First, let me get the needless self-aggrandizing promotional portion of this guest blog thingy out of the way: I write zombie tales. Not just any zombie tales, but extreme zombie tales. How extreme? You be the judge (like how I turned that around on you, forcing you to purchase several copies of my releases just to find out?) … We’ll get to the purchase links at the end, so bear with me…
Anyway, back to our thought processes…
Damn you, Anne Rice. Damn you all to Hell.
Remember when you were a kid and vampires were menacing, deadly and scared the crap out of you? Salem’s Lot scary. Nosferatu freak-you-out. Hammer Films bloodsuckers.
My kids are in their teens and what do they have to look up to? Twilight crying, pretty vampires. True Blood sex and, well, pretty vampires. They’ve taken the bite (damn, another pun) out of our fanged foes and made them into slobbering immortals who wish they were human again so they could see the sunset and order a pizza and watch a day game at
Not zombies. What’s the big argument these days? Not about who is the prettiest, sexiest zombie around, which actor can sell a movie on his looks alone and which flavor of the week sexy starlet gets to be his love interest… nope, we argue incessantly about one thing and one thing only.
Slow versus fast.
My choice? Who cares, as long as zombies don’t start crying and wishing they were still alive and seeing their kids in the school play.
Of course, you have great films like “Shaun of the Dead”, which pokes fun at the zombie genre, or horrible movies like “Wanted: Undead or Alive” which, well, was just awful… where was I?
Even though there are different moves to the left or the right, the zombie genre is pretty specific. One of my favorite zombie reads has to be “The Rising” byBrian Keene, and it has a little twist to the baddies in it. There are a couple of great extreme zombie novellas out by Armand Rosamilia, namely “Highway ToHell” and “Dying Days”, that every zombie fan needs to read (sorry, I swore it was coming at the end but I can’t help myself). Peruse Amazon, Lulu or SmashWords or the local bookstore for zombie books and you’ll find such a plethora or great reads it will make your head spin. My Kindle is filled (over 100 and counting) with zombie stories, and I wish I had time to read them all. Maybe someday. Don’t even get me started on the great anthologies out there. “The New Dead”… “History Is Dead”… “The Undead: Zombie Anthology”… “The LivingDead”… “Dead Set: A Zombie Anthology”… just search Amazon for them…
Authors like Joe McKinney, Max Brooks, Mark Clodi, Kim Paffenroth, J.L. Bourne, Jonathan Maberry, Eric S. Brown… should I go on? So many great names have written powerful zombie books or contributed to anthologies. Despite using humor, ultra-violence, or any other unique trait to differentiate their tales from the rest, the only characters crying like babies are usually the people about to get bitten and torn apart.
I did a completely scientific experiment today. I asked ten guys and ten gals which they liked better, zombies or vampires. The result? All ten guys chose zombies, and eight of ten gals chose vampires. The two gals who chose zombies over vampires are obviously really, really cool in my book. Am I trying to say that chicks dig vampires and dudes like zombies? Maybe. I think today’s vampire is too soft, too gorgeous, too prone to Shakespearian soliloquy about the human female in their un-life. Zombie prose?
Br---aaa---iii----nnnn----ssss…
That I’ll keep reading.
3 comments:
Hmm. So basically what it comes down to, is that guys like no-thinkers while girls tend to go more for matters, or monsters, of the heart. It's the same old brains versus heart debate, this time manifesting itself in monstrous form.
Awesome post!
Ahem, Jeffrey. I would like to point out that I am FEMALE. LOL I love Armand's article as well. Glad he agreed to write something for me.
Yeah, the whole angst vampire thing sucks. I am not a fan.
Shaun of the Dead rocks, though! And so does Max Brooks and Jonathan Maberry. *grins*
I'm a guy, and not in general a big zombie fan. A zombie attacks you. A brainless, head-on charge. With your favorite tool, be it a shotgun, the good old .45 Colt, a baseball bat, a machete, whatever, you do it in. End of conflict. A vampire or werewolf on the other hand, those are dangerous. That said, I really like Armand's somewhat twisted approach to vampire stories and his are some of the few I read. As for vampire movies, I find most boring, but have watched Night of the Living Dead and Zombieland more times than I can recall, and will probably watch them many more. Shaun of the Dead isn't half bad either. For print, though, I'll stick with Armand's work.
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