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Book List: The Horror of Gentrification

When the topic of redevelopment comes up, affected residents need a seat at the table. If developers and city government aren’t interested in the needs and wants of the existing community, any “revitalizing” is for people who aren’t already there.  Gentrification has had the effect of displacing people and institutions that have been in the same neighborhood for decades and replacing their homes with higher-end residences they can’t afford, expensive office space, or shopping and restaurants, with far-reaching consequences. It affects Black, brown, and indigenous people the most, but, even when it’s well-intended, it’s ALWAYS about making money.

 

cover art for When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole

When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole Bookshop.org )

 

After leaving her abusive husband, Sydney returns home to her mother’s Brooklyn brownstone, in an area which is rapidly gentrifying before her eyes, with her neighbors disappearing mysteriously at a rapid rate as well-to-do white couples move in. As Sydney investigates the history of Brooklyn, she realizes there is a cycle that connects to disturbing events of the present.  When No One Was Watching gets into eugenics and medical experimentation and is grounded in some real historical events.

 

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin Bookshop.org )

 

In Jemisin’s book, the follow-up to her story “The City Born Great”, every major city has a human avatar. New York City, however, is so large that each borough needs one. Enter the Better Way Foundation, a front for a potential eldritch invasion of Lovecraftian proportions, though The Better Way Foundation, represented by  Dr. White (I know…) This book has great LGBTQ+ representation, as well as indigenous, Black, brown, and Indian-American characters. Read our review here.

 

cover art for Black Water Sister by Zen Cho

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho  Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

Gentrification is not limited to New York City. Black Water Sister takes place in Malaysia. Malaysian-American Jess was anxious about coming out of the closet. That’s small potatoes now that she is being haunted by her estranged, recently deceased grandmother, Ah Ma, who was a spirit medium for the goddess Black Water Sister and needs Jess to stop a developer from tearing down the vengeful goddess’ temple for a condo development.  I asked my daughter how she would feel about being possessed by a bossy grandmother obsessed with zoning (her grandmother is, in fact, obsessed with zoning), and the expression on her face was one of horror. And that’s not even the scariest part. Vengeance is bloody business. For my part, I thought Ah Ma’s interactions with Jess were really entertaining. You wouldn’t want to get on that lady’s bad side. Side note: a lot of the dialogue is written in Manglish, but I found it easy to follow and understand.

 

Cover art for My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones Bookshop.org )

 

Gentrification occurs in rural and suburban communities as well as cities. In this love letter to the slasher movie, Jade Daniels, a troubled high-school of Blackfoot descent, uses her knowledge of horror movies and their tropes to navigate the town’s soon-to-be slasher story as wealthy gentrifiers begin building an exclusive enclave in her working class community.  As you would expect from a slasher-inspired story, this has plenty of blood and gore.

 

Gentrification’s effects aren’t limited to the living, either. How many haunted house stories depend on one building or neighborhood being built over the homes and lives of others? Here’s a link to a ghostly meditation on the effects of live people on ghosts who were simply haunting their own village.

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Musings: Breaking Out of Your Reading Slump

A note from the editor:

We are now more than midway through October and Monster Librarian still needs to raise the funds to pay for our hosting fees and postage in 2021. If you like what we’re doing, please take a moment to click on that red “Contribute” button in the sidebar to the right, to help us keep going!  Even five dollars will get us closer to the $195 we need to keep going at the most basic level. We have never accepted paid advertising so you can be guaranteed that our reviews are objective. We’ve been reviewing and supporting the horror community for 15 years now, help us make it another year! Or, you can purchase titles mentioned in this post through our store at Bookshop.org. Thank you!

Horatio P. Bunnyrabbit with a pumpkin for trick-or-treating

For a list of the books mentioned in this post, check out the Monster Librarian store on Bookshop.org!

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October is the big month for the horror genre, and in hopes of getting up a review every day, I do a lot of reading in hopes that I can do exactly that. The pandemic has killed my ability to focus, though, and especially if I’m reading something long, it seems to take longer to read about it, think about it, and write about it. That’s especially true if I’m reading similar kinds of books– after awhile I just have to stop.

This has been especially aggravated by my library closing down and my kids’ schools going virtual so that I don’t get time in those libraries either. Libraries are my haven and not physically getting to be in that space is so difficult for me! I know I’m not the only person who is dealing with this right now. A dear friend of mine who typically gobbles up anything horror-related has stacks and stacks of books that he just keeps buying but is unable to focus enough to finish anything. So what can you do?

First, it’s okay to put a book down if you just can’t handle it.  I like ebooks for really long books because holding those in my hands gets me thinking on how much there is to read, which sometimes can be intimidating. Is your fiction too close to your current reality?  This month was not the month I needed to start watching The Man in the High Castle.  I also read Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House, not realizing how intense it was going to be. Reading Goodreads reviews after the fact, I found that readers were providing content warnings to potential future readers. If a book is stressing you out instead of entertaining you, you don’t need to keep going.

Second, mix it up! Short stories are great, and I love them, but if you’re reading several anthologies in a row from cover to cover, it’s no longer a vacation. I just finished the excellent SLAY: Stories of the Vampire Noire, edited by Nicole Givens Kurtz, so I’ll be switching to something different before I start another one. There are plenty of authors who don’t get the kind of attention they should, classic authors you might not have read, and new books coming out all the time. Reading T. Kingfisher’s new book The Hollow Places led me to track down The Willows by Algernon Blackwood. In addition to the HWA’s newly published series of genre classics, if you are short on funds, many classics are available free as ebooks through Project Gutenberg.

There’s some really good horror-related nonfiction out there, such as Lisa Morton’s recently released Calling The Spirits.  Although these can seem long, nonfiction is great because you can read a chapter and put it down for awhile until you’re ready to come back to it. Kit Powers’ My Life in Horror, Volume 1 is a series of standalone personal essays on growing up as a horror fan, easy to pick up and put down until you’re ready for more. You might also consider checking out some poetry. Even if you’re convinced it’s not your thing, Alessandro Manzetti’s Whitechapel Rhapsody might change your mind, although it’s not for the faint of stomach.

This is also a great time to check out some of the titles that tie into current television and movies. The HBO series   Lovecraft County is based on a book of the same name by Matt Ruff, a great book of interconnected stories. Netflix’s The Haunting of Bly Manor riffs on the ghost stories of Henry James, notably The Turn of the Screw.

You don’t have to seek out anything new, though. I’ve reread some old favorites when I needed a break. Looking for something lighter? Maskerade by Terry Pratchett isn’t horror, but it is an entertaining riff on a story that definitely is, The Phantom of the Opera.  Seanan McGuire’s InCryptid series, starting with Discount Armageddon, takes a lighter approach to slayers, monsters, and ghosts than is typical for horror, but it is a lot of fun. Sometimes a thriller is what you need, as long as it’s not too close to life for you. Alyssa Cole, mostly known for her excellent romance novels, has an #OwnVoices thriller out right now on gentrification spiraling out of control titled When No One Is Watching, and David Simms has a supernatural thriller, Fear the Reaper, that reveals the dark history of American eugenics.

Despite protestations that they aren’t “real reading”, graphic novels definitely are, and if too many words on the page is a struggle right now, you might try them. Marjorie Liu’s Monstress has even won awards, Or try a novella. A recent entry into the novella category that I raced through was Stephen Graham Jones’ Night of the MannequinsThere are a lot of great titles in the middle grade and YA fiction categories as well. No, you are not too old for good middle-grade fiction. If you haven’t read Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book in either its novel or graphic novel formats it is well past time.

If you are a doer or a maker, I don’t personally have the patience for audiobooks or most podcasts, but if you spend a lot of time driving or run long distance, that’s another opportunity. And it’s the perfect time of year to explore Halloween cookbooks and crafts! My son collected and loved these even before he could read them, and a lot of gruesome-looking foods are pretty easy to make. We’ve worn out Ghoulish Goodies There is even an unofficial Walking Dead cookbook called The Snacking Dead

Third, go outside. It’s a little cool where I am to go outside and sit and read right now, but I went for a long walk yesterday that really cleared my head and got me focused again. All the sitting inside, social media, news, attempting to get along with your family you’ve been stuck inside with for seven months leaves you feeling tired and your brain cloudy. Reading is supposed to be relaxing, but apparently you need to really relax before you can enjoy it.

Clear out your brain, clear space for yourself inside and out, turn off your television, and give yourself permission. It’s the Halloween time of year, so, whatever makes you feel the season, give yourself a treat.

Vault Guest Post: Wither, O’Zombie by Jonathan Maberry

Editor’s note: This guest post was originally written for Monster Librarian and published in April of 2012. A lot has happened since then, so it’s not as current as it could be, but it is still relevant.

WITHER, O’ ZOMBIE?

 

You’ve come a long way, you shambling, lifeless, flesh-eating sack of dead meat.

 

And I say that with deep affection.

 

Look at the way things have changed.  When I was a teenager back in the 1970s, we used to pile into cars to go to the drive-in to see midnight shows of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.  We referred to those monsters as…the living dead. The wisest among us floated the word ‘ghoul’. And that’s what Romero called them. No one had used the Z-word yet.

 

Then in 1978 Romero released his follow-up flick, DAWN OF THE DEAD.  That film includes a single oblique reference to zombies.  Early on in the film, Peter (played by Ken Foree), says, “You know Macumba? Voodoo. My granddad was a priest in Trinidad. He used to tell us, ‘When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth.’”

 

That’s the closest Romero got to calling his monsters ‘zombies’.  It was only after the film was recut by Italian director Dario Argento and released as ‘Zombi: Dawn of the Dead’ that the Z-word became connected to the genre. Once it was there, it was there for good. It didn’t matter that Romero never considered his monsters to be zombies, despite that one reference in DAWN.  They were ghouls to Romero, but for the rest of the world and probably the rest of history, they became zombies.

 

Since DAWN had a much larger release and was a more popular film (color, better acting, higher production values, and Tom Savini’s gruesome make-up effects gave it serious legs), a larger chunk of the mainstream audience began to become aware that there WAS a zombie genre.  Though still loosely referred to as ‘those living dead’ films, the genre was in the process of expanding, with domestic and foreign films popping up everywhere.  Some good (such as LIVING DEAD AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE), some bad but highly entertaining (TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD), and some so appalling that it hurts my fingers to type their titles. So I won’t.

 

At the same time we had the first wave of zombie literature.  It was John Skipp and Craig Spector who accomplished that with their legendary anthology, BOOK OF THE DEAD, featuring stories by Stephen King and a veritable A-list of horror writers.  The book was a big hit and it proved that there was tremendous depth and scope in the genre.  In his nonfiction book on the horror culture, DANSE MACABRE, Stephen King declared that zombies had become their own trope, as valid and individual as vampires, werewolves, and other notable monsters. He was right.  (Uncle Stevie is often right when it comes to pop culture issues related to horror.)

 

Seven years after DAWN, Romero gave us DAY OF THE DEAD. The original script was ambitious, and it was a biting social commentary on the build-up of Ronald Reagan’s military-industrial complex. Unfortunately Romero didn’t get the budget to shoot the script he wrote. My personal opinion is that his DAY script would have likely resulted in the best damn zombie film ever made. It was Romero’s best writing without a doubt. But the bean counters in Hollywood chickened out. The result is an entertaining, if talky, third entry in the genre. It isn’t my favorite of Romero’s flicks (DAWN holds that spot), and it’s not the worst (SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD owns that trophy). 

 

However it isn’t in the zombie movies that the best zombie storytelling is happening. Zombie books and comics have long since laid claim to the honor of driving the genre forward in the most interesting ways.

 

With Skipp and Spector’s BOOK OF THE DEAD and its sequel, STILL DEAD, standing as the establishing monuments of zombie lit, the bar was set very high.  For the next decade or so the short story was the primary vehicle for fictional zombies.  Then in the late 1990s there was a series of novels based upon and inspired by the Resident Evil video game.  These books, written by noted media tie-in writer S.D. Perry, were very successful and the numbers intrigued publishers who began to scout around for other zombie books.

 

Then came the double-punch of Brian Keene’s THE RISING and Max Brooks’ THE ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE.  Keene’s book is widely regarded as the novel that kick-started the zombie fiction firestorm. And it’s a corker, too. Rather than riffing on Romero’s zombies, Keene spins the story in a new direction, bringing in demons from the outer darkness. These books are thrilling, action packed and depressing enough to warrant being sold with a bottle of Prozac. Keene is a ‘take no prisoners’ kind of writer.

 

Brooks, on the other hand, was a comedy writer for SNL (and the son of Mel Brooks). He took a standard survival guide and rewrote it as a tongue-in-cheek manual for how to survive a zombie apocalypse. The fact that it’s played with a straight face sells it, and the book became a massive hit that crossed genre lines to sell deeply into the mainstream market. Well over a million copies have been sold.

 

Based on the strength of these two landmark books, the floodgates were opened for zombie literature.

 

Keene went on to write sequels to THE RISING, and even a Romero-esque standalone, DEAD SEA.  He’s since moved onto other areas of horror and continues to scare the bejeezus out of his well-earned legion of rabid fans.  (I count myself lucky to be both a fan and a friend of Brian’s. Had it not been for THE RISING, I doubt I would have tried my hand at zombie fiction.)

 

Max Brooks switched to fiction and wrote WORLD WAR Z, which is one of the most successful zombie novels ever written.  WWZ is also a landmark book in that it is far from being a gore-soaked adventure novel. In fact, it starts ten years AFTER the zombie war is won.  The whole story is written in what –in other hands—would be a dry style: a series of interviews conducted by an historian who is writing a socio-political account of the zombie outbreak, its spread, the near-apocalyptic war, and the aftermath.  This book stands as one of the most insightful books on modern politics, and it’s proof positive that allegory and metaphor are solidly at the heart of the zombie genre.

 

With those two books serving as guideposts, the zombie literary scene was ignited. The genre blew up so fast and so big that it’s impossible to create a definitive list of subgenres.  However here are some notable works that are, in their way, crucial milestones in the ever-evolving world of zombie lit.

 

BREATHERS: A Zombie’s Lament by S. G. Browne is biting social commentary, told from the point of view of a recently reanimated corpse.

 

PLAY DEAD by Ryan Brown is a sports novel with zombies. Dark humor, lots of action.

 

THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH by Carrie Ryan is the first dystopian zombie novel for teens; and the first of a series.

 

BONESHAKER by Cherie Priest is a wild mash-up of Steampunk, apocalyptic action, science fiction, and fantasy.

 

DEAD CITY by Joe McKinney is an action novel with a strong message about the failure of government infrastructure during catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina. McKinney injected pure adrenaline into the genre.

 

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES by Seth Grahame-Smith is a collision of classic literature and flesh-chomping horror. It was so wildly successful that it’s regarded as the best-selling zombie novel of all time as well as the book that kicked-off the literature/monsters mash-up genre.

 

MONSTER ISLAND by David Wellington is the first of a gritty, intelligent trilogy of novels that combines elements of dark fantasy with global politics.

 

GENERATION DEAD by Daniel Waters is the first teen angst novel featuring zombies.

 

PATIENT ZERO by Jonathan Maberry (yeah, that’s me) was the first action-oriented technothriller to feature zombies.  It launched the Joe Ledger series of weird-science thrillers.

 

AUTUMN by David Moody, the first in a series of zombie novels that takes the genre in a fascinating new direction.  If John Wyndham was alive and wrote zombie novels, they’d read like this.

 

DAY BY DAY ARMAGEDDON by J. L. Bourne is the first of a series of geo-political military thrillers set during a zombie apocalypse.

 

THE MORNINGSTAR STRAIN by Z.A. Recht is a series written by the late (and much missed Zach Recht) that explores the nuances of a global pandemic.

 

DYING TO LIVE by Kim Paffenroth is a series of zombie novels that explores the spiritual implications of the apocalypse.

 

XOMBIES by Walter Greatshell is one of the first major novels in the genre to focus on the female point of view.  Great stuff.

 

Of course there are many other zombie books, some of great note, others less so, but in terms of impact on the genre, these books are all landmark.

 

So…where does the genre go from here?

 

That’s a good question.  The genre lends itself to reinvention. The variety of storytelling we’ve had so far proves that.  If you take any single subgenre mentioned above and read the other books in that specific subgenre, you will seldom find significant similarities. Take the Young Adult genre for example. Carrie Ryan’s FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH is radically different from Alden Bell’s THE REAPERS ARE THE ANGELS, just as that is different from Charlie Higson’s THE ENEMY, and my own ROT & RUIN books.

 

You see, this unlimited variety comes from the nature of the monster itself. The zombie, with very few exceptions, has no personality. It is ‘The Threat’. It’s a symbol, a metaphor for other things that we’re afraid of, and since each of us is afraid of different things, and afraid of those things in uniquely individual ways, each book reflects that individuality. As long as we are frail humans with our many fears and vulnerabilities, we will always want to explore how those weakness or threats can be addressed and (ideally) understood and conquered. That’s pretty much the basis for all true drama right there.

 

I even put a new topspin on the ‘Zombie Outbreak’ subgenre with DEAD OF NIGHT, my latest novel. That book deals with a modern catastrophe that grows out of the misuse of Cold War bioweapons research. It was the fourth zombie novel I’d written, and it’s not even remotely similar to my other books. The genre is like that. Always different, always changing.

 

So…trends in zombie fiction?  Anything.  Everything.

 

Keep reading…it’s going to continue to be pretty damn exciting.

 

-Jonathan Maberry

April 2012

 

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Jonathan Maberry is a New York Times bestseller and multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author, editor and Marvel Comics writer.  He has written pre-apocalypse novels: Ghost Road Blues, Dead Man’s Song, Bad Moon Rising, Patient Zero, and The Dragon Factory; an apocalypse novel, Dead Man’s Song; apocalypse comics: Marvel Universe vs the Punisher and Marvel Universe vs Wolverine; and post-apocalyptic novel, Rot & Ruin, Dust & Decay, and Flesh & Bone. He hasn’t tackled Dystopian fiction yet…but you can pretty much assume he will.  Find him online at www.jonathanmaberry.com and on Twitter, Facebook and GoodReads.

 

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DEAD OF NIGHT by NY Times best-seller Jonathan Maberry

St. Martin’s Griffin; available in trade paperback, hardcover, e-book and audio

 

A prison doctor injects a condemned serial killer with a formula designed to keep his consciousness awake while his body rots in the grave.  But all drugs have unforeseen side-effects.  Before he could be buried, the killer wakes up.  Hungry.  Infected.  Contagious.

 

Small town cop Dez Fox and her partner JT are caught in a wave of murder as everyone they know and love die…only to rise again as the ravenous living dead.  If Dez and JT can’t contain the plague inside the town limits, the infection will spread beyond all control.

 

This is the way the world ends.  Not with a bang…but a bite.

 

Praise for DEAD OF NIGHT:

 

 

“Jonathan Maberry is the top gun when it comes to zombies, and with DEAD OF NIGHT, he’s at the top of his game.  Frankly, I’m shocked by how effortlessly he moves between the lofty intellectual heights of T.S. Eliot’s poetry and the savage carnality of the kill.  DEAD OF NIGHT develops with the fevered pace of a manhunt, and yet still manages to hit all the right notes.  Strap in, because Maberry’s latest is one hell of a wild ride.  I loved it.” – Joe McKinney, author of Dead City and FLESH EATERS

 

“Jonathan Maberry has created an homage to death itself and an homage to the undead that is as poetic as it is terrifying.  It’s a brand new and intriguingly fresh slant on the zombie genre that we all love!” -John A. Russo co-screenwriter of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

 

“Maberry is a master at writing scenes that surge and hum with tension.  The pacing is relentless.  He presses the accelerator to the floor and never lets up, taking you on a ride that leaves your heart pounding.  It’s almost impossible to put this book down.  Dead of Night is an excellent read.”  —S.G. Browne, author of BREATHERS

 

“It would be enough to say that Jonathan Maberry had topped himself yet again with an epic zombie novel that is as much fun as it is terrifying.  But that he has also created a story of such tremendous heart and social relevance only further cements his place as a master of the genre.  It also doesn’t hurt that in DEAD OF NIGHT he has created one of the most compelling heroines I’ve read in years.  Dead of Night blew me away!”  –Ryan Brown – Author of PLAY DEAD

 

“Once again, Jonathan Maberry does what he does best; Take proven science, synthesize it and create something truly terrifying.  In DEAD OF NIGHT, Maberry lays the groundwork for a Bioweapon that could very well create zombies in the real world.  Combining great characters (I fell in love with Dez Fox from the moment she was introduced) and taut, blindingly fast action, DEAD OF NIGHT, is a runaway bullet train of a ride. This is Jonathan Maberry’s best writing yet.” –Greg Schauer, owner Between Books, Claymont, DE

 

“Dead of Night stands drooped head and lurching shoulders above most zombie novels. The nightmare increases exponentially – from minor outbreak to major crisis with unstoppable speed, building to a heart-stopping climax you won’t be able to put down.” –David Moody, author of the HATER and AUTUMN books