Review: Karina Fabian's "Neeta Lyffe: Zombie Exterminator"

You might remember that, a while back, I had been involved in a Catholic Writer's Guild online conference. I ran a workshop on fight scenes, and ran a discussion on creating a villain. During the course of that latter chat, I mentioned that it helped if the villain had the brain. Mindless, shambling zombies were not really that much fun, as villains go … Then I remembered that one of the people in the chat was Karina Fabian … who had written – surprise – a book about a Zombie Exterminator.

Now, if I had had my wits about me, I would have noted how, in zombie films, zombies are generally NOT the main bad guys. They set the scene, they act as cannon fodder (for an action franchise like Resident Evil, where the real villains are the Evil Corporation du jour), but most zombie movies are more about the people in the Zombie Apocalypse du jour rather than about the zombies. The zombies are window dressing.

Instead, my witless wonder moment had me hasten to add "Though I can't speak for every zombie storyline, I have yet to read Karina Fabian's." I think I inserted a smiley and went on from there.

Within two minutes, I heard an email click. I had just received an e-copy of Karina Fabian's Neeta Lyffe: Zombie Exterminator.

See, when I shoot from the lip, I have no idea what'll happen.

Neeta Lyffe: Zombie Exterminator, takes place in the 2040s, several decades after the zombie outbreaks started. There are no zombie apocalypses here.  It never happened. However, the undead can be annoying, so exterminators have to be called in -- exterminators with chainsaws.  Zombies are attracted to certain strong smells, and they don't like standard household cleaners.... don't ask.

Neeta Lyffe, a second-generation exterminator (motto: "I want to be buried like my mother, with my head cradled in my arms") is sued after an extermination call went into property damage. Now, in order to generate income, she's agreed to do the most terrifying thing in her life..... host a reality show.

Yes, you read that right. The reality show Zombie Death Extreme, where Neeta is stuck with a handful of exterminator wannabes, training them to re-kill the occasional nests of undead that threaten LA (then again, if parts of LA were turned into shambling mindless hordes, would anyone notice?). Also included: re-grief training ... for when you have to mourn for loved ones a second time, when they come back; and flash cards to tell the difference between a stroke victim, a drunk, and a zombie.  And you can probably guess, this has a sense of humor, unlike most zombie films ("We throw the grenades on the count of 3. 1, 2, 3."  Second person shouts "Five," and throws the grenade ... sorry, Monty Python joke.).

The cast looks like it should be stocked with the standard cliches: an ex-marine, a farm boy with a stutter, an African-American woman from an urban environment, an Afghan emigre who's first language isn't English (he speaks it perfectly well, but the producers want him so speak more like Hasan from a Bugs Bunny Cartoon). The Producer of the show is the standard two-dimension cardboard cutout, which means he's drawn very accurately -- however, he's never had to negotiate with someone who carries a chainsaw on a daily basis, including the occasional brainstorming session for the show.

All of the characters are vivid and brightly drawn ... and heavily mocked, in some cases. Everything you have ever hated about reality television is skewered ruthlesly, and wonderfully.

Possibly one of the best parts of this book (and there are plenty to choose from), use the running excerpts from a documentary on the rise of zombies, detailing a somewhat funny look on the matter, down to and including Darwin Award winners who tried to play tag with a zombie. That was fun.

In short, it's one part satire, one part action, and all parts fun.

Coming Soon, Netta Lyffe: I Left My Brains in San Francisco.

Blog in review, March / April 2012

First, February knocked me out.  The whole month sucked, and you can probably guess why.

Then in March, I started getting pulled down -- first with bouts of depression, then I was busy with video games, girlfriends, and a new job.  And since then, let's face it, I haven't been that great at keeping to schedule. So, sorry about that.

I started March with a character generation chart, for those people who want an easy way to create characters.  WARNING: characters make develop minds of their own in short order.  To follow up on that, there is a more advanced version with the psychology of characters, with real psychology, if you don't consider that an oxymoron.

In April, I had an interview with Karina Fabian about her new book Live and Let Fly, which I also reviewed.

And, I made a quick study of Writer's Block.  And, to go along with it, I explained my current situation in getting published: it's situation normal.

In music, I posted a blog for Simple Gifts ... just go with it. It works.  And, if you don't know Loreena McKinnett ... have a sample, I can recommend her work.  We also had a return to the awesome Lindsay Stirling, and her tribute to Skyrim.

But what about the Catholic Writer's Guild conference? That was covered in March!  Well, that was so self contained, I did that as a separate entry.

Be well, all.

Catholic writer's organization workshop in review: Fighting and Writing.

Back in March, I did a little work with a writer's conference. The Catholic Writer's Organization. I mentioned this before, but, well, there is a story behind it. The moral? Never volunteer. :)

No, seriously, I told Karina Fabian (search the blog for previous references) that I would only be good for talking about villains and fighting. She said great, when could I be put down for?

Anyway.... so, here it is, in one, easy to find package.

To Start with, a little introduction, filled with required readings and other useful handouts.

Fighting and your world: Let's face it, all worlds have cultural rules about violence. You have to think about that.

Setting the chessboard: Fights don't happen in a vacuum. Before the fight even starts, the stage has to be set in your brain before it can start on paper.

Writing fight technique. Knowing technical skill is one thing. Writing it down is another.

Guns in fighting: there are millions of weapons out there. Guns are used like magic weapons. Time to de-spell them.

Military fight scenes: When you absolutely, positively, must have something destroyed overnight.

Be well all.

Review of The Avengers

"Why, yes, there are seven of us."

So, I finally saw The Avengers on Sunday. Yes, I was a little late.

To be honest, I went in half-expecting this to be over-hyped by every fanboy across the land. I know that Joss Whedon was good with ensemble casts.  And I half expected the film to be a matter of "Here's Robert Downey Jr. and Sam Jackson making snarky remarks with Agent Coulson, Scarlett Johansson will be standing in for Buffy, and there'll be a few other guys."

Then, on the other hand, there was the New York Times review, which can be summed up as follows: "WAAAAAHHHH, this movie was forced upon us by evil Disney executives! This is movie making by corporate fiat!  We hate Summer Movies! And superheroes! And children! And anyone who sees this film is stupid...."

Obviously, I didn't think much about what the Times had to say.

Then I saw the movie.

Damn that was AWESOME.

That's the short version. The longer version .... well, let's go over a few things.

THE PLOT: Loki has gone through some changes since Thor. By the end of the film, he was definitely a little unstable. Here, there's no question. Marbles are missing from the bag. He's struck a deal with an interstellar bad guy, and he has an army on loan from ... someone to be revealed later. He comes to Earth with a philosophy that's heavy on the nihilism, and a plan that's heavy on manipulation (but it's Loki, that's his job). The owner of the army wants the Cosmic Cube (the glowing toy from Captain America: The First Avenger), and with it, they're going to have a little party, just Loki, the evil overlord in the background, and about seven million of his closest, heavily-armed friends.  There's only one thing standing in the way, and that's seven people with some nice costumes, and cool toys.

Everyone gets screen time in this. This is not Iron Man's movie, or Thor's, or Captain America's, or anyone else -- this is about a team. A slightly dysfunctional, occasionally self-destructive, team.  Ignore any review that insists that someone got more screentime than anyone else, or that Captain America, or whatever their favorite character is, got short-changed. Those people are whiny fan-boys/girls who probably can't shut up for five minutes during the movie.

"Enjoy the view. I'm going to hurt you in a minute."

Also ignore anyone who makes a big deal about the back end of Black Widow. While Scarlett Johansson has nice features all around, it wasn't shoved at the audience ... even in her low-cut little black dress, she spends more time kicking ass than showing off her's.

At the end of the day, this film worked. It is an ensemble where everyone's strengths came to the fore. When the shooting starts, Captain America leaps into the fray, giving orders about the deployment of forces, while at the same time fending off seven-foot aliens who are trying to kill him. Thor and the Hulk are heavy hitters. Iron Man is air cavalry, and Hawkeye makes for a spotter. Yes, Hawkeye has screen time in this one. And he is also awesome.

Relatively new member to the franchise is Mark Ruffalo, playing Dr. Bruce Banner. Now, those of you who might be weeping for Ed Norton will stop about three minutes into Ruffalo's performance.  He gets some of the better lines in the movie, and so does the Hulk. Yes, the Hulk was done well.

"I make this look good."

And then there's Loki, who's mightiest ability is the power to piss off everyone he comes in contact with. Much like the last major villain on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Loki's mind games don't quite work as expected. Tom Hiddleston seems to have studied Loki, and gives the impression that Loki is quite insane, possibly knows it, but is going to enjoy himself anyway. Not to mention that he can get away with making horns look cool.

And, oh, yes, everyone takes a shot at Loki, even the super-powerless, like Black Widow and Hawkeye, get some nice shots in.

Not to mention we also have the cast of the Nick Fury movie already set and raring to go. You'll understand when you see the film.

And the one-liners. You will have to see the movie at least twice. Yes, twice. The second time will be for all the lines you missed on the first viewing.

Some of the better lines?

Captain America: "There's only one God, ma'am, and he doesn't dress like [Loki]"

Agent Coulson: "We make this gun to fight the Destroyer [from Thor]. I don't even know what it does. Let's find out." [He didn't even have to say "Do you feel lucky?"]

Tony Stark to Hawkeye: "Clinch up, Legolas."

Captain America to Hulk. "Hulk .... Smash."

Bruce Banner: "Wanna know my secret? I'm always angry."

And Loki might have the best line in the movie, though it's very contextual, and very spoilery, so I won't.

Oh, and I should probably mention the forty minutes of nonstop blowing up New York's Park Avenue and trashing Grand Central Station. That was fun, too.

How good is this movie? I heard that Joss Whedon had to cut 40 minutes from the theatrical release.  I want to see the full, three hour version.  That's how much I liked it.

Be well.

The Article You Knew Was Coming: The Da Vinci Code, A Personal Opinion.

I should probably start with a disclaimer: You do not have to hate Dan Brown, any of his works, or any of the movies based off of his books, in order to enjoy A Pius Man. Promise. You'll see why.

My family has been big on reading since my father was twelve. I read The Once and Future King when I was in sixth grade—for personal pleasure. My freshman year of high school had my English professor confused when I finished off one Tom Clancy novel a week. And I mean the big ones that could be used for door stoppers.

So, when I started in on The Da Vinci Code, I figured it would be yet another book. You can sell me practically anything as long it's a well-designed, good story. I could not care any less about saving the whales, but I enjoyed Star Trek IV anyway. I don't think the CIA is the source of all evil, but I liked the film The Long Kiss Goodnight, since it was entertaining—and since the primary villain was a bureaucrat. From what I had gathered about the premise of Dan Brown's work, I was certain that I could take it or leave it, and I had been assured that it was a rip-roaring good time.

So, in that vein, I was given The Da Vinci Code, I was told to ignore the bad history, enjoy it for what it was …And what was it?

The pretentious, petty, pedantic prattling was one thing. And my God, can that man lecture. Having survived grad school, I've been to boring seminars before, but they at least had the good manners to provide me with free food and coffee. I skipped pages and pages of lecture, and bad history, and “My God sir, what fantasy world did you get that history FROM?”

And the content … I have had friends of mine look at his Gaia-ish, pseudo-feminist look at sex and spirituality. My Wiccan ex considered recreating the Wiccer Man, with Dan Brown in the center before they set it, and him, on fire.

And you thought Christians were the only ones who had problems with his views.

However: that isn't a problem for me. I've read Clive Cussler books that went on, endlessly, about fictionalized history that, in some cases, only tangentially touched on the main plot. And I've read everything Cussler's written, and enjoyed about 90% of his body of work. I could skim history lectures, I could skip them. I'm fairly good at knowing when to ignore large parts of dreck in books without having it affect the story. And I have experience sleeping through lectures.

So, if I wasn't massive offended by the main premise and the history, or enraged, or having a (Bruce) Banner moment, why didn't I enjoy it as much as everyone else had?

There's this phrase in writing fiction that's called the suspension of disbelief …{more below the break}

Getting published; Situation Normal

So, I got a call from my agent last Wednesday.  He called at 9pm, and we started talking.

At the moment, it looks a  lot like it's Situation Normal.   And, for those who do not know military acronyms, Situation Normal are the first two words of SNAFU.

On the one hand, my agent is having a grand old time selling projects. As long as they're nonfiction.

And, as you might recall, while A Pius Man has historical elements all over the darned place, it's contained within a framework of a thriller. Which puts me in a new acronym: SOL.

However, my agent suggested I try writing something in nonfiction. Maybe even Young Adult nonfiction.  Maybe something in Ethics, or Religion, or something like that. Something that parents would want their kids to read.  And, after all, I have been spending large parts of my time writing religion articles for Examiner.com.

So ... any thoughts?

Seriously, you folks are the most non-partisan observers I know. Do you think I should write more articles on Catholicism, only make it into a non-fiction book? I can call it Snarky Theology, 101.

There's also the wonderful world of IRA songs. I had an entire thesis in graduate school around Irish rebel songs. Between the text and the appendix, that was almost 150 pages. I would only need about 90 more pages to have a full book ready.

And, there's philosophy. Yes, philosophy. I can literally rewrite philosophy for the basic consumption of the general population. I am snarky by nature, after all.

For those of you who think I should be writing a nonfiction book on Pius XII .... no. Because I'd rather write a novel that people would read than be lost in the shuffle of the two dozen books on the subject.

So, what do you think I should try? Irish rebel songs? Snarky theology? Philosophy? Ethics? Something else all together?  Give me a comment with your thoughts on the matter.

Writer's block

Most people perceive writer's block from the movies as kind of a mental constipation. Just nothing is coming out of the writer's brain, usually for no apparent reason at all.

To be honest, writer's block is more like writer's jamming signal.  Believe it or not, it's not so much a matter of we can't write, it's that we have too much else kicking around that needs to be addressed.

For example, I have a sequel to A Pius Man.  I have two, actually; it's a nice, solid trilogy. I haven't touched the lousy thing in months.

Now this is, in part, because I've had to rewrite several bits of the trilogy multiple times. I'm not entirely certain of who or what will survive, and should I be bothered to continue writing if I don't know what changes a future editor is going to make?

Not to mention that I have another book series I'm working on, called Honor At Stake .... at least, that's what book one is called. It's my little revenge on the entire vampire genre, plus a fairly good story, if I do say so myself.

Haven't written one word of that in a few months either. Why? Because it's actually one long rewrite.  I wrote a 440-page vampire novel once, where a government agent found himself in the middle of an anti-vampire army in the middle of Brooklyn. Then, I decided to backtrack a little, and made a novel to show the start of that said army; how the relationships developed, how the disparate elements came together....

So, book one is finished, book two is half finished. And I haven't touched that in months either.

Why? Because I keep thinking of books I want to write.  And the problem becomes that they're all books in the same universe. All of these characters have back stories in novels I don't know if they're going to get published. In fact, there's too much to be done.

Writer's block isn't a matter of having nothing to write. It's a matter of having too much, not knowing where to start, and knowing that, really, you should be trying a bunch of "books one"s, instead of writing the massive universe you want to.

In short, writer's block is a lot like a jamming signal. There's just too much interference.

In my case, not only do I have the issue of multiple novels, I also have the additional problem of working on a job that requires me to be social. This is a problem in and of itself.

In short, life is getting interesting.

Music Monday, with Lindsey Stirling and Skyrim

If you haven't heard of Skyrim, don't worry, it's just a video game.

On the other hand, you have heard of Lindsey Stirling (if you're new here, do a quick search, you'll find her a few places on the blog).

Bear with the first thirty seconds of the video. Trust me.

Sorry about that

So, yesterday was sort of shot up.

Ie: I didn't get around to posting anything.

As mentioned last week, life has been a little hectic. I've gone from posting once a week, to once or twice a day, to only three times a week, and now I can't seem to keep that up.

If you all forgive me, it's been a rough year.

One of my best friends threw me under a bus (well, that's the short version), another one who I knew for a dozen years had a temper tantrum because I wasn't in lock step with her about what she does to herself, I've gotten a girlfriend, was dumped, and made up.

My agent won't get back to me, another publisher has me on hold until at least May, if not June, and I've got a new job that requires me to have easily 500% more contact with human beings on a regular basis than I used to.

While this may all sound like complaining, I assure you, it's not.  All I'm saying is that, if I miss a day here or there, between Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, there's more likely than not a good reason for it.

It's been a rough freaking year.

I hope to do better.

Review: Live and Let Fly.

Karina Fabian has done some novels that could only be qualified as interesting. She's written theology, Catholic science fiction, rescue nuns, zombie exterminators, and those are just the ones that we'e taken a brief look at here.

And then there's Vern, the Dragon Private investigator.

Welcome to Los Lagos, Colorado, home of the Gap; in this case, the Gap is an inter-dimensional hole in time and space, and we can be grateful that this one isn't set in Cardiff.  The Gap has made Los Lagos home of plenty of interesting species from the Faerie dimension, a realm that is quite Catholic, and the original home to Vern, who was a dragon of some repute even before he had an encounter with a knight named George.

Now, banished to our world by the Duke of Pebbles-on-Tweed, Vern has made his living as a PI, along with his sidekick, the Vatican Mage Sister Grace.

Like every good PI story from Dashel Hammet to Jim Butcher, the story starts small, and spirals out of control quickly. What starts as the search for a missing ring after an assault, quickly turns into a murder mystery, with a kidnapping for a side dish, and it turns into race to stop the end of the world, dun dun dunnnnnnnn.....

But how do you stop a killer that leaves no trace? Not even a scent a dragon can follow?

Overall, the story is fun. There are some nice shots at Hollywood along the way(let's start with the chapter titles "Murky but Present Dangers," or "Gapraker").  And it includes the best take on Disney animatronics that I've seen since Peter David's Psi-Man series. The chapter titles were something else ("Seven Habits of Highly Defective Henchmen.")  In fact, the humor that works best is when Vern narrates events in term of cliche (see: excerpts here).  The satirical elements are possibly the funniest parts of the novel. I'm not sure if one of the villains was supposed to resemble Dilbert's Pointy-Haired-Boss, but it works.

Also along for the ride is the Bureau of Interdimensional Law Enforcement. ("BILE?" Vern thinks. "There's a name that must have been made in committee.")  With some entertaining parodies of James Bond thrown in, as well as one character who should be played by Marvel's Agent Coulson.

And, seriously, who can argue with a book where Shiva is a war correspondent?  Or where the Vatican has its own SpecOps team, giving a whole new meaning to the term "church militant"? It's right up there with John Ringo's Princess of Wands novel, that was based in the real world, with a little more strangeness attached.

There is also a wonderful sequence of negotiating with the kidnappers. It's only two pages long, but it's truly entertaining.

Live and Let Fly has some good solid action sequences. Like the attack of the killer animatronics, or a scene with an airship that was a cross between Final Fantasy VI and a John Nance novel.

And then, there's the line "I wanted the Holy Hand Grenades on standby in case all Hell did break loose."

Yeah, this was fun.