A World On Fire – A Zombie Blog » Books and Short Stories
Eric Brown Intervews Tony Faville – Author of “Kings of the Dead”
Take a break from blogging and the whole world changes in but a blink. Last fall, I remember listening to a reading from Tony Faville’s self published book, “Kings of the Dead”. Six months later, it seems that Tony got his book picked up by Permuted Press and went on sale last week. Where the hell have I been? Tony’s a pretty awesome guy. I discovered him when I was trolling through Twitter back in the day and decided to check out who George Romero followed. Turns out that Tony was at the top of his list, so I was like, Hell Bells, I’ll follow him too. A little detour – I’m not a big fan of Twitter. It tends to get awfully … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books and Short Stories
The Enemy by Charlie Higson
Imagine if you will, that a new kind of disease has spread over the countryside, causing sufferers to break out in boils and lesions before ultimately destroying any higher thought processes. There is is no cure for it and in a short amount of time, a once functioning society crashes to the rubble. Where there was once ample food, there are now roving packs of infected men and women, looking to eat anything they can get their hands on. Alive or dead. Now imagine that some people did manage to survive the plague except these aren’t ordinary people. These are children, scrambling between the ruins of a dead society in hopes of avoiding the adults. Thus we have the premise of Charlie Higson’s … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books and Short Stories
Night of the Living Trekkies
Last February, a woman from Quirk Books contacted me in hopes that I would do a review of the soon to be released book, Dawn of the Dreadfuls. It sounded like a fun assignment and when I received my review copy, I immediately started reading it. Problem was … I couldn’t finish it. I was a good fifty pages into the book when I noticed I kept checking my pages and soon found myself making reading goals … “gotta make it to page 115 tonight”. Ultimately, I found myself avoiding the book like an unwelcome guest at party who, at the end of the night, doesn’t want to go home. The book, in a word, was bad. While it was technically well written, the plot, the characters, the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books and Short Stories
Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide – Chopper Chicks in Zombietown
If you are looking to get you hands on a good zombie movie, but you don’t know what to see, do yourself a favor and pick yourself up a copy of Glenn Kay’s excellent book, Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide. In it, Glenn covers the wide expanse of zombie movies starting with the genre’s roots back with White Zombie and continues to review zombie movies until the book’s publication (2008). Glenn pretty much covers everything even remotely zombie related such as movies that aren’t even technically “zombie movies” but might contain walking dead people. Well, thumbing through the book, I pulled up a review of a classic that I missed while in highschool. Had I known about this tour-de-force, I imagine I would be quoting … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books and Short Stories, Movie Reviews
Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide – Dead Heat (and Movie Ratings)
Thumbing through Glenn Kay’s awesome book, Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide I found a relatively obscure zombie film starring none other than Joe Piscopo with Vincent Price being noted as a supporting actor. My god … did I find the white whale of cheese movies? Titled, Dead Heat, this movie sounds about as good as you can imagine it to be. Reading the blurb on it, Kay mentions how the MPAA forced the creators of the film to trim back some of the more obnoxious special effects else the movie would earn itself an X rating. Having recently watched Angels & Demons – a PG-13 film which features an assassin cutting open an investigators throat, a hanging priest being burned alive, and several officers being shot in … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books and Short Stories, Movies (offline and online)
Conan the Barbarian and Zombies
In our current age when films seem to be solely composed of reboots, remakes, and re-imaginings, it really should come to no surprise that the film Conan the Barbarian is being remade and set for release next year. Some might curse to the high heavens because the original Conan was a pretty good fantasy film. While the film didn’t so much capture the Conan’s character, it did manage to show the spirit of Robert Howard’s stories. The film was the break-out role for Arnold Schwarzenegger. In it, he did a good job playing the wandering barbarian through several adventures as he attempts to avenge the death of his people. The follow-up film, Conan the Destroyer, became more of a comic book adventure. Instead … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books and Short Stories
Paul is Undead
There’s certainly something funny about zombies. It can’t be denied. Watching a zombie film on its own without any sound, you might first start laughing before you realize that you were supposed to feel horrified. So, it’s no surprise that zombie movies often devolve into pretty good comedies. That said, I’m not a big fan of zombie comedies. It feels like an easy laugh for me like putting a guy in a dress so when a new zombie comedy surfaces, it’s gotta do a lot to sell me on it. Alas, this project does not. Titled Paul is Undead, this book follows the Beatles as if the band started a zombie apocalypse. I really can’t explain it any further but here’s a little blurb … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books and Short Stories, Humor
Walking Dead – A Zombie Short Story
With the first draft of A World on Fire complete, I thought I’d put it away for a little bit so I could clear my head. The very next day, feeling a little disorientated about not having the draft in front of me, I opened it up and checked out the first chapter. Three hours later, I realized I had started on draft number two. It will still be some time before the final version of the book is out. I’ll pretty much keep rewriting until I don’t feel the need to vomit when reading it. My original goal was to complete it by June of 2010 but that’s pure fantasy at this point. If I finish the second draft by then, I’d consider … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books and Short Stories
Dawn of the Dreadfuls Trailer
Tiffany, over at Quirk Books, just sent me an email, letting me know that Quirk has just released a trailer from the upcoming book, Dawn of the Dreadfuls. Mind you, it’s really called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls, but I feel like it’s sort of like saying Star Wars: The Empires Strikes Back. About the trailer … it looks fabulous. If this were a real movie instead of book trailer, I would be reserving my ticket right now. As it stands, this two minute clip gives you a brief glimpse of horrors of lurking beneath the surface in this prequel. Which is my problem with it. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books and Short Stories
Live Long and Eat Brains
Our friends and neighbors over at Quirk books are at it again with an upcoming zombie book that attempts to fuse the Star Trek universe with our flesh eating undead friends. Aptly titled, Night of the Living Trekkies, the book follows a group of Star Trek fans who happen to get caught in a zombie apocalypse created by mad alien scientists. The story is pitched as a Galaxy Quest meets Dawn of the Dead mashup with plenty of Star Trek references to make your head spin. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books and Short Stories
The Dragon Factory Release Party Tonight
If you happen to live near eastern Pennsylvania and feel like meeting a multiple Bram Stoker winner, zombie writer, and International Hall of Fame inductee for excellence in Shinowara-ryu Jujutsu, then swing on over to The Doylestown Bookshop where Jonathan Mayberry is releasing his latest book, The Dragon Factory. Hot on the heels of The Wolfman’s novelization, Jonathan looks to be a very busy writer. As for The The Dragon Factory itself, here’s the inside scoop: … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books and Short Stories
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
If you were a fan of the breakout novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith, you should be happy to know that this week marks a new release for the author. That being, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Unlike his past work which was the literary equivalent of the movie Kung Pow: Enter the Fist, this work is entirely original. I gotta say, Grahame-Smith is a rather astute marketer and part of me wonders if it will show in his work. Check out how he came to conceive of this book: … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books and Short Stories
Deadfall by Shaun Jeffrey Available for Preorder
Shaun Jefferey, author of the upcoming zombie book titled Deadfall, wrote to me today to let everyone know that the book is now available for preorder over at Amazon. Hopefully I’ll be able to get my mitts on a copy for a review, but until then, Shaun has provided three sample chapters to whet the appetite. Check it out! What’s the book about? Here’s the description: … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books and Short Stories
The New Dead
Some days I think I should reserve a permanent space on my site for the zombie reporters over at the Gawker network. It’s not that they are better than other bloggers out there, it’s just that they tend to be first in line to get some major undead skinny. And the skinny is never skinny. It’s always fat, smeared in mashed brain and congealed blood. In a word … tasty! Well, if you like your dead pressed between the pages of a good book, you might want to check out the new anthology, The New Dead. Here’s what the futuristic minded folks over at io9 have to say about it: … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books and Short Stories
J. P. Moore’s Toothless Finds a Publisher
Some awesome news hit the twittersphere today. Zombie author J.P. Moore just landed a publishing deal with Dragon Moon Press for his book Toothless. Toothless is unique insomuch that after it was completed, he produced a podcast version of it for free download. Evidently, someone from Dragon Moon Press discovered the book and next thing you know, the deal was done. I gotta say as a writer and soon to be podcaster, I find this hugely inspirational. It’s great to see that the internet provides a ladder over the walled garden of the publishing industry. Ten years ago, most publishers wouldn’t look at your work without an agent. These days, with the distance between an author and his or her audience being only a mouse … Read entire article »
Filed under: Books and Short Stories