Dead Man Walking

Last night The Walking Dead returned for its fifth season, and it literally came back with a bang. For a show with shaky beginnings, it has firmly cemented itself as one of the best shows on television. And perhaps to silence critics of the last half season who thought it moved too slow, the premiere held all of the excitement of season finale. Wisely, the show decided not to drag out the confrontation with the Terminus gang. It laid everything out in this episode, answered all of the mysteries, and put an end to the conflict...at least for now.

In addition to being the most exciting episode since the prison showdown, this one also had the distinction of being the most gruesome. Interestingly enough, the most despicably violent behavior was exhibited not by flesh eating zombies, but by other humans. That's not so surprising though, as the show has always centered the most heart wrenching tension and fear around other humans, which is one of the things that keeps it so compelling. 

If last night was any indication...we're in for another great season.

World War Z

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the World War Z novel, which I read in time to see the movie in theaters. I did see the movie a few days after finishing the book and wanted to compare the two. Before seeing it, I imagined it would be hard to adapt the book as was, since it wasn't really a standard plot format, but rather a series of fictional interviews. However, there was enough within those interviews to construct a story depicting the events. I think the movie did a fantastic job imagining those situations and a stunning job in bringing them to life on the screen.

The scenes where Philadelphia and Jerusalem fall are some of the most heart pounding action ever put to the film. The execution of the zombies, and the terror and panic they instill in others is so superbly captured, far better than what was described in the book. The novel continually stresses the way people are overrun by the hoards, it is the central aspect of the story's terror, and it is shown unbelievably well in the movie. And though it is done with CGI, it never looks like CGI, which is a rare gift.

Though my favorite part of the book, the analysis of the military action against the zombies, is absent from the movie, I thought the film did a clever job of creating a viable working solution to the plague. The other thing I loved about the movie was the pacing. Ignoring the current rules of cinema, the movie moved at breakneck speed for the first two thirds only to slow down dramatically for the last third. I've always been a fan of movies that follow this structure, A Clockwork Orange comes to mind. After initiating the audience in the chaos, throwing you into the mess, it slows down enough to allow you to digest the circumstances and be overwhelmed by the actuality of it. It was a long time after walking out the theater before I felt I'd left the world it created. One of the few instances where I think the movie might be slightly better than the book.

Fiction Friday (18)

Despite having this week's book for years, I didn't read it until this past month. There are several reasons for this. The first is that I received it around the time I was writing Zombie Blondes and I hate reading anything that's on-topic with whatever I'm currently working on. Then it sat on my shelf for a long time, lost in a mountain of books that I want to read. Finally, as the movie was approaching, I decided that I wanted to read World War Z before seeing the film. Given the option, that's always my preferred order of doing things. And now that I have, I'm free to visit the theater next week and watch the drama on the big screen. 

World War Z by Max Brooks
(Crown, 2006)

Less about zombies in any traditional sense, this riveting novel is more of a description of a global extinction event. In this case, the event happens to be the dead coming back to life. However, the reader sees very little of the flesh eating creatures. Instead, we hear from various survivors from all over the world who were involved in the conflict in diverse ways.

The narrative structure is perhaps the book's most intriguing element. Rather than conforming to the typical plot format of most novels, Max Brooks chose to tell the history of this conflict through a series of fictional interviews. Following the event more or less chronologically, the interviews tell the story of the initial Great Panic and the eventual offensive against the undead. The most fascinating part for me was the difficult steps governments were forced to take, illustrating a political drama of tremendous stakes. I also thought the discussion of tactics taken by the military in their counter-offensive were exceptionally well thought-out.

My one critique of the book is that the multitude of voices tended to sound too similar. The Russian soldier sounded like the American teenager, who sounded like the South African politician, who sounded like the Japanese refugee. From a writing point of view, I would have liked to see these characters own their voice a little more, but I understand that wasn't the point of the story. It didn't detract from my enjoyment while reading the book. It was only something that bothered me afterward, but honestly, I doubt most readers would particularly care. Really a great read.

Walk On

To say The Walking Dead has had it's up and downs over the first three season would be an understatement. There have been times when it has been infuriatingly misguided and painfully slow. Remember when they spent a whole season on a farm searching for a girl whose disappearance made no sense to begin with? However, I keep returning to it because the zombie apocalyptic world these characters inhabit is captivating. 

With that said, the final push of the second season seemed to be getting things on track. The pacing picked up. The characters were settling into their roles. It was time really get this thing going. Thankfully, this season has done just that. The explosive start has seen a progression of the story by expanding the world. It's also introduced multiple storylines and new characters to keep the drama ramped up. And with the spoilers given in the season long trailer, we know there is a lot more excitement to come. Finally The Walking Dead is morphing into the show I'd always hoped it would become from the beginning.

You Can't Get There From Here

I can't prove anything, but I'm pretty sure I was incepted this weekend.

During a dream, my mind was close to figuring out that it was a dream but the dream kept throwing obstacles in my way. It all started with a drive away from the house where I grew up. Now I was a little thrown off by all the added railroad tracks and slightly scorched appearance of the nearby houses, but my first real clue that something was wrong didn't come until I turned out of the development and found myself immediately on the interstate.

That's not where it's supposed to be, I thought as I now watched the car from high above.

My passengers, also observers, assure me that they've made some changes since last I drove.

Fine. I'll go with it.

The next thing I know, we are very far away in a very short time. I keep insisting to everyone else in the dream that it didn't take as long as it should to get there. Sitting in this strange house now, feeling a sense of conspiracy, I figure out that I can add up the times from the songs that played on my iPod during the drive and prove that it only took a few minutes.

My sister is there and she agrees to help. I'm reading off the track times and she's plugging them into the calculator on an iPad (I think this dream was sponsored by Apple, or incepted by Apple). As I'm reading the track times, out of nowhere a nurse steps into the room and calls my sister back to see the doctor.

Doctor? What the hell?

I take her iPad and plan to get to the bottom of this myself. Of course, there are about six million applications open and I can't find the calculator. Another roadblock. Forget it, I decide I'll do it by hand. But as I'm adding up times, all of the sudden all of these songs show up on the playlist that I don't remember hearing. I theorize that perhaps I fell asleep during the drive, but figure the passengers would have told me since I was driving.

I know something's up. Something is wrong. The inceptors must realize I'm close because in comes a little girl with a zombie doll to distract me from this train of thought once and for all. There's no telling what worthless information they stole from my brain after that.

Beware all...the dream stealers have awoken.

The Dead Are Walking

I've always seen the zombie threat as the fear of the inevitable. It's our fear of death manifested. The massive zombie attack then is the fear of the end of everything. Mass extinction. I believe the recent debate about fast zombies vs. traditional staggering ones is tied into this. In our modern society the inevitable always feels right around the corner, something that can strike at any moment and crash quickly upon us. It makes sense then that zombie lore would speed up as well.

The Walking Dead on AMC chooses to remain with the slow zombie model (In full disclosure, I have not read the comics, so I refer only to the television show). At first, this bothered me. To be honest, it still does a little. In today's world, the slow zombie doesn't feel like much of a threat. It's an inevitability that can be avoided the way we ignore high cholesterol or the dangers of smoking. These zombies are so easily killed that there's little tension there. The only threat comes from the massive hoard. Naturally, this is a symbol of how at times the inevitable weighs heavier on us than at other times. But still, where's the immediacy?

Much like the zombies in the show, I felt the series got off to a very slow start. I was hardly impressed with the first episode and barely impressed by the second. I felt the characters were all formulaic television tropes and that the story felt culled from a million other stories. But there was always enough to keep me coming back. In the end, I feel as though I was rewarded.

Over the last four episodes, the characters found themselves. The story took some risks. And the show evolved from a show about zombies to a show about survivors. The last two episodes were truly gripping and compelling and seem worthy of all the praise being heaped upon this show.

I have to admit, I'm going to miss it until it comes back. I still have some big questions about the premise though, most pressing: Why in Hell would you keep going back into the city?

Zombies on the Brain

The tricky thing about telling a Zombie Apocalypse story is that essentially the plot is always the same. Zombies arrive on the scene by one cause or another, get hungry, and devour the living. That's it. So the real story becomes about the survival of the fortunate few...or perhaps unfortunate depending on the tale the writer wishes to tell.

Given that the tale has been told many times, the job of the writer is to have an interesting hook to the survivor's situation. In Zombieland, the Zombie Apocalypse becomes a backdrop for a buddy story. It focused on a specific aspect of surviving the zombies...who you partner with. In the brilliant British mini-series Dead Set, the hook is the fantastic setting for the zombie outbreak.

The show takes place on the set of reality series where the contestants are secluded in the Big Brother house. They remain oblivious as the people outside get brutally slaughtered until one of the production crew manages to find safety inside and reveal what's going on. Seeing these people slowly come to grips is wonderfully done. We see each of them drop their 'reality tv persona' and begin to deal with the horror that surrounds them. In a incredibly bleak and absolutely terrorizing conclusion, the show manages to become one of the rare emotionally charged horror films that also leaves the viewer with powerful questions about our society.

This is definitely one of the best zombie related things I've seen. Though I must warn you, it's absolutely horrifying...but in a good way. Just be prepared, I was too scared to enter my basement for an entire day. I just hope The Walking Dead lives up to this. More to come on that show after a few episodes.

Cyber Traveling

Over the past couple of weeks, I've done a few guest posts and interviews here and there. Some of them have been quite fun and I thought I'd share the links in case anyone feels like adventuring into unknown blogs this weekend. Enjoy.

My Advice to Alice as She Wanders Wereland: This is piece I did for vvB32 Reads, one of the most creative blogs out there in my opinion which mixes reviews, book information, and online storytelling. One such theme was werewolves and cleverly putting Alice in Wereland. I wrote a little verse in the Cheshire Cat style, giving Alice a warning of her predicament. I also created a piece of art for it, also found in the post.

My Commentary of Zombies: For the fabulous review site Paperback Dolls, they asked me to write a little piece about my take on modern zombies. Here my English Literature degree pays off as I can talk topic with the best of them.

BONUS: Here's their review of Zombie Blondes.

A New Interview Where I Discuss Pure Sunshine and Perfect World: The blog Actin' Up With Books has decided to do a series of interviews with PUSH authors and I'm honored to be the first one. In this interview I discuss my road to publication and some of my experiences from when I was a writer just starting to discover myself as an author.

Dreaming of the Coming Apocalypse

Perhaps it's just my pessimistic nature, or maybe it has something to do with growing up under the leadership of an Apocalyptic Reagan, but for some reason I've always held this belief that I would be alive to see the end of our civilization - and unfortunately, survive it. My dreams this weekend have done nothing to quell those instincts.

I can vividly remember my first Post-Apocalyptic dream from my early adolescence. A tattered movie screen hung in front of a rust desert that was once a city, where charred people fought over the last scrap of food. My attempt to write that dream down was one of my first determined efforts at writing. In fact, images from that dream have shown up in several of my books.

Many other such dreams have followed since that first one. I average a few end-of-the-world dreams per year. However, in the last month or so, I'm setting a new record. I've had at least five, and two this very weekend (on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, no less...hmmmm). These recent dreams have been a little different in that they are clearly of the Zombie Apocalypse variety of fighting off the mindless hoards. Though I fully admit some in the past year have had clear indicators such as hours spent playing a certain video game or watching a certain movie, this weekend had no such direct indicators.

Standard dream interpretation suggests these type of dreams are anxiety driven by a fear of a major shift in you beliefs or situation. But mine are a little different in that I'm always sure of survival. I prefer to stick with idea of them being prophetic. In which case, it may be time to stock up on the canned goods and weapons. The zombies are coming folks. In fact, they may already be among us (ummm...shameless Zombies Blondes plug, because even in end times I need to sell some books).

Oh, a little tidbit from the last dream...for some reason, Beverly Hills and Haight District will be spared. So pack your bags folks, the party is in California!