Welcome back, guys and ghouls! Keeping with this month's Halloween theme, Carl Hose will talk about the appeal of Zombie Apocalypse stories.
Carl was here in July to talk about his fundraising anthology Dark Light. You can find a link on the sidebar. All proceeds benefit Ronald McDonald House Charities.
| Get this book free! Link and coupon code at the end of the post. |
We live in a world
where mass shootings, baby killing, and child molestation are running rampant.
You can’t turn on the news without several of these stories hitting you in the
face. Maybe it’s always been this crazy, or perhaps it’s just that the Internet
and social media allows us to see more of it. Whatever the case, there is a lot
of insanity in the world. So much so that even horror fiction has a hard time
keeping up.
It used to be that
horror fiction was horrific. There were depraved stories, scary stories, and
brutally twisted stories created by horror writers that actually scared people.
This is getting harder for horror writers to accomplish. Competing with real
life can be one hell of a challenge. Writers have to go to more and more
extremes to turn readers’ heads (or stomachs) because real life has gotten so
gruesome. Mothers and fathers killing their children, kids shooting their
classmates, priests molesting children—this stuff is hard to compete with. Don’t
blame real life on horror writers, blame horror writers on real life. We only
mimic what we see.
People are jaded.
The most horrific events, unfortunately so, roll off our backs. We’re becoming
immune, and that is a sad thing. Not that we condone the violence that
surrounds us in real life, but we accept it. Not only do we accept it, but we
accept it in many cases without even giving it more than a cursory thought.
Personally, I’ve
never been one to blame real life violence on art. I don’t believe listening to
Ozzy Osbourne can cause you to commit suicide, unless of course you’re already predisposed
to killing yourself. Likewise, I don’t believe reading a book about serial
killers or watching a slasher movie will send you on a bloody rampage. Blaming
real-life violence on art is a cop out. This is how parents avoid taking responsibility for not raising their children properly.
Art simply imitates
life. Hell, some of my best ideas are inspired by real life.
We live in a world
where a zombie apocalypse looks good. A zombie Apocalypse, in fact, looks
preferable to most of the horrors that we see every day of our lives. At least
we stand a fighting chance with the walking dead. At least we can outrun them.
We can’t outrun the
violence that surrounds us every day of our lives. We can’t hide from the
psychos and the rapists and the child molesters. All we can do is try to expose
the, and that is, I believe, part of what horror fiction does.
Yeah, the zombies
don’t seem so bad in the face of all that, now do they?
Carl Hose is the author of the anthologies "Deadtown and Other
Tales of Horror Set in the Old West," "Fematales,"
"Fematales Supernatural," "Dead Horizon," the zombie
novella "Dead Rising," the crime fiction novella "Blood
Legacy," and the erotic anthology "Pornocopia."
Carl's work has appeared in the zombie anthology "Cold Storage," which he co-edited. His work has also appeared in "DeathGrip: It Came from the Cinema," "DeathGrip: Exit Laughing," "Loving the Undead," the erotic paranormal anthology "Beyond Desire," the "Book of Tentacles," "Through the Eyes of the Undead," "Silver Moon, Bloody Bullets," and Lighthouse Digest magazine.
Carl's poetry appears in the zombie poetry anthology "Vicious Verses and Reanimated Rhymes."
Carl's nonfiction has appeared in Writer's Journal and the horror film essay anthology "Butcher Knives and Body Counts."
Carl also edited and published the "Dark Light" anthology to benefit Ronald McDonald House Charities.
Carl's work has appeared in the zombie anthology "Cold Storage," which he co-edited. His work has also appeared in "DeathGrip: It Came from the Cinema," "DeathGrip: Exit Laughing," "Loving the Undead," the erotic paranormal anthology "Beyond Desire," the "Book of Tentacles," "Through the Eyes of the Undead," "Silver Moon, Bloody Bullets," and Lighthouse Digest magazine.
Carl's poetry appears in the zombie poetry anthology "Vicious Verses and Reanimated Rhymes."
Carl's nonfiction has appeared in Writer's Journal and the horror film essay anthology "Butcher Knives and Body Counts."
Carl also edited and published the "Dark Light" anthology to benefit Ronald McDonald House Charities.
Website: www.carlhose.net
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Carlhose
2 comments:
Thank you for having me again, Denise. Hope readers find the spot enjoyable and take advantage of the books.
Carl, I've been a zombie fan since Night of the Living Dead. I was a kid when I saw it, growing up in Western PA. As a teenager, I worked in the Monroeville Mall, where Dawn of the Dead was being filmed after hours.
Thanks for being here and for the awesome giveaway!
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