(no subject)
Here it is, the night before Easter, which is technically the High Holy Day of my faith (although we seem to put more emphasis on Christmas for some odd reason)
...and I have zombies on the brain. No disrespect or blasphemy meant to the Cornerstone of the Church, of course; this has more to do with my recent reading material.
After spending far too much of my time on reading writing guides, which have scared me almost into paralysis by making me acutely conscious of my adverbs--damn, there's one again!--and dialogue tags (she said with trepidation), I decided to turn my mind to things much less frightening, like zombie lit.
I started last night by borrowing World War Z from the Sequel. I'm almost halfway through the book, which I find compelling in a non-fictiony-fiction type of way, if that makes any sense. More than anything, it reminds me of The Hot Zone in the style of writing, or some book of WWII witness accounts. It failed to capture the Sequel's interest, mostly because it's made up of short anecdotes from participants in the war instead of any central characters you could latch onto and identify with. I'm enjoying it enough that I feel sure I'll finish the entire book (woo!), but there were some things that threw me right out of the story.
Number One: major fuck-up in describing the zombies. As long as they were offscreen, they were the unseen terror, and I felt real dread at the description of their victims and the destruction they caused. However, the moment the author actually described them in an attack on a South African village, and had the zombies, get this--holding their arms out and moaning--I ended up rolling my eyes in an Oh, please sort of way. Up until then, I had been sucked into the reality of the world arena, with politics and coverups exacerbating this inexplicable plague, but that one descent into comic book-dom threw me right out of that mood. It was a lesson to me as an author--you really CAN screw up one part of your novel in a way that severely diminishes the reality of your universe.
Number Two: A bit too much vitriol in placing the blame squarely on the Chinese government for, well, everything. There is a lot of finger-pointing in this fictional disaster story, including at the Americans and the CIA and other world government and business people (Israel comes off the best), but for some reason the contempt for the Chinese was sharp and tangible. I'm not really comfortable with this level of racism in a work of fiction.
Coincidentally, today the Tribune had a positive review of a book that I've been hearing about through the webvine: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It's a reworking of Jane Austen's novel, but with zombies thrown in, roaming the countryside and threatening the gentility as they head off to their country dances and balls. To paraphrase the Tribune review: The Bingleys had five daughters. It was Mr. Bingley's job to keep them alive. It was Mrs. Bingley's job to marry them off.
I was enchanted by the image of Elizabeth as a knife-wielding zombie killer, meeting up with Darcy in romantic situations as they fight zombies together, but the thing that turned this book into "I MUST HAVE IT EVEN AT HARDCOVER PRICE!" was the characterization of Lady Catherine as a world-class ninja.
It seems that the book keeps its original tone by having Jane Austen's original text make up 85% of the novel, with the other 15% (the zombie-ninja parts) added by Seth Grahame-Smith. I guess P&P falls under Fair Use, since it has been more than 70 years since Miss Austen passed on, and Mr. Grahame-Smith avoids a plagiarism scandal by having Jane Austen listed as the principal author. Anyway, it sounds like a fun romp, and I can't wait to read it.
Future Interviewer: Miss Kyu, can you tell us some of the great works of literature that you were reading while you worked on Standing Mute?
Roku: Yes, indeed. I was reading about zombies.
Interviewer: Eh, er...yes. Very interesting.
Some last thoughts. I love writing on the internet, since I sound much more coherent than in real life. I'm fighting an evil sinus cold right now, so if you were to hear me talk, id wood soud lik this, cuz by doze iz all stuvved ub.
Happy Easter, everyone! And Mouse and Liz, I will send the package out early next week, since I'm a bit under the weather right now.
Take care!