Short Story Collection
blog.laurellkhamilton.org/2008/09/lkh-bit-090808.html
Dear Deluded Darla stopped by to let us know about some new stuff in LKH's life. Including this nugget...
ANTHOLOGY
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Living Dead - a horror anthology will be out September 29, 2008. It will feature the short story "Those Who Seek Forgiveness" from Laurell, in addition to short stories by: by Stephen King (Author), Joe Hill (Author), George R. R. Martin (Author), Clive Barker (Author), Neil Gaiman (Author), Laurell K. Hamilton (Author), Joe R. Lansdale (Author), Poppy Z. Brite (Author), Harlan Ellison (Author), John Joseph Adams (Editor)
Publisher: Night Shade Books (September 29, 2008)
ISBN-10: 1597801437
ISBN-13: 978-1597801430
Those That Seek Forgiveness was in the Strange Candy story collection.
So, Deeply Dumb Darla needs to inform you that OMG LKH is being featured in another collection with a previously published story. I believe “included” would have sufficed unless it is a special story in a place of honor. That would only be in LKH’s delusional world.
I remembered reading this particular story and being pretty disappointed with it. To complete this flog I had to once again read it. This is Anita in her pre-Skankomancer incarnation.
Edit: LKH is in bold. Me in plain
I have to start with the intro because she’s just asking for it.
How different things would have been if I’d stuck to my original plan. No Jean-Claude, no Richard, not much of anybody except Anita. What a bleak world it would have been, with just Anita and me in it.
Bleak, maybe. At least I wouldn’t need brain bleach after reading the vampire/lycanthrope pron that infects this series like Necrotizing fasciitis.
“Death is a very serious matter, Mrs. Fiske. People who go through it are never the same.”
Generally, they’re dead, Captain Obvious. She’s speaking to a Weeping Widow whose wardrobe she begins to describe. Evidently the obsession with wearing only one color started early. I will summarize the conversation.
Weeping Widow: I want you to raise my dead husband.
Skankomancer: Why?
Weeping Widow: I want to say bye. He had a heart attack.
Skankomancer: You really shouldn’t do this, but I know you will anyway. He’ll be a zombie and start rotting.
Weeping Widow: Could you make him a vampire?
Skankomancer: We do not do vampires. (At least not until book six, then we do vampires, lycanthropes and pretty much anything male that wanders close.)
Weeping Widow: Ok, zombie.
Skankomancer: Then we need to make an appointment to put him back in his grave.
Weeping Widow: What for?
Skankomancer: See above about the rotting thing. What do you want him to do?
Weeping Widow: I want him to forgive me. I had an affair then he had a heart attack.
Skankomancer: He will probably forgive you. He died of natural causes.
Weeping Widow: Ok, I’ll meet you at the cemetery.
Skankomancer: I already know exactly where. Either I read your mind or we have been talking for awhile and the author failed to allude to it. *facepalm*
After a few paragraphs of Skankomancer’s pointless wangst about how animators have it so rough, we leap to the mentioned cemetery.
As Carla had said, only two of them [trees] grew close together. That must have happened in the unmentioned conversation.
Weeping Widow had been chain smoking and is now dressed in only white. Weeping Widow has sudden morphed into Stone Cold Bitch? Skankomancer gets a weird vibe about this but completely ignores it. She gets her zombie making stuff and gets to the raising.
“You stand just behind the tombstone throughout the raising.” Three days dead and he already has a tombstone? Must be just a blank stone or maybe Arthur isn’t as newly dead as his widow claims he is.
Its first artery blood splashed onto the grave. Where’s the first artery? Maybe you meant “The first spurt of arterial blood splashed onto the grave as I cut the chicken‘s neck.”
Mindless chanting ensues. Evidently, they have to call the zombie by name. Then we get the first look at the dead husband.
The top of a dark-haired head was in sight, but the top was almost all there was. The mortician had done his best, but Arthur’s had been a closed-casket funeral. *facepalm* The last line was unnecessary. Delete it and join it with the next paragraph.
“Is that Arthur?” *facepalm* Were you calling for anyone else? Did you check the tombstone?
“That is not a heart attack.” *facepalm* No, that is a zombie. What killed him wasn’t a heart attack. Maybe.
“You killed him, and had me bring him back.” *facepalm* She just said that she killed him. Why do you have to repeat everything out loud?
I forced her to look at me instead of the thing in the grave. “Carla, a murdered zombie always kills his murderer first, always. No forgiveness, that is a rule. I can’t control him until after he has killed you. You have to run, now.” *facepalm* Ok, I need to stop this for a rant. Anita has been an animator long enough to know this. So, why does she automatically believe someone she doesn’t know? If I were in Anita’s shoes and this kind of thing could happen I would have a waiting period, a consent form which outlines this problem that the client would sign and I would research the death of each person I was supposed to raise. That wouldn’t protect me 100% from doing this kind of thing, but at least I wouldn’t look quite so stupid.
So, the inevitable happens the zombie kills Stone Cold Bitch. Skankomancer can only put him back after the woman dies. Then its time for some Anita wangst.
The world had become a one-dimensional cardboard thing. *facepalm* TWO-dimensional! One-dimensional is only theoretical and it consists of a single point.
I really don’t understand what is so fabulous about this story that another short story collection would buy it.
Dear Deluded Darla stopped by to let us know about some new stuff in LKH's life. Including this nugget...
ANTHOLOGY
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Living Dead - a horror anthology will be out September 29, 2008. It will feature the short story "Those Who Seek Forgiveness" from Laurell, in addition to short stories by: by Stephen King (Author), Joe Hill (Author), George R. R. Martin (Author), Clive Barker (Author), Neil Gaiman (Author), Laurell K. Hamilton (Author), Joe R. Lansdale (Author), Poppy Z. Brite (Author), Harlan Ellison (Author), John Joseph Adams (Editor)
Publisher: Night Shade Books (September 29, 2008)
ISBN-10: 1597801437
ISBN-13: 978-1597801430
Those That Seek Forgiveness was in the Strange Candy story collection.
So, Deeply Dumb Darla needs to inform you that OMG LKH is being featured in another collection with a previously published story. I believe “included” would have sufficed unless it is a special story in a place of honor. That would only be in LKH’s delusional world.
I remembered reading this particular story and being pretty disappointed with it. To complete this flog I had to once again read it. This is Anita in her pre-Skankomancer incarnation.
Edit: LKH is in bold. Me in plain
I have to start with the intro because she’s just asking for it.
How different things would have been if I’d stuck to my original plan. No Jean-Claude, no Richard, not much of anybody except Anita. What a bleak world it would have been, with just Anita and me in it.
Bleak, maybe. At least I wouldn’t need brain bleach after reading the vampire/lycanthrope pron that infects this series like Necrotizing fasciitis.
“Death is a very serious matter, Mrs. Fiske. People who go through it are never the same.”
Generally, they’re dead, Captain Obvious. She’s speaking to a Weeping Widow whose wardrobe she begins to describe. Evidently the obsession with wearing only one color started early. I will summarize the conversation.
Weeping Widow: I want you to raise my dead husband.
Skankomancer: Why?
Weeping Widow: I want to say bye. He had a heart attack.
Skankomancer: You really shouldn’t do this, but I know you will anyway. He’ll be a zombie and start rotting.
Weeping Widow: Could you make him a vampire?
Skankomancer: We do not do vampires. (At least not until book six, then we do vampires, lycanthropes and pretty much anything male that wanders close.)
Weeping Widow: Ok, zombie.
Skankomancer: Then we need to make an appointment to put him back in his grave.
Weeping Widow: What for?
Skankomancer: See above about the rotting thing. What do you want him to do?
Weeping Widow: I want him to forgive me. I had an affair then he had a heart attack.
Skankomancer: He will probably forgive you. He died of natural causes.
Weeping Widow: Ok, I’ll meet you at the cemetery.
Skankomancer: I already know exactly where. Either I read your mind or we have been talking for awhile and the author failed to allude to it. *facepalm*
After a few paragraphs of Skankomancer’s pointless wangst about how animators have it so rough, we leap to the mentioned cemetery.
As Carla had said, only two of them [trees] grew close together. That must have happened in the unmentioned conversation.
Weeping Widow had been chain smoking and is now dressed in only white. Weeping Widow has sudden morphed into Stone Cold Bitch? Skankomancer gets a weird vibe about this but completely ignores it. She gets her zombie making stuff and gets to the raising.
“You stand just behind the tombstone throughout the raising.” Three days dead and he already has a tombstone? Must be just a blank stone or maybe Arthur isn’t as newly dead as his widow claims he is.
Its first artery blood splashed onto the grave. Where’s the first artery? Maybe you meant “The first spurt of arterial blood splashed onto the grave as I cut the chicken‘s neck.”
Mindless chanting ensues. Evidently, they have to call the zombie by name. Then we get the first look at the dead husband.
The top of a dark-haired head was in sight, but the top was almost all there was. The mortician had done his best, but Arthur’s had been a closed-casket funeral. *facepalm* The last line was unnecessary. Delete it and join it with the next paragraph.
“Is that Arthur?” *facepalm* Were you calling for anyone else? Did you check the tombstone?
“That is not a heart attack.” *facepalm* No, that is a zombie. What killed him wasn’t a heart attack. Maybe.
“You killed him, and had me bring him back.” *facepalm* She just said that she killed him. Why do you have to repeat everything out loud?
I forced her to look at me instead of the thing in the grave. “Carla, a murdered zombie always kills his murderer first, always. No forgiveness, that is a rule. I can’t control him until after he has killed you. You have to run, now.” *facepalm* Ok, I need to stop this for a rant. Anita has been an animator long enough to know this. So, why does she automatically believe someone she doesn’t know? If I were in Anita’s shoes and this kind of thing could happen I would have a waiting period, a consent form which outlines this problem that the client would sign and I would research the death of each person I was supposed to raise. That wouldn’t protect me 100% from doing this kind of thing, but at least I wouldn’t look quite so stupid.
So, the inevitable happens the zombie kills Stone Cold Bitch. Skankomancer can only put him back after the woman dies. Then its time for some Anita wangst.
The world had become a one-dimensional cardboard thing. *facepalm* TWO-dimensional! One-dimensional is only theoretical and it consists of a single point.
I really don’t understand what is so fabulous about this story that another short story collection would buy it.