Yes, Dune once again. I know it’s been just a little over a week since we last talked about it but after the wife and I watched the movie I felt the need to actually read the book. I’d made my first attempt at reading Dune when I was somewhere around thirteen and the rather long winded tome was too much for my young mind to wrap itself around and I gave up after the first few chapters. These days I tend to read some rather massive books so the size of Dune was no longer a challenge. However, Herbert’s style of self-reflection and soliloquy still took a little getting used to.

Dune is the story of the rise to power of young Paul Atreides, a.k.a Paul-Muad’Dib, a.k.a Usal. Set some 21,000 years in a future where humanity has spread wide across the galaxy and faster-than-light travel is facilitated by use of the ‘spice malange’, a powerful drug that gives the user longer life and in large doses the ability to see into the future. Dune, or Arrakis, is the only world where the spice can be found and as such whomever controls the spice, controls the galaxy. The novel opens with Paul and his family, House Atreides, poised to take over governorship of the planet Arrakis from the evil House Harkonnen. However, it’s made clear that this move is not one that is without great peril for the Atreides. The Emperor, Shaddam IV, has come to fear the Duke Leto Atreides because of the power and influence he holds in the Landsradd — the collection of great houses of the empire — and now plots with the Harkonnens to lure the Duke to Dune so that he can assassinate him and be rid of the Duke once and for all. From the get go this is made clear to the reader and the plan succeeds exactly as it mapped out with one exception, Paul and his mother Jessica escape to the desert where they are taken in by the Fremen, a wild band of warrior nomads that are the true rulers of Arrakis.

Jessica is a Bene Gesserite, a highly specialized and trained class of women who have learned how to read people so well they can come to control them by use of their voice alone. The Bene Gesserite are an ancient order who have survived by planing myth about themselves on every populated world. This allows Paul and Jessica to be accepted by the Fremen and for Paul to rise quickly as their leader for the legend has been planted that a powerful prophet will come one day as the son of a Bene Gesserite Reverend Mother. As the same time Paul realizes that he’s the outcome of a ninety generation breeding program that the Gene Gesserite have been running to produce the supreme being, the Kwisatz Haderach.

This all culminates with not just Paul becoming ruler of Dune but also wresting control of the galaxy from the emperor who wronged him. With the fanatic Fremen warriors backing him Paul places himself on the throne by forcing the Emperor to allow him to wed his daughter.

Dune is often described as a sweeping epic, however I found that to be more contained then that. Yes, there are many arms to the story but at it’s core its the tale of a young man, a boy really as the story starts when he’s 15 and ends when he’s 18, who is struggling to understand what he is. He’s the end result of a breeding program that sought to create something that the Bene Gesserite could control but he’s not that, he’s also not the leader of the bloody jihad, the Lisen al-Gieb, that the Fremen see him as. He is something else. Thoughout the novel he struggles with his visions of the future, a vast Fremen army of mad fanatics sweeping across the galaxy in a jihad against the Houses carrying before them the banner of the Atreides. His only way out is to claim his mantel as the supreme being and wrest control of the empire and the Landsradd.

One of the best parts of Dune is the world it creates. There’s a richness to the desert planet of Arrakis that is hard to find in other novels. Herbert does an excellent job of conveying how the environment shapes the people that live within it. From the awe at Paul shedding tears over a man he’s killed, to the rich descriptions of the ‘stillsuits’ the people wear to reclaim their lost water you get a true feeling of how parched this world is and what kind of currency water can become in a world such as this. At the same time Hurbert edges at the greater universe that exists outside Arrakis, an empire run on the spice that Dune produces. Great Houses warring against each other and the Spacing Guild in the middle holding them all hostage with a monopoly on space travel.

In the end Dune presented a satisfying story but one that seems unfinished. I want to know more about Paul, I want to know more about the universe he lives in and the great Houses allied with him and warring against him. I want to learn more about their history, how the Spacing Guild came to be and how the Bene Gesserite rose to such hights of superstition. There’s an extremely rich world here and I hope the sequals and prequals build on that as well as Dune set it up.

***

Dune, 40th Anniversary Edition

When last we left Julia she was bravely headed out of in search of food…

****

She tried to see what was behind the little piece of security glass in the door, but could only see a little bit of beige colored wall and the side of one elevator, to her right. It was not a very revealing view. Having no other real options, she opened the door and stepped out, right into the path of something huge.

She screamed. She screamed so loud her throat hurt. Then she swung the pole as hard as she could and connected with it’s shoulder. Her aim was off. She raised the pole to swing again, just as the figure said, “What the hell? You crazy bitch, what do you think you’re doing?”

Her scream was shut off instantly, and she hesitated, the pole still held above her head, but dropping slightly as her uncertainty grew. Could zombies talk? Then the figure turned fully towards her and she saw it wasn’t a zombie at all, but a live man. He was over six feet tall, huge to her five foot five, and very wide built in the shoulders. He was dressed in a business suit, though the tie had been loosened and the top button on his shirt had been unbuttoned. He was immaculately groomed, and his brown eyes seemed to blaze. With anger, she realized, and she certainly couldn’t fault him for it.

“I, I,” she stammered, and let the bar fall to the floor. Suddenly she was extremely aware of how she was dressed, and the brief flicker of admiration that passed behind the fire in his eyes showed that he was even more aware of her state than she was. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, unable to think of anything else to say. Then her eyes adjusted to the scene behind him and she was stunned. It was as if business as usual was going on in the main lobby of the hotel. If it wasn’t for the doors being boarded up, she would have thought it was any regular day and she had dreamed everything.

The man shook off her assault, and clearly made an effort to calm his own temper. “Well, that’s alright,” he said, his voice sounding cool and collected, “just, I donno, be careful with that thing,” his eyes flickered to the pole, then after taking one more appreciative glance at her body beneath the sheer silk and lace, he turned away and headed towards a group of men sitting at a lounge, each enjoying what appeared to be beer.

It took a long time for her to adjust to what she was seeing. She just stood in the hallway by the elevators and stared. Every once in a while the elevators would open and someone would step out, or someone would come and push the button and wait for a few minutes for its arrival. They would all look at her strangely, before going on their way, but no one ever said anything. She wondered what she should do. Should she go tell the check-in people about the zombie in her room?  No, that’s probably a good way to get poor Brian killed. Exterminated is more truthful. Like a rat.

What she really needed was food and clothes. How on earth could the world around her be going on like normal when she’d been secluded in utter hell for five days? What happened to the apocalypse? She was vaguely disturbed to find that she was almost disappointed, and perhaps even a little pissed off that the world hadn’t appeared to end after all. But what about the news? CNN had been broadcasting the disaster for days. Though, granted, she had had the sound turned off for the past three days, so maybe she’d missed something.

She wondered where her family was and why no one had come to check on them. Maybe they were scared, knowing how sick Brian had been. Maybe they had just left them alone to die! Suddenly she was angry that she could just be shrugged off in such a manner. “No,” she told herself, “relax. You don’t know how it is, don’t jump to conclusions.” The person currently stepping off the elevator looked at her funny, as she talked to herself. “I guess I’ll just have to see if I can find them.”

Gathering up her courage, her back held straight and her head held high, she strode out from the bank of elevators and made her way to the customer service desk. She was painfully aware of the eyes that followed her as she made her way across the room, and had to fight the urge to yank the short night gown further down over her bottom.

Arriving at the desk she was chagrined to find that it was empty, and she rang the “ring bell for assistance” bell as loudly as she could, out of her anger. Belatedly, however, she realized that the sound only drew more attention to her half clothed form.

It seemed that eternity had passed, and under the weight of what seemed like a thousand eyes, a blush had begun to move from her chest and up her neck. By the time the pimply faced teenager arrived at the desk, his eyes wide and his mouth trying not to gape, her cheeks were blazing with her embarrassment. The teenager gulped, and Julia watched his adams apple bob in his throat.

“How can I help you?” he asked, clearly straining at the urge to plaster his eyes to her bosom, threatening to spill out of the sparse neckline.

Looking imperially at him, and appearing to completly ignore his lascivious stares, she said, “Yes. I’m wondering how I can locate some guests. The phone in my room appears to not be working.”

“Yes, ma’am” he answered, his eyes loosing the battle and flickering down quickly, before meeting her eyes again. “The phones have been malfunctioning. Have you tried going to their rooms?”

“No.” she answered, “I wasn’t sure if they had checked out or not, yet.”

The boy chuckled, “highly unlikely,” he answered, but I can check for you. Under what name?” He turned his gaze onto the glowing blue of a computer screen.

“The block reserved for the Buchannan/McMaster wedding.” She replied

His eyes flickered up again, surprise, fear and suspicion all flickering across his face so quickly that she wasn’t sure if that was what she had really seen.

“Yes ma’am”, he answered, still staring at the computer screen, though he hadn’t typed anything in at all. “They’re all still here.”

“Well, can you tell me where they are?”

“They’re still in their rooms, ma’am, under quarantine.”

Ah, well that explained the strange look.

“Thank you,” she said, before turning and walking away with as much dignity as she could muster, knowing that his eyes were glued to her half barred, swaying backside.

There aren’t very many movies I can think of that I watched before reading the book, usually I read a book and then the movie comes out, which I just have to see so I can compare the two.   When I first watched this movie, however, I wasn’t even aware that the novel existed.  Nonetheless, it quickly became one of my favorite movies.

I was 19  when the movie came out, in 1997,  and I was initially encouraged to watch it because Casper Van Dien was so incredibly hot as Jonny Rico, even though he was a 29 year old playing an 18 year old.  I ended up liking the movie so much because I saw it as a plausable view of the future.  Marketed to teenage audiences,  it begins with high school graduation and deals with issues such as leaving home.  It’s a coming of age story, with just enough science fiction (space travel and aliens) that any lessons to be found aren’t stifling as they’re hidden behind the action and aliens.

The society portrayed in the movie I also found interesting: Public floggings and execution  for crimes, military personnel having more privelidges, such as being able to have children.  All of these were ideas that I had flirted with in my idea of a ‘perfect society’ that could sustain itself.   I’m also a fan of how the movie presented information in a news form, as if on a computer, “Do you want to know more?”

The characters were also undeniably attractive and had honest relationships; how many of us have promised to “always be friends, no matter what”, before going out in to the world only to find that high school friendships and romance rarely survive the realities of grown life.  Add to the story a war with massive bugs, rife with heavy casualties, action and adventure and it’s a great movie!   It’s really too bad the sequels were so incredibly horrible.

Now, imagine my surprise when required reading for my Science Fiction English course in University included Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein.  One of my favorite movies is a book!  I was ecstatic, because all things considered, I’ll take a good book over a good movie, any day.  Except it quickly became obvious that what I was reading was not the movie I had watched dozens of times.

Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein was written as a young adult fiction for boys, in 1959.  Similar to the movie, the novel follows Jonny Rico’s military career in a future where the earth is at war with the Bugs.  Unlike the movie, however, the military is better equipped with powered body armor allowing improved fire power and movement, when compared to the guns  and foot power the infantry of the movie had to rely on.

This isn’t the only difference, however.  As I was reading through the book, desperastely searching for my favorite characters and plot lines I was surprized to find that Dizzy, the strong female character of the movie, who joins Jonny in the mobile infantry, exists in the book only briefly as a male character who goes off course and has to be rescued by Jonny.  Any other female characters were completely lacking as well;  there wasn’t anything even close to a romantic back story or any love interests.

What this novel is really about is politics.  It is a commentary on society and how Heinlein envisioned politics of the future, eerily similar to my own imagined ‘perfect society’, except that my vision includes women.   In Heinlein’s predicted future, anyone who is responsible for anyone else – doctors, nurses, police, teachers, even parents – must first serve in the military for one term before given the responsibility of looking after others.  He also has a lot to say about discipline, advocating public executions and town square floggings as an incentive to prevent crime.  While all of these ideas were reflected in the movie, they acted only as setting for the plot.  In the novel, however, the plot acts as a delivery device for these ideals.

That’s not to say that this is a bad novel, because it isn’t.  Like the movie it is a coming of age story, however instead of appealing to both sexes is meant to teach young boys about the responsibilities inherent in growing up and taking their place in the world.  The way it ends demonstrates how children inherit the earth (and responsibility) from their parents, as Rico discovers his dad is alive and a new recruit under his command.

If I was to make a complaint about the novel, despite it not being what I expected and that’s the movie producer’s fault, no the author’s, its the same complaint I have with all of Heinlein’s books:  its outdated.  It’s really hard to read a book about the future when the characters behave like it’s the 50s.  I feel the same way about Stranger in a Strange Land; I could only read so much before I got tired of the mysoginist male characters.  Never the less, this is a good book, a classic even, and the politics it puts forth are intriguing.  As such, it remains one of my favorites and is my standby novel when I have nothing else to read.

You can find the movie here: Starship Troopers

and the novel here:  Starship Troopers

I first discovered Jack Whyte after reading a very satisfying trilogy, The Authurian Trilogy by  Mary Stewart, about the life of Merllin.  The series wet my appetite and left me craving more about Arthur, Merlin and the mythical world of Camelot. (Incidently, research for this post has shown me that there was a fourth book about Mordred that I never read!  I am now sorely tempted to pick up the series, again).

Now, at the same time, I had had sitting on my bookshelf a very old and faded book given to me second hand by an Aunt, which had been left over after a garage sale.   It was so faded and stained, possibly crusted in something that used to be sticky, that the appeal of picking it up and reading just wasn’t there.   Hence, when I began searching for new novels to read after finishing The Last Enchantment I was surprized to see that the first book in an even larger series was already in my library, if barely recognizable as such.

That book was The Skystone and it did more than open me up to another series about aurthur, it fueled a fire for early European history, which spread into a blaze so great, that I went on to minor history for my teaching degree.  What’s special abouot this series is that it’s more than just another tale about Aurthur, Merlin and all the other characters we’ve become familiar with.   This series is a journey back into history that is so incredibly well researched as to almost be an instruction manual.

The story starts with the history of Publius Varrus, a roman soldier in England and his experiences with the legions.  This goes as far as describing the setup of the legions, battle techniques,  weapons, the technology of the roman empire in building roads and other structures, as well as the Roman government prior to 500 a.d.  I had to admit that there were times when all of this description became a bit dry, as I really didn’t care about how many men made up a legion, or how a camp was laid out (complete with maps!).

However, the story begins to move along when Publius is nearly fatally injured and has to quit the legions.  He begins his life as an ironsmith and begins to make plans, with is friend, and former General, Caius Brittanicus for what he feels is the inevitable end of Roman occupation in England.  Spurred by rumors of his grandfather finding a piece of sky stone from which he created a small blade, Caus and Publius go on a search for more stone and discover it at the bottom of a lake. After many hears of work, he discovers how to smelt it, and from it he creates a goddess statue and calls it The Lady of the Lake.

This is just the beginning of a multi-generational saga of nine books that begins with Publius, and ends with Aurthur Pendragon, his great granddson.   Throughout the series the Aurthur story is taken out of fantasy and explained what at the time may have seem magical. Camelot (Camulod) Excalibur, Merlin and the Sword in the Stone are all explained away to make perfect sense.

While the history of the novels is the obvious attraction for me, the characters are easily likable and the reader really becomes invested in the family.  As you move through the novels you find that you develop relationships with the characters and grow old with them.  I felt real saddness and regret when characters came to the end of their lives, like I was seeing the passing of an era.

Apart from the main story of the Varrus/Brittanicus/Pendragon family in Camulod, we learn about the fall of Rome, are lead through the evolution of Christianity, and experience the fight to keep England from invading hordes, including the discovery and development of military technology.  The only part of the novels that I found slightly unbelievable was how every advancement in weapons seemed to come from Camulod.

Despite there being aspects of the novels, particularily military history,  that I occasionally found a bit long winded, this is the only series I’ve ever read that brought the myths to life.   These stories make it possible to imagine Arthur and Merlin as the really could have been in life.  It’s because of this that I have read the entire series over and over again, and why they never get old.

It’s because of this that I’ve also picked up Jack Whyte’s latest series about the Templars. While I really enjoyed the first book, Knights of the Black and White, I found the second book to be a disappointment. While it was as meticulously researched as all his others, the story wasn’t involved and interesting enough to disguise the history from being dry and boring.  I haven’t read the third book yet, however, so maybe it picks up.

You can find the Camulod Chronicles (known as the Dream Of Eagles saga in Canada), here:  Camulod Chronicles

Ever wondered what famous author you write like? Well wonder no more! Just grab some text (a few paragraphs will do) from something you’ve written and head over to I Write Like and whammo! It’ll tell you who your style most closely resembles.

Apparently this story tells me that I write like Kurt Vonnegut, cool.

Here at ReadReviewer we don’t just read books we write them too (pretty much exclusively during NaNoWriMo), as such we’ve of course had our dreams of getting our works published. However, the world of publishing can be a scary place with people lurking around every corner just waiting to take advantage of you. From agents that charge reading and evaluation fees to publishers that make you buy a thousand copies of your own book up front. How do you navigate these treacherous waters? Luckily for you, and me, there are people out there like Victoria Strauss who want to make sure her fellow writers are protected from the evils waiting to snatch them up.

Victoria runs Writer Beware! a very popular publishing industry watch group. She also blogs at the Writer Beware Blogs! Both theses sites maintain up-to-date information on predatory agents, editors, and publishers and act as an excellent resource for information on the many and varied forms of dishonest publishing out there that the young and inexperienced writer could fall in with.

The Writer Beware! site has sections for timely alerts about new schemes to avoid, case studies of situations others have gotten themselves into, advise on copyright, information on print-on-demand and self-publishing services, and gobs of more great information. Writer Beware Blogs! also offers a running blog (well duh!) of the latest and greatest ploys the vanity and fee based publishing world are running. It’s an excellent blog to follow if you’re currently trying to get a manuscript published and need to make sure you’re talking to reputable people.

In addition to the resources at Writer Beware! there are other helpful services out there such as AgentQuery, a database of reputable agents. The Absolute Write forums where you can discuss with other aspiring writers and get advise from published authors on the dos and don’ts of publication. And of course Publishers Weekly, an industry news site with tons of info on who’s doing deals and whats selling.

The industry is full of people looking to take advantage of you but with these resources you can avoid the pitfalls — they’re really quite obvious when you know what to look for — and find yourself a great publisher and be on your way to being the next J. K. Rowling in no time! Good Luck!

Over on one of my favorite blogs, io9.com, today there’s an interesting post by urban fantasy author Stacia Kane about getting published and the sacrifices you might have to make to your written art in order to find someone who will publish you. As someone that writes for fun but secretly dreams of someday getting published I found it quiet interesting to see a published authors view of the subject.

What changes would you make to your work to get yourself published? I don’t write girly ‘Twilight’ style fiction but I would if I knew it would net me Stephenie Myer money…

How much should you compromise your vision to get published?

I was pondering, in agony, really, what I could write about today.  I just wasn’t feeling inspired by any of my googling, so I turned to good old Twitter for some inspiration, where Crown Publishing directed me to a video preview, on YouTube, for the book Aftermath: Surviving Apocolypse 2012.   Now, I’m an apocalypse denier.   I don’t think that the world is going to end, during my life time, at least, by any natural disaster such as 2012.   I even have a hard time believing that something unnatural, such as Nuclear war, will get the job done.  Although I can acknowledge that there is a greater possibility of that than any of the other theories.

The end of the world continues to be a very popular sub-genre of science fiction, however, and while I don’t believe it will happen, I do enjoy reading about the possibilities.  My husband takes it even farther and says he’d like to live through the apocalypse.  Apparently he has his survival plan all figured out.   Unfortunately, I’m the type of character who would die within a week, either from a zombie attack or roving bands of violent bandits, so I don’t share his enthusiasm.

My favorite end of the world stories are those in which the author chooses a unique form of destruction, or at least chooses an old method and gives it a fresh twist.  So, I decided to look at just how the world ends in literature, incase there are any sci-fi authors out there who are looking for a new idea, or want to steer away from the ‘same-old’.

Ways the world will end:

1. Catastrophic event (natural) – meteor, climate change, 2012, sun death, universe death

It’s actually not very often that novels are written where the end of the world is a result of a natural disaster.  Movies take advantage of this, more often, because natural disasters are more unpredictable and therefore scary and dramatic for audiences.   The one novel that immediately comes to mind when I think of ‘natural disaster’ however, is The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard.

This is a novel, written in 1962,  about a world after the icecaps melt, putting Northern Europe and North America under water.  The novel follows a biologist and his team as they explore the tropical lagoons and struggle against the de-evolution of the environment.   I read this novel in a university course and found it to be quite a difficult, complex, layered read, though anyone into hard science fiction would probably enjoy it.

2. Catastrophic event (unnatural) – nuclear war, alien invasion

Nuclear war is probably the most common written about natural disaster responsible for the end of humanity.  This probably has a lot to do with the fact that it’s a real fear for a lot of people.  Like I said, it’s the one possibility that even I feel has some potential; however, it’s been over done.   Alien invasion is still a good one, though, cuz everyone likes aliens.  The one that comes to mind which the movie completely destroyed all credibility of was Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard.   The novel follows the struggles of Jonny Goodboy Tyler as he discovers and fights against the aliens who wiped out almost all life on earth, 1000 years previous, in order to mine earth for it’s resources.  Unlike the movie, however, the book doesn’t stop with the one major victory, but goes onto, at great length, establish man’s place in the universe.

3. Biological – Disease, zombies, vampires, human evolution

I think that most of my favorite end of the world stories take this route.  Disease or infection either kills almost everyone (such as Steven King’s The Stand and Robert McCammon’s  Swan Song) or wipes out a certain percentage of the people, or makes people infertile such as in The Children of Men by P.D. James.  And of course, we can’t forget the zombie apocalypse such as in World War Z by Max Brooks or death by vampire in I Am Legend by Richard Matheson.  If  you’ve only seen the movie of this one, you don’t know what you’re missing.   The movie completely changed the entire feel of the story and created a hero when instead there should have been the end of humanity, as we know it, and the rise of something else.

4. Technological – advanced space travel, computer AI take over

The last scenario involves the technological, and is usually a ‘far in the future’ scenario, also popular in movies,  the Matrix and Battlestar Galactica, in particular, have gained cult popularity.   The one novel that immediately comes to mind, however, is I Robot, by Isaac Asimov, another novel destroyed by the movie.  The novel, actually a collection of short stories, is essentially about a world in which people have become obsolete because the world is run by robots, and how such a society would operate.

So there you go, authors.   The world is open to you to destroy in a variety of different ways.   Have at it!

There is a confession I have to make.   My entire life I’ve considered myself a writer; from the poems of my elementary days to the short stories of junior high and false novel starts in high school.   When I was sixteen I even begged my parents to go to a summer writing camp for teens. Yet, despite all of the writing I’ve done during the years, there is a very real reason why all my novels are unfinished; I’m not very good at handling rejection, therefore, I’ve never seriously thought about publishing anything.  I write because it is a challenge and because I love a good story, but I never thought of publishing, until lately.   I’m thinking more and more that this is something I would like to do.

Which brings me to the purpose of today’s post; how does a writer become an author?  Writing aide, new writers might want to consider becoming a part of a writing community.   Having a strong network of experienced writers to ask advice of, get encouragement, and even critiques,  from will go a long way to improving not only an author’s writing, but contacts, etiquite and professionalism required to get work out and acknowledged.

Writing communities are surprisingly easy to find.  There are many writers’ associations or guilds, which run writing workshops and conferences.  Usually membership is a small fee, but member contacts, services and discounts are worth it. Legitimacy is, of course, an important consideration, however, and organizations should always be researched.   I began my writing community with Twitter, and the amount of helpful articles and blog posts from authors, editors and agents, as well as (often humorous) tips on what not to do, has been truly unexpected and incredibly appreciated.

It was through one of these twitter posts that I came to find the following website, Wordplay, the blog of author K.M. Weiland.  I was drawn to the website, originally, to read a post about the importance of writing a premise sentence, linked by someone else on Twitter.   A few days later, after following K.M. Weiland, she sent me a private message directing me to her blog.  I was surprized that I had seen it before, and happy that she brought me back.  This gave me even more of an opportunity to explore her site and I”m very glad I did.

The header of the site is “Helping Writers Become Authors” and that truly is what it aspires to do.  All the posts are helpful hints to help writers improve the quality of their work.  She even offers a free e-book on character creation for those who join her mailing list.   The links section contains a wide variety of helpful links for authors including marketing, names, networking and research, and  the recommended book list is a real treat.  It’s nice to get recommendations from a published author, rather than searching blindly.

Thanks, K.M. Weiland for wanting to help other writers, creating such a good resource, and being a part of the writing community.

Yay, it’s #teasertuesday again!  When last we left Julia, she had just discovered her new husband was a zombie.   How’s she holding up?

****

Her stomach grumbled.   Right.  First thing is to find food, she decided.  The hotel has hundreds of rooms, each with a mini bar and maybe even some with baskets like her own.  Then there was the kitchen, of course, assuming that no one else had pillaged it yet.  But maybe she should try to see what had happened to everyone else in the hotel, first.  Her stomach grumbled again.  “Okay, we’ll look for people and food at the same time,” she said, talking to her stomach.

As she prepared to leave the sitting room, her home for the past five days, she was painfully aware of the fact that a person was supposed to arm themselves, during the zombie appocolypse.  She’d seen all the zombie movies.  Ironically enough, Brian had the “Zombie Survival Handbook” or Kit, or whatever it was on his book shelf at home.   He had also insisted she sit down and watch every zombie movie known to man with him.  So she considered herself pretty well versed on zombies and how to be the first to die.   Having no weapons is a good way to start.

Unfortunately, all she had on hand was a wicker basket, a one liter, empty, bottle of champagne, and the tv.  None of those were either helpful or wieldy.  Well, maybe the bottle, she thought, doubtfully.   Then her eyes fell on the clothes pole in the closet, and she wondered just how securely it was bolted into the wall.    It would be something to swing, at least, and it had more range than the empty champagne bottle.

Sighing, she hauled herself off of the couch and walked over to the closet, eyeing the pole doubtfully.  Then, wiping her hands on her night gown – she never had had a chance to grab any new clothes from her suit case, before the whole zombie thing had happened – she firmly gripped the pole in her hands, then put the whole of her 130lbs on it, and pulled with all her might.

The pole came separated from the wall so easily and quickly that she went flying across the room, landed right on her tailbone and cracked the back of her head soundly against the tv screen, making a sharp ‘plink!’ sound.   “Ahhhh….” She gasped through her teeth, one hand going to the back of her head to cradle the sore spot while she gently rocked herself on the floor, her tail bone throbbing.   “Oh, that smarts.”   She sat for a while on the floor, her eyes watering as she forced herself not to cry.   Eventually the pain faded until it was only a slight throbbing heat, and she struggled to her feet again, bringing the now detatched pole with her.   “That was hardly a lucky start,” she said to herself, as she brought up the pole and swung it experimentally.

The pole wasn’t nearly as heavy as she would have liked it to be, and she figured it was probably hollow aluminum.  She’d be lucky if it didn’t crumple the minute it connected with a zombie head.  She shuddered.  If she was lucky, she wouldn’t see any zombies at all, much less have to hit one over the head.

With her pole held like a baseball bat, over one shoulder, she opened the door to her hotel room, and propped it open with a high healed shoe, seeing as how her room key was also in the bedroom with Brian, along with her clothes and tooth brush, and hair brush.   She tried not to think about those things, though;  It had been a long five days without them.

She peeked into the hallway, but it was completely empty.   Then slowly, as if expecting something to jump out at her at any minute, despite the fact that she could see for one hundred feet in each direction, she walked into the hallway.   Feeling slightly more confident, albeit extremely exposed, she crossed the hallway to the room opposite and knocked on the door.  No answer.   She put her ear to the door and listened for anything remotely zombie-like.  Nothing.  However, that could be zombie-like in itself, she had come to learn.

She tried the door knob.  Locked of course.   Well, she had to check it out somehow, she told herself, as she backed away from the door.  She braced herself, then threw her weight at the door, shoulder first, half expecting the door to give way as easily as the closet poll had.   However, despite what movies had lead her to believe, she crashed into the door and it didn’t budge; it hadn’t even vibrated.

“Oh, god my arm!”  she hissed as she fell in a heap on the floor by the door.   She dropped the pole and massaged the charley horse rapidly growing in her bicep.  She flexed her arm ahead of her, and tried to stretch the muscle out, trying to convince it not to cramp up.  “Damnit!” she swore, banging her head against the door behind her in consternation.

“Well, this obviously isn’t going to work,” she said to herself.  ”Either I need keys, or I need to try something else.   Her mind strayed to the kitchen.  “Yeah, I could try the kitchen. Maybe while I’m down there I can look for keys, as well. And maybe I can get killed and eaten by half a dozen zombies while I’m at it!  Brilliant idea!   Well I don’t see you coming up with something different!”

She sighed, realizing she had been arguing with her self, and answering back, then hauled herself up off the floor, again.  “Alright, you win,” she said, “we’ll try the kitchen.”  Somewhere inside herself, she was smiling smugly.