They smell of rotted flesh and fetid breath. They shuffle and moan. They’re scary and disgusting. Anita Blake and Alice Parks make them quiver in their puss-sodden boots. Well, perhaps they would if they had a mind of their own.

Zombies are the bane of many a hero’s clean getaway. Low budget films have been known to be some of the biggest hits when it comes to Zombies. One drive-in theater in Tucson, Arizona had a 6-mile traffic backup on the opening night of Carlton J. Albright’s film The Children of Ravensback back in the 1980’s.

Then there’s the typical creep out movie, which the Irish Film Classification Office banned… would it be classed as a love story? Boy Eats Girl by Stephen Bradley. Boy commits suicide and comes back to life. Definitely a Minties moment; even if just for the bad breath.

The classics, as in books, aren’t even safe from the re-animated folk. Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice having been rewritten by Seth Grahame- Smith in 2009. Pride Prejudice and Zombies may also become a movie, perhaps in 2011. The rumor mill on IMBD says it’s in the pre-production faze and David O. Russell could step up as Director.

Michael Jackson made a good Zombie in the music clip for Thriller. If you haven’t had the chance to head to the Gallery of Modern Art to see the photographic work of Douglas Kirkland, get onto it. They’ll only be there until October 24th. I had so much fun looking through the photos he took during the 1983 filming of Thriller. The amount of work that goes into the makeup was just mind boggling.

While you’re in the CBD checking out those photos shuffle on over to Wickham Park Brisbane at 3pm Sunday 24th of October. Zombies are going to be taking over Brisbane to help rains funds for the Brain Foundation. http://www.brisbanezombiewalk.com/ Head on over to their website and register to participate in the Zombie walk.

And if you are going, but not in your Sunday best zombie garb, you may need The Zombie Survival Guide, written by American author Max Brooks, published in 2003. I saw a copy last weekend at ACE Comics in the Queen Street Mall, and couldn’t help giggling.

I will NOT be seeing any of you at the Zombie walk, or at any of the latest zombie movies because, well, frankly they scare the living crap out of me.

If you do go to the Zombie walk on Sunday, send us photos of yourself all Zombiefied. We’d love to see. Though I may end up peeking through my fingers at all the scariness.

Paul Collins has written over 130 books and 140 short stories. He is best known for The Quentaris Chronicles (The Spell of Undoing is Book #1 in the new series), which he co-edits with Michael Pryor, The Jelindel Chronicles, The Earthborn Wars and The World of Grrym trilogy in collaboration with Danny Willis. Paul’s latest book is The Glasshouse, which Jo Thompson illustrated.

He is also the publisher at Ford Street Publishing.

Paul has been short-listed for many awards and won the Aurealis, William Atheling, and the inaugural Peter McNamara awards. He has had two Notable Books in the Children’s Book Council of Australia Awards.

He has black belts in both ju jitsu and taekwondo – this experience comes through in both  The Jelindel Chronicles and The Earthborn Wards.

1. Your latest novel, The Slightly Skewed Life of Toby Chrysler, has received fantastic reviews. What was your inspiration for this novel and is Toby based on a real person?

Toby isn’t anyone I know. I’ve met several autistic kids, though. I sometimes wonder if kids I knew when growing up were autistic. Long before we had a name to account for certain behaviour, of course. I rarely write books with anyone in mind, although someone did inspire my current picture book, The Glasshouse.

2.  Paul, you’re not only a prolific writer of books for both adults and children but you also run Ford Street Publishing. You must be incredibly busy! How do you maintain a balance between the two careers?

The fact is, I don’t. My writing has taken a backseat for some time now. I have Maximus Black, the first book in a trilogy, just waiting for final polishing touches, but I can’t get to it. I also have a six part chapter series called Broken Magic that is just sitting here, but I can’t devote the time to do anything with it. All I’ve managed this year are a few chapter books that I’ve been commissioned to write. I think gone are the days I could write on spec. Publishing books is one thing, but publishing successfully is a whole new ballgame. Major publishers have six plus departments to handle every facet of their business, from commissioning through to accounts, but a small press has to be all of those departments rolled into one. The publicity/marketing of books is a full-time job in itself. Having said that, I’m in my element publishing books. There’s less doubt in doing something where you’re in control than doing something where other people dictate whether you’re successful or not. The writer’s life is fraught with uncertainty.

3. You’ve packed so much into your career, including writing, publishing, editing, and running creative workshops. Along the way, you’ve also won a number of prestigious awards and received widespread critical acclaim. Which of your many professional achievements has given you the greatest satisfaction?

I published Australia’s first adult heroic/high fantasy novels back in the early eighties, long before the major publishers got in on the act. Not many people would know that David Lake, Keith Taylor, and Russell Blackford wrote Australia’s first fantasy novels. It was only lack of distribution that saw the demise of my publishing house in the mid eighties.

I think, too, that The MUP Encyclopaedia of Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy was another milestone in my career. My contributors and I spent about eighteen months putting that book together, and it stands as a written history of this country’s spec fiction. Last but not least, I edited the country’s first fantasy collection, Dream Weavers (Penguin Books). I look back at the collection and pause to think that back then, I had to look very hard to find fantasy authors to fill it. That book came out less than 15 years ago, but look at the Australian fantasy authors that have sprung up since then. The encyclopaedia would double if anyone were to update it now.

4. Which of your fictional characters Burns Brightest in your mind and why?

I’d choose two, because they have similar characteristics. First I’d go for Sarah, from The Earthborn Wars; second I’d pick Jelindel from The Jelindel Chronicles.

Both of these characters were inspired by Peter O’Donnell’s crime fighter, Modesty Blaise. Both are indomitable, striving hard for justice in very hostile environments; they have their flaws, too, and aren’t adverse to bending the “rules” if needs be.

Like all main characters in fantasy, they start out quite naïve – especially Jelindel – and through trial and error, they finally triumph. During their rite-of-passage, they save their worlds from devastation, but at great cost to themselves and others. Both lose their families, and due to their circumstances they must either grow up really fast, or perish.

These characters fight on against seemingly insurmountable odds. Neither loses her integrity, nor do they take the easy options that are offered. I feel as though both of these characters are real and are people I’d like to know in real life.

Visit Paul’s websites:
www.paulcollins.com.au
www.quentaris.com
www.fordstreetpublishing.com

Jamie Says

Cyborgs and robots and mutants, oh my!

Technology, like fiction, evolves at a rather rapid pace. And when you have a group of authors with a curiosity about the future, it is inevitable that you are going to get something at the very least entertaining, and, at most, philosophically special.

The term “Cyberpunk” was coined in a short story of the same name by Bruce Bethke published in 1983, about a group of teenage software hackers. This was really the first example of people using their new-found computer skills to subvert the system.

Cybernetic Punks, “Cyberpunks”, were those outsiders who lived in a kind of moral blind spot, using their talents for either the good of the world, or just for their own benefit.

Before Cyberpunk was published, however, a movie by Ridley Scott hit the cinemas.

Showing the world a bleak future, where man had already settled on distant worlds and the rise of technology had given birth to robots that were identical to man in almost every way, Blade Runner was one of the first (and still finest) examples of future life where technology rules above all else. It also asked the question “What does being human mean?”. This question has become fundamental to a genre where people upgrade themselves with bionic body parts, artificial brains and the ability to plug themselves into the net.

Not long after, an author by the name of William Gibson set in motion what would become a great movement in speculative fiction by publishing Neuromancer; a tale of a “console jockey” whose lifelong career as a hacker has been all but destroyed by the company he stole from.

This is where the Punk from Cyberpunk really became recognised. It was seen for a long time, and still is by many people, that for the fiction to be CP it has to have not only advanced technology but also an oppressive atmosphere.

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, published in 1992, became what was hailed as the end of Cyberpunk and the beginning of the Post-Cyberpunk genre. There was seen to be some kind of emotional evolution between what had come before and what was new. It may have been because Stephenson had used the technology of the day to predict a different kind of future than the earlier writers had envisaged; it may have been because his main character was not only a hacker and the world’s best sword fighter, but also a pizza-man.

The protagonists of Cyberpunk fiction are usually outsiders: people who don’t fit in, hackers, couriers, revolutionaries, loners. They become anti-heroes: people you would never picture saving the world, but who become monumentally important for a brief moment.

Now, I have left out many, many of the important works of CP fiction that have helped build this genre. This is not because I don’t recognise them as part of CP, nor because I have a grudge against them or think them unimportant; but, this is a Cyberpunk 101 article, and if I were to cover this topic properly, I would be typing for hours. That’s not what I’m here for.

I’m here to get you reading Cyberpunk… to make you love Cyberpunk. Even  if I’ve made you hate Cyberpunk, I’ve done my job, because then you will tell other people about it, and maybe one of them will become curious enough about it to read one of these great books.

And the future is not only written by Americans and Europeans. Australia  has its own Cyberpunk authors. Marianne de Pierres is a Queensland-based author who has dreamed up one heck of a future for this great land.

Movies like The Matrix, Japanese anime including Ghost in the Shell and games like Mirrors Edge have brought Cyberpunk to the attention of audiences that Sci-Fi books can’t get to.

It is an all-encompassing kind of fiction.

Visit The Cyberpunk Project site for more info.

Free double passes to be won!

Lauren Kate grew up in Dallas, went to school in Atlanta, and started writing in New York. She is the author of The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove and Fallen. She wants to work in a restaurant kitchen and learn how to surf. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband.

1. I’ve heard Fallen being described as the ultimate love story. Would you describe yourself as a romantic? What’s your secret to keeping your love stories so fresh and passionate?

I am definitely a romantic. I can’t think of a story I’ve ever written or wanted to write that wasn’t a love story at its core. I think  love stories often run into trouble (good, interesting trouble, that is) where there’s a lapse in communication. So one of these ways I try to keep my writing fresh is by thinking of the love story I’m working on from a variety of different points of view. For example, even though Luce and Daniel sometimes aren’t the very best at being open and honest with one another, I’ll write from both Luce and Daniel’s points of view to show the reader (and myself) a more rounded picture. This is why the prologue and epilogues of the first two books are written in Daniel’s voice. And why Passion will be told in alternating chapters between Luce and Daniel.

2. Your stories are dark, sensual, and feature delicious twists. What are some of your influences when it comes to this sort of writing?

To me, the most interesting love stories (in a fictional sense–not a real life sense!) are the tortured/complicated/doomed ones. I think the Great Gatsby is one of the loveliest doomed love stories out there. It inspires me every time I read it. As for the strange and sensual stuff, I love magic realism and am a big fan of Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.

3. Given the wonderful success of Fallen (and with Torment now out), what more would you like to have achieved professionally in ten years time?

Great question. I love to cook and have a big dream of someday opening up a restaurant–or at least working in a kitchen somewhere. But I’ll definitely always be writing too.

4. Which of your characters Burns Brightest in your mind?

This is like being made to pick your favorite child! Arriane is the most fun and the easiest for me to write. When she shows up in a scene, my fingers just start flying. But I’ve just finished writing Passion and much of it is told from Daniel’s POV, and I will say it was fascinating and so very rewarding to get inside his head for so long. I can’t wait to show off his side of the story when Passion comes out.