Xombierama

2012-01-06T14:13:00.003-05:00

Big News: W.G. Marshall's ENORMITY is due out in February, and I predict it's gonna be massive! Check out the advance buzz:

"Hits you like a laser bomb of pulp action. A page-turner that rips across the genres and leaves you gasping for more." -- Mario Acevedo, author of Werewolf Smackdown and The Nymphos of Rocky Flats

"Moves like a freight train...full of memorable characters, Enormity is a wild, genre-bending adventure!" -- Nate Kenyon, award-winning author of Sparrow Rock and Diablo: The Last Horadrim

"Instead of meekly evoking the corny goodness of creaky kaiju eiga flicks, Marshall's tragically hilarious debut pushes an amazing colossal scenario far too insane for Toho or Michael Bay, and schools us all in the lost art of making monsters walk. THIS ONE WILL BURY YOU." -- Cody Goodfellow, author of Radiant Dawn, Ravenous Dusk, and All-Monster Action

2011-11-26T16:14:00.001-05:00

MAD SKILLS reviewed at Bitten By Books!

Here's the link:

http://www.bittenbybooks.com/39243/mad-skills-by-walter-greatshell/

2011-11-26T15:45:00.002-05:00

Review of XOMBIES: APOCALYPSO on Fresh Fiction!

Here's the link:

http://freshfiction.com/review.php?id=31398

2011-10-04T19:28:00.003-04:00

Spanish edition of Xombies--cool!

Weird--I just found out my first foreign edition is being released next week: the Spanish translation of my first published novel, Xombies (which was reissued in 2008 as Xombies: Apocalypse Blues).

The Spanish title is: Agente X - Xombis. I love that.

What's strange is that I had no idea this book was coming out at all. I remember being contacted by two different Spanish publishers a couple of years ago, and forwarding their emails to my editor at Penguin. Having lived in Spain, I was really excited to think my book might soon be on the shelves of my favorite bookstores in Madrid. But I never heard anything more, and sadly assumed that no deal had been reached.

I guess I was wrong!

The best thing about it is, now I have two foreign editions: Agente X - Xombis, and the upcoming German translation of Mad Skills, due out next June, which I think is going to be called Gefangen in Harmony. Which basically means "Trapped in Harmony." I hope they're both monster hits, so I can justify making a publicity tour of Europe. Also so my car doesn't get repossessed.

2011-08-18T08:35:00.005-04:00

First, I must apologize for attributing the play Same Time Next Year to Neil Simon in my previous blog entry. Someone kindly pointed out to me that the author is in fact Bernard Slade. It's this kind of thing that makes one doubt everything one knows--I was so sure it was Neil Simon that I would have bet money on it.

Anyway, time for SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON REPORT, PART II!

A little late, I know, I know, but I've been busy...

So my friends and I left the Con that first evening and went to our usual dining hole, Dick's Last Resort, where they throw things at you and make you wear embarrassing paper hats. Then we headed back to our motel for a swim in the possibly-toxic but delightful little pool.

Next morning, Thursday, I got up at 5 am and caught a bus down to the docks at Shelter Island, where I bought a ticket on one of the half-day fishing boats leaving at 6:30. I did this the last time I was in San Diego too, and it was such a nice (and fairly cheap) experience that I swore to do it again. And I'm glad I did--there's nothing better than having a leisurely breakfast of bacon and eggs as the boat loads up on live bait (amid gulls, pelicans, and yelping sea lions), then chugs out of the harbor to the fishing grounds. One of the interesting things this time was that we passed a nuclear submarine entering the harbor, protected by little inflatable patrol boats with big machine-guns.

Another interesting thing was that there was a party of Amish tourists on my boat. I mean really Amish, wearing the full getup. I never knew the Amish went on vacation! One of them even won the pot for the biggest fish. I know, because I had the second biggest fish--damn it! Of course I had to give all my fish away, as usual, since I had no place to keep them. Maybe next time I'll get a motel room with a kitchenette, and make fish tacos.

The pleasant cruise ended and I returned to the motel for a quick shower and swim, then another afternoon wandering the jammed aisles of the Con.

The next day, Friday, I was a little nervous because that afternoon I would have to sit on a panel and talk about "Apocalyptic Fiction." The last panel I was on at Comic-Con was weirdly hostile, with me being the sole defender of "fast zombies" against the likes of Max Brooks and Seth Graeme-Smith. And I don't even care if zombies are fast or slow! How is this even an issue? Anyway, so I was slightly nervous, but the panel went fine. In fact, it was a lot of fun, because it wasn't just zombie authors, but a whole range of post-apocalyptic concepts, including Robopocalypse. It was a big turnout, my buddies Dave and Chris were in the audience to lend moral support, I babbled at length about my books, and afterward I had a chance to chat with the other authors during the book-signing--they were all really nice. Then Chris and I went to the Penguin cocktail party, where we mingled with the hoi polloi and scarfed down free snacks. Amber Benson was there! I was on a panel with Amber a couple of years back, so it was nice to see her again. I'm sure she has no idea who I am.

Saturday was kind of a blur. I think we went to see Captain America, but I had jet lag and slept through most of it. Later at the Con I met the actor Billy Zane and told him I thought he should play the Toecutter in a remake of Mad Max. He was polite in the way that one is when talking to dangerous lunatics.

Finally it was Sunday. I packed my things and took the trolley as close to the airport as it would go, then hiked the rest of the way. It was a beautiful day for a walk. I stopped at Jack-In-The-Box for lunch--the first time I had eaten there since I lived in California thirty years ago. It was exactly the same as I remembered. Then I got on the plane back to Providence.

2011-07-26T05:52:00.003-04:00

COMIC-CON 2011 REPORT:

Phew. What a week.

It didn't start well, the flight to California being unusually grueling. I'm not a small guy, so it's rough when I wind up crushed between two people...one of whom is even bigger than me. For seven hours.

So I arrived in San Diego feeling less than fresh. Fortunately, the weather was cool and almost Autumn-like, a major relief from the heatwave afflicting the rest of the country. I met up with my friend Dave Ray at the airport, and we took a cab to our cheap (but cozy) hotel in San Diego's Old Town district. The hotel is really nice except for little signs everywhere warning that the property is contaminated with toxic waste. We immediately went for a swim in the pool. Ahhh--paradise.

After a delightful swim under the palms, we found our friend Chris and caught a trolley to the Con. It was late in the day, but we only wanted to get our badges and have a quick look around.

It was just as mammoth as usual--a vast temple of geekdom. The highlight for me was the DeLorean from Back to the Future, looking exactly as it did in the movie. Wait--then I found a second DeLorean, this time the retrofitted one from Back to the Future III! The exhibit even had Doc Brown's remote-control gadget, the stolen box of plutonium, and the JVC Handicam that Marty used to record Doc's time-travel experiment. Cool.

I have very fond feelings for Back to the Future. The first time I saw the movie was when my wife and I were on a road trip to Canada, and we stopped in this tiny little town by Lake Ontario. We had been driving all day, and were feeling tired and a bit lost, wondering when we'd find a motel in the endless empty prairies.

All of a sudden there was a sign for this town, so we took the exit and found ourselves in a quaint little Canadian burg that looked like a relic from the '50s. The motel there was also quaint, in the best way--a cluster of tree-shaded private bungalows with no TVs. There was a restaurant on the grounds, but we were annoyed to find that the only way to get a meal there was to buy a ticket to the evening's dinner theater--a performance of Neil Simon's Same Time Next Year.

God. We were worn out and just wanted to eat and go to bed; last thing we needed was to sit through some local-yokel stage production. But it was cheap, we were starved, and the dinner on offer was prime rib. We bought the tickets.

It was fantastic.

I mean everything about it: the food, the acting, the musical accompaniment. It was the best Neil Simon play I've ever seen, and that includes the movie versions. Afterwards, my wife and I went back to our bungalow with a sense of stunned gratitude for having lucked into the experience.

The next day, Sunday, we went for a walk along the bleak, gray lake shore, and then through the deserted village. On the main street there was an old-timey movie theater showing Back to the Future. I had been avoiding this movie since it came out a few months earlier because I thought the poster looked stupid--obviously it was some kind of post-Spielberg '80s crap like Weird Science. But we had nothing else to do, so we said what the hell and bought tickets to the matinee.

The inside of the auditorium was a little unusual: along the walls was a miniature facade of the town, like a stage backdrop, and the ceiling was painted to look like a night sky, complete with little lights for stars. We took seats down front. When the lights dimmed, the Canadian national anthem started playing, and my wife nudged me to turn around. Everybody in the theater was standing at attention--everybody but us. Oops. We jumped to our feet, really feeling like we had stumbled into a time warp to the '50s.

Then the movie began.

Well, of course, it was great. We loved it. It's a wonderful movie under any circumstances, but to see it in this strange little Canadian town, purely by accident and with the lowest of expectations...it was one of the highlights of my moviegoing life. More than that, it was like a confirmation that my wife and I were on the right track; we weren't just doomed dreamers seeking something that didn't exist. There was magic to be found, and over the coming years we would keep finding it.

So that's what Back to the Future means to me.

2011-07-19T11:19:00.002-04:00

Hey! I just noticed that the fake reviews of my books (discussed in my previous blog entry below) have been deleted from Amazon. I don't know who to thank for this, but I appreciate it.

Man, what a crazy week this has been. I got stranded in the middle of nowhere when my car's battery melted down, causing the electrical system to become demonically possessed. I can't wait to hear how much the repair is going to cost. I got a thousand mosquito bites waiting in the swamp for a tow truck, there's a heat wave going on, and I have no air conditioning in my house. On the plus side, I'm going to Comic-Con this week, and I have a new book deal in the works. So I'm basically sweaty, itchy, and broke...yet extremely happy.

2011-06-07T06:07:00.006-04:00

I don't mind a bad review. I hate to disappoint any reader, but sometimes a hostile rant can make the case for a book even better than the most glowing rave. My book Mad Skills has collected some of both on Amazon, and I consider the rants to be a total validation of the necessity of my work. Crackpots hate all the best books! In fact, one would be hard-pressed to find a literary classic that has not offended lots of crackpots. The problem is when crackpots don't want to be seen as crackpots, and start disguising themselves as reasonable people.

Or even book reviewers.

I've recently gotten two negative reviews from an organization calling itself the San Francisco Book Review (not to be confused with the San Francisco Review of Books, which is legit). San Francisco Book Review, really? Sounds like just the kind of urban, progressive, intelligent forum I'd love to have review my work! So I was a bit surprised when their reviewer, Jamais Jochim, smeared Mad Skills.

What bothered me was not the sloppy, one-star Amazon review, but the fact that the reviewer attacked my book as being both genre trash and anti-mainstream. I'm sorry, what? Since Mad Skills uses genre tropes to critique the shallowness of popular culture, Mr. Jochim's "review" was more than a bit disingenuous. Then he hit my book Xombies: Apocalypso with another self-contradictory review, saying that it was "not a bad book," yet slamming it with two stars and suggesting that anyone with a brain should avoid it.

Okay, something was weird here. For one thing, who hates a book and then immediately goes and reads another book by the same author? You'd have to be a masochist...or have an agenda.

Out of curiosity, I Googled Jamais Jochim, and out popped an alternate name: Tregory Sullivan. I think Tregory must also be fake, but what really caught my attention was what "Jamais Jochim" had written on The Huffington Post. Not only was he making statements in favor of teaching Creationism in schools, he also argued that the Catholic Church was being treated unfairly in the wake of its pedophile priest scandals.

Well. No wonder this guy hates my books. He's pure evil!

But that got me thinking. What the hell kind of an organization wants this guy reviewing books for them? San Francisco Book Review my ass!

And of course when I Googled that organization, I quickly discovered that it has little or no real connection to San Francisco, but is a satellite of The Sacramento Book Review, which in turn belongs to a company called 1776 Productions.

Jesus, if that doesn't sound like some kind of secret right-wing umbrella organization, I don't know what does. Looks like they're expanding their book reviews to Portland next, presumably to make Oregon safe from subversive literature like mine. Sounds nutty, I agree, but here's the capper: The company was cofounded by a guy who did jail time for telemarketing fraud!

I guess Skeevy White-Collar Criminal Book Review wasn't as snappy.

What's funny is that my books are about these kinds of crazy conspiracies. I just always thought I was writing fiction!

2011-04-15T06:00:00.002-04:00

Mad Skills chosen as Top Pick (5 stars) on Night Owl Reviews!

Here's the link:

http://www.nightowlscifi.com/nor/Reviews/Dawncolclasure-reviews-Mad-Skills-by-Walter-Greatshell.aspx

2011-04-08T11:18:00.002-04:00

New review of XOMBIES: APOCALYPSO!:

"Xombies: Apocalypso by Walter Greatshell begins after the world has already been infected by Agent X – killing and resurrecting almost the entire human race. The scientist Uri Miska created the formula in a desperate effort to save mankind from an impending world-wide disaster. Former humans, resurrected as xombies, can survive virtually anything. Death holds no terror for the undead.

The story begins with the most apt quote imaginable – “Comedy is not pretty.” This observation is confirmed repeatedly throughout the novel – a story where the undead pine for their lost humanity, a blue Elvis performs onstage, and the salvation of the world just might depend on a Beatles cover band.

As the third novel in the Xombies trilogy, Apocalypso follows the exploits of the Xombies and humans alike. Lulu Pangloss guides her fellow xombies in their neverending quest to “save” the living. Meanwhile, surviving humans fight a holy war against each other. The ultimate goal of both sides is to reach Xanadu – a haven of survivors which claims to have formed a society where humans and xombies can live side by side.

The superhuman strength, invulnerability, and fearlessness of Lulu and her gang seem almost enviable. However, they continually struggle to regain the semblance of their former humanity, even as they try to ‘save’ the humans from themselves. Immortality, it seems, is not all it’s cracked up to be.

At one point they reclaim an empty town, transforming it into a weird version of a 50′s utopia modeled on Archie comics and 50′s sitcoms. The ludicrous situation of xombies attending High School provides plenty of laughs, gore, and surprisingly, pity.

From the opposite side we follow the surviving humans, who struggle against each other as well as the undead. Their own campaign to save mankind from God’s wrath mirrors the xombie’s method of salvation – with less than gentle methods.

Though Apocalypso is the third book in the series, the author does a wonderful job of integrating the backstory into the plot. Even readers new to the trilogy will be pulled along by the adventure and its characters. There’s no need to read the previous books to understand what’s happening; however, once you’ve read this book you’ll almost certainly want more.

Walter Greatshell’s novel delivers a smart, satisfying read to fans of the undead apocalypse. If you’ve read the previous novels, you shouldn’t be disappointed; and if you haven’t, this one stands on its own.

Xombies: Apocalypso [Paperback] is available from ACE."

--Catherine Russell

http://www.ganymeder.com

FunctionalNerds.com

2011-03-09T18:48:00.000-05:00

I’m an old-school Star Wars fan. I’m talking about the original movie now, before the sequels and prequels, and even before it was called Episode IV: A New Hope.

When Star Wars came out in 1977, it changed my life. My best friend had seen it on opening day and told me it was great, but nothing could have prepared me for the full 70mm, Dolby experience. It didn’t hurt that I lived near Hollywood and was lucky enough to see it in the perfect conditions of Grauman’s Chinese Theater. I remember there wasn’t even a big line for the matinee—the movie hadn’t exploded yet.

After that, I saw it at least forty more times, usually in less ideal mall cinemas, but never tired of it. That movie was my escape from the hell of junior high.

When The Empire Strikes Back came out in 1980, some friends and I cut school to see it on opening day. We joined a massive crowd at L.A.’s Century City, some of whom had camped out all night—it was like a rock concert. We waited in line for hours, but it was worth it to share the excitement in that theater when the lights went down.

But it’s a strange thing. The movie didn’t thrill me…not the way I hoped it would. And after the initial cheers, the rest of the crowd was oddly subdued as well. I know Empire is regarded as maybe the best Star Wars movie, but for me it was a bit of a letdown. There were great scenes, some things I really liked, but nothing that blew my mind the way the original film had. Maybe I just didn’t need it as badly.

By the time Return of the Jedi (Star Wars Episode VI) came out, forget it. I don’t even remember where I saw it. I do remember I had very clear expectations: The Rebel Alliance had to finally confront the Emperor at his lair, which would no doubt be some fantastic space fortress that would make the Death Star look like a wind-up toy.

I remembered a line in the first film about the Emperor dissolving the Imperial Senate, so I imagined him living all alone in some spooky deserted castle, like Charles Foster Kane in his Xanadu—maybe a castle sprouting like a tumor out of a huge asteroid, surrounded by belts of space-docks that are the shipyards of Imperial Fleet. The Rebels would know they can’t defeat the Emperor’s home base in all-out frontal assault, but if they can destroy Vader’s flagship in a sneak attack, the diversion might be enough to smuggle a small team in to assassinate the Emperor. A team led by Luke Skywalker.

At great cost, the rebels destroy Vader’s ship—it looks like the Dark Lord is dead. Now Luke has the Emperor cornered. But wait! A red lightsaber flashes in the shadows—Darth Vader is still alive…and Luke must fight him to the death. Etcetera etcetera.

That was my hope, anyway.

Needless to say, I was less than delighted by the actual film, with its redundant Death Star and annoyingly cuddly Ewoks. Make it a Wookiee planet, for Christ’s sake! Then you not only get to develop Chewbacca’s backstory, you also make it halfway plausible that they can defeat armored stormtroopers. Aw, what’s the use? What’s done is done.

But there’s one thing I can’t stop thinking about.

Before hiring Richard Marquand to direct Return of the Jedi, George Lucas approached David Lynch to do it.

Whoa.

Crazy idea…or maybe not. After all, at that point David Lynch was hot off his Oscar-winning adaptation of The Elephant Man, so he wasn’t exactly the hardcore space cadet we now know and love. Before Elephant Man, Lynch’s only other feature film was the little-seen cult object, Eraserhead. But anyone who had seen Eraserhead, as George Lucas must have, would know this guy was a curious choice for the Star Wars franchise.

Then again Lucas was once a bit of a weirdo himself, having dabbled in psychotronic cinema with THX-1138. In fact, there were already incongruous nightmare elements in both previous Star Wars films, such as the needle-bearing torture droid, the gory skeletons of Luke’s aunt and uncle, the spurting guts of the Tauntaun (into which Han Solo shoves Luke’s body), the phallic Moby Dick that almost swallows the Millenium Falcon, or Luke’s dream of chopping off Vader’s head and seeing his own face under the mask.

It was these sorts of grotesque images that made Star Wars more than just kiddy crap, and Lucas wanted plenty of them in Return of the Jedi. How else to explain making Princess Leia a sex-slave to a giant slug? Or having men be swallowed whole by a monster vagina in the desert? The problem with Jedi was not a lack of interestingly perverse ideas, it was a lack of style, and Lucas knew that David Lynch was a master of style.

Knowing what we do now about David Lynch’s subsequent career, we can imagine the Episode VI he might have made:

Luke having visions of stars swirling like smoke, with Vader’s helmet floating like a planet in space and repeating “I am your father”; Ben Kenobi in front of a red velvet curtain, intoning, “It is happening again,” and Yoda talking backwards; Jabba the Hutt as a repulsive, diseased fat guy under buzzing, flickering fluorescent lights, surrounded by vile sycophants, one of whom is singing a Roy Orbison song; Luke forced to watch as Leia is molested, and both of them later succumbing to forbidden desire when she begs him to hit her; the Emperor taking hits of Sith gas and screaming, “Don’t you fuckin’ look at me!”

It would have been awesome.

But George Lucas would have never allowed it to be Lynch’s movie; Lynch knew that. So he turned Lucas down.

David Lynch had his own agenda, and it had nothing to do with being a cog in somebody else’s empire. If he was going to make an epic science fiction film, he was going to do it his way, without compromising his artistic vision for some megalomaniacal producer.

So David Lynch went to make Dune for Dino De Laurentiis. Ouch.

2011-02-24T22:47:00.002-05:00

I just got the new issue of Sci Fi magazine (affiliated with the SyFy network), which has a review of my book Mad Skills! Here's an excerpt:

[SCI FI MAGAZINE REVIEW OF MAD SKILLS—VOL. 17, NUMBER 2]

BOOKS

By Adam-Troy Castro

MAD SKILLS—GRADE: B+

This is Flowers for Algernon, gene-spliced to La Femme Nikita, the Bourne Series, MacGyver, and The Prisoner.

It’s the story of Maddy Grant, a typical happy teen obsessed with clothes and pop culture, who is exposed to a gas leak and brain-damaged to the point of extreme mental retardation. After a year of disability she is subjected to a radical cybernetic implant that doesn’t just repair her brain injury, but also makes her an extreme super-genius, capable of absorbing entire libraries of information in less time than an Internet download. The downside of this is that she is even more estranged from her old life than she was before, as she is unable to watch television, go to the mall, or have even a simple conversation with her parents or old friends without understanding more than a girl her age wants to know. She sees the negative societal context of everything, the emotional manipulations behind even the most basic human interactions, and is even more alienated from the world she once knew.

In fact, Maddy’s thought processes are so swift that she’s also become about as dangerous as a human being can possibly be, able to win fights against overwhelming odds with an innate instantaneous understanding of the tools at hand and the weaknesses of anybody who opposes her. This quickly supersedes her common sense avoidance of trouble, and leads to institutionalization at an isolated community sponsored by the institute that operated on her, a community dedicated to perfecting the technology for use in the mental control of entire populations.

Conflict ensues when Maddy dedicates herself to escape.

Walter Greatshell is a first-rate writer of action scenes, who choreographs the regular bursts of over-the-top mayhem with a genius that makes Maddy an endearingly resourceful and often frightening superhero of sorts, capable of fighting heavily-armed hit squads to a standstill with nothing but household items scavenged from beneath bathroom sinks. The conspiracy elements, the paranoid world building, and the loneliness of his protagonist, are all also profoundly well-handled. The narrative itself is compulsively readable.

...All in all, Maddy’s implacability will drive many readers to happy cries of “You go, girl!” There may not be a sequel, but it would be welcomed.

2011-02-23T07:26:00.003-05:00

XOMBIES: APOCALYPSO is now on sale! This is the third (and perhaps final) novel in my XOMBIES saga, after XOMBIES: APOCALYPSE BLUES and XOMBIES: APOCALYPTICON (all published by Ace Books).

It's weird to have another book come out so soon after my thriller MAD SKILLS, which was released barely two months ago, but since all my books reflect the same warped mentality, I'm hoping there will be some reader crossover.

XOMBIES: APOCALYPSO was the eighth book I've ever written, and the fifth I've had published, so you would think I'd have perfected the process by now. No. This thing almost killed me. I was having migraines over it, churning out reams of notes and tentative material, only to trash everything and start over--again and again and again. By comparison, my other books were practically delivered by stork. But all the hard work paid off--I think APOCALYPSO is a worthy climax to the series. It is a very strange book, more of an outright comedy than any of my others, because once the threat of death is eliminated, the most horrible things become pure slapstick. I only hope readers appreciate the gag.

Anyone interested in discussing the book with me or just sitting primly, hands folded on lap, is invited to my book-release party at 7pm on Friday, March 11th, at Books On The Square, 471 Angell Street, Providence RI. There will be drinks, snacks, and plain old good times such as your granddaddy knew. Thanky!

2011-02-09T09:06:00.002-05:00

ALIEN 3 REVISITED

Here’s something I’ve been wondering about for a long time.

I remember when the movie Alien 3 came out, there was this controversy about the original director being replaced by David Fincher (whose most recent movie is a little flick called The Social Network).

The negative vibe contributed to Alien 3 being considered a bit of a mess, which is funny now considering how low the Alien franchise had yet to sink, but hardly surprising since A3’s lowball take on the material could only suffer by comparison with the James Cameron extravaganza that was Aliens, much less the brilliant creepfest of Ridley Scott’s original Alien.

As you may recall, the first two films established the bad-assification of flight officer Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver). In Alien, she and a cat were the last survivors of an alien attack on her ship, then in Aliens she returned to the fray with a crew of space marines, and this time not only survived but saved the nicest marine and a cute little kid.

So that was a pretty heavy baton for Alien 3 to pick up: not only the fate of Ripley, but of these other two characters. James Cameron only inherited a cat.

Fincher arrived late on the scene and had to contend with major interference from a nervous studio, which was well into production despite the lack of a coherent script. Actually, there were several scripts in play, one of which had been developed to the point of constructing a massive set…then rejecting it.

I recall reading that this cancelled script (by Vincent Ward and John Fasano) had Ripley landing on a “wooden planet”—a weird medieval village full of chanting monks, which was described as something out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting. In this world, Ripley would act the role of Sleeping Beauty, and the Alien would be the Dragon.

I thought (and still think) that was a cool idea.

Obviously, the studio thought differently. Alarmed by the prospect of this bizarro fairy tale, they decided to trash the “wooden planet” and return to the more familiar engine-room design established by the previous two films.

They turned the village into a prison, and the monks into hardened convicts.

The religious angle was retained, but what was to have been a quaint monastery in space became an industrial lead-mining operation. Unlike the other films however, there would be no fun technology, no spaceships or shootouts—the movie would be two hours of nonstop claustrophobia and ugly mugs. And everybody would be bald, including Ripley.

But what of her fellow survivors from the last movie, the dreamy Hicks and the adorable Newt?

They’d be dead on arrival.

Some of this was simple necessity. David Fincher knew going in that he was screwed, that he had neither the budget nor the studio support to make the expected blockbuster addition to the Alien canon. So he decided to murder it in its bed: kill what had come before and start small. It was a valid artistic choice, given his options, but for most fans it was a bummer.

I personally didn’t hate Alien 3. It had some good stuff—just not enough. I’m always amazed when Hollywood destroys a successful franchise through nothing more than cheapness. A3 should have been the culmination of everything we had seen to that point, and brought Ripley into direct conflict with the real source of all her troubles: not the aliens, but the evil Company.

When I heard they were making A3, I envisioned Ripley awakening in some Company lab on Earth, which is using her as a guinea pig for their alien-breeding experiments. But insurgents within the Company bust her out, and she becomes the leader of a rebellion to free humanity from corporate control. Things are looking good…until the Company unleashes its newly created alien army against the rebels! Now we’re treated to an awesome, hopeless battle between men and monsters. The humans don’t stand a chance. Then, at the moment of doom, Ripley realizes that she is the mother of all these aliens, that they won’t touch her. Alone, she leads her “children” in a final assault on the Company stronghold, which is defended by humanoid robots. More crazy-ass combat ensues. At last Ripley faces the CEO. He’s beaten, but he has one last trick up his sleeve: the whole place is about to be nuked. Suddenly we see a jet copter out the window—it’s Hicks, Newt, and Jones the cat! Ripley jumps aboard and they blast away just ahead of the mushroom cloud.

Okay, maybe not the cat. But that’s the movie I wanted to see!

I’ve gotten a little sidetracked—why did I bring all this up? Oh yes, it’s because shortly after Alien 3 came and went, there was another movie by the same producer, Gale Anne Hurd, and with some of the same cast, namely Lance Henrikson. It was a futuristic prison movie called No Escape, about a convict (Ray Liotta) who is sent to a primitive penal colony--sort of like Papillon, if Papillon sucked. The only thing interesting about No Escape was that its wooden prison village looked suspiciously like the discarded “wooden planet” from Alien 3.

So the thing I’ve been wondering about all these years is: Was No Escape only made because they wanted to recycle an expensive set? Can anybody confirm this? Am I the only one who cares?

2011-02-02T07:37:00.001-05:00

I just found this really terrific review of Mad Skills from a writer named Len Berry. What I love about it (aside from the fact that he gives it an A grade) is that he read the book so closely. Despite its brevity, the review is detailed in its analysis. Thank you, Mr. Berry.

Here's the review and link:

"I just finished reading a great modern science fiction novel called Mad Skills. Written by Walter Greatshell, it’s the story of a young woman with a brain injury who is given an experimental treatment to restore normal function. The result is that she becomes super-MacGyver, reading at a rate so fast she accidentally rips pages from books, rewriting how efficient cars should be built.

Maddy Grant is a great protagonist and Greatshell writes her well. The way she adjusts to living normal life after her procedure not only demonstrates the incredible power of her mind, but also typical teenage girl, thrown into a situation she can’t understand. The seeming contradiction makes the first hundred pages a great read and sets up a lot of the endgame. The nice thing about the book is the way clues are set in place, relying on Maddy’s (and the reader’s) intelligence to sort out.

I initially felt thrown off by the ending and the lack of resolution and cohesion to the prologue, but I looked through those first pages again and realized there’s a massive significance to what Maddy is doing and where she is. I won’t spoil it here, but I will say there are shades of the Berserk anime in the structure of this novel. Backstory is provided when it’s needed, not a moment before or after. As I said before, clues are sprinkled throughout and Mad Skills is a smarter read than you might think it is at first.

As I read and enjoyed the bulk of the book, I thought I would give it a B letter grade. There’s a lot of veiled political commentary starting out and action that’s totally dependent on character interaction and dynamics–though the helicopter sequence halfway through the book is a lot of fun. Toward the end, there are a lot of Kurtzweilian notions that come up and a few plot twists that are carefully seeded in the opening chapters, seeded in such a way, I was shocked and thrilled when I read it.

You’ll be guessing about things up until the end. When you get there, I hope you give this book the A I’m giving it."

http://lentberry.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/mad-skills/

2011-01-28T16:24:00.003-05:00

Bob Fingerman, author of the novels Pariah and Bottomfeeder, and artist of countless brilliantly twisted comics, has been a friend of mine since he first contacted me after reading my novel Xombies. I've been a fan of his since first seeing his work in Heavy Metal magazine in the '80s, and it was a bizarre privilege to get a fan email from someone whose name is in the pantheon with Corben, Moebius, Liberatore, Bilal. Giants, man, giants! I'm still an insufferable fanboy about it, but Bob kindly continues to mention my work at every opportunity, such as this interview on EntertainmentWeekly.Com. Thanks, Bob!

'Pariah' author Bob Fingerman reveals his five favorite tomes of terror

by Clark Collis

Xombies—Walter Greatshell 2004 zombie novel recently reissued as Xombies: Apocalypse Blues  After I read Xombies, I tried to find information about him and couldn’t find anything, which is unusual in this Google-friendly age. I became pretty convinced “Greatshell” was a pen name, because I had also never encountered that name before. The book had a really high quality of writing so I thought, “Maybe this is some well-established writer who considers horror ‘slumming,’ so he’s hiding behind a pen name.” Then I found him online and it turned out he was a fan of my comics, which was very nice. His zombies were something I hadn’t seen before. For one thing, his were completely gender-based. All the women become these blue-faced creatures—and they’re the really revved-up zombies, they’re not the old shamblers. And his book took the cast of characters to places I hadn’t seen before. Turns out, Walter was a technician on a nuclear submarine for a while, so the book is set largely on this submarine. The main character, Lulu Pangloss, is a 17-year-old girl who hasn’t turned. She’s the lone female presence and everyone is very nervous about her, considering what they’ve seen—all their wives and daughters and sisters and so forth going berserk. Again, it is claustrophobic, being set on a submarine, but it also really spans a huge amount of space. It’s a small book and a huge a book at the same time. It’s a neglected gem.

2011-01-21T08:07:00.002-05:00

I just got a really nice email from someone who compared Mad Skills to a cross between Flowers for Algernon and La Femme Nikita. Since I love both those things, that's about as high praise as it gets. This is what I hope for with anything I write, that people will tune into my psycho wavelength and share my obsessions.

Writing is both a very isolating and very intimate activity. It's a strange and wonderful thing to realize that real people are reading your work, which in a sense means that they're reading your thoughts. Sometimes that can be depressing, if people don't like what you write, or if you feel they've misunderstood it. We all want to be loved. But being loved is not as important as being truthful with your reader. Books should be personal; no matter how far-fetched the subject matter, they should strongly express the concerns of the author. This is just my opinion, based on what I like to read. Any story is better with a touch of personal idiosyncrasy--otherwise, it's just empty hackwork. This is true of movies and TV shows as well as books. In fact, it's true of everything.

2010-12-03T16:11:00.004-05:00

Halle-freakin'-lujah! My novel MAD SKILLS comes out this month, Dec. 28 to be exact, which in itself is some kind of Christmas miracle, but on top of that, the book just got an amazing review from Publishers Weekly. I should've submitted all my books to them for review! Oh well, you live and learn.

Here's the review:

Mad Skills

Walter Greatshell, Ace, $7.99 mass market (320p) ISBN 978-0-441-02012-6

Equal parts science fiction thriller and coming-of-consciousness tale, this page-turner lays bare the inanity of modern-day existence in grand style. After 17-year-old Madeleine "Maddy" Grant suffers a severe brain injury, an experimental neurological treatment from the enigmatic Braintree Institute not only restores her to her former self but also advances her intelligence exponentially. When she goes home, Maddy is appalled by shallow, "suffocating" everyday human lives and is eventually sent back to the institute for re-evaluation. Eventually, she begins to realize that the institute isn't purely benevolent, and their scientists' experiments have downright terrifying implications. Powered by an endearing heroine (whose ingenuity and resourcefulness make MacGyver look inept), pedal-to-the-metal pacing, and generous amounts of social commentary, this science fiction thrill ride is the literary equivalent of a syringe full of adrenaline. (Jan.)

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/mobile/reviews/fiction.html

2010-09-05T19:52:00.004-04:00

Zombie alert!

As you can see, the big new zombie anthology, The Living Dead 2 (Night Shade Books), is out this month. If you've read the first Living Dead collection, you know that alone is good news, because the editor, John Joseph Adams, has a gift for finding zombie stories that jump beyond the usual genre tropes. But this second collection is of special interest to me, because it includes a story of mine, The Mexican Bus. I've written half a dozen novels, but this is my first short-story, and I'm kind of excited about it. Ever since I was a kid I dreamed of writing short fiction like so many of my childhood idols: Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, Stephen King, Raymond Carver--too many to name. So now I've finally done it. Maybe in ten years I'll have written enough short stories that I can get a whole anthology all to myself...or maybe not. Either way, I'm happy just to be included alongside modern masters like David Wellington and Bob Fingerman.

In other news, I just made the very pleasant discovery that mega-author Charlaine Harris (of Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood fame) has read my novel Xombies: Apocalypse Blues--and liked it! Since my house is full of True Blood fanatics, this is a big deal. Here's what she was generous enough to say about it on her website:

I opened Walter Greatshell’s Xombies not expecting much different from the usual run of zombie books . . . not that I’m averse to that, or I wouldn’t have been interested in reading Greatshell. However, that’s not what the book is about. Xombies is about one of the few females left on earth after a specifically tailored virus has wiped out most of the others. In a harrowing series of events, Lulu and the man who may or may not be her father make it onto a submarine that’s on its way to an unknown destination while most of the world is busy destroying itself. Lulu is surprisingly likeable and human, because she has plenty of failings, though her courage shines through. There are other books in this series, and I plan on reading them, because it would be a shame to leave Lulu in the situation at the end of Apocalypse Blues.

2010-07-29T08:16:00.002-04:00

Got a comment from my good friend KnittyOtter that I haven't posted in a while. It's true, I've been horribly lax--sorry about that, gang. I've had these ridiculous books to finish, plus it's been so hot, and then there was Comic-Con...ah, what the hell, I have no excuse. You've been incredibly patient. But hopefully this is the start of a whole series of exciting posts.

Comic-Con. It was big. It was crowded. This is the second year I've gone to San Diego for this mammoth event, and I think I may have reached my tolerance. Not to say I didn't have a good time: the fishing in San Diego was fantastic. I caught like twice my limit in sand bass (I gave all my catch to other fishermen--what was I gonna do, bring 'em back to the motel?) and got to see all the things I've been missing since I moved away from Southern California almost thirty years ago: pelicans, dolphins, seals and sea lions, and even the huge, harmless mola mola or sunfish. So there was that. I also checked out the Old Town district of SD, which was really cool because I just saw the Hitchcock movie Vertigo, part of which takes place in the historic Spanish missions of San Francisco, and this was very similar. There was a bell tower exactly like the one from the movie, where Jimmy Stewart freaks out and Kim Novak falls to her death. I also just read Two Years Before the Mast, which tells of the sea trade with Spanish California, and specifically describes the San Diego area, so it was amazing to see some of those preserved sites.

Okay...Comic Con. What to say? Big. Crowded. Lots of great costumes! I read in the paper that a guy in a Darth Vader helmet robbed a bank. It was inevitable. Also, something like forty people got stung by stingrays--not at the Con but at the beach. Lotta stingrays in San Diego. Shuffle your feet, folks! Tons of surfers and tons of homeless people, which I guess you have to expect anywhere the climate is so great...and the economy so crappy. My friend Dave and I took a long hike along the San Diego River (mostly just a weed-choked gully leading to an inlet of the sea), and there were little hobo camps all along the way. It felt very post-apocalyptic, very Boy and His Dog. Relatively little panhandling, which was interesting. We did see a guy riding a bike steal a bike. The front wheel was locked to the frame, but he just threw it over his shoulder and pedaled off. I was also interested in the huge section of ads in the free paper for medical marijuana shops: Free Joint Fridays! Edible Mondays! Almost made me wish I smoked dope.

Comic Con...right. Well, I wandered the floor a few times. Same stuff as last year, pretty much. Afterwards, my friends Dave Ray and Chris Reilly and I went to Dick's Last Resort for fried catfish, cold drinks, and abuse from the sexy waitstaff (did I really see a waiter dressed as Gay Hitler? Yes--yes I did). I also went to the swanky Fang-Fest party at the Hard Rock Hotel, hosted by my publisher, at which I was easily the least cool person in the room. I was about to slink off in shame, when I was recognized by someone I actually knew: Ryder Windham, whose name sounds like a Jedi Knight and who actually writes Star Wars books. Ryder kindly invited me to the cool-kids' table and I was able to enjoy the party. Next day, I sat on a zombie panel with a bunch of other zombie authors, which was fun. I always like any chance to get out in public and talk about my work, and this was an unusually frisky discussion, since I actually had to defend the concept of "fast zombies." Who cares if they're fast or slow? All I know is, if your zombies eat flesh, are undead, and can be killed by a shot to the head, you should have to pay a fee to George Romero. Original ideas don't grow on trees, people! Anyway, that was pretty much the whole convention for me. After that I had time for another swim in the pool, then I was back on the plane for home. Which is where I am now. How can it possibly be hotter in New England than it is in San Diego? Sheesh.

2010-05-24T22:17:00.002-04:00

Haven't blogged much lately because I've been so busy. Right now I'm closing in on two book deadlines, plus some friends and I just made a movie for the Boston 48-Hour Film Festival, plus I did some voice acting for a friend's podcast radio show. This plus all the usual hectic demands of life. But I'm not complaining--in fact, I love being busy. My only fear is that now that I finally have all these wonderful things to do, I'll be struck by lightning or something.

I was getting a lot of migraines recently, so I thought I might have an aneurism like that Brett Michaels guy, but I think it's just eyestrain from being on the computer too much. I dug out an old pair of prescription glasses I bought to pass the eye exam at Electric Boat, and they seem to have helped...except that now I'm an old dude who needs glasses to read! Sad...sad...

Speaking of the 48-Hour Film Fest, my friend Steve Ahlquist just signed us up for the Providence one in July. It's always a fun and hellish experience to make a watchable short film within that time limit, using story elements supplied by the festival programmers. We've entered films in the contest for a few years in a row now, but by far my favorite is the movie we just made for the Boston fest. We were assigned the Horror category, which is usually an excuse to go crazy with gore or silly comedy or both. But the film we made, Larval, is so much more interesting than that, and I think genuinely disturbing, using only the power of suggestion to create a sense of dread. It'll never win. Anyway, I'm really proud of it, and hope to put a link to it here soon. Steve did an amazing job editing it on Adam Miner's workstation, and Dave Ray shot it beautifully (especially considering our low-res camera). Adam's son, Little Adam, was perfect as the budding psychopath who narrates his grisly coming-of-age.

2010-04-25T20:36:00.002-04:00

Just saw the movie Kick-Ass, and I must say it kinda kicked ass. I had seen the comic, so was expecting the film to be pretty good, and it didn't disappoint. Everybody was good in it, but the standout performance was Chloe Moretz as the half-pint assassin Hit Girl. She'd make a great Lulu if they adapt my Xombies books into movies.

Speaking of geeking, I just read in Entertainment Weekly that the guy, Rinzler, who wrote the definitive book on the making of Star Wars (called The Making of Star Wars), is now coming out with The Making of The Empire Strikes Back. That makes me very happy, since I've just begun reading the first book for the third time and am wearing it out. For somebody like me, who was obsessed with Star Wars as a teenager and thought I knew every obscure factoid about it (I still own the rare Star Wars edition of American Cinematographer), it is wonderful to be able to delve into all the technical, behind-the-scenes stuff that I always wondered about. I'll be curious to read about The Empire Strikes Back, but after that I'm not sure I'll have the same interest in any of the other films, which were really just products of a massive entertainment empire--unlike the first film, which was very experimental and quite risky. People forget how difficult it was for George Lucas to get that movie made, which is what makes it all so interesting to read about.

2010-03-31T23:02:00.002-04:00

I just painted this illustration of a scene from my book Xombies: Apocalypticon. The weird-headed goons on the Jet Skis are called Reapers, but they are not quite what they appear to be. You'll have to read the book to get the whole story.

2010-03-21T08:23:00.003-04:00

This writing gig is a mind-twister. It's Sunday morning, and I just read two totally opposite opinions of my book, Xombies: Apocalypticon. One person thinks it's the most brilliant thing since H.P. Lovecraft, and the other thinks it's confusing and all over the place. The weird thing is, they're both right--for them. Reading a book is a totally personal experience, just as writing one is. Or should be.

I just wish there was a better way for people to know what they're getting with my work. I always knew I was going to alienate some readers, because my whole emphasis is on messing with expectations. Most popular entertainment is just repeating successful formulas over and over, not trying new stuff. Why can't a season of House end with an alien invasion? Why can't zombies attack General Hospital? Why can't a bucket of pig blood fall on the cast of Glee?

Anyway, that's why I don't watch a lot of series TV, or read many genre novels. Here are some authors who influenced me: Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Berger, Charles Portis, John Irving, just to name a few. It troubles me that the zombie craze has caused my books to be mistakenly identified as zombie kitch, because that can't end well for me or the reader. When I wrote Xombies in 2001, the last thing I had in mind was following a trend--there was no zombie subgenre then, and I wasn't interested in starting one. I was trying to explode the rigid genre formulas that were killing my love of fiction. The idea of a literary zombie book was something new. I was tired of being programmed to, and yearned to be surprised, which in this homogenized, hyper-commodified age is a true luxury. I thought there must be many people who felt the same way I did.

2010-03-07T10:15:00.000-05:00

Here's a review of Xombies: Apocalypticon!
http://www.errantdreams.com/reviews/2010/03/02/xombies-apocalypticon-walter-greatshell/

2010-03-01T06:35:00.004-05:00

ZOMBIE AUTHOR BITTEN BY ZOMBIES

Newsflash: In a shocking and ironic twist of fate, author Walter Greatshell was attacked by zombies during a party celebrating the release of his novel, Xombies: Apocalypticon.

"He was in the middle of reading a chapter of his book, when suddenly these zombies appeared out of nowhere," said zombie fan Earl Yuntz, 19. "We saw these weird people clawing to get into the bookstore, and the next thing we knew they were inside. It was awesome."

Greatshell survived an earlier zombie attack during a signing for his previous book, Xombies: Apocalypse Blues. When asked if he will continue writing zombie novels after this latest assault, Greatshell said only, "Aaaaaahrghllaaaaach."

Photo courtesy Kathy Ahlquist

2010-02-28T06:06:00.002-05:00

Sunday morning. Six a.m. It's still dark out. I've been awake for an hour, tossing and turning, feeling like my body is rotting from within. I should never drink. And I certainly should never eat chili-cheese fries, stuffed clams, and calamari at ten o'clock at night. But I was celebrating after my book release party and wasn't thinking straight.

First of all, THANK YOU to all my friends and readers who showed up (two in the most incredible zombie costumes!) and listened to me ramble on about God knows what. You people are amazing, and I don't know how I got so lucky as to be friends with so many talented artists, writers, actors, and simply cool people. I've done comic books with some of you, acted in plays with some of you, and hung out with most of you--it's an ongoing privilege for me to be in on this fantastic creative community.

2010-02-23T06:31:00.003-05:00

XOMBIES: APOCALYPTICON is finally out!

Oh my God, I feel like I've been waiting forever for my sequel to XOMBIES (and the recent reissue, XOMBIES: APOCALYPSE BLUES) to be released. I wrote it back in 2003, and my original title was XOMBIE RAMA. Then I vanished into limbo for the next six years. But now the day has finally arrived, and I deeply thank all the wonderful XOMBIES fans out there for their patience.

For anyone who's in the vicinity of Rhode Island this weekend, I'll be having a book release party at 7pm this Saturday, Feb. 27th, at Books on the Square in Providence. There will be refreshments and a reading by yours truly, followed by a Q&A and probably not a sing-along. I hope to see you there!

2010-02-13T05:56:00.002-05:00

Still on the subject of the Coen brother's remake of the wonderful movie True Grit, based on the novel by Charles Portis: The thing I find especially interesting about this is that I have always had a deep suspicion that the Coens were major Charles Portis fans. Their movie Raising Arizona is extremely similar in tone (particularly Nicolas Cage's narration) to my favorite Charles Portis book, The Dog of the South. In fact, I always thought The Dog of the South would be a perfect sequel to Raising Arizona. But I was never absolutely certain they had read the book...until now. I mean, for them to be making True Grit is pretty ample evidence that they are familiar with the work of Charles Portis. It's about time they gave the guy his due. I was watching the special features on a DVD of True Grit recently, and it pissed me off how everybody kept harping on John Wayne, as if John Wayne was what made that movie great. Sure, John Wayne was really good, but he was so good because the character of Rooster Cogburn is so damn good--and that's all Charles Portis. Is Charles Portis even still alive? The last thing I read by him was the great little novel Gringos, over ten years ago I think. And also an incredibly funny parody of travel writing he did for The Atlantic, called Nights Can Be Cool in Viborra. If he's still around, he's one of my idols, and I really hope he's writing something new.

2010-02-13T05:38:00.002-05:00

Speaking of movies, I just heard some news that was very interesting to me. Apparently the Coen brothers are remaking True Grit. Wow. This is like a supernova in my personal universe, because True Grit is one of my favorite movies and perhaps my favorite book of all time--or at least in the top ten--and Charles Portis is one of my favorite authors. Believe it or not, one of my major inspirations for Xombies was True Grit, which is readily apparent if you read the two books. A lot of idiots think True Grit is only notable because the movie had John Wayne in it. The hell with John Wayne--True Grit is amazing because it is both a hilarious satire and a loving homage to the Western genre...while also being the best Western ever written. In the Coen's remake, the Rooster Cogburn role (John Wayne's part) is going to Jeff Bridges, which is pretty perfect casting. The other key character is the tough-girl narrator, Mattie Ross, who was terrifically played by Kim Darby in the original film. Whoever they get for her, I hope she's good. But it's the Coens, so I'm not worried.

2010-02-12T11:19:00.002-05:00

Oscar time again. I don't know, I'm just not that excited about most of the Oscar nominees this year. I liked Avatar, but it's not really my idea of Best Picture. I was disappointed by The Hurt Locker--from the ad campaign I was expecting something really unusual, but it's just a typical gritty war movie. I hated Up in the Air, because it seemed to me like an apologia for corporate dirtbags: Oh, look how much it hurts us to fire people, and look how adorable we are. Next they'll be doing a movie about the charming angst of being a Nazi. Precious was one of those movies that has a valuable social purpose, and I'm glad it exists, but I have absolutely no desire to see it. Nine sucked--worst songs ever (though it gave me a greater respect for the talents of that Black-Eyed Peas chick). Crazy Heart was crazy boring. Julie and Julia was pleasant fluff, which would have been ten times better if it was just the Julia Child story. Invictus and The Blind Side--just like Precious, you know exactly what you're getting when you buy the ticket: inspirational hokum. A Serious Man and Inglourious Basterds--two lesser films from great directors. District 9--meh, though I'd give it an Oscar for the first twenty minutes. All in all, not a truly great film in the bunch.

2010-01-23T08:34:00.002-05:00

I think I'm dying or something. The last guy who lived in my house died--some horrible, lingering illness. We bought the house because it was cheap...and also because it's a cool-looking old place, a bit creaky, with a peaked roof like a witch's hat. Right after my wife and I moved in, a couple of old ladies from the Historical Society came by and gave us some information on the house: apparently George M. Cohan used to practice piano in our living room. I'd like to know how anyone got a piano in here. It's weird to see a funky little gingerbread house like this in the middle of the city, which is why I like it. I'd have been dead long ago if I had to live in the fucking suburbs. The basement is really something out of a horror movie, with its uneven stone steps and walls, which probably leak radon into the house. And the cobwebs. I should do something about the cobwebs, and the weird black fungus, but I figure it's probably too late--the best I can do is just die here and let the next guy deal with it.

2010-01-14T23:39:00.002-05:00

This weekend I'm acting in another of Cyrus Leddy's weird and wonderful plays: "Destefano On the Air--Episode One: The Rescuer." The play is presented in the format of a radio serial, and it's about popular delusions of heroism, particularly as depicted in movies. It's playing January 15th and 16th at 7:30pm, at the Perishable Theater, 95 Empire Street, Downtown Providence. Admission is only $5. I've been in a number of Cyrus's plays over the years, and they're always tragically delicious. Don't be late!

2009-12-31T06:56:00.002-05:00

Well, it's almost New Year again. What did I like this year? Hmm. Well, I had some great dim sum at China Pearl in Boston--best shrimp dumplings ever. I really liked having breakfast (usually polenta and eggs, but sometimes the world's best corned beef hash) at the Modern Diner ever Saturday morning with my wife. I enjoyed spending my Saturday nights watching old kung-fu movies and weirdbeard horror flicks with my friends Dave, Steve, Adam, and Dan. It was a cool experience going to ThrillerFest with author Nate Kenyon, and I had fun at Comic-Con in San Diego (where I got to be on a panel with Amber Benson, who is even more of a knockout than she was on Buffy), even though I stupidly missed my flight out. But once I did catch another plane, it was nice to visit San Francisco and spend time with my in-laws and my agent. I also liked going to New York and meeting my editor, Danielle, and hanging out with one of my comic-book idols, Bob Fingerman. It was great having my book come out for the second time (I have a feeling it's not the last), selling a short story to The Living Dead 2, and knowing my Xombies sequel is finally coming out. I liked the movies Avatar, No Country For Old Men, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Zombieland, and my vote for the best vampire movie ever: Let the Right One In.

Xombies: Apocalypse Blues | Book Review

2009-12-22T18:02:00.000-05:00

Xombies: Apocalypse Blues Book Review

2009-12-22T07:44:00.004-05:00

Just saw two great movies over the weekend--that's always nice. The first was Avatar, which I saw at my local IMAX theater, so the 3-D was about as good as it gets. Even though I had heard some negative things, I still had high hopes for this movie, simply because it's James Cameron and because from the early previews it looked to me like the kind of movie I've been wanting to see since I used to read Heavy Metal magazine in the '80s: a Frazetta painting brought to life. And it is totally that. Not a whole lot more, but absolutely the apotheosis of Heavy Metal-style sci-fi/fantasy mythmaking. The whole planet looks like a Yes album cover. So while it didn't exceed my expectations, it definitely met them. Folks are saying this is Dances With Wolves in space, and I would add Pocahontas and FernGully, but just because a movie wears its influences on its sleeve doesn't mean it's bad. Like the recent 3-D remake of A Christmas Carol, the point of this movie is not originality of story, but originality of experience--it's a full immersion into worlds we've only seen in our imaginations.

The other great movie was Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Wonderful, insane cop film that's loosely based on an earlier film starring Harvey Keitel. I love anything Herzog does, but this movie is strange even for him, and it's a fantastic showcase for Nicolas Cage to get into his weirdest (and best) performance since Vampire's Kiss. There was one particular moment in this movie when I entered cinematic nirvana: Nicolas Cage is at the scene of a deadly car accident, in which a car has hit an alligator and flipped over. The alligator is still twitching, and the folks in the car are presumably dead. There's a confrontation between corrupt homicide detective Cage and one of the state troopers--fairly standard cop-movie stuff. But then Herzog cuts away to the edge of the swamp, where a second gator is watching the twitching body of what must be its dying mate, and you suddenly have a realization of this whole other dimension to the tragedy. It's hilarious, sad, and brilliant.

2009-12-09T11:45:00.002-05:00

Wow--just got a great review for XOMBIES: APOCALYPSE BLUES on Book Spot Central--here's the link:

http://www.bscreview.com/2009/12/xombies-apocalpyse-blues-by-walter-greatshell-review/

I also just did an interview for the site, because the questions were good ones. It wasn't just general crap like, "Why do you think people like zombies?" This guy actually read my book. It's risky to do interviews, because you get into personal stuff and can sound like a pompous jerk, but I don't get that much opportunity to talk about my work. Maybe if I'm ever as successful as Stephen King or Stephanie Meyers, I'll get sick of answering questions, but for now it's a treat.

2009-12-06T07:43:00.002-05:00

Well, this is a nice surprise. I just got an email from Kimber An, author and administrator of the excellent book website EnduringRomance.com, who tells me that Xombies: Apocalypse Blues made their top ten list.

Wow. I live such an insular existence, I sometimes forget there are actually people reading my book out there (although I do get wonderful emails from fans from time to time). But they must be, because I was also recently told by my editor at Penguin that my novel has been in the top twenty mass-market sci-fi bestsellers on Nielsen BookScan for over six weeks. I don't know what any of this means in terms of book sales, but if it allows me to keep writing then I'm happy.

Speaking of fanmail, ever since Xombies was first published in 2004, some of the most enthusiastic emails have come not from zombie fans but from older, professional people (doctors, lawyers, teachers, postal workers, business execs, and other authors) who picked up the book more or less by accident (one guy found a copy while he and his wife were cleaning out a friend's garage) and loved it.

I am so grateful whenever I hear from such readers, because it's always been my worry that the book is not reaching this audience, simply because they don't normally read "that kind of thing." But Xombies (original title: Dead Sea) was my attempt at squaring the circle: combining elements of literary fiction with the great pulp novels of my youth. I wanted to appeal to horror fans and Book Club readers alike. Unfortunately, the book came out right on the cusp of a huge (and ongoing) zombie craze, so it never had a chance to be judged on its merits, but only its merits as a zombie product. Zombies are great, but it's a pleasure to know at least a few mainstream readers have found my book, liked it, and took the time to tell me so.

2009-12-04T14:38:00.002-05:00

A friend of mine, Cyrus Leddy, has been writing and recording this funny and very strange series of radio plays lately for Perishable Theater here in Providence. It's a fake call-in show called DeStefano On The Air, and I've been doing one of the character voices. I've been in Cyrus's stage plays before (the last one was Oedipus Rex), but this is kind of a lifelong dream of mine, acting in a radio show. We just finished recording the newest episode last night--in a parking-lot, to capture the ambient noise. In January we'll be staging a live version of the first episode at Perishable. That should be fun.

2009-11-29T07:09:00.003-05:00

Well, I just slept through a couple of interesting movies--I hate that. It's because I wake up too early in the morning and go to bed too late. I tend to live on about five hours sleep a night. Anyway, the first was Wes Anderson's new movie, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and from what I saw of it, it was pretty good. It's unusually offbeat and dark for a children's movie (though not for a Roald Dahl story, which this is based on) and full of the same obsessive detail that characterizes all of Wes Anderson's movies. From seeing the trailer, I was worried the stop-motion animation would get in the way of the characters (many of whom are Anderson veterans like Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, and Willem Dafoe), but I got caught up in it right away...until I passed out. I must say I like this trend of having quirky filmmakers like Wes Anderson and Spike Jonze (who just did Where the Wild Things Are) make stuff for kids that actually encourages them to think deeply, rather than just scream and run around. I like quiet, depressed kids.

The second movie was a Korean Western called The Good, the Bad, and the Weird, which sounds incredibly terrible, I know, but is actually a wonderful (and really well-made) Sergio Leone homage. Set in remote pre-WWII Manchuria, which was occupied at the time by the Japanese, the story is something about a stolen treasure map, with various Chinese, Japanese, and Korean gunslingers going mano-a-mano for the chance to get rich. This sounds exotic, but the setting and tone are pure spaghetti Western--or kimchi Western, as my friend Steve Ahlquist called it. He also said this is the highest-budgeted movie to come out of South Korea, and it shows--it's a real epic. I wish I'd been awake to see the whole thing, but my friends and I had just finished a huge Thanksgiving feast at Steve's house, and the food knocked me out. But between this film and the recent Korean monster movie The Host, I think Korean filmmakers have proven they can do anything Hollywood can do...and maybe even do it better.

2009-11-23T10:45:00.002-05:00

Hey, saw a very interesting movie over the weekend: Antichrist, directed by Danish director Lars von Trier (Breaking the Waves). It stars Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg as a couple whose young son is killed in an accident due to their slight negligence, and how the husband--a professional therapist--tries to help his wife cope with her extreme grief by taking her to a remote cabin in the woods. Bad idea. I don't want to give too much away, but basically the situation leads to a total psychotic breakdown, with both characters having weird, horrifying visions and eventually doing the most awful things to themselves and each other.

My wife did not enjoy this movie at all, and it is pretty disturbing stuff, but I was engrossed throughout (as well as grossed-out). I felt that I had experienced a very personal expression by filmmakers who were definitely not guided by market research or mainstream prudery. I always admire that, because I am so tired of watered-down filmmaking by committee. This movie has the courage of its evil convictions, and it doesn't flinch from showing anything and everything. It's also beautifully shot. But if you see it, don't blame me if it makes you want to barf. You brought it on yourself.

2009-11-17T15:44:00.002-05:00

I was on the website Goodreads recently, writing a list of books that influenced me to write Xombies, and I somehow forgot to include Voltaire's Candide, from which Lulu Pangloss derives her name. Oh well, I can't keep it all straight--it's been almost ten years since I wrote the book.

2009-11-16T22:26:00.003-05:00

How is it that so many people making money off of zombies are just freely using George Romero's zombies (i.e., flesh-eating, rotting, shoot-'em-in-the-head type zombies, which didn't exist before Romero invented them) without having to pay him a royalty or something? And even if they don't, isn't it a little obnoxious? As a fan of Romero's movies, I never dreamed of ripping off his specific ideas, and I know I'm not the only one to invent my own variety of undead (which is what GR did himself). But many of these guys are just shameless about screwing George, and act like making money off his seminal idea is some kind of tribute, or protected as parody or something. It ain't right.

2009-11-16T11:57:00.003-05:00

Just saw two new movies over the weekend: 2012 and A Christmas Carol. 2012 was exactly what I expected--the end of the world as a giant special-effects extravaganza--so I was neither thrilled nor disappointed. I got my money's worth.

The movie that surprised me was Robert Zemeckis's new 3-D, CGI remake of A Christmas Carol. That kind of blew my mind. My favorite version of Carol has always been the very dark cartoon adaptation made by animator Chuck Jones, because I always thought it captured the ghost-story aspect the best--it's genuinely scary and grim. When I heard that Zemeckis was doing a CGI version, all I could think of was how it would be gutted, made snarky and family-safe. Not because I didn't trust Zemeckis (I've loved a lot of his stuff), but because I didn't trust Hollywood. I could just imagine how they would pressure him to add cute sidekicks and fart jokes. And there are a couple of scenes in the movie where Scrooge has to do silly pratfalls. But this is still a beautiful movie experience, one that made the story new for me all over again. That's a big thing to say, I know, and I only say it because I was not particularly looking forward to seeing this film, but it won me over instantly. It's dark, it's scary, it's weird, and best of all it's faithful to Dickens. In fact, I can imagine a lot of people being shocked by this movie's unapologetic moralizing. I highly recommend it.

2009-11-09T18:36:00.002-05:00

Here's a very insightful review of Xombies: Apocalypse Blues that I imported from the book blog EnduringRomance@blogspot.com. Thanks, Kimber An!

I really wanted to have this one up for you by Halloween, even though I don't actually celebrate it and even though this isn't really about zombies. It's Xombies. So, what the heck, here it is now. I really am trying to get back on a regular schedule and caught up and all that.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg http://www.jacquelinelichtenberg.com/ advised me to read books like I'm writing to learn all I can, so I went looking and found this book. Like mine, it has a seventeen year old heroine with a pre-existing medical condition and a really nasty virus that turns otherwise nice people into freakin' lunatics. That's where the similarities end though. XOMBIES is not Young Adult and mine is. It's written for a much broader readership and there's plenty of masculinity to go around, 'cause, it's written by a guy for one thing. However, I think my younger friends, male and female, will enjoy it.

Lulu thought she had a nutty mother, and she did by everyday standards. Her mom relentlessly stalked an old man for years, trying to nail him for child support, even though he probably wasn't her father. Even though she was seventeen and could've taken off and probably done well for herself, they moved around so often she never really developed attachments or resources. Her nutty mama was all she had in the world. While most girls her age probably would've gotten the heck out, it's important to understand that what a child lives is her definition of normal. Without other resources or attachments, finding a new life elsewhere is almost incomprehensible. Lulu was kept in this stage of childhood development a lot longer because of the constant moving. I think, as a former professional childcare provider, it's important for the reader to understand that Lulu's emotional development is stunted.

I think it's also important to know a lot of children grow up in dysfunctional families and are, therefore, stunted in their emotional development in one way or another. A lot of people don't take that into consideration when dealing with young people, whether in real life or fiction, and they can be very cruel without realizing it.

Lulu gets a jump-start on growing up fast one day.

Lulu and her mom have been living in a beach house because the people who own it aren't around and because the old man her mom is stalking, Fred Cowper, lives nearby. So, they're out there without a t.v. or anything, always keeping a low profile so Mom doesn't have to pay rent. The day finally comes when the food's low and Lulu's trust fund check comes in. Mom goes to town and Lulu can only hope she spends it on food instead of on some hair-brained scheme.

Instead, Mom comes back terrorized. The world outside they're little bubble seems deserted and martial law has been declared. A plague more terrifying than Ebola or the Black Death is running rampant. Menstruating women turn into terrifying monsters and attack men.

At this point, my husband asked, "And how is that different from real life?" I just about smacked him upside the head!.
Anyway, the orders are to stay indoors. Lulu and Mom do that for a while, but the food is running out and they're going crazy. So, they decide to check things out. Bad idea. They find a house full of dead men's body parts and all of sudden these creepy blue monsters start chasing them. Lulu loses track of Mom and next thing she knows Mom's one of them and she's screaming for her to remember who she is.

It's kinda like the Borg on Star Trek. The Xombies assimilate regular humans into becoming xombies too. That's how they procreate.

Then, Lulu finds Cowper, he realizes she's immune, and they make a break for it in his old car. Picture it charging down the highway with blue xombies chasing it, climbing all over it like army ants, and so on. Very exciting chase, that one.

They finally get to a safety zone and Cowper manages to convince the surviving men that she's no threat, that she's immune, and maybe even her immunity could lead to a cure. Lulu hopes it's not just a lot of BS. The survivors consist of military men, young and old, including boys Lulu's age. Unfortunately, being the only teenaged girl in a sea of teenaged boys is not the girlhood dream one might think. Almost all the men and boys too are terrified and hateful of her. They're just sure this is all her fault somehow, 'cause she's female, and she might suddenly turn on them. Hmm, isn't that the basis for misogyny in real life too?

Then, she gets tackled by gigantic chipmunk.

I swear, it's in the book!

See, a fight breaks out, she's out in the middle, and no one's eager to save her until this boy, Hector, tackles her to the ground and he's dressed in a chipmunk suit. Actually, he's 'Safety Squirrel' from school or something. Quiet, smart, keeps a level head in a desperate situation, just the kind of guy a girl might want to settled down and repopulate the world with, but I digress.

The survivors need to get to a submarine and escape the xombies by going out to sea. It's another wild chase and a big fight. Lots of blue creepies go in the water and then there's running and screaming and they put out to see, but there's xombies still on board. All the big guys are trying to figure out how to get rid of these xombies when it comes to Lulu. The teenaged boys tell her to shut-up, she'll just get in trouble, except Hector, of course, but she doesn't.

Ah, Lulu is growing up.

I'd like to tell you more, like what she figured out would get them and all, but I think it would spoil it for you. Suffice it to say, this novel has great Science Fiction, Old Hollywood Horror, and the Intimate Adventure of a girl growing into womanhood in the middle of it all too. There's daughter/crazy mother going on, daughter/maybe birthfather dude, and a boy who gives her the warm fuzzies in more ways than one. A really great read. It's off the shelves at my store now. If it's off yours, I say it's worth ordering. You don't have to pay shipping if you order it through most local bookstores.

To learn more about this book, the author, and the next book in the series, pop over to http://www.waltergreatshell.com/
Posted by Kimber An at 5:27 PM

2009-11-09T06:30:00.002-05:00

Just saw the movie Pontypool--not bad, considering the whole movie essentially takes place in one room. It's a Canadian zombie movie about three people working in the studio of a small-town (the town's name is Pontypool) radio station, who gradually become aware that people outside are becoming cannibalistic maniacs. The reason for this is that certain ordinary words have somehow become "infected," meaning if you speak or hear them you turn into a crazy, word-obsessed freak. It's like the ultimate OCD. And because a radio host's job is to talk about everything that's happening, it becomes a very irony-laden situation.

The acting is uniformly good, especially the Don Imus-like radio host, and there are some creepy moments as he fields various callers describing what's going on, but by the end the interesting premise gets stretched a bit thin. This would have been perfect as one of those old-time radio plays rather than a film. Still, the whole thing is handled intelligently, and I enjoyed it.

2009-11-02T08:28:00.002-05:00

Whoops, disregard that audio recording thing from the last post--it's still under construction.

Hey, I just saw the new, expanded trailer for James Cameron's Avatar--it's cool, but jeez, I wish they wouldn't give so much of the movie away. I hate this thing in our movie culture now where success is so heavily based on the first weekend's grosses, so they throw absolutely everything at you before the movie is even released. I like to be surprised. That was half the fun of going to movies when I was a kid: seeing some mysterious, vague images (think of the TV spots for Star Wars, or the original poster for Rocky--I didn't even know it was about boxing!), then getting my socks knocked off when I went to the movie.

I've been watching some episodes of The Incredible Hulk lately, a show I had no interest in when it originally ran on TV, and I've been pleasantly surprised at how not-terrible it is. It's at least as good as the two big-budget Hulk movies they just made. And speaking of movies, one thing that I've found amusing is how the TV show recycles special-effects from movies. For instance, I just watched an episode that used all the truck footage (including the climactic cliff-plunge) from Steven Spielberg's Duel. The studio owns the footage, so they can do whatever they want, but I wonder how Spielberg feels about that. And another Hulk episode uses all the exterior 747 shots from Airport 1975--I kept waiting for Charlton Heston and Karen Black to appear. Maybe if I keep watching, the Hulk will have episodes that take place in a capsized cruise ship or a burning high-rise, or he'll have to fight a great white shark. He's like Forrest Gump!

2009-10-30T11:24:00.002-04:00

Thanks to my friend, playwright and audio engineer Cyrus Leddy, I have a recording of myself babbling about my book XOMBIES: APOCALYPSE BLUES. Cyrus secretly caught this talk at my book-release party, so I hope I didn't say anything too incriminating. If you care to listen to it, another friend of mine, web expert Brian Greene, has kindly posted the link on my homepage.

In other news, I just took part in the big Halloween chat at Writerspace. Completely nuts, that's all I can say. It was like being in a room full of people all talking at once--I couldn't type fast enough to keep up. It probably didn't matter anyway, since I really think it might have been the wrong crowd for my book. But one thing we could all agree on was how much we love chocolate!

2009-10-25T09:53:00.001-04:00

It's time again for the annual Writerspace Halloween Party, to celebrate the chill in the air and find some terrific books to curl up with this fall! So please join me and dozens of your favorite authors at the 2009 Halloween Mash at Writerspace on Wednesday, October 28th from 8pm ET to 11pm ET. Authors will be dropping in to chat all during the evening and we will be giving away 100s of new books and other fantastic prizes -- autographed, hard-to-find, advance copies plus special treats like gift baskets and more. We hope to see you Wednesday night! You don't have to be present to win, but you must be registered. To register, and for details on all participating authors and the prizes they're giving away, visit http://www.writerspace.com/halloween

2009-10-20T13:51:00.002-04:00

A reader just sent me this picture of the Valhalla installation in XOMBIES: APOCALYPSE BLUES. If you've read the book, this is a pretty accurate depiction of the place. If you haven't read it, SPOILER ALERT! A minor spoiler, but still...

Thanks, Jaybee!

2009-10-19T13:33:00.002-04:00

Kimber An, most excellent curator of the book blog enduringromance.com, writes in to ask about the future of the human race if almost all the women in the world are marauding Xombies. It's a good question, and one I'm surprised no one else has asked. What's the point of surviving the apocalypse if human extinction is inevitable anyway? Is our only purpose to reproduce? What about love--does love matter in such a world? What if we had the choice to become monsters ourselves, and explore that strange new state of being? If all that's left is to either die or become a Xombie, which would you choose? Or would you keep suffering, fighting, searching for a third option...right up to the bitter end? That's the hard decision that Lulu and the other characters in the story are wrestling with, even if only subconsciously: They and their world are already dead--they just won't lie down.

2009-10-14T15:19:00.003-04:00

Hey, check out the cool cover art for my next novel XOMBIES: APOCALYPTICON (release date: Feb. 29th. 2010). That's Sal DeLuca there on the cover, wearing his BMX jacket. I have to say I love that tagline--whoever at Ace Books came up with that, thank you. Also that red color scheme makes a nice companion for the blue scheme of XOMBIES: APOCALYPSE BLUES.

Speaking of which, XOMBIES: APOCALYPSE BLUES has officially been on sale for one week. I'm freaking out thinking I should be doing something, but I don't know quite what. I've been dropping by bookstores to sign their copies, which is good, but sometimes they have no copies and then I'm sad. My next actual book signing is at Pandemonium Books (4 Pleasant St. in Cambridge, MA) at 7pm on Wednesday, Oct. 21st. It's a cool store, so I'm looking forward to that. I'll also be joining an online chat on WriterSpace from 8-8:30pm on October 28, and I think XOMBIES will be a featured book on the Fresh Fiction website that same day. Plus I'm having a book giveaway on Goodreads through Dec. 7th.

2009-10-05T07:00:00.002-04:00

Why did I make the Xombie plague strike women first? Is it because I hate women? No, of course not--it's because I wanted to turn the tables on men. Considering the horrible way women are treated in most of the world, I thought it would be interesting (and sort of funny) to create a situation where suddenly it is men who are the "weaker sex," forced to hide and flee for their lives from rapacious women. But rather than have a man be the focus of the story, I decided to flip the situation even more by having a teenage girl tell the tale--a girl who is seemingly immune to the Maenad epidemic, and who must cope with not only Xombies but also paranoid, hostile males.

2009-10-03T10:19:00.003-04:00

What are Xombies? That's a good question, and I'll answer it by briefly explaining what I was shooting for when I started writing the original Xombies back in 2001.

I was strongly influenced by George Romero's zombie movies as a kid, and I was also a fan of an earlier film that inspired George: The Last Man on Earth, based on Richard Matheson's novel, I Am Legend. I always thought it might be fun to write a zombie book or perhaps a movie script, but I didn't want to steal Romero's flesh-eating, shoot-'em-in-the-head type zombies--that would be lazy. I wanted to invent a new type of zombie...and an original story angle that turned the more boring genre tropes on their heads. I was sick of the whole genre thing, and had almost stopped reading because mainstream books were all designed to fit in their little slots. Life does not fit into any genre, and my dream was to write a book that was as bizarre, as funny, and as disturbingly random as life.

So I thought: Throw out the tough-guy action hero. I would make my hero an underdeveloped, unhappy teenage girl--the Last Girl on Earth. You want zombies? I'll give you Xombies--but forget about shooting them in the head. My creatures would be unstoppable unless you minced them...and even then the mincemeat would come for you. But how would anyone escape such creatures?

Aye, there was the rub. How could anyone survive such a plague? But then it hit me: In a nuclear submarine! And this was very convenient because I knew a bit about submarines, having worked the graveyard shift at a submarine factory. I was always fascinated by subs and undersea technology, and I knew I wasn't the only one--the market was full of submarine thrillers. But nobody was writing about submarines filled with teenage refugees fleeing a zombie apocalypse. Nobody was writing about it from the perspective of a teenage girl.

2009-09-30T04:13:00.002-04:00

Phew--the book release party is over. Actually, it's been over for a while: it's after four o'clock in the morning, but I'm still wired.

I am amazed and humbled to have such great friends--I love you guys. For the past week I've really been sweating this party, preparing myself in case no one showed up (and why would they, after all? On a weeknight? For a hermit like me?), but pretty much everybody was there. Incredible. It gets me a little choked up, to tell you the truth--it was a beautiful night. I only wish I could have talked longer with everybody individually, which I look forward to doing over the next few days and weeks. I hope nobody felt snubbed, or bored by my nervous ramblings. I should have prepared a speech...and hired some suave bastard to read it. But all in all, the whole thing went well. Beyond well.

Anyway, thank you all. Okay, now it's 5am. I better at least try to get some sleep.

2009-09-15T08:43:00.004-04:00

Well, I'm doing something I've never done before: throwing a book-release party. What book, you say? Well, since you ask, I'm talking about my novel, XOMBIES: APOCALYPSE BLUES. So if you happen to be in Providence, Rhode Island, at 7pm on Tuesday the 29th, I invite you to come by Books on the Square, 471 Angell Street, and join me for some food, drink, and naked fisticuffs. No!--I meant genteel conversation.

Oh, and I've just confirmed that from 1-4pm on Saturday, October 3rd, I'll be signing books at B. Dalton Books, S. Shore Plaza, in Braintree, MA. At the very least I'll have snacks there, so that should be a good time, too. I'm a no-pressure kind of guy.

2009-09-07T23:45:00.002-04:00

The XOMBIES: APOCALYPSE BLUES book trailer is finally done!

I don't quite get the whole book trailer thing. I only recently heard of this phenomenon of authors making video teasers for their books, and to me it just seems like one more burden on struggling writers. The rich ones can afford to pay thousands of dollars for a slick-looking, professionally-made trailer, but the less fortunate are screwed...and it has zero to do with the quality of the book.

Even so, I thought it might be fun to make one. Stage the Xombie Apocalypse with only materials I had on hand or could get for next to nothing. I already had a clunky old video camera, so my biggest expense was art supplies; mainly masking tape, clay, and spray paint--maybe twenty bucks worth of stuff. The rest all came out of my recycling bins or from the Salvation Army.

I've always loved making short films. When I was a kid, my best friend and I spent our summers filming little space movies on his Super 8 camera, shooting model spaceships against a black velvet bedspread, then etching laser bolts directly on the film. I loved everything about it: building the models, shooting them, blowing them up, editing the film (literally by cutting and pasting), then finally adding the effects. In recent years I've enjoyed working as an actor for my friends' theater and film projects, but here was a chance to make my own little movie. At the very least it would be an interesting challenge.

Holy hell, what an ordeal. It took me three months longer than I thought it would. Everything that could go wrong, did, including my ancient Hi-8 camera needing to be sent away for repairs (I looked into buying a new one, but the color quality didn't mesh with what I'd already shot). But in the end it all came together, thanks to the camerawork of my son Max, the patience of my wife Cindy (who had to put up with a houseful of puppets and cardboard props all summer), the editing know-how of my friend Steve Ahlquist, and the last-minute voice talent of my friend Tangie Miner. Speaking of voices, the "music" on the soundtrack is some impromptu harmonizing by me and Max, and I did the percussion with two kitchen whisks. Call it my tribute to Hardware Wars.

Enuf said. Here's the link to the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge5i0oHINcU

2009-09-04T08:48:00.002-04:00

Wow...I just saw a trailer for the movie The Road, based on the Cormac McCarthy book. That book is so gloomy I was wondering how they could ever make it into a watchable film...but I must admit it looks pretty good. Kind of a Road Warrior vibe--lots of post-apocalyptic bad guys driving junk vehicles, and the good guy (Viggo Mortensen) trying to protect his child from the marauders. Be interesting to see if it holds up, but I like what I saw.

Oh, I also saw the trailer for James Cameron's Avatar. I try to avoid learning too much about movies I'm interested in (I deliberately skipped the Avatar presentation at Comic-Con) but a lot of what I've been hearing has been negative, so I finally decided to check out the trailer for myself. Frankly, I think it looks pretty amazing. I mean, come on! A crippled Earthman infiltrating an alien tribe amid a backdrop of interstellar jungle warfare? It's like the best Edgar Rice Burroughs story never written, illustrated by Frank Frazetta. Spaceships and exotic planets and sexy blue aliens riding flying beasts--how can anyone not love that? And in 3-D!

Speaking of cool weird stuff, I just read Bob Fingerman's illustrated book Connective Tissue, which is like Dante meets Lewis Carroll meets Jonathan Swift meets Harvey Kurtzman (in full-on Little Annie Fannie mode) and narrated by a juicier Janeane Garofalo. It's the tale of a pulchritudinous and smartly snarky New York chick who is literally snatched from her dead-end job and dropped into a surreal wasteland full of freaks and geeks. Is it Hell...or just a really bad trip? I'll just say that by the end it really doesn't matter--it's all about the ride. You'll never look at Gummi Bears the same way again.

2009-08-29T08:55:00.002-04:00

Last night I was hanging around in my local Barnes & Noble, looking at books about viral marketing. Trying to get more web-savvy. Learning how to "promote my product more effectively." And as I flipped through the pages of helpful internet tips, the same thing started to happen that always happens: I could feel my eyes glaze over, my brain grow fuzzy. A deep sense of dread curdled my guts--the same dread I used to feel as a kid in school. I hated school. All I wanted to do all day was read, write, and draw (okay, and stare at girls), and they kept making me do all this other crap. It was torture, pure torture, and I couldn't wait for it to end. But it never ends!

You know what I do like, though? Good Mexican food. And there's no better place for authentic Mexican cuisine than Mexico Garibaldi, on Atwells Avenue in Providence, Rhode Island. From their delicious chips and salsas (don't miss the guacamole!) to their scrumptious chiles rellenos and delectable barbacoa de chivo (served with seasoned rice, salad, and warm corn tortillas), Mexico Garibaldi is a taste of Old Mexico--right here in the USA!

2009-08-16T09:01:00.002-04:00

Nice--I just bought a used copy of Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian, which I'll read as soon as I finish The Three Musketeers. I've been a fan of McCarthy's work ever since I read The Crossing some years ago, and it was no surprise to me when I heard the Coen brothers were adapting his book No Country For Old Men into a movie, because they also have that pitch-black sense of humor--witness Fargo. That was why I was a bit disappointed in McCarthy's The Road, just because it was so unrelievedly somber. Come on, what's funnier than the end of the world? The idea of pushing a squeaky-wheeled shopping cart through an apocalyptic wasteland should have been painfully hilarious...not just painful. I'll be interested to see how the movie version handles it--two hours of dust and gloom is not exactly Hollywood gold. Somebody needs to remake A Boy and His Dog.

2009-08-06T11:32:00.002-04:00

Last Comic-Con report, hopefully:

So...it was finally time for my panel discussion--Monster Mash, Room 2. This was only my second time taking part in a panel (the first being at ThrillerFest two weeks previous), and this one promised to be pretty well-attended, since one of the other authors was Amber Benson--Willow's girlfriend on Buffy the Vampire Slayer--who was promoting her novel Death's Daughter. A friend of mine had half-jokingly offered me a thousand bucks to let him impersonate me, just so he could meet Amber. The other authors on the panel were Rob Thurman (Deathwish), Alice Henderson (Voracious), and S. G. Browne (Breathers).

Climbing the stage I was a bit nervous, but attempted to act cool as I shook hands with the other panelists and poured myself a cup of water. I could see my friends Dave and Steve in the audience, giving me a thumbs-up. After that, everything was a blur. The moderator asked questions, and we on the panel attempted to answer intelligently...or at least interestingly. I know I yammered a lot about my book, trying to dispel any notion that it was misogynistic to have all the women in the world become raving monsters--Xombies--who prey on men. What I was doing, I explained, was merely turning the tables on men. Making women the brutal, dangerous sex, and men their ravished victims. It's a terrifying situation, yet not without its funny side, especially since my narrator is a young woman who must coexist on a submarine with a bunch of traumatized, paranoid guys.

2009-08-05T07:37:00.002-04:00

All right, time to wrap up this Comic-Con thing--I'm starting to bore myself.

Here's what I didn't like about Comic-Con: Too much shilling. Not enough just hanging out and enjoying the company of fellow nerds and nerdettes. See, when I do a book signing, I'm doing it because I get a thrill out of meeting people who share my interests--that's my primary motivation. But at this thing it seemed like so many people (and certainly all the corporate concessions) were there only to promote their latest product--which is the whole point, I know, I know, but it would be nice to at least have the illusion that there's some joy involved beyond the cash transaction. The girls in hotpants are nice, but I really just want to geek out with someone who loves talking about what they do. Maybe that's unrealistic in these difficult economic times, and people are depending on this for their living, but COME ON! If it's just about selling crap, then fuck it! No decent art was ever created solely to make money. It has to start with a vision, and someone who is willing to gamble everything on that vision. That's the part I'm interested in--the struggle, not the swag. And as a Star Wars fan, I would have loved to see a panel devoted to the original film, with as many of the actual movie crew, minor actors (Biggs? Porkins?), and props as they could dig up. I went to a horror convention a few years back where I got to meet almost everyone from George Romero's zombie films, and it was amazing how into it they all still are. I don't think the Star Wars folks realize what they're missing. For that matter, where was the booth devoted to Futurama, or Lord of the Rings, or Let the Right One In, or Alien, or Back to the Future, or Spumco, or R. Crumb, or Mad Magazine, or all the other stuff I would have loved to talk to somebody about?

Okay, that's my hippie rant for today.

Here's something I liked: There was a Ralph Bakshi booth selling actual frames from his animated movie Wizards. Ralph himself wasn't there, so I couldn't shake his hand, but I would have liked to tell him how much I loved Wizards--that movie had a powerful effect on me as a kid. With its blatant sexiness and violence, it was an antidote to the G-rated animated crap of the seventies. It took animated fantasy seriously at a time when no other cartoon would show a drop of blood, much less a nipple (and still won't, unless it's Japanese). Last thing I saw of Bakshi's was a hilarious reboot of the Mighty Mouse franchise, which was squelched for being too disturbing.

So I wandered the halls looking for these little moments of transcendence--and occasionally finding them--until it was finally time for my panel discussion. I had been stressing about this the whole time: the Monster Mash panel at three p.m. on Saturday. And it was finally here.

2009-08-02T17:13:00.002-04:00

Comic-Con, Part Two:

That first night we didn't do much more than head down to the Con and pick up our badges. But I got my first look at the place--damn. It was a fanboy (and fangirl) fantasyland, a soaring astrodome celebrating every blip of pop-cultural nerddom since before the dawn of Superman. People were dressed up as Stormtroopers, of course, but also as characters from the Sims, replete with floating green icons over their heads. My jet-lagged brain could barely absorb it all. Fortunately the place was shutting down for the night, so my friends took me to a cheerfully rude honkeytonk called Dick's Last Resort for cold drinks, ribs, and buckets of fried catfish. Good first day.

Friday morning. I woke early and took a blissful swim in the motel pool, looking up at palm trees and hibiscus blossoms. It made me realize what I've been missing all these years, slaving away at my computer like a mindless, soulless drone. Man does not live by bread alone! On the way back to my room, I noticed a notice posted in the stairwell: WARNING! THESE PREMISES CONTAIN CHEMICALS KNOWN TO CAUSE CANCER AND BIRTH DEFECTS.

The complimentary waffles were excellent. Then Dave, Steve, Chris, and I headed out for our first full day at the Con. We didn't stay together long, because they had stuff of their own to do, and a base at which to do it: the Slave Labor Graphics booth. They had chairs and everything, while I was helplessly swept along like a pilgrim to Mecca. At first it was fun, seeing some of my favorite art and artists (the Last Gasp and Hi Fructose concessions), checking out the more outrageous costumes (butt cheeks galore), and surveying movie props at the various studio pavilions. Oh, and I met the delightful Penguin contingent, my publishers, who were very nice about me taking up half their available floorspace to babble incoherently about my book. But I couldn't bother them long; there were many other people yet to bother. Moving on, I realized I was crashing: dehydrated, jet-lagged, footsore, and carb-starved. I could barely see straight. Fighting clear of the crowd, I left the Con and caught a trolley back to the cool, quiet (and apparently toxic) refuge of my motel. A pretty girl dressed as Poison Ivy helped me find my way...or was she just a hallucination? Whatever, a little nap was all I needed, and it worked like a charm--by that evening I was back at the Con and meeting my buddies for another round at Dick's Last Resort.

2009-08-01T07:47:00.002-04:00

Comic-Con. What is there to say? It was massive. Mammoth. I've been to the one in New York, but that didn't prepare me for the insanity of this thing in San Diego. But I think I had fun...or maybe I was just giddy with exhaustion. Four days is a long time to be fighting crowds, even if they're crowds of women dressed as sexy anime characters.

I didn't get off to a great start. My first mistake was trying to walk to my hotel from the airport (on the map it looked so close!), then, once I arrived, I had to work out sleeping arrangements with my friends, comic auteurs Dave Ray and Steve Ahlquist, who had arrived on an earlier flight. Since there were only two beds (one of them an excruciating convertable couch), every night was a game of musical chairs to see who got the floor. The fourth member of our party, Chris Reilly, wisely avoided the entire issue by taking a whole room for himself. But it wasn't all bad: the hotel did have a pool, and a very nice breakfast buffet (with a do-it-yourself waffle iron--waffles!), and convenient access to a trolley that would take us to the Con every day. Let the fun begin!

2009-07-21T07:09:00.002-04:00

Damn. I hate coming to the end of a really good book.

I just finished re-reading The Making of Star Wars, by J.W. Rinzler--incredible. For a major Star Wars geek like me, this book is the holy grail: a deep account of everything that went into the original Star Wars. Not Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope, but just plain Star Wars--the astonishing movie that blew my young mind in the spring of 1977. I saw the movie about forty times that summer, sitting through multiple showings at a time (I couldn't afford to pay for every viewing--it cost $3.50!), and read everything about the film I could get my hands on (I still cherish my Star Wars issue of American Cinematographer), so I thought I knew just about everything there was to know about how it all came together.

But no--this book tells the whole story; the story I've been waiting to read for over thirty years.

From George Lucas's original inspiration (coming off his "failures" with THX-1138, Apocalypse Now, and the as-yet-unreleased American Graffiti) to the endless contract negotiations and studio interference, to the technical challenges, compromises, and breakthroughs that made the movie what it is. Many of these stories I've heard before, but reading them all as part of a chronology, in context, is like taking a time-machine back to '77 and actually witnessing the events unfold. It's a drama as interesting as the movie itself, with idealistic heroes (Lucas and Fox producer Alan Ladd, Jr.; the ILM crew, battling impossible deadlines in their sweltering, flea-ridden warehouse) and powerful villains (clueless executives snoozing through previews; dismissive English film editors botching the work print). But in the end it's a testament to cooperation--making Star Wars required an extraordinary communal effort by many, many talented people. And one thing that comes across very clearly (at least to me) is that the movie they made is far better than the one George Lucas originally set out to make. It was only because of the enormous difficulties and budget limitations that Star Wars was boiled down to its pure essence. Had Lucas had his way, the film might now be just another soft-focus relic of the Seventies, an expensive, cluttered mess like Lucky Lady, Heaven's Gate, or 1941. George was never satisfied with Star Wars...but that is exactly why the movie is so good.

2009-07-17T06:44:00.004-04:00

Well, I've about recovered from attending the NY ThrillerFest. Interesting experience, to be at a convention where almost everyone you meet is a published author. I'm not sure I liked it. Okay, I didn't like it. I felt like a fish out of water...or a hobo at a small-business expo. This was clearly not my crowd. Oh, everyone was nice enough (although I did get snubbed by Alafair Burke, but that was probably my fault for saying I thought she was a fictional character. Is that rude? Come on, she's in her dad's books!), but having a zombie book did not earn me many brownie points--most folks either made a face or just politely ignored it. And I admit the feeling's mutual: I don't read much genre fiction either. In fact, I wouldn't have known who anyone was if not for the help of author Nate Kenyon, who generously interpreted for me. It was mostly thanks to him that anybody talked to me at all. When Nate wasn't around, I tended to find myself in halting conversations with scary-looking dudes who were trying to publish books about either religion or dismemberment.

There were some highlights, though:

On Nate's suggestion, he and I volunteered at the registration desk, which was a much better way of meeting people than just mingling. It gave us a purpose, allowed us to raid the freebies, and enabled me to plant my home-made Xombies promo in every welcome kit I handed out. Nate also persuaded me to set up a last-minute meeting with my editor, something I had been reluctant to do on such short notice. But she agreed to see me! Maybe it's because of all the years of rejection, but that blows my mind, that a schmuck like me can get the editor of a New York publishing house on the phone, much less be invited to have coffee with them. Of course I got lost on the subway.

My panel discussion went well, considering it was about the use of exotic settings in thriller writing. I don't think too many people read Xombies for the exotic settings, but I think I made a pretty good case for it, considering that a lot of the book takes place aboard a nuclear submarine (in itself pretty exotic) searching the world for a safe refuge. I'm a ham, so any chance to blabber self-importantly is fun for me. And next week I get to do it again, at Comic-Con!

The food at the various mixers was pretty good, there were free drinks, and the Thriller Awards Banquet was unbelievable, like eating dinner in a cathedral. That's no exaggeration--the ceiling at this place (Cipriani's) had to be seventy feet high, with huge marble columns, an open bar that glowed like a candle-lit altar, and extremely diligent waiters who hovered as silently as monks. The best thing was that the seat to my right was empty but the waiters treated it like a person, setting out a whole extra meal that I couldn't let go to waste. That's not gluttony, people, that's called saving the planet.

2009-06-25T15:27:00.002-04:00

Just saw Sam Raimi's new movie Drag Me to Hell--not bad. In fact pretty damn good, with a number of classic Raimi frights and gross-outs. Not in the same league as Evil Dead, but at least a return to the same general territory. The only real letdown is the climactic seance scene, which has a great buildup but no real payoff. But overall it's a very fun movie, with terrific performances all around.

Oh, I just had a bit of good news: It looks like a story of mine will be included in the zombie anthology The Living Dead 2, edited by John Joseph Adams. I feel honored, because the first book had such a big impact and so many great writers.

Speaking of writers, I'll be attending the NY ThrillerFest in July, and taking part in a panel discussion on the topic of writing. So if anyone wants to ask me anything, that's where I'll be. Then later in July I'll be in San Diego for Comic-Con, where I'll be taking part in another panel discussion with a group of horror novelists. You may think this all I do: fly around the country taking part in panel discussions. But no--I do many other wonderful things, such as saving avocado pits in case I ever want to grow my own avocado tree. Then I eventually throw them out. But it's a beautiful thought.

2009-06-13T12:28:00.003-04:00

This is unbelievable. I keep getting spam emails that are using my own web address as their URL, and it's really starting to piss me off. How is this even possible? Other people are probably getting these bogus emails and opening them up, thinking they're coming from me, and getting a bunch of porn or god knows what. I only wish I could get my hands on the douchebags who send this stuff.

2009-06-01T14:58:00.002-04:00

Just saw George Romero's Day of the Dead for the first time in a few years. Not Romero's best (or worst) movie, but it has some great performances. A few years ago I was lucky enough to go to a horror convention that hosted almost everybody from this film, including George Romero himself. Fun bunch, and they obviously still love talking to fans about that movie. I was able to give George a signed copy of my book in appreciation for all the zombie pleasure he's given me over the years, and also gave one to Lori Cardille (star of Day of the Dead) in exchange for her book I'm Gonna Tell. I have to say she's still pretty hot.

I remember the first time I saw Day of the Dead. It didn't come to Providence, so my girlfriend and I made a special trip to New York City just to see it. This was a big deal because neither of us made much money--I was a garage cashier, and she worked at a daycare center--but I was a huge fan of Romero's two previous zombie films, especially Dawn of the Dead, and I had to see this one. Day was playing at a big theater on Times Square, with incredible sound and freezing air-conditioning. The movie had just opened a week or two earlier, but the matinee we attended was almost empty. I felt bad for George, but at least we had great seats. Then: Wham!--that wonderful opening scene with the helicopter landing in a zombie-infested city. Thank God, George had done it again.

It was a very good weekend.

2009-05-29T09:51:00.002-04:00

I just bought the first issue of Bob Fingerman's new comic, From the Ashes, and of course it's as hilarious, truthful, and warped as all his work. Stylewise, he's like a demented Mort Drucker, gleefully documenting the decline of Western Civilization.

From the Ashes is not only mordantly funny, it's also weirdly poignant, which makes sense since it's about Bob and his wife Michele surviving the end of the world. But nuclear apocalypse is a mixed bag--despite a few cannibalistic freaks, it's not all bad. Hey, no more ringing BlackBerries, balky PCs, or annoying co-workers. In fact no job at all, ever again! And they have each other, which is my favorite thing about the story: how Bob is so crazy about Michele that he's actually grateful for the apocalypse, just so they can finally spend more time together. Billions may be dead, but their sweetly snarky romance (think Robert and Aline Crumb) goes on. If there has to be an armageddon, these are the people you want to spend it with.

Having been an avid follower of Fingerman's work ever since I first discovered it in Heavy Metal magazine back in the '80s, it came as something of a shock when I read in an interview that he enjoyed my novel Xombies. That was huge for me. Bob Fingerman liked my book--whoa.

2009-05-28T05:01:00.002-04:00

I've just been re-reading Elmer Gantry, by Sinclair Lewis, and am amazed all over again by what an unbelievably gutsy book it is...and more relevant than ever. It should be required reading for every American.

Speaking of which, I hope that the re-release of my book Xombies (as Xombies: Apocalypse Blues) will finally give it a chance to be properly evaluated. Despite the title and lurid cover, it never was intended to be a "zombie novel" (there was no such genre when I wrote it in 2001), but rather a social satire that used "Xombies" the same way Kurt Vonnegut used Ice Nine in Cat's Cradle--as a device to address gender issues, corporate manipulation, assumptions of good and evil, and the human tendency toward self-deception. These were all very much on my mind after 9/11, when it seemed to me that most of America had turned into a horde of mindless zombies. And, like the unfortunate refugees crammed aboard the USS No-Name, we were all in the same boat.

Not many readers appreciated these ideas at the time, but I hope that by now most of my cultural critiques have entered the mainstream. At least no one can accuse me of jumping on the bandwagon.

2009-05-27T08:53:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I miss hitchhiking. When I was younger I spent a couple of years hitchhiking all over the U.S. and Mexico, and it was the most incredible time. Of course, I could have been murdered by a serial-killer, but at that point in my life I didn't much care. I had just dropped out of school and was living in a crappy apartment in Santa Fe, working as a janitor to support my writing habit. But after a friend of mine died senselessly I lost all sense of purpose. So I bought a used canvas dufflebag, stuffed it with a blanket and a change of clothes, gave the rest of my belongings away (including my portable typewriter), and hit the road. I figured I had nothing to lose--the only other alternative was suicide.

2009-05-26T10:39:00.002-04:00

I just spent Memorial Day weekend raking the leaves that are falling from the large maple tree in my backyard. It's a green blizzard out there! You may wonder, as anyone would, why the leaves are falling in Spring instead of Fall (actually, they also fall in Fall, so I get to rake twice a year). Is the tree sick, or dying? I wondered the same thing myself when it first started happening a few years ago. I searched the leaves for any sign of disease, but there was nothing--the leaf-stems were just neatly cut. Spotting a few aphids, I had the tree sprayed...but the leaves still fell. Finally I went on the Internet and found the cause: a wily creature called a petiole borer. This is a species of wasp that plants its eggs in the leaf-stems (or "petioles") of maple trees, so that the larvae chew through the stem. The leaves drop first, then later the grubs, which burrow under the soil and emerge the following Spring as tiny wasps. The Circle of Life! Apparently this seasonal infestation is not all that harmful to the tree, which grows back most of its leaves over the summer. Lucky me, because there seems to be little in the way of pest control--like Steven Segal, petiole borers are hard to kill.

And while I'm boring you with my petty gripes, why is it I don't have any friends who like to fish? I like to fish. As a kid growing up in California I spent my summers fishing almost every day, digging my own bait or buying live anchovies on the Belmont Pier, but somehow I never made any friends who were equally into fishing--I couldn't even get my own son into it! It's a cruel sport, they say, and I have to admit it is an awful thing to do to a living creature (yet no more horrible than the fate of all our meat). So I rarely fish anymore, or if I do I fish alone.

2009-05-24T07:33:00.003-04:00

Well, it looks like I'm going to attend both ThrillerFest (NY) and Comic-Con (San Diego) in July, so I'll be covering both coasts. I just wish I had some advance copies of Xombies: Apocalypse Blues to hand out--it seems kind of silly to promote a book that won't be available for three more months. But I'm working on some cool handouts of my original artwork, and hopefully Berkley/Ace will come through with a flyer and some posters.

Apparently I'll be taking part in panel discussion at ThrillerFest--something about the use of exotic locales in fiction--which should be interesting. And by interesting, I mean potentially disastrous, along the lines of David Brent's attempts at motivational speaking on The Office. My book is about the last girl on Earth, zombies, the end of the world, a submarine voyage, the Beatles, and the downside of Xanadu--I'm not sure this panel is the perfect place for me. But I do appreciate not being automatically relegated to the zombie-shlock ghetto.

2009-05-08T06:19:00.002-04:00

I just finished another Xombies illustration--check it out.

2009-04-29T13:12:00.002-04:00

Well, as you may have noticed, I've received the cover for XOMBIES: APOCALYPSE BLUES. I'm not sure how I feel about the model they used (my idea of Lulu is more along the lines of Wednesday Addams) but I like the layout and overall concept, which I think represents the book much better than the old XOMBIES cover (much as I love that blurry ghoul).

In case you're wondering what happened to my homepage, my website is currently undergoing a much-needed revamp, courtesy of expert webmeister Brian Greene, so as soon as that's done there will finally be some new artwork to look at. Also I just bought a cheap scanner, so there's no end of crap I can post online.

Of late I've been fantasizing about who I would cast in an ideal movie version of XOMBIES (Yes, this is the kind of thing I think about. What am I, Proust?):

First it'd need a great director, somebody who could handle special effects and a big ensemble cast, yet still keep it intimate. Somebody with a dark sense of the absurd, and an affinity for young actors. Tim Burton springs to mind. Also Alfonso Cuaron. Ridley Scott. Luc Besson. Guillermo del Toro. Bryan Singer. Steven Spielberg. Peter Jackson--this is getting crazy. But if any of those guys are reading this, have I got a project for you!

Then the actors: A few years ago I would have said Christina Ricci was the perfect Lulu Pangloss, but there must be another teen actress with that spooky, sardonic edge. Julianne Moore could play her troubled mother to a T. For her father, the crusty-but-lovable Fred Cowper, I was thinking Steve Buscemi. My wife came up with the perfect James Sandoval: Alec Baldwin. And Sharon Stone would be great as ice-queen Dr. Alice Langhorne. Then there are all those teenage boys on the boat--Lulu's suitors and adversaries. Hey, it's a regular High School Musical on the high seas, and since we're going crazy anyway, why not start with Zac Efron as her love interest, Hector?

All right...enough fun for now. Back to the dank gray walls of reality.

2009-04-11T12:52:00.002-04:00

This is an illustration I did for John Palisano's short-story, The Tennatrick.

2009-04-10T21:30:00.001-04:00

Here's another part of that Xombies page.

2009-04-10T21:17:00.002-04:00

Here's part of an illustration I did for Xombies--it's the scene where Lulu is attacked by her Xombified mother.

2009-03-26T11:30:00.003-04:00

This is what happens: I start going on chatlines and blogs, and before I know it I'm spending every waking moment on my computer. Now I'm even contemplating Facebook--where will it end? I'm like an addict, which is why I spent the last few years going cold turkey. But now the cycle is starting again--help meee...

2009-03-25T12:02:00.003-04:00

Thanks to everybody who has been kind enough to offer congratulations on my four-book deal with Berkley. It never fails to amaze me that I still have fans after being in limbo for the last five years--I love you people.

Here's how the deal will play out: Apocalypse Blues (formerly called Xombies) will be released this October (I just discovered it can be pre-ordered now on Amazon--unbelievable!), followed five months later by the epic sequel, Apocalypticon, in March. With all due humility, I predict Apocalypticon is going to be big--it goes places no zombie novel has gone before, and I've been polishing the damn thing for five years. It's the War and Peace of zombie novels.

These two books will be followed by my latest novel, Mad Skillz, sometime in Fall 2010. I'm particularly excited about Mad Skillz because it is a bit of a departure from the Xombies series (though it takes place in the same universe, pre-apocalypse, and shares several characters). It's a funhouse-ride of a conspiracy thriller, about an ordinary young woman who survives a terrible accident only to become a guinea-pig for mind-control technology, a la The Manchurian Candidate. The fourth book is still up in the air, but I'm thinking of capping off the Apocalypse trilogy with a big bang. What happens after that...who knows? I'm just glad to be workin'.

2009-03-10T11:13:00.003-04:00

Okay...just thought I'd mention a few Good Things, a la Martha Stewart:

The movie Let The Right One In--beautiful Swedish vampire film, came and went without notice, but it's great. Little girl vampire befriends (then helps) lonely boy, which sounds adorable...until you start to really examine what's going on, at which point it becomes the most horrible thing ever.

The opening credit montage of Watchmen, done to the tune of Bob Dylan's " The Times They are A-Changin'"--brilliant. I'm reminded of the opening of Zack Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead, which used Johnny Cash to equally good effect.

Revolutionary Road--terrific, and not as unrelievedly glum as many reviewers would have you expect. I see the movie as pure satire, quite grimly funny in the way of Husbands and Wives, and not depressing at all...unless you happen to be one of the pathetic people it's poking fun at. Which we're not, are we?

2009-02-27T22:51:00.002-05:00

Is this great or what? This is George the Zombie, courtesy of my friend KnittyOtter (who has a very cool website devoted to truly awesome homespun fashions, of which George is the resident evil--uh, I mean resident model).

Thanks KnittyOtter...and of course George! You guys rock!

2009-02-25T07:16:00.003-05:00

Wow. Oh well (deep breath)...here goes:

I just got a four-book deal with Berkley. Repeat: I GOT A FOUR-BOOK DEAL WITH BERKLEY. They will be publishing the first two books of my Apocalypse series (formerly called Xombies and Xombie Rama), as well as my new novel Mad Skillz, and a fourth book to be determined. I'm still in a bit of a state of shock, because this offer literally came out of the blue. I'll let you know more as all the details come in, but for now: WOOO-HOOO!

Oh, and to KnittyOtter: I want to hug that zombie!

2009-01-28T20:34:00.001-05:00

Hooray! It looks like I've finally got another publishing deal--and it's a beauty. My Xombies will walk again! Additional information coming soon, I promise.

2008-07-09T08:44:00.002-04:00

Jeez, it seems like ages since I've been on this thing. Okay, well, first of all I'd just like to thank everyone who has emailed me in my limbo. Your interest in Xombies, Xombie Rama, and my other work has been a tremendous encouragement over the past year, and I'm amazed and truly grateful to still be hearing from fans. I've responded to pretty much every email I've received, but from the lack of follow-up I'm beginning to suspect that most (if not all) of my emails are getting blocked by people's spam filters. I don't know how to prevent this, so if you email me, make sure to check your spam file over the next few days. I can almost guarantee I'll be in there, screaming to be let out.

Most folks have asked me what's going on with Xombie Rama, and I can only say I wish I knew. The book is finished, I love it, but with the glut of zombie stuff on the market, I guess publishers have cooled to the genre--I know I have. Hell, I never intended to be part of any kind of zombie genre in the first place, so it's especially annoying to be consigned to the post-craze hangover. But I'm confident Xombie Rama will come out eventually. It's good stuff.

In the meantime, I've written a non-Xombies-related conspiracy thriller, a demented action extravaganza like the Bourne saga on LSD, which is making the rounds of publishers right now. In fact I'm going a little nuts here, which is why I haven't been blogging or doing much of anything except chewing my fingernails to the quick. I'll let you know the minute I hear anything.

2007-05-28T01:10:00.000-04:00

Just saw an interesting movie: Bug, directed by William Friedkin (The Exorcist). No, it's not a remake of the William Castle cockroaches-on-the-loose film from the '70s; this Bug is a dark, offbeat film based on a stage play, about two people in a motel room spiraling into insanity. Unfortunately, it's being promoted as though it is a campy teen screamfest--though there's nary a bug in sight. That pisses me off, because instead of being able to see this movie with an appreciative art-house audience, I had to watch it in a mall cinema full of bored, rowdy yahoos. Boy did they hate this movie...although they did begin to warm up to it once the main character began pulling his own teeth out with a pair of pliers.

Despite the restless crowd, I liked Bug quite a bit, and thought it compared favorably with such other fine chronicles of madness as The Rapture, Dead Ringers, and Leaving Las Vegas.

Moving on, I just wrote a short article about my formative Star Wars experience for Forcesofgood.com--if you're interested, check it out.

2007-04-10T16:20:00.000-04:00

Wow! Saw Grindhouse over the weekend--what a blast. Having spent my own warped childhood lurking amid the sticky aisles and mangy velvet seats of many a grindhouse cinema in Hollywood and Long Beach (and probably crossed paths with a young Quentin Tarantino without even knowing it), it was a nostalgic thrill to see those old coming-attraction reels, alarming previews, and scratchy prints. What younger viewers will make of it, I don't know.

I've read that the tighter film is the first one: Planet Terror, by Robert Rodriguez, and it is a fun, outrageous zombie film...but it's also so cartoonish that I got tired of the nonstop gore and explosions. I actually preferred Tarantino's entry, the car-chase/female-empowerment thriller, Death Proof. What others have criticized as being an overlong talkfest was to me another of Tarantino's patented dialogue pieces, no different than Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, or Kill Bill 2. And as a movie geek myself, I admit delight in Tarantino's in-jokes, from the theme music taken from schlock gem Village of the Giants to the yellow muscle car from the original Gone in 60 Seconds.

I'll tell you, they should do more of these double-features: pick different pairs of directors and let them loose to riff on their favorite cheesy genre flicks: spaghetti westerns, Zardoz-era sci-fi, satanic cult flicks, beatnik movies--it'd be great!

2007-03-26T09:48:00.000-04:00

Because these are the crappy doldrum months for Hollywood, it's always a delight to see a movie come out that's as good or better than most summer blockbusters. Case in point:
Over the weekend I had the pleasure of seeing The Host, a terrific Korean monster movie that's funny, scary, and altogether fresh--easily the best creature-on-the-loose yarn since Tremors...and perhaps since Alien. Hilarious characters, great settings, nail-biting suspense, horrific violence, and an awesome monster--this movie did it all for me. The only weakness was that the climax was a bit clunky and contrived...but by no means did this ruin the film. In fact, I can't wait to see it again.

2007-03-11T08:18:00.000-04:00

All right, I just saw the movie 300, and while it didn't exactly suck, it could have been so much better. I officially want to kill whoever has made it a rule that every historical film since Gladiator (i.e., King Arthur, Troy, Passion of the Christ, etc.) must include yowling, vaguely Islamic-sounding singing on the soundtrack. And the animated bursts of flying blood from every sword-stroke made me feel like I was watching somebody else play a videogame. Then there was the harping narration, which made the whole movie feel like the world's longest opening montage.

That said, there was some cool stuff, like the gigantic platform that Xerxes gets lugged around on, and the visuals in general (although the hunchbacked guy is really poorly done, especially post-Gollum). The acting is big and hammy but not bad for the most part, with lots of manly emoting and screaming charges into certain doom. But by the time we get to the end credits, which utilize Frank Miller's elegant, minimalist artwork, we suddenly realize the perfect half-hour cartoon it should have been.

2007-03-09T09:44:00.000-05:00

All right, I'm just testing out this new Blogger version--bunch of rigamarole...

Saw a couple of great movies lately: Pan's Labyrinth and Children of Men. I expected Pan's Labyrinth to be good, but hadn't heard much about Children of Men, so that one really blew me away. Both movies have "happy" endings that are very open to interpretation, fantasies that could be nothing more than the final delusions of dying people. I love that. Looking forward to seeing 300 next.

Working my way through the collection of '70s Man-Thing comics I picked up at the NY Comic-Con. I was a big fan of Man-Thing as a kid, but I came into the story late and missed all the early issues, so it's kind of cool to be able to finally catch up on all that now. Some of it is incredibly dumb, but there's good stuff there, too--a lot of still-relevant issues like ecology, racism, censorship, and the energy crisis. I heard they made a terrible, terrible horror movie out of Man-Thing not long ago, and that's a real crime--there are enough tales of magic and mayhem there (not to mention the hottest witch ever) to make a fantastic, Buffy-esque TV series. You hear that, Hollywood? That's the sound of money slipping through your fingers! Man-Thing was also the spawning ground for another great character that got completely trashed in the jump from comic to screen: Howard the Duck. Back in my newspaper days I wrote a review of that movie, expressing my feelings about what the studio did to it: Howard the Dud--Tar and Feathers.

2007-03-03T08:44:00.000-05:00

Xombierama

Phew, it's been awhile since I've blogged. It's only because I've been totally occupied for the past half year or so finishing my big ol' Xombies sequel, Xombie Rama. I've also been doing some promo artwork for it (or perhaps for a future graphic novelization), as well as working on several other projects.

Just spent three days at the New York Comic-Con--damn, what a mob. I tagged along with fellow SLG artists Dave Ray, Steve Ahlquist, and Chris Reilly, and the four of us stayed in the same hotel as Chewbacca--Peter Mayhew--feeling like the shambling giant was following us around everywhere we went. That was kind of surreal, as was meeting comic giants like Kyle Baker and Arthur Suydam. I was hoping to meet Aline Crumb, but missed her on the first day. It's just as well: I never know what to say to people like that, and always come off sounding like an ass.

Whenever the convention got to be too much (and by Sunday it was all too much), I wandered the freezing streets of Manhattan, eating hot dogs from Gray's Papaya and checking out the porn shops along 8th Avenue--that's the New York I remember: fire-gutted taxicabs and drifts of blowing garbage. Sweet, sweet squalor.

2006-03-24T16:52:00.000-05:00

Boomer and Bucket

Well, this month I've officially begun an alternate life as a comic artist, having just completed the second of two short collaborations with Chris Reilly and Steve Ahlquist. The former is a two-pager called "Boomer Brushes His Teeth" and will appear in Reilly's surreal tale, "The Trouble with Igor." The second will be part of the anthology "More Strange Eggs," and is a short history of the Boxing Bucket character--I call it "Raging Bucket."

2006-03-03T08:32:00.000-05:00

Blizzard
Almost killed myself getting to Nate Kenyon's book release party (Bloodstone) last night at Boston College. It was rush hour and snowing like a bastard just as I was leaving (I gave myself over two hours to get there, for what would normally be an hour drive, and was still late). Weirdly, it wasn't snowing at all in Boston--they looked at me like I was crazy when I babbled about a raging blizzard. Otherwise, the party was fine. Ate a few snacks, drank a Guinness (thanks, Nate!), chatted about books, and then had to drive back into Hell. Naw, the snow was over--all that was left was the shoveling.

2006-03-02T08:27:00.000-05:00

Igor
Just illustrated a couple of pages for a graphic project by Steve Ahlquist and Chris Reilly: a creepy/funny little vignette about one of the characters from their Tim Burton-esque Igor storyline. So theoretically I have two comic projects in the pipeline: this, and Atomic Cockatrice for the back cover of the upcoming More Strange Eggs (SLG). Plus I'm working on my own, longer comic, the first 24-page installment of which I hope to have done soon. I've always wanted to combine my love of drawing with my love of writing, so if this works out, it'll be my ultimate dream come true. Not to mention a hedge against the vissitudes of the publishing world.

2006-02-22T11:48:00.000-05:00

Bob Fingerman!
I just discovered an interview (on Comicon.com: "Fingerman sez...") with comics great Bob Fingerman, where he says my book Xombies is "amazing" and "very, very good." Having been a fan of his magnificently warped stuff for years, it's mind-blowing to me that he's reading mine...and liking it! You'll have to excuse me, I'm having a Sally Field-at-the-Oscars moment...

2006-02-16T15:56:00.000-05:00

Xombierama
Didn't get much work done today, but it was still busy. First had breakfast meeting at the Modern Diner with comic-book dudes David Ray (Strange Eggs), Steve Ahlquist, and Chris Reilly (co-creators of OZ Squad). Over a plate of fried eggs and the best corned-beef hash in America, I picked their brains about how to get my comic-in-progress off the ground. Then had to rush halfway across the state to meet with my web guru, Brian Greene, about setting up this blog and other techno-arcana. Thank God for this guy--I'd still be in the Dark Ages without him.

2006-02-16T14:20:00.000-05:00

All right, for what it's worth, I'm finally online.