There is another
yardstick in which to measure the rise of the zombie’s star: book stores. Where, once, the bookshelves were practically
bare, there is now a plethora of zombie fiction to choose from. One telling
sign of its growth is that a multitude of women writers are venturing into the
once male-dominant turf with some very smart, character-driven stories.
More does not
necessarily mean better and there is a negative aspect of this newfound resurgence
in all things zombie. There is certainly a great deal more chaff to sift
through. The degree of formulaic storylines
and one-dimensional characters taking place in zombie fiction prove the “more
is not better” thesis. While many zombie-fiction writers fall into the ‘easily
forgotten’ category, there is a handful who are ‘must reads’: Rhiannon Frater,
Max Brooks, S.G. Browne, Kim Paffenroth, and Robert Kirkman. Of that group, half of them (Brooks, Browne,
and Kirkman) have screenplay deals.
Kirkman’s The Walking Dead
series of graphic novels is a smash hit for A&E. Brad Pitt purchased the
rights to Max Brook’s World War Z and
Browne just signed the movie rights away for Breathers: A Zombie’s lament.
Currently there
are a few publishers who deal heavily in zombie fiction: Permuted Press, Books of the Dead (via James Roy Daley) and my own (excuse the shameless plug), MayDecember Publications are among some of the more prolific. These three houses each publish between eight
to a dozen titles a year consisting of a mixture of full length novels and
anthologies. All three have no qualms
about taking a chance on a previously unpublished author. It would seem that the ‘zombie infection’ has
not only spread, but is thriving in the literary world.
As a side note on a completely unrelated topic, I am in day 2 of my P90X restart as well as a week of adhering to the dietary guidelines from the book The Seven Day Diet Plan. I will post my results at the end of the week, but as a reminder, my starting weight was 253.8.
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