Another Great Review

A really nice one:

http://www.fatally-yours.com/

Lots of detail. Thanks for taking the time!

Final Edits on History Is Dead

It's looking great. I've posted links to all the contributors (who provided links) at the right, and here they are as well:

Jenny Ashford - http://www.myspace.com/jennyashford
Rebecca Brock - http://www.thehorrorhack.com/
David Dunwoody - http://www.empirenovel.com/
Leila Eadie - http://www.scarystories.org.uk/
Derek Gunn - http://www.derekgunn.com/
Douglas Hutcheson - http://www.myspace.com/douglashutcheson
Scott Johnson - http://www.americanhorrorwriter.com/
Jonathan Maberry - http://www.jonathanmaberry.com/
Joe McKinney - http://www.joemckinney.net/
Rick Moore - http://myspace.com/zombieinfection
Christine Morgan - http://www.christine-morgan.com/
John Peel - http://www.john-peel.com/
Paula Stiles - http://www.geocities.com/rpcv.geo/other.html
Ed Turner - http://www.thestrangestbit.org/
Raoul Wainscoting - http://raoulwainscoting.blogspot.com/

Lookin' good, everyone!!

Review on FearZone

The new horror website FearZone posted a great review by the lovely Gabrielle:

http://www.fearzone.com/blog/dying-to-live-review

I'm flattered, as her usual monster of choice is the vampire, and I'm thrilled when I can find more people to take an interest in the lowly brain munchers who so fascinate me. Thanks, Gabrielle!

Back from ZombieFest07!!

And what an incredible time. I would mention these highlights:

1) Sold lots of books! And two of those were to new review sites, so those should generate more interest. Also finally got together with FearZone for a reading to be posted on their website, and I was happy with how that went.

2) The lovely and talented Rebecca May. Intelligent and efficient and highly-organized, she kept her half of the con running smoothly, and looked so good doing so.

3) The generous and friendly Dr. Pus. A really swell fellow, he took me out to dinner at Don Pablos and bought lots of margaritas!!

4) The gracious and supportive Gary Braunbeck. Read an incredible zombie story, and went out of his way to compliment me on my much less accomplished offering. It's always nice to hear a compliment from someone more talented than oneself!

Great Review

A nice one by someone who clearly gets what I'm trying for, and approves of it as a goal for horror fiction:

http://dredtales.com/Dred_Bookshelf.htm

Back from Wilkes-Barre

Had a great signing there with a bunch of talented authors. Also saw Steamtown, which, while it is a little disappointing that it is the only tourist attraction that Scranton has to offer, was a very well-done railroad museum. Also ate at Logan's, a local chain with some great food and beer. So a good weekend overall. Looking forward to ZombieFest next weekend!

I Want This!

This is truly a dream home:

http://www.missilebases.com/new/index.html

"Capable of withstanding a nuclear hit"! You don't hear that every day. It's one of several properties this company offers.

The Truth! For Sale!!

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I got to buy up the remainders of my book The Truth Is Out There: Christian Faith and the Classics of TV Science Fiction (Brazos Press, 2006). The original cover price was $19. It would cost me about $3 to pack and mail them (padded envelope + postage). I would be happy to sell them for $10, including postage, to anyone who wants one. Send me a check at

Kim Paffenroth
Dept of Religious Studies
Iona College
715 North Avenue
New Rochelle, NY 10801

Thanks!

Melee Weapons!

Twice a year our town has Throw Out Day, in which you can put anything no matter how big or ungainly out at the curb and it'll be hauled away (I think acutely toxic things like paint and tires are still excluded). It's tomorrow, so the place looks like hell right now, with piles of stuff everywhere, and roving packs of feral-looking humanoids rummaging around in them. Our son hauled home a huge sack of aluminum bats - the perfect anti-zombie hand-to-hand weapon! I was thrilled! I'll be up to elbows in gore before they bring me down!

Technologically Challenged!

As usual! But I did figure out how to add polls to my awesome, interactive blog!

Indexing

That's what I'm doing today, and it is worse than a poke in the eye - long, meticulous, tedious, repetitive. One of the many annoyances of academic writing.

Cannibalistic Horror Writer

That's him.

Now, the headline is a matter of some interpretation, since it is stated in the body of the story that the guy only had a manuscript in his house, not that he had ever successfully published anything. (The same thing happened with the VATech killer.) It is a little odd the details the media chooses to shove to the front.

Ted Koppel's Show about Prisons

Saw part of it last night. Scary stuff. And what a strange society we have made, where a prison guard's salary equals that of three or four college professor's salaries combined. I understand that one has to pay extra for dangerous work, but aren't the implications for what our society values or prioritizes a little disturbing? Well, the zombies are going to even all this out in a big way, so there's probably not too much point in worrying about it.

But that's an interesting point, too, come to think of it. Does thinking about the Apocalypse make you more accepting and dismissive of societal ills, since you expect them to be wiped clean in the near future? That'd be an interesting and very dangerous dynamic to Apocalyptic thinking, and one I've long suspected is going on with things like the Left Behind series and other Christian obsessions with the End Times.

Headache and Stomache

Just got done listening to the wife and the neighbor yell at each other, over my son's little tree house, which may or not be on the neighbor's property, and which situation has now escalated to surveyors and the city being called in to settle matters, rather than any more calm, reasonable, less litigious discussion. Going to have a headache and stomache for the rest of the day now. Guess who's not getting my help and expertise during a zombie invasion?

Count Gore De Vol

While at HorrorFind I was interviewed for the Count Gore De Vol webcast and dropped off copies of my books for review there. The reviews are here -

http://www.countgore.com/Tomb.htm

with a link to the interview. Since I'm talking to the Tomb Keeper, guess who's holding the camera? The Count himself! (In the mid-70s he was also Captain Twenty on WDCA, channel 20, in Washington, DC, and hosted their morning lineup of cartoons, which I remember vividly, especially Kimba the White Lion and Marine Boy.)

Thanks for showing off all my stuff!

Bump and Grind

The publisher and I went halfsies on an ad in Rue Morgue magazine. (Welcome to the world of small press publishing - the author has to be what they call a "self-promoter.") I don't know if it'll pay for the ad, but D2L has been bumped up into the kinds of Amazon numbers it had in the spring and seems to be staying there, so that's nice.

In my other publishing endeavors, my now "old" title, The Truth Is Out There: Christian Faith and the Classics of TV Science Fiction, has been ground down into the obscurity of out-of-print titles (after just over a year, which I think is kind of crappy), where it will eventually end up as recycled paper. I am being offered any number of copies I might want at remainder prices. So you'll probably see me hawking it here. Or if you see my gun-metal grey PT Cruiser drive by, wave me down and make me an offer on a couple copies, as I'll most likely have a box of fifty copies in the trunk.

Resident Evil: Extinction

Think Road Warrior meets Day of the Dead, with one scene from The Birds. And all of it is just a big setup for a "boss fight," since this is a just an over-inflated video-game sequence.

Now, mind you, there are worse ways to spend 95 minutes than watching the fetching Ms. Jovovich (one of the most stunning and unusual looking women I've ever seen - her lips and eyes are truly mesmerizing), clad in a duster and knee high boots, dispatching zombies with twin kukri knives. But really, the tiniest spark of originality wouldn't have been asking too much, would it? And maybe the tiniest little bit of development of the secondary characters, so we might care when they get their throats torn out? No? Too much to ask? I don't get it. It's like everyone in Hollywood just colors by numbers.

Oh, and the trailers were a wonderful study in contrasts: I've seen the Hitman trailer several times now, and I can't imagine how anyone could make so many explosions and so much shooting look so darned boring. I've seen the Iron Man trailer a couple times now too, and I don't think it's just the music (sure, it helps), but that is a couple minutes of film that has me ready to pony up for the film, no questions asked.

Final Tweaks

Have been done, and sent on to D.L.! D2L2 clocked in finally at 86k words, a big increase over the original, so it's a nice little read, but has a little gravitas to it. I can't wait to get on to the cover and the blurbs and all the other fun parts of the process!