Zombies: they just won’t die. Every fictional trend has its moment, but zombies seem to be having a lifetime. Not only does The Walking Dead continue to amass mind-boggling ratings, but it’s now produced a spinoff series, Fear the Walking Dead. Adding to the scraggly bands of survivors is the cast of Z Nation, which […]
Vampires tend to go on at length about their post-life agonies—the romantic intrigues, the moral conflict of blood drinking, the tragic isolation of immortality… Bloodsuckers are chatty folk, once you get past the brooding. Zombie, not so much—we rarely get their perspective on life and undeath; they are simple, mindless creatures. The thinking zombie is an interesting anomaly, often […]
I’m a sucker for stories that combine the fantastical with the humorous. I love seeing epic quests laced through with wit, demon attacks dealt with via banter, and world-ending scenarios faced down with a sarcastic joke or three. After all, humor is a coping mechanism, and fantasy protagonists usually have a whole mess of problems […]
No one knows what happens when we die. Religions, pyramids, and entire industries have cropped up in response to humanity’s quest to solve the mystery without, you know, actually dying. Arguably the entire institution of literature is a response to death—either to ruminate and philosophize on The End, or to snatch a piece of literary immortality. A few authors […]
