Review for T.W. Brown’s “Dead: The Ugly Beginning”
Author T.W. Brown indicates that this will be the first of at least five books in his Dead Saga. All I can say to that is: when is the second volume coming out?
This is the beginning, and so we are introduced to a wide array of characters. It is the beginning of the zombie apocalypse, the beginning of the end for the human race, and the beginning of some incredible and wide spanning journeys for characters both big and small. We are provided with two main stories in this book. One is told from the perspective of Steve, a guy living in Portland, Oregon when the infection begins, although he is soon on the road, picking up a neighbor girl on the way as things quickly unravel around him. The other story is of a group of geeks in Norfolk, Virginia who are also attempting to cope with the apocalypse and get on the road almost immediately, to start heading west to an area they hope is lacking enough in population that it will be safe. The author doesn’t stop there with the characters, adding chapters entitled Vignettes, which share the stories of others, both survivors and the not so lucky, as they live and die throughout the country (and in a couple of cases, in other areas of the world). Some of the characters introduced through those chapters will continue to play a role in the upcoming books, or at least the sequel, although many face their doom rather abruptly in this story.
This is a very traditional Romero zombie style story, which means that you shouldn’t expect the zombies to be demonic, speedsters, or intelligent. These are the slow moving, inevitable shamblers that inhabit nightmare not because you can’t run away from them, but because they never stop coming for you, in greater and greater numbers. You have time to pause and consider your fate as they close in, slowly, awkwardly, knowing that they will get through the barricades in time because they will never stop until everyone is devoured and turned into what they have become.
The key to a story like this one is to have compelling characters, which is what Mr. Brown has created. Whether they’re one of the main characters like Steve, Kevin, or Mike, or any of the multitude of more ancillary characters, there are very few “extras” in this tale. Even those who have been bitten in the vignettes that you know almost immediately are about to die are provided with a compelling enough storyline to make it so I cared about them as a reader. There are good and evil people, as there always are in these stories, but more important, the good guys can and do make mistakes, which means that while you are rooting for them, they are still human and still apt to make a monumental mistake that gets someone killed. The author has developed “real” characters, which is why I am looking forward to see where they end up going in this story, even if it is always in doubt as to whether or not any of them will be able to survive until the very end.
Dead: The Ugly Beginning is on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Ugly-Beginning-T-Brown/dp/0984537201/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274811322&sr=1-1
Letters from the Dead Now Available!!!
Well, its out on Createspace and will be on Amazon in about a week.
It can be purchased at https://www.createspace.com/3443967
Here is the description:
Defying all logic and reason, the dead returned from death. All over the world, dead human bodies rose and walked the Earth in search of living human flesh to consume. Despite the valiant efforts of the living’s vast armies and superior weapons, the dead won the Zombie War.
Defeated, the surviving governments of the world fled to the safety of their underground bases, leaving the last living survivors to their fate. All alone, trapped, for them there was no last second rescue, no escape. The Dead surrounded them, pounding on their barricaded doors, smashing in their boarded windows. It was their last chance to say goodbye, their last chance to shout out in defiance. It was time to write their final words.
For decades, the dead ruled the Earth unchallenged, but their reign was finite. In time, they returned to the dust from which they came.
When the living survivors emerged from their underground shelters, they would discover hundreds of thousands of tattered decaying messages, the letters left behind by the last to perish in the Zombie Apocalypse.
These are those “Letters From The Dead”.
Update! Now on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Dead-Mark-M-Johnson/dp/1451583079/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274811102&sr=1-6
Cover for Letters From the Dead revealed!
The first Anthology I will be appearing in.
I am over the moon excited about this, the first anthology from Library of the Living Dead that I will be appearing in. I don’t have a specific release date as of yet but I am very excited about this. It should be ready to go very soon!
Letters From The Dead is on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Dead-Mark-M-Johnson/dp/1451583079/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274811102&sr=1-6
My first interview!!!
Tim Long, Horror and Fantasy Writer Extraordinaire, was kind enough to include me in a interview he did with several different up and coming writers who are getting published in various Library of the Living Dead Press works.
It was a blast to do. There is plenty of other good stuff in his podcast for the horror fan, so check it out!
“Zombonauts” An anthology by Library of the Living Dead Press
Zombonauts goes where no anthology has gone before. Okay, so I am not 100% sure of that, but I personally haven’t see an entire anthology dedicated to stories about the undead in space. Vince Churchill’s “The Dead Shall Inherit the Earth” was my first exposure to zombies in space, and “Barren Earth” by Eric Brown and Stephen North is a more recent offering, but this jams 30 stories into one book about the undead buggers doing it in zero G.
We get a wide assortment of the undead here and while many are of the traditional Romero variety, there are some very interesting slants on what you would expect when it comes to a zombie story, with voodoo zombies, non-zombies that have zombie-like characteristics, and a few mysteries tossed in that simply make you wonder. The novelty here is not only that all of these stories occur in space, but that we get some very unique tales of apocalypse and even a few bitingly satirical stories as well(pardon the pun).
Given the volume of stories here, there was bound to be a bit of overlap as far as plot and progression with some of them, but there are ample tales that stand up as unique and intriguing in this volume. A true test, in my mind, of a short story is that it leaves me craving for more from that author and more of the particular story I just read. There are several of those here, which makes this anthology not only a unique read but also a very entertaining one.
Zombonauts can be found on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Zombonauts-Undead-Universe-Dr-Pus/dp/1449916147/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274810857&sr=1-1
Review for Derek J. Goodman’s Machina
Derek J. Goodman has crafted four very different and very intriguing fantastical stories about machines that seem to spring straight from his imagination onto the page.
The first, Dea Ex Machina, mixes the grim metallic future of a world filled with humans that are essentially factory slaves, working on machines as if they too are machines, but it also has magic in it as well that goes beyond the simple metal and zombie slave mentality that shackles the workers in place.
The second, a novella, Twister Sisters, was the story I enjoyed the most, more than likely because I have not been exposed to much steam punk and this was a rousing introduction to the genre. The depth of the society the author developed was exceptional. Here we are thrust not only into a world where steam and machines allow humans to take flight in massive contraptions, but also is a place where women, for the most part, rule and men play a secondary role due to their penchant towards violence and machismo. I enjoyed this swashbuckling tale of high adventure and would not mind re-entering that world once again.
Those Were The Days, the third story, was something I, as a kid who grew up on 80s teen and sci fi stories could appreciate. The author’s notes confirmed that he shares similar sentiments with me about movies such as War Games, amongst others. Revisiting and updating a lost tale from the 80s allowed me to grow nostalgic for a story that never actually existed, though it seemed quite familiar to me.
As Wide As The Sky, And Twice as Explosive was the shortest and in some ways, the most interesting of the four stories found in this book. A boy who finds the sky dwelling and warring giant robots far more fascinating and intoxicating than his earth-bound human counterparts is not all that different than things we have seen before, but the extent to which he takes that fascination definitely new. We are given a taste of something that perhaps might leave you wondering where a story like this could lead to if it was expanded, and wondering whether you would be interested in taking such a journey.
Overall, I enjoyed the diversity of machine related stories the author has lined up in this book. I could really get into a larger volume of steam punk either in the world of Twister Sisters or a brand new one from Derek Goodman. I also have a feeling the author has many other worlds he could show us with machines in them that are just as fascinating as the ones he has shown us here.
Machina can be found at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Machina-Derek-J-Goodman/dp/145155351X/ref=cm_cr-mr-title
Review of Tonia Brown’s ‘The Blooming’
The Blooming is a story of a group of documentary film producers who take a trip with a botanist to a remote island in the Pacific so that he can record his search for a very rare bloom that he has been searching for most of his professional life. The scientist only reveals that myths indicate that those who touch these blooms will assume the power of the gods. What he does not reveal, but becomes apparent to the crew very rapidly, is that those exposed to the golden, shimmering pollen of these blooms are gripped by a lust like nothing they have ever felt before. Where this lust turns to is revealed in this erotic tale of lust and violence that hits fast and leaves you gasping for air (or gasping for more, dependent on your mood as you read this story).
As a fan of zombie fiction but someone has admittedly not read much in the erotica genre, I have to say that this story definitely titillates as you flip the pages, dreadfully waiting for what you know is coming: the all consuming lust turning into an all consuming need to feed. This combination is potent and left me as a reader feeling vulnerable in a way that other zombie stories haven’t made me feel, because of the potency of the mix. Zombies are very freaky monsters to begin with, but combining our carnal passions with cannibalism almost seems a very disturbing combination. We speak of our desire for flesh as it relates to lust and say we want to eat someone up. We nibble, we bite, we are consumed with passion for both our partners as well as our food. Tonia Brown has made the figurative literal with this story, and if the idea of being cannibalized by zombies had you feeling disturbed before, the idea of being devoured, both literally and figuratively, by your lover should have you pretty much freaked out (or turned on…once again, if that is your thing).
The only complaints I could come up with here is that there were a few typos, which were minor and didn’t distract from the story, and the fact that this story was short. The latter isn’t really a complaint, but I have to say that I wasn’t ready to let go so quickly with this story that I read so quickly and enjoyed quite a bit.
The Blooming can be found on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Blooming-Tonia-Brown/dp/0615362281/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274810423&sr=1-1
Review of Stephen King’s ‘Under the Dome’
Stephen King’s Under the Dome is a epic sized novel that has a definite apocalyptic flavor to it, much like other tales of his, including The Stand and Cell, though in this world, only a single town gets to face its apocalypse. Chester Mills has been sealed off from the rest of the world by an impregnable force field that quite simply turns the inside of this barrier into an island, a world of its own.
We are introduced to a very large array of the townsfolk and while there is communication with the outside world, the narration almost exclusively remains with those inside the dome for the entire 1072 pages of this book. I don’t want to get into a list of characters, but suffice it to say that Stephen King does an excellent job, as usual, in really giving us a depth of understanding of each of them. The most intriguing character has to be Big Jim Rennie, used car salesman and Chester Mill’s Second Selectman. He is the man in charge, the man who has played dirty politics his entire career and the man who knows where all the bodies are buried. For a man like Jim, the dome is an opportunity. With no say so, the outside world has little power to stop him as he creates a police state and works to give himself complete control over everything under the dome. There are those who would try to stop him, led by a man the town considers a drifter and a short order cook but who is ex-military and the man appointed by the President of the United States to be the liaison to the people of Chester Mills. But given that the United States no longer has any real authority inside the dome, things don’t really go as the outside world might expect.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the way King shows how depraved human beings can become, while still showing that some will remain honest, kind, and good. When all is lost, most people will crave leadership, even if it is of the most deplorable kind. Group think and the mob mentality plays a big part in the way things go under the dome and I was intrigued by a story that takes place over a relatively short period of time and moves rapidly despite the size of the tale. Things crumble fast and it is truly scary to think how easy this could happen.
If there is a gripe I have with this book, and a reason I didn’t think it pitch perfect, it is because the ending seemed rather rushed. I know it may sound ludicrous, but I believe there could been a great deal more to this story than what there was, even at 1072 pages. My desire to see how this experiment in human nature might have ended had circumstances been altered and allowed to carry on a bit further makes it tough for me to say I was completely satisfied by this still compelling story. I do love how detailed King gets with his characters and the environment he puts them in and that will always bring me back for more with him. Under the Dome is still an excellent story despite my misgivings about the ending, which did tie things up nicely and tidily, but left me with a sense that thinks still could have gotten more dirty, more disturbing, had the slow burn that leads up to the ending had been allowed to play itself out instead of having things come to an abrupt halt. Still, this is an epic Stephen King tale and one I definitely enjoyed a great deal.
Under the Dome can be found at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Under-Dome-Novel-Stephen-King/dp/1439148503/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274810329&sr=1-1
Collaboration of the Dead
It appears that I will be participating in a collaborative effort with several other writers who have been published by the Library of the Living Dead and in other publications. I believe the term for what is planned is a mosaic novel. To the best of my understanding, this is how it works:
A coordinating editor or contributor brings together a group of different writers and sets the stage for a story they will develop together. Each writer is assigned a couple of different chapters they will write, either in a random order or perhaps in an organized setup. The order is determined and then the first chapter is written, edited, and then passed along to the next writer. That writer produces their chapter and then hands it back to the coordinator, who edits it, puts the two chapters together, and hands both of them to the next writer, who reads, reviews, and crafts a third chapter in the story. This continues on, and perhaps circles back through all the authors after they have all had a hand in crafting one chapter each so that they can complete their other chapter. Finally, when all the chapters are done, they are compiled and then hopefully published.
The project I will be working on was a spontaneous idea from one of the writers at the Library who has not planned further ahead than getting us all together. Whether it will end up being published by the Library or by another publisher remains to be seen. So as it stands, it will be a very exciting and unique experiment for me as well as the other writers involved.
I will admit, I am nervous about this, although the collaboration here is more generalized than one might experience if they were writing a novel in tandem with another writer and the communication is far more intense as you both strive to complete the story and make any differences in writing styles work. I am not sure with this mosaic novel whether the expectation is that we will all be writing in the same style and keeping the story consistent, or if the expectation is that everyone will be allowed to go crazy and really twist the story around as we see fit. It will definitely be a new and exciting experience for me, one which will definitely help me grow as a writer.
Review of Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines
It’s always potential fun when someone tries to tie two popular genres together, but often time the fun ends once you get to see the end result and realize that what you have is a mishmash of ideas that never really mixed well. Not so here, with Ex-Heros. Peter Clines has created a very plausible set of superheros facing the zombie apocalypse and doing what they do best: saving the world. Its certainly a struggle for them, as there is no way to stop the zombie menace, but they’ve focused on creating a safe haven in Los Angeles at Paramount studios, aka The Mount, which is the most easily defensible place where they could bring hundreds to thousands of survivors. Opposed to them are the Seventeens, an old LA Gang that essentially controls the rest of LA, with their mysterious leader.
The story is told by switching back and forth from the present to the past, with each flashback done in first person and told from the perspective of a particular superhero. The story is given the opportunity to slowly reveal itself this way and had a flavor of Watchmen to it that really worked in this setting. Our superheros aren’t perfect-often they are sullen and none too happy with the people they are protecting, who don’t necessarily trust them. In addition to this, some of the superheros have fallen to the Ex virus, which started the zombie apocalypse in this story, and while they are not quite as powerful as they once were, they still present a sizable threat to both the human and superhero population in the story.
Clines does an excellent job of creating unique and believable hero’s for this tale, with The Great Dragon leading the pack. They may be studs physically, but there are plenty of warts that are revealed during the story, giving us some surprises along the way that impact the story dramatically.
I think this is one of the best genre cross-over stories I have read in some time and Clines, who indicated that many of the superheros created here came from his and friends childhood visions, clearly has a passion for both genres, and has created a very unique genesis to the zombie in this story that makes perfect sense and lands like a sledgehammer on the reader towards the end of the story.
There is no doubt that Clines could make this into a series, or just pull off a sequel, if he chooses. The characters are rich and involving and there is certainly much more to be revealed about all of them. Definitely recommended for the zombie and superhero fan alike.
Ex-Heros can be found on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Ex-Heroes-Peter-Clines/dp/1934861286/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274810026&sr=1-1
Letters from the Dead-the first horror anthology I will be appearing in.
Defying all logic and reason, the dead returned from death. All over the world, dead human bodies rose and walked the Earth in search of living human flesh to consume. Despite the valiant efforts of the living’s vast armies and superior weapons, the dead won the Zombie War.
Defeated, the surviving governments of the world fled to the safety of their underground bases, leaving the last living survivors to their fate. All alone, trapped, for them there was no last second rescue, no escape. The Dead surrounded them, pounding on their barricaded doors, smashing in their boarded windows. It was their last chance to say goodbye, their last chance to shout out in defiance. It was time to write their final words.
For decades, the dead ruled the Earth unchallenged, but their reign was finite. In time, they returned to the dust from which they came.
When the living survivors emerged from their underground shelters, they would discover hundreds of thousands of tattered decaying messages, the letters left behind by the last to perish in the Zombie Apocalypse.
Coming soon from
Library of the Living Dead Press
Letters From The Dead can be found at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Dead-Mark-M-Johnson/dp/1451583079/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274809932&sr=1-6
Coming up with Story Ideas
One of the biggest challenges that wears me down as I have gotten more serious about writing is coming up with new, fresh ideas for stories on a continuous basis. Some will say that stories that have creatures like zombies in them, which have been used in a wide array of stories over the years, is probably not going to get you an award for creativity. It’s certainly true that I have read my fair share of rip-off zombie tales that follow the patented process made famous by Romero and others, with a group of people hiding out in a enclosed area desperately trying to figure out how they will survive because the undead are bashing at the doors, or gates, or whatever, and things are getting tense inside, and perhaps there are some other living humans outside that are also causing trouble, etc. But I have also read quite a few zombie stories that bring new ideas to the table by making the zombies intelligent, fast, demonic, alien, etc. I have also read the same type of stuff in other genres countless times with the rehash factor playing a major role. Heck, I have read an author who has regurgitated the same idea they had years before and just put some new decorative touches on it before selling it again.
What I have gathered from all of this is that even if you use a tried and true set of story guidelines and keep going back to the same well, it doesn’t mean you are creating something dull, drab, and uninspired. Similarly, if you throw some real curve balls with your ideas to make your story stand out as unique and different, you may still have the same stale and flabby plot if that is all you are relying on to make your tale something someone will want to read.
In other words, the setting is only one piece of the puzzle. I have read in excess of 300 different zombie books over the past few years, mixed in with a wide assortment of stories from other genres. And no, I am not just some incredibly obsessed fan boy who cannot stop pouring over the minutia of survival that apocalyptic and zombie stories usually give you. Sure, I’ve given my fair share of thought to what it would take to survive if things go terribly wrong in the world. I’ve written my posts on various message boards talking about that topic and others, both with the very serious folks out there that thing the world is going to end tomorrow and those who just love to kick around ideas and have some fun with it. BUT, and this is the big BUT, that does not mean I like reading the same old story with just minor changes just because they have zombies in them. Because what I really enjoy in good zombie story is a writer who can come up with new characters, new challenges, and essentially someone who will paint a fresh coat of paint over a basic story that has been around since Romero created Night of the Living Dead. In other words, if you are stuck in a farmhouse with a bunch of other people, I am not going to groan this setting has already been used, but I expect some new perspective , new and compelling characters, and something that will perhaps shed NEW light on the human condition. This is not to say that catapulting these characters into a new fresh environment with an entirely new breed of the undead might not be a bad idea, but what it boils down to for me, at least with what I would define as a ‘good zombie story’ is that you’ve made a serious effort at presenting the reader with characters that are multi-dimensional, intriguing, human, and perhaps allow us to love or hate them based on who they are and what they are willing to do. No, scratch that. That doesn’t just make for a good zombie story, it makes for a good story in general.
I use the zombie genre as an example because it is one that I have been immersed in for some time as I have written my book and the short stories that have followed up with more recently. My novel, in some ways, has a very traditional setting for a tale of the apocalypse. The undead nemesis is, for the most part, is very traditional. But I didn’t focus all my energy on the undead. Most of my effort went to developing characters that felt real and natural, doing what they can under terrible circumstances. Whether or not I succeeded in creating a compelling story with them is something each reader will have to decide for themselves, but finding a publisher willing to put out my book and having others who have read it indicating that it is a compelling has definitely given me the confidence to know that I can perhaps write something enjoyable and entertaining. But the first person I had to please was myself. Just like every other author I have know, I am by far my harshest critic. So with my novel, I didn’t slam my head against the desk desperately trying to write a story that didn’t have elements no one else has ever used before. Instead, I devoted myself to making my characters people that would keep someone glued to the page to see what happens next to them. Hopefully I pulled that off.
Short stories are something I am spending time with right now. The ideas for these are ones you can put together and develop without mapping out massive story arcs, which is a nice change of pace for me from writing the novel, although I will be getting back to writing my book within the next month or two. Writing short stories, after diving so deep into one story with a very specific characters, is a refreshing twist for me. It allows me to work with character that aren’t perhaps as complex, at least on the written page, but still definitely have intriguing stories to tell.
I do struggle more with coming up with creative stuff for short stories than I did with my book. I think of these smaller stories like guerrilla warfare. You sneak in, do the job, and get out before anyone realizes what you’ve done. Writing a novel is like going to war. You are the general and you are looking at thousands of different troop movements and trying to figure out what the enemy will do before they do it so you can adjust your techniques to outwit them. It is waged over months and years and generally speaking can be quite costly for all involved. A war takes lots of planning before you ever attack, and there are lots and lots of battles, and the map you are working with changes daily, because things change as you move forward-you discover you don’t like the direction a particular plot point is taking, some wonderful idea has filtered through that will require you to revamp over 100 pages of your tale, etc. The whole objective of guerrilla warfare is to get in and get out before the enemy can point its artillery at you and smash you flat. So it requires you to be light on your feet and come up with a story idea that can be effectively relayed in just a few thousand words, rather than 80,000.
I am not sure how good I am at writing short stories just yet. I have four accepted currently, and three more I have to wait until the editor gets past their designated deadline to even look at, but none of that means that I know for sure that I have what it takes to come up with something new and different every few days or weeks, which is what writing short stories is all about. Because you see, unlike with a novel, I think there is more onus on the short story writer to have something unique and different each time they set pen to paper. In 5,000 words or so, you need to set the stage, build the drama, let the story unfold, and bring it to a conclusion. Trust me, that is not such an easy task.
So far, I have been able to come up with something different with the short stories I have written. There are a few others I haven’t tried to get published because they really haven’t fit in the anthologies I have been working with, but if an idea strikes, the first thing I do is write it down and then stow it away. If it really is something I am obsessed with and have fully shaped inside my brain, I will start writing it right away. But usually the ideas I have are half formed and need time to gestate.
An example would be a story idea I came up with about a sixteen year old girl who has been bouncing around the foster care system her entire life. She is a chronic troublemaker and no one can handle her for long. Along come a very stern, very religious couple, who agree to take her and intend on scaring her straight. The main character takes that as a challenge and tries to torment these people, but they are un-tormentable, or so it seems. They lock her in her bedroom at night and she hears them down in the basement, praying. She wants to mess with them and wants to also find out more about their very secretive beliefs, so she breaks out of her room one night and suddenly, she discovers… Well, that was as far as I got. The idea was fairly basic, and would need a lot of molding and shaping, with some major embellishments. But what did I do with this idea? I later found a anthology that was looking for stories on phobias. These would be horror stories about the innocuous fears we have. So I started morphing my idea and wrote a story where there is a little girl who has a phobia of God and religion and she gets taken in by a very religious but very kind couple. I submitted the story and am waiting until the deadline passes in another month or so to see if its been accepted.
Sometimes you just never know where a story will lead you.
Other story ideas pop into my head fully formed. Writing the outline is simple and easy to do. A story I hope to start writing today is one like that. Another anthology is looking for stories of doom. In other words, major catastrophic events that wipe out whole civilizations. That was their only guidelines, but the idea that popped into my head was fully conceived and very specific. I wrote the full outline for it in around ten minutes and thus far, I love the idea as it is. That’s not to say it won’t change as I start writing, but for now, its a go and I just have to make sure I stick to the story guidelines about length and content before I turn it in.
I know of plenty of authors who out there who are superbly more talented than me who can see some submission guidelines for a short story or even a novella and their brain immediately starts creating something that works perfectly for what the editor is looking for. I envy those folks, but that is not me. I have to be hit by inspiration or I just don’t have the enthusiasm to carry a story through. The eureka moment is a big deal to me, and while sometimes it comes when I concentrate, most of the time it comes when I am not even thinking about writing, stories, or anything creative. Its not always a lightning bolt and thunder clap, sometimes its just a light drizzle that slowly saturates me and allows me to slowly poke and prod the idea until it fully develops into something tangible and hopefully, publishable.
I am afraid that one day, I will be sitting down, having just finished a story, and my brain will go blank, with nothing left inside as far as creativity is concerned. So far, it hasn’t happened, but the fact remains that I can’t always come up with something new that fits with something someone actually wants. An example is a new anthology looking for submissions that are supposed to be humorous science fiction tales. I would love to be a part of that and create something that is a riot, but unfortunately I haven’t come up with a single good idea as of yet. The good news is there is no deadline for this story just yet, so I have time, but I am still wracking my brain trying to come up with something for it. In the meantime, I have other ideas that just pop in my head that will make interesting stories, but none that are remotely close to something sci-fi-ish and humorous. But such is life.
I wish I had written this topic with some sort of advice in mind for someone reading this, but I really don’t have anything for you. Sorry if that seems selfish, but the muse visits different people in different ways. It seems that everyone has a different way of coming up with story ideas. Different inspirations, different personalities, different ways of thinking. I guess the best thing is to keep an open mind and listen to the world around you. Because you never know when or where inspiration will hit.
Review of Tomes of the Dead: “Way of the Barefoot Zombie” by Jasper Bark
Way of the Barefoot Zombie is a modern day voodoo zombie tale with some interesting twists. As it starts out, we are introduced to Benjamin and Tatyana, two trust fund kids who have helped create “The Zombie Liberation Front”, which is an organization focused on walking in the footsteps of the noble monsters, or zombies, of Haitian Lore. But voodoo zombies are real in this tale and Benjamin and Tatyana are off on a mission to free a group of them being used by a wealthy entrepreneur, Doc Papa, who runs a program for the super rich, where they learn the Way of the Barefoot Zombie. In other words, these power brokers are are being trained to act like zombies, who care little about anything except their ravenous goals and they fear nothing. In a screwball way, this book is variation on Z.E.O.: How to Get A(Head) in Business (Zombie Series), where the goal is to become much like a zombie and destroy all your competition in business.
Of course, that is just how the story starts out. As Benjamin and Tatyana discover more secrets of the island and try to work their sabotage, they are introduced to Merriam, a powerful voodoo priestess whose intent is to bring Doc Papa down and save the zombies herself, but for her own reasons. There are plenty of twists and turns with lots of strange magic floating around.
The zombies in this story are voodoo zombies but the author has kept the hunger for living flesh as a part of their routine. You can act like a zombie around them and not be devoured, but once you start acting human, you are toast.
The story picks up speed the further it goes, with quite a bit of voodoo magic flying around. The main characters went from mildly unlikeable spoiled rich kids to legitimate crusaders on a mission. Honestly, after about 100 pages I was not all that intrigued by the story, but another hundred pages into this 311 page book and I found the story to be much more intriguing. There is some gore and some really cringe worthy stuff on these pages(to walk the path of the zombie, you have to act like one and DO what one would do), but the zombie violence is really at a minimum here. Still, the story worked for me because it became interesting and fun to see all the voodoo magic at work and we had the chance to unravel a mystery at the same time. The author obviously has a fascination for voodoo magic and legends, because he is quite knowledgeable on the subject. A traditional Romero zombie fan might find this story to not be to their tastes, but I can always enjoy the occasional voodoo spice to add to my zombie fascination now and then, and this book did the trick.
Again, it starts out slow but as it moves along, the story became a much more fun and interesting read.
Way of the Barefoot Zombie can be found at Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Tomes-Dead-Way-Barefoot-Zombie/dp/1906735069/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274809570&sr=1-1
Review of “The Crazies”
The Crazies is a remake of an early 70s George A. Romero low budget thriller. The remake has him as an executive producer and there are quite a few similarities, although this new version, with its much larger budget and a slightly different perspective has a slightly different feel to it.
The premise is much the same as the original. We are introduced to the people of a small rural community, this time in Iowa rather than Pennsylvania, where slowly but surely, some of the citizens appear to be going nuts. At first its the former town drunk who hasn’t had a drink in over two years. When he brings a shotgun to a high school baseball game and the sheriff is forced to kill him, the autopsy comes back indicating that he wasn’t drunk. When another man decides to burn down his house with his wife and little boy in it as he mows the lawn, the sheriff and his wife, the town doctor, start to suspect that things are a bit off the charts on the weird meter. The sheriff and his deputy soon discover a downed military air craft in a local bog that feeds into the water supply of the town and they start to realize that things are probably even worse than they first suspected.
One of the big differences between this version vs. the Romero original is the fact that we never get the military perspective on what is happening. Still, it’s easy to guess how quickly things are escalating for the government and that they are definitely not doing a good job of keeping the situation under control based on their very aggressive actions as they attempt to contain the town, which doesn’t take long to go completely mad as the biological contamination spreads.
The movie goes from mystery/thriller to outright horror as the sheriff, his wife, his deputy, and her receptionist attempt to escape the town and get to witness both the crazies on the loose and the aggressive military efforts to eliminate the biological threat that they have unleashed upon these unsuspecting people, and fight their way through both groups.
I did like the original movie, despite of (or perhaps because of) its low budget, campy appeal. Again, this remake doesn’t provide us with the military perspective as they try to contain this biological contaminant, which both adds and detracts to the new movie’s appeal. Its always interesting to see the genesis of a potential worldwide (or even localized) apocalypse and what causes it to escalate (and how the government screw ups cause it to get even worse), but with a version free of the scandals and arguments between scientists and military generals, we as the audience don’t know what to expect from moment to moment-we share the same perspective as the people trying to flee. The military/government is in no way humanized here-they are big brother, with their satellite images and digitized declarations of containment, but little else besides a few words from a captured soldier and government agent. They remain hidden, for the most part, behind gas masks the entire time.
Nope, this is not a zombie film but the crazies here share some similarities with Romero’s other monster creation in that the madness you see is not only in the creatures trying to tear your face off but from the supposedly sane people trying to run everything. Certainly if you have an appreciation for stories involving government cover-ups, mass hysteria, lots of terror and gore, than you may not really be concerned about any differentiation between this movie and some of the higher quality zombie films out there. The Crazies is fun, disturbing movie that is all the more terrifying because it seems quite likely to occur in this day and age of biological warfare and terror. And because of that, it has much the same appeal as do the zombie movies that Romero and others have been unleashing on us for over 40 years now.
Review of Tim Long’s Zombie-Wilson Diaries
“My Girlfriend is a Zombie”
…and thus we set the tone for this intimate look at a man and his undead island-mate.
The Zombie Wilson Diaries plays on the castaway scenario replacing the volleyball named Wilson from the Tom Hanks film with a zombie girl who is quite a bit more animated and a whole lot more bitey than a ball with a bloody hand print for a face. Our nameless narrator begins his diary while on a business trip to the islands, which turns into a plane crash which lands him on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean with one of the other passengers, who apparently floated up to the island alive, just like him, but made the unfortunate decision to eat some exotic berries that have turned her from a hottie model type into a rottie gooey type. But fear not, our narrator decides to take her under his wing instead of bashing her skull in with a big rock because she keeps him company on a island lacking in others to socially interact with. Oh, we do get the occasional interloper, like our fair lady’s dead rotting hubby and a few natives who have canoed over from another island, but for the most part, this tale of a fateful trip is all about a man and his zombie.
A nice touch with this book is the appearance of handwritten text and the hand scrawled stick drawings that the narrator puts at the front of each chapter, which added to the personal diary feel of this story.
It is an intriguing relationship that this deluded and desperate man has with a creature that I found hard to define as far as what her role was. Each chapter starts with “My girlfriend…” but it becomes clear that the zombie in this story plays multiple parts, and girlfriend, it seems, is probably the least of them. Desperate for companionship, it is almost as if she is his pet or willful child, as he takes care of her and keeps her from getting into trouble, while at the same time she snaps at him and generally acts like a brat, but there are moments when it seems that his girl, undead Friday, seems to recognize and even relies on him, especially when there are thunderstorms and undead sharks trying to snap her in half.
The comedy here is dark and should be appreciated by a fan of the zombie genre for certain, as well as those who like a bit of a twisted tale in general. The self-induced torture that this castaway goes through as he debates, on a daily basis, whether it would just be better to kill this creature even though she provides him with a shred of human contact, is a wickedly humorous conflict. I’m not really sure whether I liked this guy or I just wanted to smack some sense into him, but I know one thing for sure, this book was an entertaining journey into the surreal.
The Zombie-Wilson Diaries can be found on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Zombie-Wilson-Diaries-Timothy-W-Long/dp/1450542565/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274809398&sr=1-1
Review of Zomblog, by TW Brown
TW Brown has created a very readible book in diary form about the first nine months of the zombie apocalypse. Our writer is Sam Todd, who is an every day guy who decides he will start a blog to document what is going on in his life and it just so happens that he starts writing it a few days before the start of a plague that sweeps the world where the dead begin rising up to destroy the living.
The pace is swift, with each day passing at a clip of about a page each. Sam goes on the run fairly early in the book and almost never stops, taking breaks along the way at different safe havens, but determined to find a place that he doesn’t feel locked in and kept from the outside world, where both the hordes of zombies and the savage living lurk around every corner.
The action is intense and you barely get the chance to catch your breath. I won’t reveal something that happens more than halfway through the book, but suffice it to say, there are some genuine surprises in store for the reader. I though the author did a nice job of switching things up on us and taking the story in a different direction. Not what I expected.
Since this is a journal entry type of story there is no dialogue and we are given a synopsis of events for each day. Some readers might consider this a weakness if they are not a fan of that type of writing but I believe the author does a good job of revealing things in a way that makes each entry compelling. Of course, the tough part is that since we are living inside the narrator’s head and they are writing these entries at the end of each day, we are often given a sentence or two at the beginning of many entries that gives us a synopsis of the day (or at least hints at one) and then gives us all the details. In other words, some of the suspense is gone because we at least have a hint at who has died or what had taken place (although I will note that the author does a good job of surprising the reader on that account as well and not revealing too much in the synopsis at the beginning of the entries for the most part). That is perhaps what makes this type of book tricky to pull off sometimes. We are not “in the moment” as it were, we are getting the blow by blow after the fact. Still, I think the author did a very good job using this writing style to its fullest potential.
Something I really liked with this book was the author’s use of geography and really mapping out a multi-state environment. The characters are constantly on the move, constantly facing new dangers, new challenges, and again, the reader never really has much of a chance to settle in or expect things to slow down. We get mountains and rivers and a lot of excellent descriptions of the northwestern environment. For someone who has never traveled in that region, the author really showcases the area.
No one is safe in this book, the body count is high, and its clear that the writer is directing both his zombie horde and the vicious survivors who our main character comes up against with merciless efficiency here.
For fans of zombie fiction this is a nice addition to your library. The pacing is good and the action is intense. I am looking forward to the sequel to find out what happens next to the narrator.
Zomblog can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Zomblog-T-W-Brown/dp/1449962203/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274809114&sr=8-1
Introducing: Comes The Dark
This section of my blog is going to be dedicated specifically to my first novel, Comes The Dark, which is being released by Library of the Living Dead Press later in 2010.
At its most basic, CTD is the story of a man who has lost everything in a world that has already rapidly deteriorated to the point where it is barely recognizable anymore. A virus is at the root of humanity’s destruction and those infected are turned into undead monsters that seek only to annihilate the few survivors left remaining. My desire in creating this story was to try to better understand, from my own perspective, how much one person can take and how far they are willing to go to survive with barely a shred of hope for themselves and the rest of humanity. What keeps them going? Is is all fear, or perhaps is it anger at what has happened to them? Is there any willingness to hope for something better despite there being no evidence that there is a reason to hope?
Certainly, this is a story about zombies, with all the harsh brutality you would expect from such a horror story, but my focus is on the living that inhabit this dead world. How they interact with one another, how they cope, and how they fight to survive against nearly insurmountable odds.
Jeff Blaine, the main character, is a typical guy who leads a typical life. Before the story begins, he has a decent job, a house in the suburbs, a wife, two kids, and nothing much else that makes him all that interesting to those around him. While he considers himself a good guy, a nice guy, he has never really been put into a position that has forced him to be anything different than that. Like most of us, he would like to believe he can handle pressure, but really, he doesn’t have much of an idea what type of person he might become if things really get bad. He’s probably slightly more of a sinner than a saint, but again, he’s never had a major dilemma that would might test his moral fiber, so its easy for him to believe he would generally choose to do the right thing.
You would probably like Jeff if you met him. He knows how to give a firm handshake and look you in the eye when he talks to you. He learned early on how to give a good impression but to avoid being too flashy so that he stands out from the crowd. He participated in a few activities in college to pad his resume but these days he’s not all that interested in being much of a joiner. He is the guy who typically can find an excuse not to get involved with the Home Owner’s Association or to join the Rotary Club when a buddy or a neighbor approaches him. He’s willing to buy your daughter’s girl scout cookies but he hates the idea of volunteering his time at his church’s charity events. He might fudge the amount he donates on his taxes but avoids anything more risky than that like the plague.
In other words, Jeff is pretty much your average guy…before the world falls apart.
And thus, the stage is set for the story. You really don’t need to know much else in advance of reading the book, except perhaps for the description I created that will hopefully appear on the back cover of the book (stand by, because it still needs to go through the editing process!). Stay tuned for a few select excerpts from the book in later postings, but for now, I leave you with this:
The end came with a whimper, not a bang. The mysterious virus came out of nowhere and engulfed the world in a matter of days. Everyone who was infected seemed to die…and then rise again. Governments collapsed, armies disappeared, and entire civilizations turned to dust as the human race tore itself to pieces.
Jeff Blaine had a good life: a beautiful wife, adorable children, and a nice house in the suburbs. He liked his job, loved his family, and spent his lazy suburban Sundays out on the deck, barbequing with the neighbors. Things were perfect until everything fell apart. And no matter how hard Jeff tried, he could not spare his family from the horrors scratching at the door.
Now, with his family gone, his life in ruins, the only thing left is raw anger and pain. As the world continues to sink into darkness, Jeff does as well. So he ventures out into the desolation with no better plan than to destroy as many of the monsters that stole his life away before they destroy him as well.
But soon Jeff will discover other survivors unwilling to give up. They will force him to decide whether or not to succumb to the venom that gnaws at his soul. Should he continue to fight to survive, or succumb to the things that come with the dark?
My experiences with the writing, editing, and publishing process.
Its almost surreal, this experience I have been going through lately. Well, when I say lately, I mean over the past three and a half years. July 2006-That is when I got “serious” about this writing stuff. I, like many people I know, had always sworn they would become a writer some day. We all have ideas, we all have plans to sit down and write chapter after chapter and create the great American novel. Or at least, the novel that someone might want to read, even if it is just our wives or husbands and maybe the rest of our family members. But honestly, how many of us end up doing that?
I have a friend who encouraged me every step of the way. He was impressed when I told him that I had written a hundred pages, he was impressed when I finished my first draft. He had started his own book, and trashed the efforts, countless times. He could never get past chapter one.
Well, for me, the journey was about kicking myself in the ass and not playing around any more. The disconnect was never after I had sat down and started writing, it had been moving from the idea stage to reality. Once I actually started writing, I never looked back…
Now, please understand, I think it is fair to say that everyone writes differently. You can’t say that there is a step by step process that everyone should take to become a successful writer. Certainly, I can’t recommend On Writing by Stephen King enough. That guy is a machine, and he is a regimented, highly organized writer who keeps to a schedule and perhaps even follows all the rules he has in place for how things are supposed to go. Me? I doubt I will ever be like that.
Some folks I know sit down with an idea and just start writing. It flows from that point and grows from there. They have a general idea in their head where they want to end up but don’t limit themselves by organizing their thoughts too much beforehand. Me? I over think EVERYTHING during the writing process. Let me put it this way: I started writing my novel back in July of 2006 and I believe my first draft was not completed until January of 2008, a year and a half later. Now let me say this: that was not me simply writing and writing. That process involved outlining, revamping outlines, trashing big chunks of what I had originally written, and laboring over individual sentences at 3 a.m. as I tried to make it sound right. By the time my first draft was completed, it was well over 360k words.
Let me repeat that for those of you in the cheap seats: 360k words. Stephen King’s The Stand was originally released with 150,000 words cut from the manuscript. It was still well over 800 pages (honestly, I can’t remember how many pages there were) but my book was about the size of the originally released version of the stand. Now even with my meandering mind could I ever hope to top Mr. King, whose unabridged version sits at approximately 520k words.
So, move forward from my triumphant evening sitting at the keyboard, when I typed out that last sentence and officially announced to friends and family that I had finished my book. It felt like a relief, like I could scratch off something on the bucket list, etc. I was 39 years old at the time and I had written my first novel before hitting that big middle aged landmark. I was over the moon.
Then I started to realize that even with all the editing I had done, all the effort to put together something presentable, that my story was monstrous. I approached a publisher. Someone I had been having a dialogue with previously, because I had been reviewing books they had come out with and they had been so kind as to send me review copies of other books to also review on Amazon. The publisher was more than willing to look at my book, but…and this was a big BUT, could I turn it into a trilogy? The reason for this was because at 360K words, it was far, far, far too large to ever be considered for publication with them. He liked a maximum of 120K words per book, and that was even pushing it.
Sooooo, that leads us to the second part of this process-my efforts to turn my book into a trilogy. Thankfully, that was not as hard to do as I had originally though, because as I started looking, I saw three natural splits in the novel-cliffhanger endings that set up the following segment of my tale nicely. So that was done, along with some more compulsive editing.
Alas, this is where I began to actually learn a few more things about writing that became invaluable to me. The first came a month after I submitted my manuscript to this particular publisher and the gentleman came back and said that he could not publish my book. He was kind enough to provide me with feedback and the key thing I took away from that was this: I was doing a hell of a lot of telling and not nearly enough showing. In other words, I was dumping a lot of information on people and not allowing them to discover the story for themselves.
I thanked that publisher and admitted to myself that he was absolutely correct in his assessment. I also realized that my book was massively over bloated and I needed to mercilessly start to slice and dice it down to what it should have been in the first place.
So my editing journey continued. The publisher had actually suggested I leave this story on the shelf and work on other stuff for a time and after getting published with other novels or short stories, then return to my story later. I had given that some thought but in the end, I couldn’t help but return to the story that had been in my dreams and nightmares now for two and half years at that point. It was the beginning of 2009 by then, and my novel had just gotten rejected by a publisher and as a side note, my job had just been eliminated.
So, I was unemployed and focused on finding a new job. I did leave my book on the shelf…for about a month or two. Then I went at it with red penned zeal. I should probably say at this point that other people were reading what I had written. They had been doing so for quite some time. I definitely took a lot from their thoughts. Mind you, I didn’t change everything based on their suggestions, but having those other folks to bounce things off of was invaluable.
I was bound and determined to get my book published. Let me put that a different way. I did not want to self-publish. Period. A writer by the name of Rhiannon Frater has written a trilogy of zombie apocalyptic fiction entitled As The World Dies. She went the self-publishing route. Her success is well known in the world of zombie fiction. I can’t say that I know Rhiannon personally, but I do know her through the wonderful world of the internet-Facebook and message boards, etc. Her success has been definitely the exception to the rule. Rhiannon has a business savvy and loads of smarts that allowed her to self-publish and create something that was terrific and create something that people have bought. Word of mouth has been a big part of that. That is my plug for her work: go buy her trilogy. Its fantastic.
But Rhiannon’s success is the exception. There are good self-published novels, sometimes by jaded authors who got sick of trying to go the normal route to publishing. They write terrific stories that will really blow you away. But in addition to those novels, you are going to get a LOT more novels that probably were taken out of the oven way too early. That is my polite way of saying that a professional editor would have gone a long way for those folks who so desperately wanted to get published and were willing to do whatever it took to achieve that dream as fast as possible. On top of that, you have to consider how much marketing responsibility you have taken on by becoming your own business entity. Rhiannon was able to do it, but I daresay she is a unique person. Did I write a book so I could become famous and read by thousands or millions? No, but if I am going to get published, I would like to have a company standing behind me with not only an editor, but the ability to effectively market what I have written. They can promote my book in the back of other books they produce, they can take me to trade shows, put excerpts from my book on pod casts, etc. Being in a stable with other authors is also invaluable. I have interacted with a much larger group of people because of my relationship with the Library of the Living Dead. Not only is Dr. Pus, the benevolent publisher, someone who I have gained valuable insights from, but I have also had the privilege of bouncing ideas off of published authors like Tim Long and Steve North. That guys like that (amongst many other terrific writers) are asking for my opinion on what they are currently writing is mind blowing.
Whew! That was quite a tangent, wasn’t it? So anyway, back to my saga. I pulled down my manuscript and started slicing it and editing it about another million times. The end result? About 162K words. At the same time, I introduced myself to the Library of the Living Dead and Dr. Pus, who was so kind as to create a section of his message boards where I could post chapters of my book for others to read and critique. What a difference that made! It introduced me to a lot of people. Folks like those I have mentioned above, including Rhiannon Frater, who has not only been self published but also published at the Library as well. Tons of other writers of both novels and short stories, as well as fans of the genre, were there, supporting me every step of the way.
So after I felt pretty strong about my novel, I submitted it to the Library. But again, at 162K words, it was a bit large, but still could be turned into a trilogy that would make sense and worked quite well. So I spoke to Doc about that and less than a couple of weeks ago, he agreed to publish it as a trilogy.
Once again, I was over the moon and thrilled. But the journey, in many ways, has just begun. Doc is assigning me an editor, who I will become very familiar with over the next few months (and beyond), I am sure. We have chatted about artwork for the cover of the first book, the description on the back, and any sort of promoting that I can do, including creating a website (thus this blog, which is the tip of the iceberg for me). I will be at Horror Realm in Pittsburgh in September, which will be occurring shortly after my book is released in September.
I will likely be talking in detail about my experiences with the publishing process in later blog installments. Its been an interesting ride so far.
Welcome to my world
I am a horror writer.
It’s strange writing that. Heck, its even more strange saying it. While it has been a dream of mine to be a published author for well over half my life, its just now becoming a reality. Which is pretty surreal.
My first novel, Comes the Dark is being released by Library of the Living Dead Press later this year. I’ve written some short stories and so far (knock wood) I’ve had good luck in getting acceptances for a few of them. So technically, I haven’t been published yet, but unless everything caves in, my name will be on several different stories in several different books within the next few months.
I am a horror writer, but I hope to extend that description to science fiction and fantasy writer as well as time goes on. I guess technically, I am already a fantasy writer, though trying to count the novel I wrote back in high school when I was in the throws of a Dungeons and Dragons fetish probably doesn’t really count. I have looked back on what I had banged out on the old typewriter (that will give you a hint as to how old I am, but just a hint) and I see something that would need to be totally reworked and revamped before I would ever consider trying to have it published. Still, I was able to create a complex world with interesting politics, magic, and creatures. There is something there that I definitely want to revisit some day…hopefully soon.
Now, back to Comes the Dark. This is my submission to the world of zombie horror, my effort to humbly add something to a genre that has grown in popularity over the last decade, but which has remained popular since George Romero recreated the zombie into something different than those island dwelling automatons. But don’t get me wrong, the origins of zombies are fascinating and one of the short stories I wrote deals with voodoo zombies. They certainly can be just as terrifying as the Americanized version that Mr. Romero came up with, but I think most of us are a lot more intrigued by the flesh eaters rather than the soulless slaves of the Carribean.
Yep, I tend to ramble a bit. Comes the Dark deals with one man’s journey through the zombie apocalypse and my focus was on character development. My fascination with zombies has always been that the stories, or rather the really good ones, generally tend to focus more on the people rather than the monsters themselves. Zombies are us and we are them-there is a sort of reflection going on, but its really how human beings struggle to avoid degenerating into something worse than zombies that has always intrigued me with the stories of Romero and many of the authors who have written some really terrific zombie sagas since he introduced us to the rotting buggers.
Well, that’s it for now. I am working on trying to create this blog and also wrap a website around it. Wish me luck in this endeavor, along with all the fun and challenging stuff that comes with trying to bring out your first novel!
Patrick D'Orazio's Blog 