No Friday Fancies this week, because I'm away. But I read WARM BODIES by Isaac Marion on the plane today. Nice little zombie love story. Aww.
I've been doing a lot of zombie thinking lately, as they've been cropping up in my manuscripts all over the place. Why aren't there more zombies as real characters in paranormal fiction? There's your cannon fodder zombie, sure. But also your self-aware yet helpless zombie. Your self-aware and angry zombie. And your sensation-starved, self-disgusted yet flirty zombie with attitude.
Whichever -- a dude who's come back from the dead must have a story to tell. It's a place that none of us have ever visited. A zombie comes back to us with the answer to life's ultimate mystery. Even if we don't like what he's got to say. How is this not fascinating?
We need more zombies as main characters in urban fantasy. That is all.
It could be a great story, even if we don't like what the returning zombie has to say.
ReplyDeleteAs indicated, there's quite an array of zombies that can show up in a novel, even take center stage. There's an avid group of readers out there always looking for more good stuff. I'm too busy in current projects to take up notion (no zombies planned this time in any of them), but I bet what you might come up with, Erica, would stand out tops.
They might have a story to tell, but they usually have a one word vocabulary, unless you count varying the number of As in braaaaaains as different words?
ReplyDeleteI still haven't started watching Walking Dead yet, other than the first few minutes that copied 28 Days Later... Maybe you could call your zombie book Talking Dead? :) Does Buffy count as a zombie?!