"The Zombie's Lament" Purchased by Big Pulp Magazine

Photo: from Big Pulp's Facebook page

Mr. Bill Olver and all of the other good folks at Big Pulp have purchased the rights to my short story "The Zombie's Lament" for its anthology series.  Volume One of this anthology will hit the stores, online and physical, in June 2014.  Volume Two will be published in April 2015.  That one will have my story.

It's about a guy who loses the love of his life, gets bitten in the face by a zombie, and tries to apologize to his beloved before he turns--or dies. 

So if you like zombies--and who doesn't?!?--save your pennies and buy Volume One from Big Pulp in June.  And, it goes without saying, but if you know me, you know I'll say it anyway: Mark April 2015 on your calendar to buy the volume with my story in it.  No, seriously, go mark it right now.  Please?


What is Big Pulp?  Well, here it is, straight from the editor, Bill Olver, from Big Pulp's website:

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On March 3, 2008, we debuted with Simon Petrie's "Dragonsick", the opening story in our first quarterly online journal. At the time, I had no idea what kind of response we'd get from writers or readers. I worried that no one would submit to an unknown market and that readers wouldn't find us on the web. I also didn't know much about putting together a website, designing a publication, working with writers and artists, writing contracts, or selling anything. 

In retrospect, there was a lot I didn't know. 

But I did know good stories when I read them. I knew what I liked and I knew I wanted to create something I didn't see on the newsstand - a venue that mixed and crossed genres, was open to new writers, and pushed against the envelope of what's considered genre fiction. 

Did we succeed? Some days more than others, but over the past six years, we've refined and redefined our offerings, with each iteration getting closer to the vision I set out to achieve. We've published hundreds of stories and poems, which in combination have created a brand alongside of genre - the Big Pulp story.

At best, a Big Pulp story is smart, literate, and thought-provoking. It's got attitude, rarely takes itself too seriously, and isn't afraid to poke where it doesn't belong. It defies expectations and tropes. It hits you where you live and sometimes in the nuts. A Big Pulp story is sci-fi, it's fantasy, it might be a mystery or horror or romance, but it's rarely what you expect. 

In December 2010, Big Pulp moved into print. In 2013, we branched out into themed anthologies with Clones, Fairies & Monsters in the Closet  [...] and The Kennedy Curse. And now in 2014, we're launching a new line of publications that will continue to mix and match conventions and stretch the boundaries of what genre can do. 

Six years! I can't believe how quickly the time has passed or how far we've come as a small press. I'm proud of what we've accomplished and the writers we've published. 

Happy anniversary to us, our writers and artists, and all our readers! We couldn't have done it without you, and we hope you'll stick with us for our seventh year and beyond! 

Bill Olver

Editor

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So there you have it.  It's good stuff, so check it out, and look for mine in 15 months.  Yeah, I know, but that's publishing.

American Horror Story: Murder House

Photo: 1120 Winchester Place, Los Angeles, CA.  This is the real house used in the series.  From the show's Wikipedia page

I decided to view Season One of American Horror Story after viewing Season Two and liking it so much.  Season One was also good, though not as much as Season Two.  The writers seemed to have written themselves out of the main characters, as the secondary ones take over here, and where they go is interesting, but since they're already dead, you care less about them as characters.

At first the very dysfunctional family of husband, wife and (suicidal) high school daughter move into this (very) haunted house.  Turns out, the house has many ghosts in it: a gay couple, murdered fewer than three years before the current occupants; a surgeon who can't pay his bills, and the wife who shot him, and then herself; one of his freelance abortion patients; and, most dangerously, a teenage psychopath who had killed many students in his school before he was shot in his bedroom by the police.  He's a very angry, or still-psychotic, ghost who later kills the gay couple (and does something really nasty to one of them with a fireplace poker), and later rapes the mother, a current occupant, who later dies giving birth to what the show insinuates is Satan's spawn.  Was the killer used by Satan, or was he evil to begin with?  Or both?  The viewer can decide, but the characters themselves conclude that he is just pure evil, and the Devil's spawn angle is downplayed, though never really done away with.  And there are many, many other ghosts I haven't written about here, some of whom have little, if anything, to do.

Therein lies the problem of the first season: the writing in the last six episodes or so meanders, and seems very unsure of itself as it does so.  The Black Dahlia is introduced without reason, more as an homage to the L.A. noir style itself, and maybe James Ellroy, who famously wrote about her, and who infamously said she may his mother, or that her killer may have been his father, or both, I forget.  Other homages include Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula, in the sense that the movie's music is played in almost every episode.  Other movies in the Dracula, Frankenstein, and Southern Gothic modes, as well as lots of Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, and the like are paid homage as well.  Part of the joy of the series is catching and appreciating all of them.  You don't have to know them, though, to appreciate the series.

But back to the uneven writing.  What to do with the family?  Well, the writers didn't seem to know, either.  What to do with the many very unhappy ghosts?  In a nice twist, the family of ghosts ends up a much happier trio together than they ever did while they were alive.  Is the American family unit the "horror story" of the title?  It certainly seems that way, except the adults are so caught up in their own garbage that they don't even realize their daughter is dead.  (Though, to be fair, she doesn't know this, either, until she's told.)  The most wacky thing to me was that none of the ghosts seems to care too much that they're dead.  This is especially true of the father at the end, who is the only one left alive, and who seems to have the most to live for--his new child.  When he's killed by the ghost of his very young mistress (Kate Mara, older sister of Rooney Mara, from The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo), he seems mildly chagrined, at most.  The mother also doesn't seem to mind, though she knows she's without at least one of her newborns (she's told the first one died, but it didn't, and that's the one she ultimately ends up caring for); she also doesn't know her daughter's dead until her daughter visits her and says to let go of the pain, which the mother does.  (This seemed like too much of a condoning of suicide for me, which is how the daughter died, as well.)  Anyway, if the characters don't seem to take their lives very seriously, how can the viewer?

And that's the whole point at the end: the series creator's don't want you to feel sad for the family, and you don't, as they're clearly happier and better off than they had been.

How does it want you to feel about the Jessica Lange character, the devious and unsaintly and witchy neighbor who had lived in the house with her psychotic son, her wayward husband, her loose maid and her other two children, all of whom die before the very end?  Well, good and bad, in turns, though at the end she's gotten what she's asked for--a grandchild--but does she really want to take care of Satan's spawn?  I don't know, though I doubt it.  Jessica Lange does great work with a meandering role that makes her a victim and a killer.  You feel badly for her, because most of her siblings are dead and/or psychotic (and, in one case, both), but you also see her kill her husband, their maid, and almost the daughter next door.  In that last case, the daughter and her mother are victims of three psychotic people who want to kill them as others had been killed in the house.  Luckily, one of them eats the poisoned cupcake meant for the daughter, and...here's an example of the meandering.  Turns out, this entire series of events was unnecessary to the outcome of the whole thing.

So, at the end, this was like a good horror movie.  Riveting and sometimes creepy while watching it, but the second you think about the whole thing afterwards, it is very easy to see its many flaws.  But, if you haven't seen any of it yet, I do recommend it, especially if you're knowledgeable about the genres it pays homage to.

The Conjuring--Movie Review

Photo: The house, tree, and noose from the movie, from the movie's Wikipedia page.  The real house in the village of Harrisville, in Burrillville, Rhode Island, looks nothing like this.

Very good, very creepy horror film, supposedly based on a real house in Burrillville (village: Harrisville), Rhode Island, just a minute or two from the MA border.  My visit to this house will be another blog entry for another day.  (I won't tell you--my RI readers) where this house is, because--as I found out myself--the real people living in the real house want their privacy, and they should get it.  I can tell you that there isn't much to see from the road, there's very little breakdown lane room to park for a quick look, and you'll get arrested if you go on the property, so don't even think about it.  It's easy to find the address online, but if you do, and if you go there, at least I can say that I didn't give you the address and lead you there.  Burrillville itself is a pleasant little town, and there's a cemetery nearby with a crypt that has a very creepy door--wide open.  I'll show pictures of that in the next blog entry about my trip up there.

Anyway, the film isn't overdone, and there's a lot of very creepy images and situations.  A few of these made me jump, which is no easy task, as I've seen and read most of the good (and bad) horror stuff out there.  I'm not often affected in movies in any way, so this was a winner.  The best thing I can say about it is that there's not a moment after the movie ended that you say, "Now that I think about it, that was kinda dumb."  The Ring struck me like this.  It was a very creepily effective movie, but when I thought about it, I realized--In a VHS tape?  How did a drowned girl's spirit somehow make it's way through a VHS tape?  What if the tv is one of those miniature ones that people use in their kitchens?  Or, now, on an I-Phone?  The sequel could be set up with the tape in a discount bin, with all of the other VHS tapes that nobody plays anymore.  See what I mean?  The suspension-of-disbelief holds you while you're watching, but the second it loses its grasp of you--you think, "Huh?"

This movie wasn't like that, although in this case, you are asked to buy the fact that the original bad person was a witch.  It's mentioned just once or twice, and the rapidity of the movie makes you accept it because you don't have time not to.  I caught this snare while watching it, and I didn't buy it, but I do buy that there are just some very bad and angry people out there, and I do believe that--if ghosts exist at all--than those very bad and angry people will become very bad and angry ghosts.  That's a lot of ifs, but it all makes sense to me.  (In a philosophical, If and Only If [IFF] kind of way, but whatever.)  The point is that it's all kind of plausible, if you think that way to begin with.  I walked in believing in a very solid Maybe that ghosts exist, and I wasn't swayed either way by watching this.  I'm going to guess that whatever it is you believe about the whole ghost / possession thing, you'll feel the exact same way afterwards.

There was a scene where a priest tells a guy he can perform an exorcism on his authority, once it's established that the okay from the Vatican would take too long to save the possessed person.  This of course a Catholic priest cannot do.  That has to come from the Vatican.  (This was a minor beef of mine with Season Two of American Horror Story, a blog entry to come.)  But, whatever.  At least the guy, or the priest, doesn't just perform the exorcism without even mentioning the Vatican or the process.  You expect these types of things in horror movies, and probably in movies in general.  You either go with it, or you don't.  I suspect that you will here.

There's a creepy tree, a creepy attic, a creepy basement, a creepy crawlspace, a creepy armoire / wardrobe piece of furniture, a creepy-looking thing in the daughters' room, and a very, very creepy doll, which thankfully is more of a symbol of evil than an actual participant or used object.  That's already been done well (Poltergeist) and badly (Chucky) and I just wasn't in the mood for it.  In real life, there was a very creepy-looking barn, where someone apparently hanged herself (or, as the movie frequently and annoyingly said, "hung herself," but, whatever, I'm over it).  This barn was not used in the movie.  I probably won't show it in the blog about my visit, as it isn't my property, and, like I said, there's apparently an old couple living there now, and they deserve their privacy--which they won't get, of course, but I don't have to play a part in that.

Incidentally, this information about the current owners came from a few people who had driven for almost three hours--from Schenectady, New York--only to have to leave fewer than five minutes after they stopped.  I hope it was worth it for them.

So, if you want to be creeped-out and chilled, if not a little jumpy afterwards, this movie is the one for you.  Critics have heavily praised it, and Rotten Tomatoes has given it a very high rating percentage.

I would, too.

If you've seen the movie, please tell me what you thought of it.