Stephen Kozeniewski's Blog, page 69
December 15, 2014
Last Minute Holiday Shopping Guide
All four books are available here!
December 12, 2014
Why Z-Nation is Better than The Walking Dead, an Essay in Three Parts: Part Three
Part I
Part II
And so we come at last to the end of what I expect will be the most controversial week in my blog's history. On Monday I explained why I dislike beloved super-popular property The Walking Dead. Then on Wednesday I followed up by defending contender for most-hated show on television, Z-Nation. Now, as Jerry Springer would say, a few words to sum up my thoughts.
The David and Goliath-style story is one of our favorites. It appeals to something innate in human nature. We always consider ourselves the underdog. Just look at politics. Everyone considers themselves the underdog, even billionaires. I know I'm not an underdog in any strict sense. I'm well off, I live in a nice area, have plenty of access to everything I need. And yet whenever that David and Goliath story comes on, I'm just like, "Yeah, that's me, overcoming my trials!"
But there's also an element of Goliath being a dick. In fact, that's usually why David wins. Goliath is a big, boisterous asshole who doesn't even take David seriously. The rabbit lays down two feet from the finish line so the tortoise beats him.
I feel like that's what I'm looking at here. When TWD was the scrappy young newcomer ("A zombie television series? Preposterous!") they were actually trying. Rick had guts and gusto. Hell, he had a purpose. That guy was gonna find his family, apocalypse be damned. And then when he finally did find his family there were consequences, and the consequences had consequences, and Merle got left handcuffed on the roof, and on and on. Not unlike Battlestar Galactica, in fact.
Now, though? Now TWD has gotten bloated and fat. It's the most popular show on cable TV. So it's become complacent. Hell, it's practically become sedentary. It's the rabbit literally lying down at the finish line.
"Why mess with a good thing?" the producers seem to be saying.
Have everyone stand around and talk and yell and pretend to emote a lot. Kill a character no one cares about every couple episodes, then kill a character people do care about once or twice a season. Introduce new characters every so often and give them a little back story the episode you plan to kill them. Throw in a zombie once in a blue moon so that horror watchers get what they want. Throw in a character from the comic books every once in a while to keep the chatter going.
You don't need a writer to write this stuff. A kid could write this stuff. As I (and Kirkman and Romero) said, it's not horror. It's a soap opera. It's like a fucking shell game is what it is. It promises one thing and delivers another. And it had success so it just sits there, like Goliath, wallowing in its own popularity.
And then, by contrast, you have Z-Nation. This is something that is so demonstrably, so obviously crappy that literally the only way for them to succeed is to innovate. There's a certain number of people (myself included) who will watch literally anything with zombies in it. But ZN has nothing to lose! Why not do a Run, Lola, Run episode? Why not have a cosmonaut crash at Northern Light? Why not have a Three Olives product placement so the characters can drive a vodka-powered airplane?
TWD is all about the "Why fix what ain't broke?" Meanwhile, ZN is all about the, "Why the fuck not?"
Z-Nation has the giddy glow of kids playing in the sandbox. They're not trying to reinvent the zombie genre, but they are throwing all the spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks. If the zombie bear turns out to be a hit, why not have more zombie bears in the future? If Murphy controlling the dead turns out to be interesting, maybe there'll be more of that in the future. Who knows? The sky's the limit!
Meanwhile TWD is calcified. "This is what we do, boys," the showrunners seem to have decided, "It doesn't matter whether we do it competently or not. We're going to stick to the bread and butter. Besides, the viewers will all tune in for Daryl. The viewers are morons." That's really part of what galls me about TWD. They don't want to try anything intelligent or truly innovative because they think we're all to dumb to enjoy that. The easily replaceable characters all just wander around Atlanta, being easily replaced, to provide the charade that things are changing, but really nothing ever changes. Anything really innovative is discarded after an episode or two because it would change the status quo.
And Z-Nation has no status quo! Every episode is somewhere different! Every episode has a different premise! When characters die, you notice they're gone. Because they have true franchise. They can choose to do dumb, even petty stuff. Or they can do great noble things and pay the price.
In TWD a couple of characters have invisible shields. Nothing will ever happen to Rick, Carl, Daryl, Maggie, or Glen. The others are faceless zombie bait, promoted to near-main character status just before death. In Z-Nation, two of the main "Rick Grimes" characters have already bought it, one in the first episode.
I could keep beating a dead horse, but I think you get the point. ZN the underdoggy Rocky Balboa has managed to give a beating to TWD's Apollo Creed who's been resting on his laurels. Feel free to sound off in the comments. I'm totally open to hearing dissenting opinions. This is all, of course, one man's opinion, and since it's on the internet, it's most likely wrong.
Part II
And so we come at last to the end of what I expect will be the most controversial week in my blog's history. On Monday I explained why I dislike beloved super-popular property The Walking Dead. Then on Wednesday I followed up by defending contender for most-hated show on television, Z-Nation. Now, as Jerry Springer would say, a few words to sum up my thoughts.
The David and Goliath-style story is one of our favorites. It appeals to something innate in human nature. We always consider ourselves the underdog. Just look at politics. Everyone considers themselves the underdog, even billionaires. I know I'm not an underdog in any strict sense. I'm well off, I live in a nice area, have plenty of access to everything I need. And yet whenever that David and Goliath story comes on, I'm just like, "Yeah, that's me, overcoming my trials!"
But there's also an element of Goliath being a dick. In fact, that's usually why David wins. Goliath is a big, boisterous asshole who doesn't even take David seriously. The rabbit lays down two feet from the finish line so the tortoise beats him.
I feel like that's what I'm looking at here. When TWD was the scrappy young newcomer ("A zombie television series? Preposterous!") they were actually trying. Rick had guts and gusto. Hell, he had a purpose. That guy was gonna find his family, apocalypse be damned. And then when he finally did find his family there were consequences, and the consequences had consequences, and Merle got left handcuffed on the roof, and on and on. Not unlike Battlestar Galactica, in fact.
Now, though? Now TWD has gotten bloated and fat. It's the most popular show on cable TV. So it's become complacent. Hell, it's practically become sedentary. It's the rabbit literally lying down at the finish line.
"Why mess with a good thing?" the producers seem to be saying.
Have everyone stand around and talk and yell and pretend to emote a lot. Kill a character no one cares about every couple episodes, then kill a character people do care about once or twice a season. Introduce new characters every so often and give them a little back story the episode you plan to kill them. Throw in a zombie once in a blue moon so that horror watchers get what they want. Throw in a character from the comic books every once in a while to keep the chatter going.
You don't need a writer to write this stuff. A kid could write this stuff. As I (and Kirkman and Romero) said, it's not horror. It's a soap opera. It's like a fucking shell game is what it is. It promises one thing and delivers another. And it had success so it just sits there, like Goliath, wallowing in its own popularity.
And then, by contrast, you have Z-Nation. This is something that is so demonstrably, so obviously crappy that literally the only way for them to succeed is to innovate. There's a certain number of people (myself included) who will watch literally anything with zombies in it. But ZN has nothing to lose! Why not do a Run, Lola, Run episode? Why not have a cosmonaut crash at Northern Light? Why not have a Three Olives product placement so the characters can drive a vodka-powered airplane?
TWD is all about the "Why fix what ain't broke?" Meanwhile, ZN is all about the, "Why the fuck not?"
Z-Nation has the giddy glow of kids playing in the sandbox. They're not trying to reinvent the zombie genre, but they are throwing all the spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks. If the zombie bear turns out to be a hit, why not have more zombie bears in the future? If Murphy controlling the dead turns out to be interesting, maybe there'll be more of that in the future. Who knows? The sky's the limit!
Meanwhile TWD is calcified. "This is what we do, boys," the showrunners seem to have decided, "It doesn't matter whether we do it competently or not. We're going to stick to the bread and butter. Besides, the viewers will all tune in for Daryl. The viewers are morons." That's really part of what galls me about TWD. They don't want to try anything intelligent or truly innovative because they think we're all to dumb to enjoy that. The easily replaceable characters all just wander around Atlanta, being easily replaced, to provide the charade that things are changing, but really nothing ever changes. Anything really innovative is discarded after an episode or two because it would change the status quo.
And Z-Nation has no status quo! Every episode is somewhere different! Every episode has a different premise! When characters die, you notice they're gone. Because they have true franchise. They can choose to do dumb, even petty stuff. Or they can do great noble things and pay the price.
In TWD a couple of characters have invisible shields. Nothing will ever happen to Rick, Carl, Daryl, Maggie, or Glen. The others are faceless zombie bait, promoted to near-main character status just before death. In Z-Nation, two of the main "Rick Grimes" characters have already bought it, one in the first episode.
I could keep beating a dead horse, but I think you get the point. ZN the underdoggy Rocky Balboa has managed to give a beating to TWD's Apollo Creed who's been resting on his laurels. Feel free to sound off in the comments. I'm totally open to hearing dissenting opinions. This is all, of course, one man's opinion, and since it's on the internet, it's most likely wrong.
December 10, 2014
Why Z-Nation is Better than The Walking Dead, an Essay in Three Parts: Part Two
If you tuned in on Monday, you read how what I had intended as a single blogpost had ballooned into a weeklong monstrosity. In that post I talked about my ongoing disdain for The Walking Dead. Today I'm going to talk about how surprisingly great Z-Nation is.
Better than it looks...in so many ways...
As much as I've come to dislike TWD itself, I do still feel indebted to it. We are experiencing what I can only describe as a renaissance in horror television, and it is basically due to the success of TWD. In the wake of TWD's first season, FX released American Horror Story, and those two surprising popular (and sometimes critical) successes have stood as pillars propping open the gate for a whole new onslaught of television horror.
In the last few decades the only horror I can think of on TV was either blended with other genres (Buffy, Forever Knight) or slipped into an anthology series (The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, lesser imitators.) Now, though, we're in the unique position of being able to see horror, actual horror, on television without equivocating. FX's flawed-but-excellent The Strain debuted earlier this year, a concept for a television vampire show that had been stuck in development hell so long Guillermo del Toro finally simply published the story as a novel.
Along with the quality horror there was bound to come imitators and cash-grabs. When SyFy (which has gone so far around the bend in terms of nonsensical cash-ins and deliberate shlock that it has practically become a parody of its forebear The Sci-Fi Channel) announced that it was releasing a new show called Z-Nation, every sign seemed to point to "non-union Mexican equivalent to TWD." The fact that it was made by The Asylum, a degenerate production company which exists solely to cash in on existing properties with cheap knockoffs, seemed to billboard that fact more clearly than even the cheesy television commercials did.
Seriously? This dumbass zombie baby was supposed to entice me? After it had already been done, and better in Dawn of the Dead (2004), not to mention Dead Alive...
Z-Nation promised to be bad. Spectacularly bad. And the premiere episode delivered on that promise in spades. People like me who had sat down to watch it out of a sense of obligation were so disheartened that the social media backlash was instant and brutal. To call this...this thing...a warmed over rehash of TWD was unkind both to TWD and to the proud culinary tradition of rewarming hash. Horror freak friends of mine swore off it right then and there.
And then there was this stupidity. Whoever that dude is supposed to be...what's he doing with Addy's Z-Whacker anyway? And, yup, that's actually what they called it in-universe. A "Z-Whacker."
I'm not a sadist but I am, well, I guess "stubborn" is the best word for it. When I start a television show I almost never stop watching it. I watched Enlisted in its entirety, even after it was cancelled. And Pan-Am. I've yet to DNF a book. And I've yet to encounter a piece of zombie fiction that had nothing to recommend itself to the true aficionado. So I ground through the next episode, a somewhat tepid affair about zombies at an oil refinery. Admittedly, I did find myself grunting, "Huh, well, this has improved."
Then something astonishing happened. I'm a Philadelphia native, so when the third episode of ZN turned out to take place in Philly, I paid a little more attention than I normally would have. (Yeah, I'm that guy who's always on his phone even when watching TV.) And suddenly I was riveted.
The third episode of Z-Nation was without a doubt the best piece of zombie fiction I've watched in years. I even laughed and pulled my hands down my face because the topic under consideration was a cannibal family - the exact same storyline that TWD had been alluding to in its last season finale and was about to take up again in a few weeks when it premiered. And yet somehow this scrappy little Asylum-produced (!) show on SyFy (!!) had managed to lay down the best riff on post-zombocalyptic cannibalism I've ever seen.
Z-Nation had my attention now. It had gone from a crappy show that I had taken pity on because of my affection for the subject matter to something I was actually interested in watching. And as the weeks passed I realized that this was no rehash of TWD after all. The characters in Z-Nation actually got somewhere. Five seasons in, the cast of TWD is still futzing around in Atlanta and its environs, with only a single abortive attempt to go to Washington, D.C. to their credit. The characters of Z-Nation had started in upstate New York and by episode 7 were in Kansas.
This wasn't Generic Zombie Show For Cash Idea #17. This was a tour of a post-apocalyptic United States. Z-Nation had stated its premise right there in the title and it had simply taken me a while to catch on. The quality of the local flavor varies from episode to episode - for instance, except for some jokes about the Liberty Bell, the Philly episode could have taken place just about anywhere - but these characters are making real, genuine progress. ZN is a road trip. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with zombies!
And I realized by episode 10 there was something else ZN was doing that TWD had long since given up on. It was experimenting. The oil-coated zombies of the sophomore show had been weak sauce, but since then we've seen a zombie tsunami, speed-addled zombies (and a few, thankfully offscreen, on Viagra), a zombie hulk, and even radioactive zombies. TWD's sole idea that innovated on anything Romero had ever done was The Herd. And even that was way back in season 2.
With ZN, there's a different kind of zombie threat every week. And since it doesn't take itself so seriously, even the storytelling is experimental. A Run, Lola, Run parody? That's something that's never been combined with the zombie genre to my knowledge. A Mormon settlement comprised entirely of women? Interesting. What about a zombie messiah?
The inclusion of Murphy as a character in the beginning was a bit of an obvious McGuffin. Here was a guy, a whining, puling character of Dr. Smith caliber, who possessed a vaccine to the zombie virus in his blood. The only reason for him to be around was comic relief and as a reason for the characters to start their road trip to California. But as time goes on we begin to realize the full scope of Murphy's powers. He goes unmolested by zombies who consider him one of their own. And then, after encountering a deranged religious sect, he pretends to be the zombie messiah to escape...and realizes later that it's the truth. He can even control zombies, and begins to feel an affinity for them. Where does his true loyalty even lie anymore?
You know what? I cut myself off on Monday when I reached about a thousand words, so I'm going to do the same thing now. And what's telling to me now is that I still have a few more points I wanted to make, about how Z-Nation is braver in a lot of ways than TWD in killing off its characters, and how the characters are more real and immediate and have actual motivations...but like I said, in the interests of fairness I'll cut it off here, and wrap things up on Friday. Hope to see you then! And feel free to flood my comments section with angry diatribes. That's what the internet is for, after all.
Better than it looks...in so many ways...As much as I've come to dislike TWD itself, I do still feel indebted to it. We are experiencing what I can only describe as a renaissance in horror television, and it is basically due to the success of TWD. In the wake of TWD's first season, FX released American Horror Story, and those two surprising popular (and sometimes critical) successes have stood as pillars propping open the gate for a whole new onslaught of television horror.
In the last few decades the only horror I can think of on TV was either blended with other genres (Buffy, Forever Knight) or slipped into an anthology series (The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, lesser imitators.) Now, though, we're in the unique position of being able to see horror, actual horror, on television without equivocating. FX's flawed-but-excellent The Strain debuted earlier this year, a concept for a television vampire show that had been stuck in development hell so long Guillermo del Toro finally simply published the story as a novel.
Along with the quality horror there was bound to come imitators and cash-grabs. When SyFy (which has gone so far around the bend in terms of nonsensical cash-ins and deliberate shlock that it has practically become a parody of its forebear The Sci-Fi Channel) announced that it was releasing a new show called Z-Nation, every sign seemed to point to "non-union Mexican equivalent to TWD." The fact that it was made by The Asylum, a degenerate production company which exists solely to cash in on existing properties with cheap knockoffs, seemed to billboard that fact more clearly than even the cheesy television commercials did.
Seriously? This dumbass zombie baby was supposed to entice me? After it had already been done, and better in Dawn of the Dead (2004), not to mention Dead Alive...Z-Nation promised to be bad. Spectacularly bad. And the premiere episode delivered on that promise in spades. People like me who had sat down to watch it out of a sense of obligation were so disheartened that the social media backlash was instant and brutal. To call this...this thing...a warmed over rehash of TWD was unkind both to TWD and to the proud culinary tradition of rewarming hash. Horror freak friends of mine swore off it right then and there.
And then there was this stupidity. Whoever that dude is supposed to be...what's he doing with Addy's Z-Whacker anyway? And, yup, that's actually what they called it in-universe. A "Z-Whacker."I'm not a sadist but I am, well, I guess "stubborn" is the best word for it. When I start a television show I almost never stop watching it. I watched Enlisted in its entirety, even after it was cancelled. And Pan-Am. I've yet to DNF a book. And I've yet to encounter a piece of zombie fiction that had nothing to recommend itself to the true aficionado. So I ground through the next episode, a somewhat tepid affair about zombies at an oil refinery. Admittedly, I did find myself grunting, "Huh, well, this has improved."
Then something astonishing happened. I'm a Philadelphia native, so when the third episode of ZN turned out to take place in Philly, I paid a little more attention than I normally would have. (Yeah, I'm that guy who's always on his phone even when watching TV.) And suddenly I was riveted.
The third episode of Z-Nation was without a doubt the best piece of zombie fiction I've watched in years. I even laughed and pulled my hands down my face because the topic under consideration was a cannibal family - the exact same storyline that TWD had been alluding to in its last season finale and was about to take up again in a few weeks when it premiered. And yet somehow this scrappy little Asylum-produced (!) show on SyFy (!!) had managed to lay down the best riff on post-zombocalyptic cannibalism I've ever seen.
Z-Nation had my attention now. It had gone from a crappy show that I had taken pity on because of my affection for the subject matter to something I was actually interested in watching. And as the weeks passed I realized that this was no rehash of TWD after all. The characters in Z-Nation actually got somewhere. Five seasons in, the cast of TWD is still futzing around in Atlanta and its environs, with only a single abortive attempt to go to Washington, D.C. to their credit. The characters of Z-Nation had started in upstate New York and by episode 7 were in Kansas.
This wasn't Generic Zombie Show For Cash Idea #17. This was a tour of a post-apocalyptic United States. Z-Nation had stated its premise right there in the title and it had simply taken me a while to catch on. The quality of the local flavor varies from episode to episode - for instance, except for some jokes about the Liberty Bell, the Philly episode could have taken place just about anywhere - but these characters are making real, genuine progress. ZN is a road trip. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with zombies!
And I realized by episode 10 there was something else ZN was doing that TWD had long since given up on. It was experimenting. The oil-coated zombies of the sophomore show had been weak sauce, but since then we've seen a zombie tsunami, speed-addled zombies (and a few, thankfully offscreen, on Viagra), a zombie hulk, and even radioactive zombies. TWD's sole idea that innovated on anything Romero had ever done was The Herd. And even that was way back in season 2.
With ZN, there's a different kind of zombie threat every week. And since it doesn't take itself so seriously, even the storytelling is experimental. A Run, Lola, Run parody? That's something that's never been combined with the zombie genre to my knowledge. A Mormon settlement comprised entirely of women? Interesting. What about a zombie messiah?
The inclusion of Murphy as a character in the beginning was a bit of an obvious McGuffin. Here was a guy, a whining, puling character of Dr. Smith caliber, who possessed a vaccine to the zombie virus in his blood. The only reason for him to be around was comic relief and as a reason for the characters to start their road trip to California. But as time goes on we begin to realize the full scope of Murphy's powers. He goes unmolested by zombies who consider him one of their own. And then, after encountering a deranged religious sect, he pretends to be the zombie messiah to escape...and realizes later that it's the truth. He can even control zombies, and begins to feel an affinity for them. Where does his true loyalty even lie anymore?
You know what? I cut myself off on Monday when I reached about a thousand words, so I'm going to do the same thing now. And what's telling to me now is that I still have a few more points I wanted to make, about how Z-Nation is braver in a lot of ways than TWD in killing off its characters, and how the characters are more real and immediate and have actual motivations...but like I said, in the interests of fairness I'll cut it off here, and wrap things up on Friday. Hope to see you then! And feel free to flood my comments section with angry diatribes. That's what the internet is for, after all.
December 8, 2014
Why Z-Nation is Better than The Walking Dead, an Essay in Three Parts: Part One
My wife thinks I'm a hipster. She doesn't use that word. But she has said on multiple occasions that I've only stopped caring about a show I used to love because it became popular. Classic hipster behavior, right? "I liked Breaking Bad BEFORE it was popular" kind of stuff.
I can't really say if that's true or not. It does happen to me, although I do wonder sometimes if it's simply that showrunners, when faced with an unexpected hit, begin doing things differently. I loved the first season of Battlestar Galactica, enjoyed the second, and watched the rest more or less out of a sense of obligation. I personally believe I stopped enjoying it because the show changed. Of course, my wife would have you believe I just cared about the fact that everyone else started watching it.
Which leads me to The Walking Dead. I loved, loved, loved the first season of TWD. From Halloween night of 2010 right through the end of the season I sat down with a giddy little thrill and watched as my favorite monsters finally invaded my favorite medium. Zombies on television! What could be better? And more than that, it was good! Soooo good.
Remember this? How fucking awesome is this?
People told me about it in that, "Hey, you're a zombie nut, you might enjoy this crazy thing" way. They weren't watching it. They were seeing commercials and saying, "Well, I wouldn't enjoy it, but my nutty friend Steve might." I admit, it was still underground. I was in the minority. The zombie genre in general was still a fringe thing. The average person had maybe seen Shaun of the Dead, maybe enjoyed Zombieland, but certainly had delved no further into the lore.
Then something happened. The Walking Dead became popular. I wasn't watching alone in the dark with a giddy thrill anymore. My wife was watching it with me and the lights were on and the cats were cuddling. And a certain percentage of people were talking about the show on Facebook after every episode. And it was neat for a while that something I enjoyed was more broadly popular, but...
...it had gotten terrible. I didn't know it at the time, but creator and showrunner Frank Darabont, most famously the director of The Shawshank Redemption, had been sacked at the beginning of season 2. And a bunch of, let's be frank, hacks had been brought in to fill his shoes. So suddenly we went from having a Shawshank-level dramatic television series to something that looked and sort of tasted like TWD of season 1, but was all hollow inside. Ironically, the world's first zombie show had become a zombie.
I hoped against hope that maybe things would come back together. I mean, the characters were still there, Robert Kirkman's excellent source material was still there to draw from. There were game actors, writers, and crew, the network was finally throwing money at a show that had achieved cinematic quality on a shoestring in its first season. Surely something would have to click?
Darabont had promised to show us the Battle of Atlanta in the first episode of season 2. How tantalizing! How thrilling! How fucking awesome would that have been? And instead we got...the farm. I knew by the end of 22 excruciating episodes of eighteen characters sitting on a farm, yelling about where Carl was, that this Walking Dead was no longer my Walking Dead. It had become, as both Robert Kirkman has admitted and godfather of gore George Romero has pointed out, a soap opera.
Frank Darabont accomplished this shit with pilot money. Pilot money! Then they spent 22 episodes on a single set? Give me a freaking break.
It exists to exist. It shambles from one half-baked idea to the next. It has a lot of yelling, and almost twice as much talking, but nobody every says anything. No character ever takes an action that seems born of character. Everyone is a walking plot device. And even the plot devices still need plot devices. Beth is in the middle of the woods and a mysterious car that we later find out never otherwise leaves Atlanta shows up, knocks her out and kidnaps her, and Daryl mysteriously misses it all? The Governor is defeated, his army scattered, his town destroyed, but he manages to scrape together a whole new army of people we didn't even know about with a few obvious lies? Who would even follow that guy that just showed up at the encampment?
Everything in this new Walking Dead just seems to happen because the writers thought it might be cool. And then, as if to betray its entire raison d'être, it inexplicably never manages to deliver on actually being cool. I mean, honest to God, people, I am not a hard man to please. A few squishy zombie explosions is enough to please me, and yet all that ever seems to happen on TWD is a lot of yelling. And talking. And crying. When the zombies actually do show up, they're almost always immediately dispatched, unless it's time to "up the stakes" (read: not actually) by killing one of the characters that everyone had long since given up giving a shit about.
Oh, no, not...Andrea. Oh, no, not...T-Dawg. Oh, no, not...
Is this even still amusing anymore? I haven't thought so for years. I continue to watch out of a sense of obligation. Yeah, that's right. I'm a zombie author. I have to be able to talk about The Walking Dead, unfortunately.
So do I hate it because it's popular? Well, I don't think so. I just think it's not very good. But I have to admit, the fandom has truly become just exhausting. I never thought Firefly was all that bad, but I do find Firefly fans just absolutely obnoxious so I do sort of start to hate that thing they like. It's getting to be the same way with TWD fans.
I don't get the whole Daryl thing. Why is Daryl so popular? Because he's sort of attractive? This whole Daryl-love thing has become like a parody of itself.
Now there are worries that when the time comes for the obligatory Joss-kill of Daryl that women will simply begin boycotting the show. Really? Is this show really so fundamentally weak that 50% of its viewers tune in solely to look at a cute guy's abs or whatever? And then even more recently there was some debate, which I have no idea if it was justified or not, about whether Daryl was gay or not. And, admittedly, he's never had a physical relationship on the show, so we don't know, but...who cares? Again, if Daryl comes out of the closet, are fans really going to stop tuning in? I'm reminded of the old Simpsons adage, when Homer must pretend to be single for his career as a pop star, "You see, a lot of women are going to want to have sex with you, and we want them to think they can."
You know something? I was initially going to make this post about why Z-Nation is better than The Walking Dead. But I realized I just wrote over a thousand words just about how disappointing TWD has become, and I couldn't even really do justice to Z-Nation by bringing it up at this point in the diatribe. So, new plan: let's make this a weeklong thing. Today I'll write about TWD, Wednesday I'll write about ZN, then Friday I'll wrap it all up. Thanks for reading, everybody! And feel free to flame out in the comments. Remember, I insulted both Firefly and Daryl Dixon in one post. Enjoy!
I can't really say if that's true or not. It does happen to me, although I do wonder sometimes if it's simply that showrunners, when faced with an unexpected hit, begin doing things differently. I loved the first season of Battlestar Galactica, enjoyed the second, and watched the rest more or less out of a sense of obligation. I personally believe I stopped enjoying it because the show changed. Of course, my wife would have you believe I just cared about the fact that everyone else started watching it.
Which leads me to The Walking Dead. I loved, loved, loved the first season of TWD. From Halloween night of 2010 right through the end of the season I sat down with a giddy little thrill and watched as my favorite monsters finally invaded my favorite medium. Zombies on television! What could be better? And more than that, it was good! Soooo good.
Remember this? How fucking awesome is this?People told me about it in that, "Hey, you're a zombie nut, you might enjoy this crazy thing" way. They weren't watching it. They were seeing commercials and saying, "Well, I wouldn't enjoy it, but my nutty friend Steve might." I admit, it was still underground. I was in the minority. The zombie genre in general was still a fringe thing. The average person had maybe seen Shaun of the Dead, maybe enjoyed Zombieland, but certainly had delved no further into the lore.
Then something happened. The Walking Dead became popular. I wasn't watching alone in the dark with a giddy thrill anymore. My wife was watching it with me and the lights were on and the cats were cuddling. And a certain percentage of people were talking about the show on Facebook after every episode. And it was neat for a while that something I enjoyed was more broadly popular, but...
...it had gotten terrible. I didn't know it at the time, but creator and showrunner Frank Darabont, most famously the director of The Shawshank Redemption, had been sacked at the beginning of season 2. And a bunch of, let's be frank, hacks had been brought in to fill his shoes. So suddenly we went from having a Shawshank-level dramatic television series to something that looked and sort of tasted like TWD of season 1, but was all hollow inside. Ironically, the world's first zombie show had become a zombie.
I hoped against hope that maybe things would come back together. I mean, the characters were still there, Robert Kirkman's excellent source material was still there to draw from. There were game actors, writers, and crew, the network was finally throwing money at a show that had achieved cinematic quality on a shoestring in its first season. Surely something would have to click?
Darabont had promised to show us the Battle of Atlanta in the first episode of season 2. How tantalizing! How thrilling! How fucking awesome would that have been? And instead we got...the farm. I knew by the end of 22 excruciating episodes of eighteen characters sitting on a farm, yelling about where Carl was, that this Walking Dead was no longer my Walking Dead. It had become, as both Robert Kirkman has admitted and godfather of gore George Romero has pointed out, a soap opera.
Frank Darabont accomplished this shit with pilot money. Pilot money! Then they spent 22 episodes on a single set? Give me a freaking break.It exists to exist. It shambles from one half-baked idea to the next. It has a lot of yelling, and almost twice as much talking, but nobody every says anything. No character ever takes an action that seems born of character. Everyone is a walking plot device. And even the plot devices still need plot devices. Beth is in the middle of the woods and a mysterious car that we later find out never otherwise leaves Atlanta shows up, knocks her out and kidnaps her, and Daryl mysteriously misses it all? The Governor is defeated, his army scattered, his town destroyed, but he manages to scrape together a whole new army of people we didn't even know about with a few obvious lies? Who would even follow that guy that just showed up at the encampment?
Everything in this new Walking Dead just seems to happen because the writers thought it might be cool. And then, as if to betray its entire raison d'être, it inexplicably never manages to deliver on actually being cool. I mean, honest to God, people, I am not a hard man to please. A few squishy zombie explosions is enough to please me, and yet all that ever seems to happen on TWD is a lot of yelling. And talking. And crying. When the zombies actually do show up, they're almost always immediately dispatched, unless it's time to "up the stakes" (read: not actually) by killing one of the characters that everyone had long since given up giving a shit about.
Oh, no, not...Andrea. Oh, no, not...T-Dawg. Oh, no, not...
Is this even still amusing anymore? I haven't thought so for years. I continue to watch out of a sense of obligation. Yeah, that's right. I'm a zombie author. I have to be able to talk about The Walking Dead, unfortunately.
So do I hate it because it's popular? Well, I don't think so. I just think it's not very good. But I have to admit, the fandom has truly become just exhausting. I never thought Firefly was all that bad, but I do find Firefly fans just absolutely obnoxious so I do sort of start to hate that thing they like. It's getting to be the same way with TWD fans.
I don't get the whole Daryl thing. Why is Daryl so popular? Because he's sort of attractive? This whole Daryl-love thing has become like a parody of itself.
Now there are worries that when the time comes for the obligatory Joss-kill of Daryl that women will simply begin boycotting the show. Really? Is this show really so fundamentally weak that 50% of its viewers tune in solely to look at a cute guy's abs or whatever? And then even more recently there was some debate, which I have no idea if it was justified or not, about whether Daryl was gay or not. And, admittedly, he's never had a physical relationship on the show, so we don't know, but...who cares? Again, if Daryl comes out of the closet, are fans really going to stop tuning in? I'm reminded of the old Simpsons adage, when Homer must pretend to be single for his career as a pop star, "You see, a lot of women are going to want to have sex with you, and we want them to think they can."
You know something? I was initially going to make this post about why Z-Nation is better than The Walking Dead. But I realized I just wrote over a thousand words just about how disappointing TWD has become, and I couldn't even really do justice to Z-Nation by bringing it up at this point in the diatribe. So, new plan: let's make this a weeklong thing. Today I'll write about TWD, Wednesday I'll write about ZN, then Friday I'll wrap it all up. Thanks for reading, everybody! And feel free to flame out in the comments. Remember, I insulted both Firefly and Daryl Dixon in one post. Enjoy!
December 5, 2014
On Controversial Topics
Most of you know me. If you're just a fan, you can still probably guess from my writing where my political and ideological predilections lie. I even post here on the blog every now and again a liiiiittle something political, but usually couched enough in the silliness of the internet at large not to be too much of a flamewar inducer.
As a general rule, though, I eschew politics, religion, and third-rail issues here and in other social media. The reason was always one of pragmatism. Like most people over the age of 12 I have strong opinions about a lot of subjects, but I just don't feel a need to splash it like acid in the faces of the various Harvey Dents of the world. (In that metaphor I was Sal Maroni.)
Janet Reid finally put my attitude into an excellent set of words in this piece earlier this week. We all have a right to free speech, but in exercising that right you agree to the consequences. In my case, potentially turning off readers. And I don't want to turn anybody off because of my online persona. Let them be turned on or off by my writing. Let them decide whether that's something they want to pay for, not whether I'm going to turn around and donate all their money to the NRA or Greenpeace or [insert your preferred partisan charity here.]
I and, I think all Americans (and, yes, citizens of the rest of the right-thinking world where speech is free) have always tacitly understood this. Along with rights comes responsibilities. (If only Spider-Man had come up with a clever bon mot to better express that concept...) If you say something dumb you open yourself up to criticism, perhaps even boycott. Perhaps even ostracism. There's a reason the KKK wears masks, you know, and a reason Edward Snowden fled the country. Free speech comes with consequences. Sure, you can call the boss an asshole, but don't be surprised if he fires you.
And yet it seems like in just the last few years this has sort of been flopped on its head. There's a new assumption that speech should be consequence-free, rather than simply free. As though when you call the boss a dick he has no right to fire you because, hey, free speech. There's a sort of bristling about consequences, as though somehow it's unconstitutional to boycott someone for being racist or whatever. Counter-speech, you see, is also free speech.
I'm thinking of examples here, but, of course, I don't want to be accused of being a partisan hack by bringing them up. It's all part and parcel of my loose policy of not getting involved with flamewars on the internet. But still, I don't really care for the "just sayin'" mentality that has cropped up in recent years, that is, that by tacking "just sayin'" onto the end of a sentence, this absolves you from the content of that sentence. "I didn't really do anything, I'm just saying words!" Yeah, well, the power of words is the reason that the First Amendment is such a potent right. Words are action, the pen is mightier than the sword, and all that hoo-ha.
I'll actually give you all an example. I was sitting on a panel at a convention once when an audience member stood up and all but called me out. This person said something to the effect of, "I like all horror. I think it's all great. Except zombies. I don't understand zombies. I think they're stupid. Maybe one of you on the panel can explain?"
It doesn't really matter what my response was. I made a game response. You've all read me go on ad nauseum about the living dead before. But then the audience member repeated the question a second time. A bit more belligerently this time. And I ground my teeth and answered again. And then a third time. By this point, a couple of my fans in the audience had their hands high up in the air, all armed and ready with answers.
I'll be honest, gentle readers. I didn't much care for being called out once. But by the third time I knew that this person either wanted me to admit that what I do for a (sort of) living is stupid or just make it clear to all present that I am an asshole. Conventions being as they are, discussing topics there is a lot like the real-life version of the internet. Some people feel that they can change your mind by being insulting because they're just so damned convinced. Others just have no social skills. Some topics are fruitfully explored, others less so.
So I was sitting there at this panel which I had volunteered my time for just to, you know, entertain other human beings, and one of them was standing there insistently calling me an asshole to my face. There were several options that went through my mind at that moment. (And trust me, I've come up with dozens more since then, mostly in the shower, and along the lines of George Costanza's legendary Jerk Store quip.) But here are a few things I might reasonably have said in the heat of that moment:
"And what do you do for a living? Oh. I always thought that was fucking stupid, too."
"Is there an answer that will satisfy you or do you just want me to admit that I'm an asshole?"
"You're being damn rude. You've asked and I've answered the same question three times, so I can only guess that you're deliberately trying to be rude."
And other variations. But I didn't. You know why? Because even in the heat of that moment I knew there was no value in calling out an audience member. Of course in my head I played out the triumphal montage, where my rejoinder was so sizzling it scorched the air, and everyone erupted in applause and the rude person slunk out into the night, tail tucked firmly between legs. And then I immediately played out the opposite, where I was kicked off the panel for treating an audience member that way, and not just an audience member but a wounded veteran and an orphan, too, and my name got whispered around the con as "that guy who thinks he's too good for his fans" and suddenly my whole reputation is sullied and I'm a pariah.
Consequences. I considered the consequences of my responses. And I opted to shut up and take the abuse with good humor. Because...consequences. Plus I knew I could always put it on my blog and get sympathy that way, without having to call anybody out to their face. Yay, passive aggression!
As a general rule, though, I eschew politics, religion, and third-rail issues here and in other social media. The reason was always one of pragmatism. Like most people over the age of 12 I have strong opinions about a lot of subjects, but I just don't feel a need to splash it like acid in the faces of the various Harvey Dents of the world. (In that metaphor I was Sal Maroni.)
Janet Reid finally put my attitude into an excellent set of words in this piece earlier this week. We all have a right to free speech, but in exercising that right you agree to the consequences. In my case, potentially turning off readers. And I don't want to turn anybody off because of my online persona. Let them be turned on or off by my writing. Let them decide whether that's something they want to pay for, not whether I'm going to turn around and donate all their money to the NRA or Greenpeace or [insert your preferred partisan charity here.]
I and, I think all Americans (and, yes, citizens of the rest of the right-thinking world where speech is free) have always tacitly understood this. Along with rights comes responsibilities. (If only Spider-Man had come up with a clever bon mot to better express that concept...) If you say something dumb you open yourself up to criticism, perhaps even boycott. Perhaps even ostracism. There's a reason the KKK wears masks, you know, and a reason Edward Snowden fled the country. Free speech comes with consequences. Sure, you can call the boss an asshole, but don't be surprised if he fires you.
And yet it seems like in just the last few years this has sort of been flopped on its head. There's a new assumption that speech should be consequence-free, rather than simply free. As though when you call the boss a dick he has no right to fire you because, hey, free speech. There's a sort of bristling about consequences, as though somehow it's unconstitutional to boycott someone for being racist or whatever. Counter-speech, you see, is also free speech.
I'm thinking of examples here, but, of course, I don't want to be accused of being a partisan hack by bringing them up. It's all part and parcel of my loose policy of not getting involved with flamewars on the internet. But still, I don't really care for the "just sayin'" mentality that has cropped up in recent years, that is, that by tacking "just sayin'" onto the end of a sentence, this absolves you from the content of that sentence. "I didn't really do anything, I'm just saying words!" Yeah, well, the power of words is the reason that the First Amendment is such a potent right. Words are action, the pen is mightier than the sword, and all that hoo-ha.
I'll actually give you all an example. I was sitting on a panel at a convention once when an audience member stood up and all but called me out. This person said something to the effect of, "I like all horror. I think it's all great. Except zombies. I don't understand zombies. I think they're stupid. Maybe one of you on the panel can explain?"
It doesn't really matter what my response was. I made a game response. You've all read me go on ad nauseum about the living dead before. But then the audience member repeated the question a second time. A bit more belligerently this time. And I ground my teeth and answered again. And then a third time. By this point, a couple of my fans in the audience had their hands high up in the air, all armed and ready with answers.
I'll be honest, gentle readers. I didn't much care for being called out once. But by the third time I knew that this person either wanted me to admit that what I do for a (sort of) living is stupid or just make it clear to all present that I am an asshole. Conventions being as they are, discussing topics there is a lot like the real-life version of the internet. Some people feel that they can change your mind by being insulting because they're just so damned convinced. Others just have no social skills. Some topics are fruitfully explored, others less so.
So I was sitting there at this panel which I had volunteered my time for just to, you know, entertain other human beings, and one of them was standing there insistently calling me an asshole to my face. There were several options that went through my mind at that moment. (And trust me, I've come up with dozens more since then, mostly in the shower, and along the lines of George Costanza's legendary Jerk Store quip.) But here are a few things I might reasonably have said in the heat of that moment:
"And what do you do for a living? Oh. I always thought that was fucking stupid, too."
"Is there an answer that will satisfy you or do you just want me to admit that I'm an asshole?"
"You're being damn rude. You've asked and I've answered the same question three times, so I can only guess that you're deliberately trying to be rude."
And other variations. But I didn't. You know why? Because even in the heat of that moment I knew there was no value in calling out an audience member. Of course in my head I played out the triumphal montage, where my rejoinder was so sizzling it scorched the air, and everyone erupted in applause and the rude person slunk out into the night, tail tucked firmly between legs. And then I immediately played out the opposite, where I was kicked off the panel for treating an audience member that way, and not just an audience member but a wounded veteran and an orphan, too, and my name got whispered around the con as "that guy who thinks he's too good for his fans" and suddenly my whole reputation is sullied and I'm a pariah.
Consequences. I considered the consequences of my responses. And I opted to shut up and take the abuse with good humor. Because...consequences. Plus I knew I could always put it on my blog and get sympathy that way, without having to call anybody out to their face. Yay, passive aggression!
December 3, 2014
Spotlight: DAMN THE DEAD by Phillip Tomasso
In case you don't know, behind every professional-seeming artist such as myself there is a squeeing fan-boy or -girl. (I imagine that when Stephen King dies and goes to Valhalla or wherever he'll fall all to pieces when he meets Lovecraft and Poe.) And along those lines, today's guest has me truly excited and starstruck. I've admired Phillip Tomasso's work for years, and the fact that he would even know who I am, let alone be interested in being on my blog, is truly humbling. Let's hear a little bit about Phil's latest novel, DAMN THE DEAD (aka your official Cyber Monday deal), and then learn a little about the man himself About DAMN THE DEAD:
DAMN THE DEAD marks the beginning of an exciting new stand-alone series from Phillip Tomasso and takes place some 3 years after the conclusion of the best-selling VACCINATION Trilogy.
Even in the heat of the zombie apocalypse, a time must come to rebuild. Charlene McKinney and her friends are on the run in the mountain ranges of North Carolina. They’ve stolen an 18 wheeler filled with food and supplies and the brutal gang they stole the vehicle from won’t give up until they get back what belongs to them.
The band of survivors stumble across Arcadia, a fortified town erected deep in a valley. There is food, shelter and electricity. Arcadia is fully functional as a community. They offer employment, have a fire department, peace officers, and a judge. The welcome sign posted by the front entrance boasts 3 simple laws for citizenship. No stealing. No fighting. No murder.
Seeking sanctuary within the walls of Arcadia seems like the perfect place to hide. But in Arcadia, if you break the law you will find yourself damned with the dead.
About Phillip Tomasso:
Phillip Tomasso is the author of 16 novels. DAMN THE DEAD is his latest release. He lives in Rochester, NY with his three children and works full time as a Fire / EMS Dispatcher for 911. While DAMN THE DEAD is the first in a new series, it is also a continuation of his Best-selling VACCINATION Trilogy. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook, and his website.
DAMN THE DEAD marks the beginning of an exciting new stand-alone series from Phillip Tomasso and takes place some 3 years after the conclusion of the best-selling VACCINATION Trilogy.
Even in the heat of the zombie apocalypse, a time must come to rebuild. Charlene McKinney and her friends are on the run in the mountain ranges of North Carolina. They’ve stolen an 18 wheeler filled with food and supplies and the brutal gang they stole the vehicle from won’t give up until they get back what belongs to them.
The band of survivors stumble across Arcadia, a fortified town erected deep in a valley. There is food, shelter and electricity. Arcadia is fully functional as a community. They offer employment, have a fire department, peace officers, and a judge. The welcome sign posted by the front entrance boasts 3 simple laws for citizenship. No stealing. No fighting. No murder.
Seeking sanctuary within the walls of Arcadia seems like the perfect place to hide. But in Arcadia, if you break the law you will find yourself damned with the dead.
About Phillip Tomasso:
Phillip Tomasso is the author of 16 novels. DAMN THE DEAD is his latest release. He lives in Rochester, NY with his three children and works full time as a Fire / EMS Dispatcher for 911. While DAMN THE DEAD is the first in a new series, it is also a continuation of his Best-selling VACCINATION Trilogy. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook, and his website.
December 1, 2014
On Geezer Fiction (Guest Post by Russ Hall, author of TO HELL AND GONE IN TEXAS)
You may not know this about me but I do not care about book covers. (Or maybe you do, and you've been silently judging me for my crappy covers for years. Whatevs.) But, yeah, when it comes to judging a book by it's cover, no worries if it's me. I mean, I can tell when a cover is butt-ugly, in the same way I can tell the difference between hamburger, steak, and cat food, but when it gets down to the nitty-gritty I have an artist's eye the way I have a great face for radio. Color, composition, layout...you may as well be talking about wampeters, foma, and granfalloons (except I actually know what those mean.)
However, I do have a lot of author friends. And a lot of them do have a lot of strong feelings about covers. Which I have to listen to. So when the cover of TO HELL AND GONE IN TEXAS by Russ Hall came out I was surprised to find myself the first one to jump in:
"It's Elmore Leonard meets The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly! Awesome!"
Take a look for yourself:
Now, ain't that a sexy book you want to know more about? And almost as amusing as that beautiful cover on its own is this found art from the Red Adept Publishing Facebook page photo album of New York Times Bestseller Kate Moretti looking like she's about to blow you all to Hell and gone:
But enough bloviating. Let's get to meet the author and then let's jump right in with a guest post. And, as always, stick around for the end where our mutual publisher RAP will be hosting a giveaway.
About Russ Hall:
Russ Hall is author of fifteen published fiction books, most in hardback and subsequently published in mass market paperback by Harlequin’s Worldwide Mystery imprint and Leisure Books. He has also co-authored numerous non-fiction books, most recently DO YOU MATTER: HOW GREAT DESIGN WILL MAKE PEOPLE LOVE YOUR COMPANY (Financial Times Press, 2009) with Richard Brunner, former head of design at Apple, NOW YOU'RE THINKING (Financial Times Press, 2011), and IDENTITY (Financial Times Press, 2012) with Stedman Graham, Oprah’s companion.
His graduate degree is in creative writing. He has been a nonfiction editor for major publishing companies, ranging from HarperCollins (then Harper & Row), Simon & Schuster, to Pearson. He has lived in Columbus, OH, New Haven, CT, Boca Raton, FL, Chapel Hill, NC, and New York City. Moving to the Austin area from New York City in 1983.
He is a long-time member of the Mystery Writers of America, Western Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime. He is a frequent judge for writing organizations.
In 2011, he was awarded the Sage Award, by The Barbara Burnett Smith Mentoring Authors Foundation—a Texas award for the mentoring author who demonstrates an outstanding spirit of service in mentoring, sharing and leading others in the mystery writing community. In 1996, he won the Nancy Pickard Mystery Fiction Award for short fiction.
Guest Post
In the past, in addition to other thrillers, I had written some cozy mysteries that featured a retired school teacher named Esbeth Walters. She didn’t brook a fool gently and would get involved in solving crimes even when the local law asked her to butt out, especially then. In one of her adventures she got next to some quite gritty characters and Booklist Review said: “Agatha Christie meets Elmore Leonard.”
Well, I quite like Elmore Leonard, and I would say that this time there’s a lot more of his influence in TO HELL AND GONE IN TEXAS—certainly far less Agatha Christie, if any. I think of a number of thriller writers to aim for who are at the top of their game, like Lee Child, the team of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Dennis Lehane, and a host of other luminaries in this space. But this latest thriller of mine falls in a new and growing category as well, that now beginning to be known as geezer fiction.
Al Quinn is a protagonist who just retired as a sheriff’s department detective. His brother is a year older, and while they should both be enjoying their so-called “golden years,” they are instead swept into the jaws of fierce jousting between brutal Mexican cartel killers and federal agencies that have learned to be as vicious in return. Like the early Clint Eastwood films, it’s not always easy to tell who the good guys are, and worse if you happen to be between them.
The category of geezer fiction deserves a word or two. When the protagonist is no longer necessarily young and attractive, as such characters once were almost without exception, you have people at the same age of a good number of those in the reading audience who actually deal with real world threats. For baby boomers, and anyone no longer threatened by acne, this is worth a whoop or two.
Take, for instance, the mystery series of Colin Cotterill, which begins with The Coroner’s Lunch and features Dr. Siri Paiboun, a 72-year old reluctant coroner in 1975 Laos. One of the things that endears us to such characters is perseverance in the face of adversity and challenges, and being a senior and taking on hardened criminals is certainly that.
Now consider Al Quinn, who hoped to live alone and have a quiet retirement, but finds himself having a brother he hasn’t spoken to in twenty years foisted onto him. Together they must face some of the most vicious members of a Mexican cartel murder team. Not your everyday happy retirement, is it? Al Quinn must indeed hone his edges and be as tough as those coming after them if he and his brother aren’t to lose their heads, literally, a penchant of the cartel killers.
About TO HELL AND GONE IN TEXAS: Trouble big as all hell.
Retired sheriff’s detective Al Quinn hasn’t spoken to his brother, Maury, in twenty years. When Maury lands in the hospital under suspicious circumstances, though, Al reluctantly abandons his quiet country seclusion to look into the matter. A second attempt to take Maury out drives the brothers back to Al’s lakeside home, where Al knows the territory, but they’re not alone for long. ICE agents demand that Maury rat on his silent partner, city cop Fergie Jergens comes investigating the murders of Maury’s lady friends, and someone takes a match to Al’s house.
Al soon learns his problems are only getting started—his brother’s in trouble on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Caught in a ruthless power struggle between the ICE and Los Zetas, a vicious Mexican mafia bent on ascendancy, Al learns the hard way who he can trust—and who’s willing to do whatever it takes to succeed.
With everything he loves on the line, Al will learn just how far he’ll go to protect his own.
Buy it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iTunes, or GooglePlay! And make sure to tell all your friends about it on Goodreads!
Read an excerpt
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/0510ed5c67/
However, I do have a lot of author friends. And a lot of them do have a lot of strong feelings about covers. Which I have to listen to. So when the cover of TO HELL AND GONE IN TEXAS by Russ Hall came out I was surprised to find myself the first one to jump in:
"It's Elmore Leonard meets The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly! Awesome!"
Take a look for yourself:
Now, ain't that a sexy book you want to know more about? And almost as amusing as that beautiful cover on its own is this found art from the Red Adept Publishing Facebook page photo album of New York Times Bestseller Kate Moretti looking like she's about to blow you all to Hell and gone:
But enough bloviating. Let's get to meet the author and then let's jump right in with a guest post. And, as always, stick around for the end where our mutual publisher RAP will be hosting a giveaway.
About Russ Hall:
Russ Hall is author of fifteen published fiction books, most in hardback and subsequently published in mass market paperback by Harlequin’s Worldwide Mystery imprint and Leisure Books. He has also co-authored numerous non-fiction books, most recently DO YOU MATTER: HOW GREAT DESIGN WILL MAKE PEOPLE LOVE YOUR COMPANY (Financial Times Press, 2009) with Richard Brunner, former head of design at Apple, NOW YOU'RE THINKING (Financial Times Press, 2011), and IDENTITY (Financial Times Press, 2012) with Stedman Graham, Oprah’s companion.
His graduate degree is in creative writing. He has been a nonfiction editor for major publishing companies, ranging from HarperCollins (then Harper & Row), Simon & Schuster, to Pearson. He has lived in Columbus, OH, New Haven, CT, Boca Raton, FL, Chapel Hill, NC, and New York City. Moving to the Austin area from New York City in 1983.
He is a long-time member of the Mystery Writers of America, Western Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime. He is a frequent judge for writing organizations.
In 2011, he was awarded the Sage Award, by The Barbara Burnett Smith Mentoring Authors Foundation—a Texas award for the mentoring author who demonstrates an outstanding spirit of service in mentoring, sharing and leading others in the mystery writing community. In 1996, he won the Nancy Pickard Mystery Fiction Award for short fiction.
Guest Post
In the past, in addition to other thrillers, I had written some cozy mysteries that featured a retired school teacher named Esbeth Walters. She didn’t brook a fool gently and would get involved in solving crimes even when the local law asked her to butt out, especially then. In one of her adventures she got next to some quite gritty characters and Booklist Review said: “Agatha Christie meets Elmore Leonard.”
Well, I quite like Elmore Leonard, and I would say that this time there’s a lot more of his influence in TO HELL AND GONE IN TEXAS—certainly far less Agatha Christie, if any. I think of a number of thriller writers to aim for who are at the top of their game, like Lee Child, the team of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Dennis Lehane, and a host of other luminaries in this space. But this latest thriller of mine falls in a new and growing category as well, that now beginning to be known as geezer fiction.
Al Quinn is a protagonist who just retired as a sheriff’s department detective. His brother is a year older, and while they should both be enjoying their so-called “golden years,” they are instead swept into the jaws of fierce jousting between brutal Mexican cartel killers and federal agencies that have learned to be as vicious in return. Like the early Clint Eastwood films, it’s not always easy to tell who the good guys are, and worse if you happen to be between them.
The category of geezer fiction deserves a word or two. When the protagonist is no longer necessarily young and attractive, as such characters once were almost without exception, you have people at the same age of a good number of those in the reading audience who actually deal with real world threats. For baby boomers, and anyone no longer threatened by acne, this is worth a whoop or two.
Take, for instance, the mystery series of Colin Cotterill, which begins with The Coroner’s Lunch and features Dr. Siri Paiboun, a 72-year old reluctant coroner in 1975 Laos. One of the things that endears us to such characters is perseverance in the face of adversity and challenges, and being a senior and taking on hardened criminals is certainly that.
Now consider Al Quinn, who hoped to live alone and have a quiet retirement, but finds himself having a brother he hasn’t spoken to in twenty years foisted onto him. Together they must face some of the most vicious members of a Mexican cartel murder team. Not your everyday happy retirement, is it? Al Quinn must indeed hone his edges and be as tough as those coming after them if he and his brother aren’t to lose their heads, literally, a penchant of the cartel killers.
About TO HELL AND GONE IN TEXAS: Trouble big as all hell.
Retired sheriff’s detective Al Quinn hasn’t spoken to his brother, Maury, in twenty years. When Maury lands in the hospital under suspicious circumstances, though, Al reluctantly abandons his quiet country seclusion to look into the matter. A second attempt to take Maury out drives the brothers back to Al’s lakeside home, where Al knows the territory, but they’re not alone for long. ICE agents demand that Maury rat on his silent partner, city cop Fergie Jergens comes investigating the murders of Maury’s lady friends, and someone takes a match to Al’s house.
Al soon learns his problems are only getting started—his brother’s in trouble on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Caught in a ruthless power struggle between the ICE and Los Zetas, a vicious Mexican mafia bent on ascendancy, Al learns the hard way who he can trust—and who’s willing to do whatever it takes to succeed.
With everything he loves on the line, Al will learn just how far he’ll go to protect his own.
Buy it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iTunes, or GooglePlay! And make sure to tell all your friends about it on Goodreads!
Read an excerpt
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/0510ed5c67/
November 24, 2014
Chessiecon 2014!
Hey, everybody! If you live in the Baltimore, MD, area you should definitely swing by Chessiecon at the North Baltimore Plaza Hotel (2004 Greenspring Dr., Lutherville-Timonium, MD, 21093) sometime this weekend (28-30 November, 2014.)
If you show up, you'll get to see me...guaranteed. Fellow Red Adept Publishing authors Mary Fan, Elizabeth Corrigan, and myself will be at a table in the vendor's area all weekend. I'll be available signing and selling all of my books. In addition, I've committed to the following panels:
Friday Time Title Location 4-5pm Dark Fantasy GS2 5-6pm The Evolving Landscape of Publishing GS1 7-8pm Zombies and Vampires and Ghouls, Oh My GS2 Saturday Time Title Location 10-11am How Not to Get Published GS3-5 11am-12 noon Turkey Awards Panel GS2 2-3pm The Psychology of Horror GS2 Sunday Time Title Location 10-11am Reaching Readers ? 11am-12 noon Military SF GS1
Fri
4PM-5PM Dark Fantasy - GS2
Dark fantasy has become wildly popular in both romance and erotica. What does it take for a fantasy to qualify as “dark?” It has to be more than just the use of beings such as vampires and werewolves. What is the appeal? Who are some of your favorite authors and why? Carter, Crist, Kozeniewski, McLaughlin
5PM-6PM The Evolving Landscape of Publishing - GS1
With the rise of small presses, e-books, self-publishing, and online platforms, publishing has changed a lot in the 21st century. Both seasoned authors and aspiring writers have more options than ever before. This panel will discuss how to navigate the evolving landscape of publishing - and avoid the pitfalls. Corrigan, Demchick, Fan, Kozeniewski
**7PM-8PM Zombies and Vampires and Ghouls, Oh My. Why is Being Undead so Popular? - GS2
Is this a modern expression of the ages-old human desire for immortality? Or is the current trend towards fantasy/horror literature a fad? Is this trend crowding out other forms of horror literature? Just why is there so much current interest in this particular sub-genre anyway? Alexander, Carter, Kozeniewski, MacMillan, Woodling
Sat
10AM-11PM How Not to Get Published - GS3-5
A discussion of the mistakes and pitfalls common in publishing SF/F. Demchick, Fan, Kozeniewski, McLaughlin
11AM-Noon Turkey Awards Panel - GS2
Writers were asked to write the best terrible paragraph they could write, as the beginning of the best terrible science fiction novel you (n)ever read. Finalist entries will be presented, and judged with humor and harshness . A good time is sure to be had by all. Demchick, Kozeniewski, Liebe, Sakers (M)
2PM-3PM The Psychology of Horror - GS2
As The Doctor recently said, “fear is a superpower.” Yet for most of society, being afraid is viewed as a weakness, a response for children. So why do some people seek to be scared by boarding rollercoasters, watching scary movies, or reading horror novels? This panel will delve into the complex paradox of what makes the horror genre simultaneously so repellent and so appealing to creators and consumers alike. Cipra (M), Demchick, C.Jones, Kozeniewski, Sonnier
Sun
10AM-11AM Reaching Readers
"Whether a writer is self-publishing ebooks, serializing fiction online, or promoting traditionally published books, modern technology is rife with opportunities (and pitfalls) for connecting with readers. The old advice about writers remaining aloof is outdated--especially in marginalized communities. Aloofness is a privilege that writers can't afford, but should writers participate in ""readers only"" spaces like Goodreads? What are the do's and don'ts of serializing as part of a web presence? What do readers want from authors online and how can authors benefit from that relationship?" Corrigan, Demchick, Fan, Kozeniewski
11AM-Noon Military SF - GS1
While we dream of peace, it seems war is an ongoing state for too much of humanity. What is believable about the future worlds propounded by authors such as Elizabeth Moon, David Weber, Eric Flint, and William H. Keith? What do you like in their stories? What do you dislike? Aire, Cipra (M), Kozeniewski, Liebe
Hope to see you there!
If you show up, you'll get to see me...guaranteed. Fellow Red Adept Publishing authors Mary Fan, Elizabeth Corrigan, and myself will be at a table in the vendor's area all weekend. I'll be available signing and selling all of my books. In addition, I've committed to the following panels:
Friday Time Title Location 4-5pm Dark Fantasy GS2 5-6pm The Evolving Landscape of Publishing GS1 7-8pm Zombies and Vampires and Ghouls, Oh My GS2 Saturday Time Title Location 10-11am How Not to Get Published GS3-5 11am-12 noon Turkey Awards Panel GS2 2-3pm The Psychology of Horror GS2 Sunday Time Title Location 10-11am Reaching Readers ? 11am-12 noon Military SF GS1
Fri
4PM-5PM Dark Fantasy - GS2
Dark fantasy has become wildly popular in both romance and erotica. What does it take for a fantasy to qualify as “dark?” It has to be more than just the use of beings such as vampires and werewolves. What is the appeal? Who are some of your favorite authors and why? Carter, Crist, Kozeniewski, McLaughlin
5PM-6PM The Evolving Landscape of Publishing - GS1
With the rise of small presses, e-books, self-publishing, and online platforms, publishing has changed a lot in the 21st century. Both seasoned authors and aspiring writers have more options than ever before. This panel will discuss how to navigate the evolving landscape of publishing - and avoid the pitfalls. Corrigan, Demchick, Fan, Kozeniewski
**7PM-8PM Zombies and Vampires and Ghouls, Oh My. Why is Being Undead so Popular? - GS2
Is this a modern expression of the ages-old human desire for immortality? Or is the current trend towards fantasy/horror literature a fad? Is this trend crowding out other forms of horror literature? Just why is there so much current interest in this particular sub-genre anyway? Alexander, Carter, Kozeniewski, MacMillan, Woodling
Sat
10AM-11PM How Not to Get Published - GS3-5
A discussion of the mistakes and pitfalls common in publishing SF/F. Demchick, Fan, Kozeniewski, McLaughlin
11AM-Noon Turkey Awards Panel - GS2
Writers were asked to write the best terrible paragraph they could write, as the beginning of the best terrible science fiction novel you (n)ever read. Finalist entries will be presented, and judged with humor and harshness . A good time is sure to be had by all. Demchick, Kozeniewski, Liebe, Sakers (M)
2PM-3PM The Psychology of Horror - GS2
As The Doctor recently said, “fear is a superpower.” Yet for most of society, being afraid is viewed as a weakness, a response for children. So why do some people seek to be scared by boarding rollercoasters, watching scary movies, or reading horror novels? This panel will delve into the complex paradox of what makes the horror genre simultaneously so repellent and so appealing to creators and consumers alike. Cipra (M), Demchick, C.Jones, Kozeniewski, Sonnier
Sun
10AM-11AM Reaching Readers
"Whether a writer is self-publishing ebooks, serializing fiction online, or promoting traditionally published books, modern technology is rife with opportunities (and pitfalls) for connecting with readers. The old advice about writers remaining aloof is outdated--especially in marginalized communities. Aloofness is a privilege that writers can't afford, but should writers participate in ""readers only"" spaces like Goodreads? What are the do's and don'ts of serializing as part of a web presence? What do readers want from authors online and how can authors benefit from that relationship?" Corrigan, Demchick, Fan, Kozeniewski
11AM-Noon Military SF - GS1
While we dream of peace, it seems war is an ongoing state for too much of humanity. What is believable about the future worlds propounded by authors such as Elizabeth Moon, David Weber, Eric Flint, and William H. Keith? What do you like in their stories? What do you dislike? Aire, Cipra (M), Kozeniewski, Liebe
Hope to see you there!
November 19, 2014
Awards Season Redux!
Hey, everybody! In case you missed my original post on awards season, there are still a couple of things over there that you can do. I've come up with a few more. But rather than update that old thing, I thought I'd post new (semi-) original content. Everybody loves original content, right, Cracked Magazine?
So here are two more quick things you can do to help me out this year. Thanks, everybody!
- Send a link to BILLY AND THE CLONEASAURUS to Jimmy Fallon's Do Not Read List.
(Yeah, I know, this isn't exactly an "award" but it's still stupendous exposure. Maybe even life-changing exposure.) Basically this is just a quick e-mail. I'd love it if you'd personalize the message so he doesn't think I'm spamming him with multiple sock puppet accounts.
To: DoNotRead@TonightShow.com
Subject: Do Not Read List suggestion
Body:
Dear Jimmy,
I found a perfect new title for your Do Not Read List: BILLY AND THE CLONEASAURUS. Check out the link: http://www.amzn.com/B00L7RXG6U/!
- Nominate me for the 2014 This is Horror Awards.
All you need to do is send an e-mail using the template below by November 28. You can nominate 2 items in every category as long as it's not your own work and it was created between Nov '13 and Nov '14, so feel free to flesh out this skeleton with all your favorite works of horror.
To: awards@thisishorror.co.uk
Subject: This Is Horror Award Nominations 2014
Body:
Novel of the Year - BILLY AND THE CLONEASAURUS by Stephen Kozeniewski
Film of the Year -
TV Series of the Year -
Short Story Collection of the Year - AT HELL'S GATES by Devan Sagliani, et al.
Anthology of the Year - AT HELL'S GATES by Devan Sagliani, et al.
Publisher of the Year - Severed Press
Book Cover of the Year - BILLY AND THE CLONEASAURUS by Stephen Kozeniewski and AT HELLS GATES by Devan Sagliani, et al.
Tattoo Artist of the Year -
Podcast of the Year -
So here are two more quick things you can do to help me out this year. Thanks, everybody!
- Send a link to BILLY AND THE CLONEASAURUS to Jimmy Fallon's Do Not Read List.
(Yeah, I know, this isn't exactly an "award" but it's still stupendous exposure. Maybe even life-changing exposure.) Basically this is just a quick e-mail. I'd love it if you'd personalize the message so he doesn't think I'm spamming him with multiple sock puppet accounts.
To: DoNotRead@TonightShow.com
Subject: Do Not Read List suggestion
Body:
Dear Jimmy,
I found a perfect new title for your Do Not Read List: BILLY AND THE CLONEASAURUS. Check out the link: http://www.amzn.com/B00L7RXG6U/!
- Nominate me for the 2014 This is Horror Awards.
All you need to do is send an e-mail using the template below by November 28. You can nominate 2 items in every category as long as it's not your own work and it was created between Nov '13 and Nov '14, so feel free to flesh out this skeleton with all your favorite works of horror.
To: awards@thisishorror.co.uk
Subject: This Is Horror Award Nominations 2014
Body:
Novel of the Year - BILLY AND THE CLONEASAURUS by Stephen Kozeniewski
Film of the Year -
TV Series of the Year -
Short Story Collection of the Year - AT HELL'S GATES by Devan Sagliani, et al.
Anthology of the Year - AT HELL'S GATES by Devan Sagliani, et al.
Publisher of the Year - Severed Press
Book Cover of the Year - BILLY AND THE CLONEASAURUS by Stephen Kozeniewski and AT HELLS GATES by Devan Sagliani, et al.
Tattoo Artist of the Year -
Podcast of the Year -
November 15, 2014
Excerpt from WARPATH: SURVIVING THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE by Shawn Chesser
Today we have a very special guest: fellow zombie author Shawn Chesser! Shawn's been with us once before and we're delighted that fate, Providence, or kismet has brought him back. First, let's get to know Shawn and then jump right into an excerpt from his latest novel, WARPATH: SURVIVING THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE.
About Shawn Chesser:
This is what Shawn looks like now...
Shawn Chesser resides in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and two children. He studied writing at Harvard on the hill (PCC Sylvania) many years ago. Shawn is a big fan of the apocalyptic horror genre. Stephen King, Cormac McCarthy and George Romero are strong influences. When not writing, Shawn spends the rest of his time doting on his two children and doing whatever his wife says. :)
...And this is Shawn during his youth in New Jersey. (Not pictured: His beloved Trans Am, Bruce)
Excerpt from WARPATH: SURVIVING THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE:
Chapter 1
Like a makeshift guillotine, the shovel’s blade cut a silent flat arc through the cool morning air before burying inches deep into the rasping creature’s temple. As the rotted corpse crumpled to earth, Duncan squared his shoulders, squinted against the driving rain, and poked the V-shaped cutting edge into the next rotter’s sternum. Having gained a precious yard of separation from the handful of attackers, he backpedaled blindly uphill—in the direction of the white Toyota Land Cruiser which, at the moment, was keeping his two-way radio, the short barreled combat shotgun, and a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels dry.
Hell of a lot of good they’re doing ya in there, old man,he thought glumly, his equilibrium failing him. In the next instant his legs buckled, and suddenly the gloomy overcast sky was all that he saw.
“Fuck happened?” he muttered, shaking his head vigorously and spraying droplets of water in all directions. But the action had no effect on his vision, which, from the combination of alcohol, sleep deprivation, and the fine mist clinging to his aviator glasses, remained clouded and fuzzy around the edges.
Now, flat on his back, two things registered at once. To his right, wrapped in a rain-drenched sheet, was his brother Logan’s corpse that he’d just tripped over. He walked his gaze along the contours of the young man’s lifeless shell. Regarded the facial profile which had slackened in death, but was still unmistakably Oops—handlebar mustache and all. He noted the crimson blossoms of blood that had dried to black but had reconstituted and now ran in all directions, turning the once-white death shroud into some kind of macabre tie dye.
A half beat later he recognized that the pickle he’d gotten himself into, both figuratively and literally—the former because he’d gone ahead and left the heavy artillery in the truck, the latter because he was more than half in the bag—was about to get exponentially worse.
He flicked his gaze sixty yards downhill at the spot where he’d removed the triple-strand barbed wire from the fence paralleling SR-39 so that he could drive the Cruiser through. There, three disheveled first turns were heading his way, fighting against gravity, their feet slipping on the slick grass. Then his heart skipped a beat as he looked past the struggling trio and noticed another dozen flesh eaters leaving the blacktop. Slow and clumsy, they negotiated the shallow ditch and, jostling shoulder to shoulder, exploited the newly created breach.
The new arrivals to the party were deadly for sure, but it was the half dozen to his fore— spread out in a phalanx line, jaws working in eager anticipation of fresh meat—that were the clear and present danger. Knowing that he was turtled on his back with Logan and Gus lying in state nearby, one hissing monster looming over him, and another in the half-dug grave less than two feet away, sent a cold wave of dread coursing through Duncan’s body.
First things first, he told himself.
Only a second and a half elapsed between him tripping over Logan’s corpse and his fingers finding the knurled grip of the .45 riding high in the paddle holster on his hip. Another half-second ticked by and he had depressed the palm safety, thumbed back the hammer, and his index finger hovered near the trigger guard. By the time the weapon was clear of leather and tracking swiftly right, he had already found the trigger and drawn off a few pounds of pull, the hammer poised and ready to fall.
Flooded with adrenaline and running mainly on muscle memory, he didn’t recall caressing the trigger, but the two reports crashing the still morning air confirmed it and set his ears to ringing. The noise, like tearing paper, bounced off the Toyota’s metal skin and toured the nearby trees before the shock wave rolled back over top his prostrate body. It was awakening and cathartic at once, a substance he could almost feel.
One down, too many to go.
As he watched the flesh eater he’d just blessed with a second death roll towards the Toyota, spilling brains and viscous blood from its cratered face, the female first turn he’d just poked between the breasts with the shovel point was crawling out of the freshly dug grave where it had fallen.
Over the pattering rain, the grating rasp of its clawlike hands grappling for purchase, combined with the wet rattle escaping its working maw, sent an icy jolt through his body. Shivering profusely from a combination of fear-induced adrenaline, his already lowered core temperature, and the desire for another belt of Jack Black, he dug his left boot heel in and pushed uphill. Feeling a tug slow his progress as splintered nails tore into the blue denim just below his right knee, and with a new wave of shivers wracking his body and the stink of death and decay thick in his throat, he spread his legs, a kind of half-assed mud angel, aimed between his boot tips, and pumped a round between the zombie’s beady eyes.
Two down, too many to go.
He kicked free from the dead thing’s grasp, rolled over onto his stomach, and clawed his way towards the SUV; his ultimate goal: getting inside and radioing for help. And then shortly thereafter, making bubbles in the whiskey.
But those things weren’t happening without a fight because a pair of rotters had inexplicably looped around the passenger’s side of the Toyota, flanked him, and were now doggedly lurching his way.
“Where’d y'all learn that trick?” he muttered, bracketing the one nearest him in his sights. As he drew back on the trigger, a sudden flash of reddish-orange, like a .50 caliber round fired at night, minus the sparkle and pop, entered his side vision. Momentarily convinced he was seeing ill-timed tracers—a flood of chemicals to the brain brought on by the stress of a dozen dead things wanting to eat him, or perhaps a byproduct of the Jack Daniels in his system—he held his fire, blinked his eyes, and kept them closed for half a beat. Upon reopening them the thought that he’d had too much of the latter won out because now only one rotter stood between him and the SUV.
With the throaty rasps of the dead advancing on his six, he wasted no more precious time processing what had just happened. Instead, he fixed his gaze on the flesh eater at his twelve o’clock, rose from the ground, and with the .45 extended at arm’s length, took a tentative step towards the SUV.
Make sure to buy your own copy of WARPATH and tell all your friends about it on Goodreads!
The stench of frozen rotted meat is in the air! Welcome to the Winter of Zombie Blog Tour 2014, with 10 of the best zombie authors spreading the disease in the month of November.
Stop by the event page on Facebook so you don't miss an interview, guest post or teaser… and pick up some great swag as well! Giveaways galore from most of the authors as well as interaction with them! #WinterZombie2014
AND so you don't miss any of the posts in November, here's the complete list, updated daily.
About Shawn Chesser:
This is what Shawn looks like now...Shawn Chesser resides in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and two children. He studied writing at Harvard on the hill (PCC Sylvania) many years ago. Shawn is a big fan of the apocalyptic horror genre. Stephen King, Cormac McCarthy and George Romero are strong influences. When not writing, Shawn spends the rest of his time doting on his two children and doing whatever his wife says. :)
...And this is Shawn during his youth in New Jersey. (Not pictured: His beloved Trans Am, Bruce) Excerpt from WARPATH: SURVIVING THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE:
Chapter 1
Like a makeshift guillotine, the shovel’s blade cut a silent flat arc through the cool morning air before burying inches deep into the rasping creature’s temple. As the rotted corpse crumpled to earth, Duncan squared his shoulders, squinted against the driving rain, and poked the V-shaped cutting edge into the next rotter’s sternum. Having gained a precious yard of separation from the handful of attackers, he backpedaled blindly uphill—in the direction of the white Toyota Land Cruiser which, at the moment, was keeping his two-way radio, the short barreled combat shotgun, and a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels dry.
Hell of a lot of good they’re doing ya in there, old man,he thought glumly, his equilibrium failing him. In the next instant his legs buckled, and suddenly the gloomy overcast sky was all that he saw.
“Fuck happened?” he muttered, shaking his head vigorously and spraying droplets of water in all directions. But the action had no effect on his vision, which, from the combination of alcohol, sleep deprivation, and the fine mist clinging to his aviator glasses, remained clouded and fuzzy around the edges.
Now, flat on his back, two things registered at once. To his right, wrapped in a rain-drenched sheet, was his brother Logan’s corpse that he’d just tripped over. He walked his gaze along the contours of the young man’s lifeless shell. Regarded the facial profile which had slackened in death, but was still unmistakably Oops—handlebar mustache and all. He noted the crimson blossoms of blood that had dried to black but had reconstituted and now ran in all directions, turning the once-white death shroud into some kind of macabre tie dye.
A half beat later he recognized that the pickle he’d gotten himself into, both figuratively and literally—the former because he’d gone ahead and left the heavy artillery in the truck, the latter because he was more than half in the bag—was about to get exponentially worse.
He flicked his gaze sixty yards downhill at the spot where he’d removed the triple-strand barbed wire from the fence paralleling SR-39 so that he could drive the Cruiser through. There, three disheveled first turns were heading his way, fighting against gravity, their feet slipping on the slick grass. Then his heart skipped a beat as he looked past the struggling trio and noticed another dozen flesh eaters leaving the blacktop. Slow and clumsy, they negotiated the shallow ditch and, jostling shoulder to shoulder, exploited the newly created breach.
The new arrivals to the party were deadly for sure, but it was the half dozen to his fore— spread out in a phalanx line, jaws working in eager anticipation of fresh meat—that were the clear and present danger. Knowing that he was turtled on his back with Logan and Gus lying in state nearby, one hissing monster looming over him, and another in the half-dug grave less than two feet away, sent a cold wave of dread coursing through Duncan’s body.
First things first, he told himself.
Only a second and a half elapsed between him tripping over Logan’s corpse and his fingers finding the knurled grip of the .45 riding high in the paddle holster on his hip. Another half-second ticked by and he had depressed the palm safety, thumbed back the hammer, and his index finger hovered near the trigger guard. By the time the weapon was clear of leather and tracking swiftly right, he had already found the trigger and drawn off a few pounds of pull, the hammer poised and ready to fall.
Flooded with adrenaline and running mainly on muscle memory, he didn’t recall caressing the trigger, but the two reports crashing the still morning air confirmed it and set his ears to ringing. The noise, like tearing paper, bounced off the Toyota’s metal skin and toured the nearby trees before the shock wave rolled back over top his prostrate body. It was awakening and cathartic at once, a substance he could almost feel.
One down, too many to go.
As he watched the flesh eater he’d just blessed with a second death roll towards the Toyota, spilling brains and viscous blood from its cratered face, the female first turn he’d just poked between the breasts with the shovel point was crawling out of the freshly dug grave where it had fallen.
Over the pattering rain, the grating rasp of its clawlike hands grappling for purchase, combined with the wet rattle escaping its working maw, sent an icy jolt through his body. Shivering profusely from a combination of fear-induced adrenaline, his already lowered core temperature, and the desire for another belt of Jack Black, he dug his left boot heel in and pushed uphill. Feeling a tug slow his progress as splintered nails tore into the blue denim just below his right knee, and with a new wave of shivers wracking his body and the stink of death and decay thick in his throat, he spread his legs, a kind of half-assed mud angel, aimed between his boot tips, and pumped a round between the zombie’s beady eyes.
Two down, too many to go.
He kicked free from the dead thing’s grasp, rolled over onto his stomach, and clawed his way towards the SUV; his ultimate goal: getting inside and radioing for help. And then shortly thereafter, making bubbles in the whiskey.
But those things weren’t happening without a fight because a pair of rotters had inexplicably looped around the passenger’s side of the Toyota, flanked him, and were now doggedly lurching his way.
“Where’d y'all learn that trick?” he muttered, bracketing the one nearest him in his sights. As he drew back on the trigger, a sudden flash of reddish-orange, like a .50 caliber round fired at night, minus the sparkle and pop, entered his side vision. Momentarily convinced he was seeing ill-timed tracers—a flood of chemicals to the brain brought on by the stress of a dozen dead things wanting to eat him, or perhaps a byproduct of the Jack Daniels in his system—he held his fire, blinked his eyes, and kept them closed for half a beat. Upon reopening them the thought that he’d had too much of the latter won out because now only one rotter stood between him and the SUV.
With the throaty rasps of the dead advancing on his six, he wasted no more precious time processing what had just happened. Instead, he fixed his gaze on the flesh eater at his twelve o’clock, rose from the ground, and with the .45 extended at arm’s length, took a tentative step towards the SUV.
Make sure to buy your own copy of WARPATH and tell all your friends about it on Goodreads!
The stench of frozen rotted meat is in the air! Welcome to the Winter of Zombie Blog Tour 2014, with 10 of the best zombie authors spreading the disease in the month of November.
Stop by the event page on Facebook so you don't miss an interview, guest post or teaser… and pick up some great swag as well! Giveaways galore from most of the authors as well as interaction with them! #WinterZombie2014
AND so you don't miss any of the posts in November, here's the complete list, updated daily.
