Showing posts with label Zombies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zombies. Show all posts

Friday, March 08, 2024

Karen S. Wiesner: The Hit List: Young Adult Series Favorites {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Maze Runner Series by James Dashner


The Hit List: Young Adult Series Favorites

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Maze Runner Series by James Dashner

by Karen S. Wiesner

In the first half of the 2000s, Young Adult series were all the rage, dominating the attention of teenagers and adults alike. Several that became household topics at the height of their popularity, enjoying fame as both book and movie series, seem to have fallen by the wayside since. Even still, I find many of those unique tales are well worth returning to for a fresh perspective. Over the next month or two, I thought I'd revisit a few series that would make any hit list of past favorites.

Although this series has been around a long time and, if people wanted to read it, they probably already have, in fairness, I'm including this disclaimer because some of the newer entries in the series might be unfamiliar to readers who may want to read them first: Warning! Spoilers!

I'm not actually sure I remember what made me pick up this series in the first place, but the situation in the first story is very compelling. A group of teenage boys find themselves in a place they call the Glade. None of them can remember how they got there or who they are. Together, they work to make a life for themselves while trapped within four large doors--the Maze. The doors open every morning and close at sundown. These walls they live within change constantly, but there's a pattern to them that the "maze runners" have discovered. Those designated runners venture into the maze every day in order to map it, find a pattern to its workings, and ultimately to find a way to escape. Life in the Glade would otherwise be peaceful and quiet, other than the biomechanical creatures that come out of the maze and kill some of them. Each of these beetles has the word "WICKED" stamped on it. None of them know what it means. Newt is one of the most beloved leaders of the group.

One day, a teenage boy arrives in the Glade, and he's not alone. A girl--the first--emerges with him. The boy is dubbed Thomas, and his curiosity and need to understand what's happening is without limit. When he's the first to survive a night in the maze, several of them agree to support his quest to find a way out, including Newt.

The second book continues where the first left off. Having escaped the maze was only the beginning of understanding. WICKED is a militant organization, and the survivors are forced to undergo "the Scorch Trials"--crossing a barren wasteland populated with humans being consumed by an infection (the Flare) that pretty much makes them zombies. In this series, zombies are called cranks.

The third book sees the group become prisoners of WICKED. They learn that WICKED's goal has been to find a cure for the Flare--to that end, using those with natural resistance to it, namely children, as test subjects. The friends have heard of a resistance movement fighting WICKED, and it may be their only hope for survival.

All three of these initial books were made into faithful movie adaptations that were as enjoyable as the books themselves were. Despite finding myself embarrassed by some of the silly language the boys came up with while living in the Glade, I can find no fault with any of these stories. Standout characters were Newt, Thomas, and Chuck in the first book, Newt and Thomas in the second, and Brenda in the third.

The trilogy was followed with a book called The Kill Order, which was a prequel story, showing what happened in the world leading up to the Flare and how WICKED conceived its diabolical plans to discover a cure using their youth, morality be damned.

A fifth book was released later, and it was another prequel, set between the events of The Kill Order and The Maze Runner. The primary focus of the book is on the relations between the Gladers before Thomas was sent to them. I kind of got out of the series after the third book and so never read the two prequels, though I do plan to seek them out and read them sooner or later. However, when the novella "Crank Palace" was released, I did get back into it because Newt was a favorite character of mine, and this is his story, taking place during the events of The Death Cure. Within that story, Newt had contracted the Flare and had to leave his friends because it was the only way to protect them from himself. What happened to him after that as he tried to make amends for what he considered his sins is contained in this little book. I'd like to tell you I loved it, but honestly it just didn't quite have the same intrigue as the previous three books, not even with Newt as the lead character. It was good, just not great, and I'm not sure the story really needed to be told. Even without the novella, I'd already assumed everything he did with these pages was what he intended to do when he left the group.

In the process of researching for this review, I found out that the author wrote what might be deemed a spin-off series called Maze Cutter. The first book with the same name is set 73 years after the events of The Death Cure. Thomas and the others immune to the Flare are sent to an island, where they and their descendants find a new life. Then one day a woman shows up in a boat and tells them the rest of civilization hasn't fared so well. The opposite, in fact. Another corporation with crazy scientists and hidden agendas has risen and threatens the future. The islanders feel compelled to help. There are two books available with a third (and final) on the way soon. I intend to pick them up at the first available opportunity and see what's happening in this intriguing world.

  

Ultimately, I recommend this series as some of the best young adult dystopian fiction available, especially when it comes to zombie and apocalypse stories. The twists and turns are constant, and you never know what the next surprise might be from one page to the next. Each story is filled with characters worth rooting for--and worth allowing them the chance to explain the decisions they've made. Given that I had such trouble putting the first three books down, I think it's time to get back into the series and catch up with the new offerings.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/


Thursday, December 16, 2021

Classics and Monsters

Following the success of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES (2009), numerous mash-ups of public domain classic novels with horror creatures and tropes were published in the few years immediately following. I've recently reread LITTLE VAMPIRE WOMEN and A VAMPIRE CHRISTMAS CAROL. Are such adaptations worth reading except as bizarre novelties? Their main appeal, judging from the types of books that have been adapted, seems to be incongruity, with fiction as unlike the horror genre as possible being transmuted by the insertion of supernatural threats into the original stories. Some others, for example, are JANE SLAYRE, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY AND SEA MONSTERS, LITTLE WOMEN AND WEREWOLVES, and WUTHERING BITES.

In my opinion, those kinds of books turn out better if they involve a certain amount of actual rewriting. From what I remember of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES, it's fun to read once but not transformative enough to comprise much more than Jane Austen's original work with zombies thrown in at suitable intervals. Granted, though, the image of Elizabeth as a trained zombie-slayer has a certain zany charm. LITTLE VAMPIRE WOMEN and A VAMPIRE CHRISTMAS CAROL, on the other hand, rewrite their prototypes more extensively, although some undigested lumps of Alcott's and Dickens's prose do stand out.

A VAMPIRE CHRISTMAS CAROL raises the question of whether the entertainment value of such crossovers fades a bit when the source text already contains elements of supernatural horror. It strikes me as not too much of a stretch to have Mr. Scrooge stalked by vampires as well as haunted by ghosts. WUTHERING BITES falls into a similar category. Vampiric motifs pervade WUTHERING HEIGHTS, with Heathcliff explicitly compared to a vampire in one line. Turning him into a literal vampire-human crossbreed, cursed by the heritage of his monstrous half, fits fairly well into the original plot. In that case, the "co-author" can't depend solely on the appeal of incongruity; she has to create a believable story with an anti-hero who inspires genuine sympathy as well as horror.

A step removed from those books, which might be considered a peculiar sort of fanfic, we find "secret histories" such as ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER, which I discovered to be better than I'd expected. The criterion for such novels is that the action must remain faithful to the historical person's biography as publicly known, while inserting supernatural elements into the hidden corners of his or her life, so to speak. Queen Elizabeth, H. P. Lovecraft, Lizzie Borden, and many others have received similar fictional treatment. A January 2022 release, THE SILVER BULLETS OF ANNIE OAKLEY, by Mercedes Lackey, will introduce magic into the career of the famed sharpshooter. I don't object to this type of fiction as long as the author does conscientious research into the historical background and treats the protagonist with respect.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Story Springboards Part 5: Explaining Popularity of Zombies by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Story Springboards Part 5: Explaining Popularity of Zombies  
by 
Jacqueline Lichtenberg 

In this series, we've been discussing the mechanism of how to "just write an interesting story" -- so let's ask What's So Interesting About Zombies?

Here are the Parts of Story Springboards and related posts:

The index of previous posts relevant to this discussion:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/index-post-to-art-and-craft-of-story.html

In Part 3 of this series,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-3-art-of.html
we started sketching out the issues and topics relevant to constructing an Episodic Plot.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-4-art-of.html

And last week we looked at the link between fame, glory and the "interesting story":
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/theme-character-integration-part-5-fame.html

Then, on TV News, I heard a guy trying earnestly to explain that the popularity of Zombies on TV is due to the way Zombies represent Socialism. 

He might be right.  I couldn't tell because he really was inarticulate and all over the place philosophically.  All he did was express his personal opinion that TV is garbage and we should change the world by changing TV first.

TV's business model is to sell eyeballs to advertisers -- the fiction is just the "glue" to keep the eyeballs through commercials.  Those delivering TV fiction are trying to make a profit from this business model, therefore they must choose fiction that people want to watch.  They are not in the business of creating the desire, but of fulfilling that desire.

Like editors at big publishing houses, TV moguls buy TV series from Producers (and/or production companies or studios -- who are just contractors who build to suit their customers) all use the very latest in polling and public-opinion surveying (focus groups) to identify trends in what already interests the most people. 

The equation they have to work is all about how much it costs to make and deliver this piece of fiction vs. how much they can sell it for.

So the experiment of trying to run this delivery system mechanism BACKWARDS, is about the same as trying to use statistics backwards (e.g. If 51% of Black Hispanics prefer to wear white underwear, and you prefer white underwear, therefore you are a Black Hispanic.) 

So, I've seen this attempt to use mass media to change public opinion done before, and I have never seen that experiment work without losing tons of money.  It can work with specialty media -- aiming really cheap-to-make items at a tiny, already thirsty audience.  But it can't make a profit with expensive media delivery that needs a vast audience to break even. 

It surely wouldn't work with me.  What entertains me, is what entertains ME!  And nobody can change me by forcing me to fall asleep bored in front of something I  don't find entertaining.

But I do find the zombie popularity intriguing, interesting, even entertaining. 

I am perhaps able to analyze Zombie popularity because though it's fascinating to me, Zombies as a topic don't "grab" me the way Vampires do.  It's probably the Romance angle.

Yes, I've read some Zombie Romance novels - even great writing doesn't make Zombies interesting to me, though the craft techniques used to tell such a story are absolutely riveting!

I love the Vampire genres because they toy with the problem of Immortality -- watching everyone you love die, and going on and on and on. 

There's the "never-learning-or-changing" spiritual position of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain, portrait of Noblesse Oblige through the millennia (I love it!).  And there are Romance Vampire types who either learn and grow -- or don't.  And there are Vampires who fight being immortal.  There are even Vampire series that don't address immortality.

The Immortality Problem is what fascinates me about Vampires -- everything else is just a complication.  Humans are not designed to be immortal.

Presenting a person (a Character) with a problem they are not designed to handle is SCIENCE FICTION.  So I like the Vampire series that center on a Vampire who refuses to Kill, and solves his problem with science, say inventing artificial blood, or creating a dimensional doorway and "hunting" in another space-time. 

Zombies also present humans with problems that humans are not designed to handle -- either from the perspective of being a Zombie, or from the perspective of fighting off a rising tide from a cemetary.

A few months ago, I saw a quick item on TV News about the on-time performance of various air ports -- where they noted the SOLUTION to handling the increasing volume of flights was to dig up a cemetery and build a runway over that cemetery.  I think that was Chicago's O'Hare, but it doesn't matter. 

My point is that the city involved could not create a solution that did not violate the code of conduct of part of that city's population -- no "work-around" such as the Vampire's inventing artificial blood or stealing from a blood bank was adopted.  Cost/profit equations rule, just as in Television or Publishing. 

As I've mentioned before on this blog, I think our problem solving mental muscles are deteriorating for lack of training.  The beginning of that training is supposed to be in High School where you learn geometry proofs.  But it has to go on into the twenties. 

PROBLEMS are inherently interesting.

Though different people at different times in life find different problems intriguing, it is the nature of "interesting" to be focused around a problem.

Remember the two plots we've discussed at length that summarize all fiction:

"Johnny gets his fanny caught in a beartrap (problem), and has his adventures getting it out."

"A likeable Hero (Save The Cat!) struggles against seemingly overwhelming odds (problems) toward a worthwhile goal."

Those two story-patterns pivot on the central concept of "interesting" being the PROBLEM as presented to a Character who proceeds to solve that problem (or not).  In a long-novel or series, the "problem" first presented causes a failure, which causes the problem to be redefined, solved, only to uncover another problem. 

See the TV Series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode 2 where the problem is an "element" responsible for gravity is mined and used as a weapon.  The solution (as in Horror genre) is to lock it away in an unlabeled vault.  The material locked away had swallowed the scientist who invented the weaponization of it -- the final scene shows the amorphous element extruding a grasping, reaching hand-shape.  They could have left that scene out if they wanted to indicate there was nothing more to be said or done regarding that problem.  But this is a serial in the Buck Rogers tradition of movie-theater serials transformed into Comics.   

Look at the two Plot formulas again.  "The Problem" is part of the structure of CONFLICT, which is the essence of Story (and Plot).  Conflict-anticipated is one of the spring-elements in the "story springboard." 

Anticipation -- knowing what might come and wondering if it will come -- is a core ingredient in "interesting." 

A story-springboard is not about what is there -- but about what might become there.  It's about anticipating what comes next. 

So let's delve more deeply into the popularity of Zombies to see if we can find in that a clue to what comes next.

We've been discussing "interesting" as in the advice in all books about writing that say "All you have to do to sell fiction is write an interesting story."

Keep in mind the question of whether fiction on TV can create "interest" in a topic in a target audience (manipulate masses of people), or whether the "interest" in that topic has to be there first.  Where do we get our mass-interests from?  Where do trends come from?  Can they be created?  Or can they only be magnified like a cowboy creating a stampede of cattle by panicing a few.  

The advice to "just write an interesting story" is very possibly the most frustrating advice -- worse than "Show Don't Tell" -- yet it is so very true, and very possibly as easy to do as creating a cattle stampede! 

Pondering the success of Zombies on TV, in film, books, games -- it occurred to me that there is an explanation for the popularity  of Vampires and Zombies that could allow new writers to predict the NEXT popular trend in fiction, the next thing found "interesting" by huge numbers of people hungry for more-more-more.

In the 1940's -- with the advent of the Atomic Bomb and that horrific potential -- and the UFO sightings of the 1950's, spurring the drive toward orbital space flight in the 1960's -- people were AFRAID OF THE FUTURE. 

Remember the image of the cattle stampede.  That's fear-driven.

At that time as people were becoming spooked over science being destructive or invasive (via hostile aliens), the TELEPHONE was a novelty that didn't appear in every home -- and where a home had a telephone, there was only one instrument centrally placed that seldom rang!  (see the British TV Series Downton Abbey in the two early seasons.)


Science Fiction grew and prospered, broke out of the tiny side-venue it had occupied in the 1920's and 1930's and blossomed into the STAR TREK era in the late 1960's.

That brand of Science Fiction was focused on the future.

People were afraid of the future - the term "techphobe" was coined only later as computers invaded the home, but the prior generation had been displaced from their professions by "automation" (a wave of the future that destroyed lives.) and the telephone was the "tech" that was resisted even as it was accepted.  In the 1950's, teens were allowed to use the phone only for "real" business, and then only a couple minutes per call.  By the 1960's, the TV image of the teenager was a kid sprawled across their bed on the phone for hours -- and parents complained but did nothing to rein in excessive phone-time. 

Alvin Toffler's FUTURE SHOCK explained the over-view of these attitudes toward the future, the speed of change and where it might lead (much of that book's predictions are coming true right this minute, and still coming.)  Toffler predicted the computer and the internet would create telecommuting, cottage industry, and self-employment. 

In the 1950's, Science Fiction was predicting The Welfare State because only half the people alive in the world would have an I.Q. high enough to work the jobs created by technology -- but those jobs would be productive enough that the lower I.Q. people would not have to work at all. 

Readers of 1950's Science Fiction (mostly teens then) could see that trend gathering steam, but didn't want that to happen and regarded it as ridiculous fantasy.  Their fear was not being able to get a job or hold it.  Their parents nearly starved in the Depression, and talked about that and the War constantly, warning teens they had to earn a good living or die starving in the street (which people did.)  They needed jobs that wouldn't be automated out of existence. 

Well, the current generation of teens has never known a world that was not automated, and that kept people from instant communications (even pictures in color).  The current teens all know someone on Welfare or Food Stamps, and it's no stigma at all, nothing to be afraid of if you can't get or hold a job.  You can still have internet access -- after all, it's a right, no?  If you can't afford an iPad, get an Android -- they're better anyway!

What scares the current teens? 

THE PAST IS SCARIER THAN THE FUTURE!

The current teens are scared by the idea that their parent's generation's values (get a high-skilled job and hold it) will come back to haunt and overwhelm their every effort to live an easy life. 

Grandparents are dying off so aren't a source of presents -- or they're retiring to become a burden on "the system" -- Social Security and Medicare are fingered as the source of demands for enormous tax on salary checks.  Teens with their first unskilled labor jobs feel this the most and are convinced we have to raise the minimum wage because those deductions from wages leave nothing to live on. 

The idea that low I.Q. people are unemployable in a tech-based world, and their labor is not only not-needed but not-wanted is unthinkable. 

The idea that having a low I.Q. (that of, say a Zombie?) condemns you to having no internet, no cell phone, no Nikes, no Pizza delivered during The Big Game -- that wouldn't be Justice, and therefore can't happen.  The idea that low I.Q. makes you worthless has been shoved off-stage, into the subconscious where Horror Genre seethes and regenerates. 

Today's teens are not capable of replacing the elder generation workers now retiring (most employers will bemoan this given a chance) -- because today's teens did not master the older, basic skill sets which are still required in the workplace. 

But at the same time, the skill sets of the elders do not seem potentially useful in the future the younger people envision. 

The past rising from the grave Zombie fashion is a subconscious, unconscious, nebulous (NEPTUNE) terror that can't be articulated or faced.

The present is trying to dig that grave to bury the pre-internet way of organizing society.

We are in the throws of a revolution in which Capitalism, the Republic of the USA, the independent person who works for himself (farmer feeding one family out in the middle of nowhere and barely having produce to sell to buy what he can't produce), has become the dependent getting food stamps etc. -- and those who get government subsidies really have no idea where that money comes from, or why it buys less and less at the store. 

But if Toffler was right, our future is one of self-employment. 

Remember I.Q. is a measure artificially invented to prove a socio-political point -- making the point incontrovertible because it was proved by "scientific" experiment.

What if I.Q. is irrelevant, or even non-existent, a mere figment of the imagination?

That would be a good theme for a science fiction series.  If there is no such thing as I.Q., then how do we sort people? 

Do we have to sort people? (Harry Potter's Sorting Hat???)  Do we have to group people into herds and stampede them (like Zombie mobs?) in the direction one or a few people choose (such as people who decry what's on TV and want to change things by changing TV entertainment?) 

Way back before the Industrial Revolution, there was no such thing as "a job" -- there were peasants who worked the King's land, there were self-employed craftsmen who made things (saddles, wagon wheels), and there were Aristocrats who owned things and people. 

Women bred and died young, and men had to master a CRAFT young to raise a family. 

People worked, but there were no jobs and no "bennies."

The Industrial Revolution (1700's and 1800's) changed that, giving us an entire worldwide population whose highest ambition is to "get a good job with good bennies."

We then shifted to relying on "the government" to 'create jobs' just as the government 'creates money.' 

Once Upon A Time we were all self-employed and without pensions.  When you couldn't work, your children supported you or you just died. 

Then we were mostly all employed, and demanded more and more vacation and pensions.

Now we are shifting back to being all-self-employed where we will work-or-die without bennies.  Will "aristocrats" own us all?

THAT TRANSITION IS SCARY not because it's "the future" but because it's "the past."

We are being sucked back into the insecure, benefit-less existence of humanity's far past -- long since buried.  Now it is RISING AGAIN, a Zombie from the grave.

That sense of "something" horrible rising from "the grave" (like the HAND extruded from the gravity material locked in a vault in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.)  could be symbolized by Vampires and Zombies, and other "things" that can't be killed, that come back to life again and again. 

Note that the pre-industrial society respected and revered The Aged.  The elderly were supported by their children or just died when they couldn't work any more, and children did consider it a point of personal pride and even joy to support their elders. 

Today every TV show seems to showcase a rift between parents and children that could be called hatred.  Much eye-rolling accompanies the interruption by a phone call from a parent.  Stressful difficulty and personal rejection are the keynotes between elder and adult child. 

That unreasonable burden that parents and grandparents have become has not only accompanied the discarding of supporting your own elders in age (they become the government's responsibility), but has discarded the idea that the Elder Knows Better If Not Best -- Elder Wisdom is now Elder Stupidity (like a Zombie). 

Communicating with an Elder on TV is very much like trying to reason with a hoard of Zombies trying to eat your brains.  Hopeless.  Run For Your Life! 

You see it in almost every TV show now -- people get killed before your eyes, declared dead, buried, mourned, and RISE AGAIN to return to the show as a Character.

See Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. where one of the characters died in The Avengers and is now resurrected (cogent and heroic, easy to communicate with - but resurrected.)  It's a theme.  That which dies rises before you again.  No deadline is real. 

If Reincarnation is real -- we all may have some subliminal memories of the horrors of self-employment without pension benefits.  We may be subliminally "feeling" the rise of that Zombie we thought buried and rotted -- old age without pension.

You can see this in the drumbeat of "safety" everywhere. 

You can't do this because it's not safe.  You can't send soldiers to fight because it's not safe.  You can't send your kids to school without armed guards because it's not safe (tell that to the kid who rode a mule 5 miles to school in a blizzard!).  You can't carry a gun because it's not safe.  Now cars that drive themselves are coming - because driving is not safe. 

We are obsessed with safety (while being interested in Horror on TV)  -- perhaps because we seek security.

Perhaps we seek security because we remember the deaths we died over and over in poverty and pain, old and decrepit at age 45.  Lifetime after lifetime, we have clawed our way out of that horror, and now we're being sucked back into it.

The "show don't tell" for that vision, that subliminal feeling, is "Zombies."

The fascination with Zombies is bottomless, endless, a true "deer in the headlights" watching death approach and unable to move.

So, OK, then what will the NEXT TREND be?

Well, if Toffler was correct, half of us will be in "cottage industry" and "telecommuting" while the half of humanity that's incapable of mastering the mental agility necessary to do modern work will be supported by those who can work.  Those who work will be self-employed -- AND SECURE. 

With very small invested effort, we will be able to produce all humanity needs in food,  clothing, shelter, entertainment, and healthcare.  So everyone will feel secure.

What will entertain that population that feels no threat from any direction? 

What will fuel a thrust into space exploration?  What will pay for scientific advances to conquer space?  Why would anyone do that?

If we don't fear the past and we don't fear the future -- what will we fear?

Or Love?

Or Desire? 

Love, Desire, Curiosity -- maybe Fear, too --  are the story springboards that will work after the Zombies die off. 

Remember, now we are not only discovering planets around other stars, but also spotting asteroids that can wipe Earth out -- on inevitable collision course.  So once again, maybe it's Outer Space that will be feared more than the deeply buried Past.

Do you think this "karmic memory" concept is what is fueling the Zombie popularity?  Is that what's interesting about Zombies? 

If it's fear that's interesting now -- then is love next?  Love in Outer Space?  Love from Outer Space? 

There is a famous story about how Science and Fact swamp out morality in decision making -- titled The Cold Equations.  It was about low-orbit space travel.

Do you think the next famous story that creates a trend will be titled The Warm Equations - about how Emotion is the only valid basis for decision making?

Remember, above, we noted how there seems to be a dearth of decision-making-training in our schools. 

Do you suppose the primacy of Emotion in decision making will become the next scientific breakthrough?

Or maybe it'll be "superstition rules" -- as the airport runway over a cemetery racks up statistical anomalies in crashes?  The Bermuda Triangle of Airports?

What will be afraid of next? 

Or will the predictions in this article come true, and we'll live longer because of increasing health -- and not be old, debilitated and dependent on grandchildren to take care of us?
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/10/in_time_why_is_science_fiction_about_longer_lifespans_so_dystopian.html


Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Zombies as heroes? I don't think so.



It seems that the publishers are jumping on the band wagon of a new genre trend. Zombies. My response is "Ewwww" I just really don't get it. Now while I wouldn't mind reading a story about a couple fighting Zombies ala Resident Evil I'm pretty sure I don't want to know anything about loving a Zombie, even if they originally were the love of my life. Yet some publishers are asking for stories involving humans and zombies. The following is an editor request that's been going around the writer loops
"is looking for "love amongst the undead, between zombies
and the living, and (we hope) many stories about the hot, alpha male and
female zombie killers." She's interested in short stories from 1500 to 5000
words and novellas, 20,000 to 30,000 words."


Meanwhile Zombies are now the subject of research. Scientists say "If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively." Even researchers are jumping on the trend. Publishers Weekly also mentioned a book deal featuring a Zombie professor who is now trying to find the meaning of life while fighting off humans that are trying to kill him. Well yeah, I'm pretty sure I would want to kill something that wants to eat my brains.
So what do you think? Is there a future with Zombies? Do you find them sexy? Would you lay down your money for a Zombie love story? Do you think Zombies will take over the shelves in the same way vampires have? I'd love to know what you think of this new trend in publishing. And no, I am not even considering writing a Zombie love story. As I said early, ewwww.