Stephen Graham Jones's Blog, page 272

The Floating Dead

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A while back I was part of the cattle call for what became this article, and just found myself looking this email up as a student was coming to my office to talk about ghosts. So I figured it'd be good if I could see again what I think about them (I know nothing until I write it down, and then, because it's written down, I don't need to try to remember it). Anyway, couple of friends — Laird Barron, Paul Tremblay — got in the article, so all's good and well. Except of course that there are ghosts. And this is how I talk about them: If you write ghost fiction, why do you do so? Yeah, I write them sometimes. Because they make the world magic. The premise under every ghost story is that there's more to this world than we think we know. We're not as alone as what we thought. Sure, after an encounter with this or that ghost, we might wish we were alone, but the thing to remember is that if there's terrifying immaterial things like ghosts, then that's wedging the door open, allowing all kinds of other stuff through as well. And some of it's bound to be good. Maybe there's a unicorn over there as well. What appeals to you about the form? I like the rational resistance characters — as our avatars — always initially have towards ghosts, and then their slow acceptance. That little arc of realization is inherently dramatic, is tailored for fiction. And  . . . → → →

Couple of Anthologies

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I've got stuff showing up in: Amazing Stories of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and And IDW's Zombies vs. Robots. And Creatures! is already orderable.

Fantasy Matters

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My "I Was Genre When Genre Wasn't Cool" (another Barbara Mandrell ode) is up at the very cool Fantasy Matters. also, I'm reading on the Hill here in Boulder tonight, at Innisfree.

Bibliobabes

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A cool write-up of The Ones That Got Away over at Bibliobabes.

Ding-Dong, You're Dead

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So what if the rats of NIMH got a taste for human flesh? Or, not flesh, exactly, but I don't want to give anything away. In the way of hints, though, how about: Don't Be Afraid of the Dark doesn't not have something to do with Darkness Falls. Where it separates itself, though, is quality. No, this isn't quite The Orphanage, and it's a different genre than Pan's Labyrinth, and we've all seen the 1973 original, know that The Gate might have borrowed a thing or two from it (in the best possible way, of course—The Gate rocks), but still, as far as a pretty solid haunted house story, Dark's got what it takes: Stupid people, driven by greed A house you could tell was haunted just by using Google Earth A kid with issues Really, drop those three in a bag, shake well, and what you pour out, it'll be a haunted house story. And of course Dark returns to all the stock characters you have to have to properly iterate through a haunted house story: The disbeliever (Micah, anyone?) The caretaker (they're always knowledgeable about this house, and make the right obeisances in order to keep surviving, even unto generations. Think Burgess Meredith in Burnt Offerings) A completely ineffective 'medium' (they take all forms, aren't always like in Poltergeist) That kid from the above list, to, like Jackson's Eleanor, like King's Torrance, 'commune' with the dead (check The Messengers out, say: nowadays, kids are the ones who can 'see' the haunting stuff. But  . . . → → →

The Back of Beyond

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Finished CJ Box's very Hillerman-ey Back of Beyond. Like everything else of his so far, I really dug it, though this one's a lot more straight-ahead thriller than mystery, which is where he usually writes. I'd say it's a (Crais) Hostage, just rural instead of urban. Just as well-paced, though, and very well-written this time, too. Glad he's branching out from the Joe Pickett stuff more and more. I mean, I love Joe, but like Box says at his readings, there's only so much that can believably happen to a guy in one county, right? Or in one lifetime, anyway. It's hard to make Jack Bauer real on the page, I mean. Anyway, if I could be any writer — not just cash their checks, but write where and how they write — I'd be either Box or Joe R. Lansdale, for sure. Though, as Lansdale plays across all the genres and mediums, I'd probably sidle his way a bit more. Or, with Box, it's got to feel a little constrictive, I suspect, writing for a mystery audience demographic that you can so well guess the politics of (I'm not generalizing about all mystery readers, of which I'm one, but about his mystery readers (of which I'm also a rabid one)). And, if you want to keep those book buyers, you agree with them rather than challenging them, yes? You have to appear to have the same values, anyway — just small stuff, like, in this novel, how the old cowpoke is the obvious good guy,  . . . → → →

Lazy Fascist and Zombie Bake-Off

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remember in It's Alive when that monster baby's born and just chews his way through the delivery room? or when Victor von shouts to the heavens that It's alive! It's alive! thinking something like that for this. been waiting a long time for Zombie Bake-Off to become the kind of real people can see on a shelf, swallow into their heads. so, like the monkey said when its tail got caught in the lawnmower: Won't be long now. Click here for the announcement. And this is my original post about ZBO, back in 2007. There used to be images in that post, too, I think, but the hack killed them, looks like. Something like this, though:  

Creatures and Noir

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The second piece of Not for Nothing is up at Dirty Noir, here (first piece as well, earlier). The rest? Available in 2014, via Dzanc. Or maybe 2013; I get confused which is when between it and Flushboy. Up today as well, my Creatures! interview, wherein slake moths and sharks are gnawed upon slightly.

Done Got Booked

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by the guys over at Booked. I think we were supposed to go in the area of thirty, not more than forty minutes, so, you know, fifty two, that's us just completely exercising control, I think. but, I mean, we were talking about zombie and slashers and werewolves (a bit), about horror and hospitals, about writing and writers — how'd we ever find a stopping point, right? Right. And, I re-listened to make sure this was up to their usual standards (to make sure I hadn't wrecked the boat), and there's even stuff gone. This one suspicious seventeen or eighteen-minute bit, even . . . anyway, the real focus, it's not me, it's Warmed & Bound, and it's a series of excellent interviews/podcasts. I just try to skew things towards hockey masks and the like.        

Seven Spanish Angels

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Back in 2005 or so, I was under contract to write a sequel to All the Beautiful Sinners for Rugged Land — they're gone now, but they were hot for a while, and produced some gorgeous books, and, as far as I know, did the first ever serious book trailer, too (For Henry's List of Wrongs) — and it was supposed to be a sequel, this "Seven Spanish Angels," a title I was of course ripping off, but also, it was a title that I felt would keep me honest. Becuase, I mean, you don't abscond with something like that and then not treat it seriously, right? At least I couldn't. I remember when that song came out, I was twelve, and didn't have the record, of course, but could dial it in out in the parents' and uncles' trucks some lucky times, and I'd close my eyes and just be there in that song. It was the same as listening to Marty Robbins sing "El Paso," to me — and of course, six years before, I'd listened to "El Paso" probably ten thousand times on a cassette player by my 25mhz Compaq, writing The Fast Red Road. This was that again, for me. So, anyway, I turned in the first draft, and, I don't know, I don't think it was complete, but it was a good three hundred pages, I'd guess. And the editor — also the publisher of Rugged Land — Shawn Coyne, he read it in like twelve seconds (he can do  . . . → → →