest of us diffidently tried to figure out where we'd fit in the pecking order. We had our career woman, our teacher (the extrovert's mom), the part-time working mothers and the stay-at-home moms (my group). We assiduously avoided anything controversial like politics and talked about our kids. I noticed right away that no one shared my taste in books, though I did find a few "Twilight" fans (which did not give me any comfort whatsoever).
My friend was the first to pick a book and I soon found myself reading Cutting for Stone
by Abraham Verghase. I was sure I'd hate the book when I read the description about twin orphans born of a pregnant nun. (A pregnant nun? Really?) But was shocked to absolutely love the book. I think I liked it more than anyone else in the group. At this point I was feeling hopeful about this whole thing. We went on to read books like The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
by Mary Ann Shaffer, The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein and The Good Daughter by Jasmin Darznik and I liked them well enough. Then someone picked the book I dreaded (it had to happen) and, well, I'm not proud of it, but I lied and said I couldn't make it that month. Then it was my turn and I mulled over my choices. I couldn't pick a standard fantasy because no one would enjoy it-- trust me on that. So, knowing we had some "Twilight" fans in the group I went for the YA dystopia Divergent by Veronica Roth. I was sure the group would think I was nuts-- to my surprise it was a hit. They loved it and have been reminding me that the sequel will be out just in time for my next pick.Wow. This was turning out much better than I had anticipated. Not too long after that I read Daughter of Smoke and Bone
by Laini Taylor and fell in love with it so much that I raved to my group that they had to read it-- and got three of them to read it outside of being an "official" pick and they loved that too! Look at me-- influencing the group and everything. But I knew I had made an impact when one of the moms toyed with the idea of picking Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith. Whoa!We still avoid politics in our discussions. The only time the topic has come up was when it was revealed that Arnold Schwarzenegger fathered a love child-- and really, politics was not the main point of that conversation. Though I guess our conversations about the seamy underbelly of the school's PTC (parent teacher club) could count as political in nature- who knew we had our own version of "Desperate Housewives" around here? I didn't until I joined the
Our extrovert still has the tendency to dominate the group, but as the sole book reviewer I get more than my fair share of good points in (it's what I do after all). The teacher, who is basically the wise woman of the group, has turned out to be one of my favorite people in the world. She's a world traveler who knows a little bit about everything-- it does my heart good to know she's teaching. The friend who brought me into the group has started to hint that she might be interested in reading some erotica (who knew?) and the neat-freak of the group (her house is spotless) has shared some interesting stories about her crazy in-laws (let's just say that it involves Megan's Law and leave it at that.)
If I've learned anything in the last year, I've learned that I'm not as different from the other moms as I thought I was. It sounds trite, but I don't make friends easily and since I'm not a joiner, who sits on every council or organizes every fund-raiser, I don't tend to be in the "in-crowd." I'm a class volunteer-- in and out in an hour. I'll donate money, but please don't make me sit on a committee. But after a year of still-tentative conversations I've learned that I'm lugging around the same insecurities as everyone else. We all dart in-and-out of the conversation, trying hard not to step on each other's toes, and fret over what we say after we leave. I've also learned that I like it when some people are absent from the group because it allows me the opportunity to really get to know the other members rather than just having two hours of polite chit-chat. I've also learned that I kind of resent it when the host doesn't serve wine- I like my social lubricant thankyouverymuch. I've realized that getting together with a group of women on a monthly basis completely satisfies my urge for girl-talk. Sometimes I even consider skipping a month because I find it a little overwhelming.
Mostly I've come to the conclusion that joining the book club was a very good thing. It makes me venture into the world, whether I want to or not, and it doesn't allow me to hold on to my assumptions about the suburban moms I see everyday. I still think I'm a different breed that most of the women I know- but I'm learning to integrate.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Waiting on Wednesday
This is a blog meme hosted by Jill over at Breaking the Spine to spotlight upcoming books. This week we're featuring picks chosen by SQT and Jim.
SQT's can't wait to read selection is:
Velveteen
by Daniel Marks
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Date: October 9, 2012
Pages: 304 pages
A delightfully dark fantasy of justice and the afterlife.
Velveteen Monroe is dead. At 16, she was kidnapped and murdered by a madman named Bonesaw. But that’s not the problem.
The problem is she landed in purgatory. And while it’s not a fiery inferno, it’s certainly no heaven. It’s gray, ashen, and crumbling more and more by the day, and everyone has a job to do. Which doesn’t leave Velveteen much time to do anything about what’s really on her mind.
Bonesaw.
Velveteen aches to deliver the bloody punishment her killer deserves. And she’s figured out just how to do it. She’ll haunt him for the rest of his days.
It’ll be brutal…and awesome.
But crossing the divide between the living and the dead has devastating consequences. Velveteen’s obsessive haunting cracks the foundations of purgatory and jeopardizes her very soul. A risk she’s willing to take—except fate has just given her reason to stick around: an unreasonably hot and completely off-limits coworker.
Velveteen can’t help herself when it comes to breaking rules…or getting revenge. And she just might be angry enough to take everyone down with her.
The main reason I've got "Velveteen" on my WoW list is because it's written by Mark Henry (under the pseudonym Daniel Marks). Henry's Amanda Feral series is off center, funny and more than slightly demented. It doesn't surprise me that he'd choose to write a teen revenge fantasy and I expect it'll be incredibly entertaining. I am really looking forward to this one.
Jim's can't wait to read selection is:
Hush by James Maxey
Publisher: Solaris
Date: June 26, 2012
Pages: 512
The invulnerable, super-strong warrior Infidel has a secret: she’s lost her magical powers right at the moment when she needs them most. To keep a promise to a fallen friend, she must journey to the frozen wastelands of the north. Her quest leads her through the abstract realms of the Sea of Wine, where she uncovers a conspiracy that threatens all life. Hush, the primal dragon of cold, has formed an alliance with the ghost of a vengeful witch to murder Glorious, the dragon of the sun, plunging the world into an unending winter night. Without her magical strength, can Infidel possibly survive her battle with Hush? If she fails to save Glorious, will the world see another morning?
It wasn't all that long ago that I was putting the first book in this Dragon Apocalypse series (Greatshadow) up as my Waiting on Wednesday book - which I actually think is wise of the publisher, by putting out the series in short order I think it tends to keep the attention of readers better. I love the cover of this one, that dragon looks great perched as it is with it's tail wrapped around the rock and it's tattered wings outstretched.
SQT's can't wait to read selection is:
by Daniel MarksPublisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Date: October 9, 2012
Pages: 304 pages
A delightfully dark fantasy of justice and the afterlife.
Velveteen Monroe is dead. At 16, she was kidnapped and murdered by a madman named Bonesaw. But that’s not the problem.
The problem is she landed in purgatory. And while it’s not a fiery inferno, it’s certainly no heaven. It’s gray, ashen, and crumbling more and more by the day, and everyone has a job to do. Which doesn’t leave Velveteen much time to do anything about what’s really on her mind.
Bonesaw.
Velveteen aches to deliver the bloody punishment her killer deserves. And she’s figured out just how to do it. She’ll haunt him for the rest of his days.
It’ll be brutal…and awesome.
But crossing the divide between the living and the dead has devastating consequences. Velveteen’s obsessive haunting cracks the foundations of purgatory and jeopardizes her very soul. A risk she’s willing to take—except fate has just given her reason to stick around: an unreasonably hot and completely off-limits coworker.
Velveteen can’t help herself when it comes to breaking rules…or getting revenge. And she just might be angry enough to take everyone down with her.
The main reason I've got "Velveteen" on my WoW list is because it's written by Mark Henry (under the pseudonym Daniel Marks). Henry's Amanda Feral series is off center, funny and more than slightly demented. It doesn't surprise me that he'd choose to write a teen revenge fantasy and I expect it'll be incredibly entertaining. I am really looking forward to this one.
Jim's can't wait to read selection is:
Hush by James MaxeyPublisher: Solaris
Date: June 26, 2012
Pages: 512
The invulnerable, super-strong warrior Infidel has a secret: she’s lost her magical powers right at the moment when she needs them most. To keep a promise to a fallen friend, she must journey to the frozen wastelands of the north. Her quest leads her through the abstract realms of the Sea of Wine, where she uncovers a conspiracy that threatens all life. Hush, the primal dragon of cold, has formed an alliance with the ghost of a vengeful witch to murder Glorious, the dragon of the sun, plunging the world into an unending winter night. Without her magical strength, can Infidel possibly survive her battle with Hush? If she fails to save Glorious, will the world see another morning?
It wasn't all that long ago that I was putting the first book in this Dragon Apocalypse series (Greatshadow) up as my Waiting on Wednesday book - which I actually think is wise of the publisher, by putting out the series in short order I think it tends to keep the attention of readers better. I love the cover of this one, that dragon looks great perched as it is with it's tail wrapped around the rock and it's tattered wings outstretched.
Waiting on Wednesday
This is a blog meme hosted by Jill over at Breaking the Spine to spotlight upcoming books. This week we're featuring picks chosen by SQT and Jim.
SQT's can't wait to read selection is:
Velveteen by Daniel Marks
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Date: October 9, 2012
Pages: 304 pages
A delightfully dark fantasy of justice and the afterlife.
Velveteen Monroe is dead. At 16, she was kidnapped and murdered by a madman named Bonesaw. But that’s not the problem.
The problem is she landed in purgatory. And while it’s not a fiery inferno, it’s certainly no heaven. It’s gray, ashen, and crumbling more and more by the day, and everyone has a job to do. Which doesn’t leave Velveteen much time to do anything about what’s really on her mind.
Bonesaw.
Velveteen aches to deliver the bloody punishment her killer deserves. And she’s figured out just how to do it. She’ll haunt him for the rest of his days.
It’ll be brutal…and awesome.
But crossing the divide between the living and the dead has devastating consequences. Velveteen’s obsessive haunting cracks the foundations of purgatory and jeopardizes her very soul. A risk she’s willing to take—except fate has just given her reason to stick around: an unreasonably hot and completely off-limits coworker.
Velveteen can’t help herself when it comes to breaking rules…or getting revenge. And she just might be angry enough to take everyone down with her.
The main reason I've got "Velveteen" on my WoW list is because it's written by Mark Henry (under the pseudonym Daniel Marks). Henry's Amanda Feral series is off center, funny and more than slightly demented. It doesn't surprise me that he'd choose to write a teen revenge fantasy and I expect it'll be incredibly entertaining. I am really looking forward to this one.
Jim's can't wait to read selection is:
Hush by James Maxey
Publisher: Solaris
Date: June 26, 2012
Pages: 512
The invulnerable, super-strong warrior Infidel has a secret: she’s lost her magical powers right at the moment when she needs them most. To keep a promise to a fallen friend, she must journey to the frozen wastelands of the north. Her quest leads her through the abstract realms of the Sea of Wine, where she uncovers a conspiracy that threatens all life. Hush, the primal dragon of cold, has formed an alliance with the ghost of a vengeful witch to murder Glorious, the dragon of the sun, plunging the world into an unending winter night. Without her magical strength, can Infidel possibly survive her battle with Hush? If she fails to save Glorious, will the world see another morning?
It wasn't all that long ago that I was putting the first book in this Dragon Apocalypse series (Greatshadow) up as my Waiting on Wednesday book - which I actually think is wise of the publisher, by putting out the series in short order I think it tends to keep the attention of readers better. I love the cover of this one, that dragon looks great perched as it is with it's tail wrapped around the rock and it's tattered wings outstretched.
SQT's can't wait to read selection is:
by Daniel MarksPublisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Date: October 9, 2012
Pages: 304 pages
A delightfully dark fantasy of justice and the afterlife.
Velveteen Monroe is dead. At 16, she was kidnapped and murdered by a madman named Bonesaw. But that’s not the problem.
The problem is she landed in purgatory. And while it’s not a fiery inferno, it’s certainly no heaven. It’s gray, ashen, and crumbling more and more by the day, and everyone has a job to do. Which doesn’t leave Velveteen much time to do anything about what’s really on her mind.
Bonesaw.
Velveteen aches to deliver the bloody punishment her killer deserves. And she’s figured out just how to do it. She’ll haunt him for the rest of his days.
It’ll be brutal…and awesome.
But crossing the divide between the living and the dead has devastating consequences. Velveteen’s obsessive haunting cracks the foundations of purgatory and jeopardizes her very soul. A risk she’s willing to take—except fate has just given her reason to stick around: an unreasonably hot and completely off-limits coworker.
Velveteen can’t help herself when it comes to breaking rules…or getting revenge. And she just might be angry enough to take everyone down with her.
The main reason I've got "Velveteen" on my WoW list is because it's written by Mark Henry (under the pseudonym Daniel Marks). Henry's Amanda Feral series is off center, funny and more than slightly demented. It doesn't surprise me that he'd choose to write a teen revenge fantasy and I expect it'll be incredibly entertaining. I am really looking forward to this one.
Jim's can't wait to read selection is:
Hush by James MaxeyPublisher: Solaris
Date: June 26, 2012
Pages: 512
The invulnerable, super-strong warrior Infidel has a secret: she’s lost her magical powers right at the moment when she needs them most. To keep a promise to a fallen friend, she must journey to the frozen wastelands of the north. Her quest leads her through the abstract realms of the Sea of Wine, where she uncovers a conspiracy that threatens all life. Hush, the primal dragon of cold, has formed an alliance with the ghost of a vengeful witch to murder Glorious, the dragon of the sun, plunging the world into an unending winter night. Without her magical strength, can Infidel possibly survive her battle with Hush? If she fails to save Glorious, will the world see another morning?
It wasn't all that long ago that I was putting the first book in this Dragon Apocalypse series (Greatshadow) up as my Waiting on Wednesday book - which I actually think is wise of the publisher, by putting out the series in short order I think it tends to keep the attention of readers better. I love the cover of this one, that dragon looks great perched as it is with it's tail wrapped around the rock and it's tattered wings outstretched.
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