Here’s a quick little tidbit for those of you looking for publishing opportunities.  Apex Book Company, (part of Apex Publications) has sent out an open call for 80,000 words of zombie goodness for an anthology.

They’re asking that stories be no more than 7,500 words, and they will pay you 1 cent per word after publication.   Of course your contribution must be original and must contain at least one zombie.

Submissions close when they’ve reached 80,000 words.   For more information regarding rules and submission, go to the Zombie Feed.

In order to avoid the military’s extermination team, Julia and Brian have left the hotel in order to find some sort of refuge…

*****

Brian moved away from her and started walking down the sidewalk, as casual as if he were out for an evening walk, or heading home from a tough day at the office.

“Brian!” Julia hissed, not wanting to draw attention to them, but he didn’t stop and didn’t even turn his head in acknowledgment. Her choices were to let him go on, on his own or to follow after him, and so with a quick look around the street to see if anyone was watching, she jogged after him.

“What are you doing?” she whispered, not expecting a response. He grunted, however, and vaguely waved an arm in the direction they were headed.

“Well it’s obvious that you’re going that way, but you do know there’s people out here who’ll kill you, don’t you?”

She imagined he looked sideways at her and even raised an eyebrow as if to say, “That’s the least of my problems right now.”

Julia sighed in exasperation. “What we need right now is a plan, a place to go and hide until this all blows over. Walking down the middle of the street is not a good plan. We’ll get caught before we can get a block.”

It was as if providence heard her. At the end of the block an army green assault vehicle rolled into sight. It wasn’t a tank, not quite, as it had wheels instead of tracks, and windows like a truck or a hummer. However, on the top was a big gun, which had someone standing behind it, ready to fire on any trouble.

Julia’s feet stopped as if they had become rooted into the cement. She would have sworn her heart had stopped beating in her chest as well, and it was painful when it started up again. Brian, however, just kept walking. Julia was terrified, after a couple of seconds she started walking again, but she could tell all the blood had drained from her face and her body would soon be singing with adrenaline. She didn’t know if it would be possible to fight or run, but her body was certainly preparing.

The truck at the end of the street stopped, and they continued to walk towards it. Suddenly a voice blared out of a loudspeaker, “Half an hour until curfew, folks! Please hurry along and get to your destination as soon as possible.” Julia smiled, feeling like she was going to puke, and waved a seriously shaking hand in response. The truck drove on past the intersection, continuing its patrol.

“Brian,” she said weakly, “you are the king of fitting in.” Then her legs gave out and she had to sit on the ground, resting her head on her knees in relief.

She would have liked to sit on the concrete until her bottom got cold, but Brian’s rather passive impatience was a constant reminder of how little time they had, so she forced herself to her feet.  A brief wave of dizziness as the blood rushed from her head, made her pause, her hand instinctively resting on Brian’s shoulder for stability, as the sidewalk tilted and threatened to dump her to the ground again.  Thankfully the feeling passed quickly, after taking a few deep breaths, and they continued on their way.

She was trying to think of places to hide when they walked by the entrance to the underground train system. Julia had hardly even noticed it, but when she went to check on Brian’s progress, he was gone. Briefly alarmed, she realized that he must have gone down the stairs to the train platform.

She went down the stairs and found Brian waiting in the semi-dark at the bottom. Unlike the lights of the parking garage, the lighting of the transit system was tied into the city lighting, and, with the exception of the brightest overhead lights, didn’t get turned off. Because of this, Julia found it light enough to see where she was going, but it was also dark enough to hide anything that could be lurking in the shadows.

“I’m not sure if this’ll do, Brian” Julia said looking around her, “I’m sure the stations are patrolled regularly, they were by transit cops before….all of this, anyway.”

Brian moved his head in what she had learned to interpret as a negative and moved further down the platform to the end of what was normally accessible to the public. A big ‘do not enter sign’ blocked the way further down the passage, but Brian pushed past it and walked into the inky darkness of the tunnel beyond. Julia followed after him, despite her reservations.

Though the tunnel was dark, it was not pitch black as it had appeared to be in the relatively lit platform. Small bulbs behind wire cages glowed every one hundred feet, illuminating the tunnel in a pale blue, enough that she could see where she was going without stumbling over the tracks, but not enough to penetrate the deeper shadows.

It was as she walked past one of these deeper shadows that a strong hand clamped itself down on her shoulder. Her shriek resonated through the tunnel before she could stop herself.   At the end of the tunnel something rustled, probably a pigeon or a rat, she told herself, which was less worrying than what had grabbed her shoulder.

She turned around quickly, straining her eyes to see into the darkness, and breathed a sigh of relief when Brian stepped in to a dim puddle of light. Her heart thudded in her chest as he revealed himself, however she quickly relaxed when she realized who it was.

“If I keep getting reved up like this I’m bound to give myself a heart attack”, she said to herself, her heart still thudding painfully.

Brian had disappeared into the darkness again and so she followed in his general direction and tried to get a feel for where they were.  As she strained to look around, her eyes began to adjust to the blackness, and she gradually discovered that they were directly behind the platform in an area where the two sets of tracks separated in a large Y, in order to go around to their own respective sides of the platform.
There was a small maintenance door in the side that was locked when she tried the handle, which was unfortunate. She would rather be locked in a little room with walls all around her than exposed on three sides.

Nevertheless, she decided it would have to do, and, leaning her back up against the cold door of the maintenance room, she lowered herself to the ground, trying not to think about what she might be sitting on and how much of it she was getting on her designer jeans.

Brian just stood there, it was getting more difficult for him to sit down and then get back up again, but he didn’t seem to tire of standing, so it wasn’t a big problem for him.

Julia opened the suitcase, the sound of the zipper echoing through the tunnel, and pulled out a couple of Hot Rods for Brian and a muffin for herself. She was tired from walking and from the continued stress. She fought off another urge to cry by as she lay down on the rocky ground and cushioned her head on her arm.   She regretted that she hadn’t thought to bring blankets or at least a pillow, and took a moment to dig a painful rock out from beneath her hip before drifting into a fitful sleep.

I have a few favorite movies from childhood which remain favorites today, and I’m not alone in this, seeing as how they’ve all gained a sort of cult following.   My all time favorite is The Princess Bride, a book to movie combo that I suspect I’ll get further into some other day.  The other two, running a close race for second on my favorite movies list, are Labyrinth and Willow.

I was ten years old when this movie came out, and I’ve loved it ever since.  The films virtues changed over the years as I got older, but in a nut shell is has magic, action, humor, romance, suspense and excellent, diverse characters.  You can’t go wrong with fairies, mischievous brownies, evil and good sorceresses,  valiant, yet flawed heroes, a baby with a destiny and her diminutive guardian.   The movie even includes an evil warrior princes who is brought over to the good side through love.

What’s not to like about this movie?!  Apparently there’s a lot because the movie flopped at the theaters, and only gained a following when out of theaters, probably through other kids like me.   My husband still maintains that he doesn’t like it, but then he doesn’t like Labyrinth, either, so there’s no accounting for his taste.

Somewhere a long the line, possibly in a second hand book store, I discovered that there was also a book, Willow: The Novel.   I had no idea until doing research for this post,which came first, the movie or the novel, but I always assumed it was the novel.  I was wrong.   Wayland Drew was responsible for the novelization of the movie.   Usually an author writes a book and the movie is created, which is never as good as the book.   With this novel, it was backward; the movie was created, then the book, which was still better than the movie.

As much as I like the movie, I still like the novel better because the novel goes into history and explanations that the movie never really covers, or glosses over.  For example, we find out that the ruler of the doomed city of Tir Asleen, where Willow and Elora are supposed to find refuge, was actually ruled by Scorsha’s father, who was King. We find out Bavmorda’s history, how she became an evil sorcerous because she was jealous of a rival and wanted more and more power.    Eventually, Bavmorda, turned evil by her lust for power,  destroyed the city, freezing everyone into stone.

In the novel, this explains Scorsha’s desertion of the army, when she discovers her father, red-headed as she is, and begins to remember her childhood.  In the movie, we never really find out what Tir Asleen was, except that it was frozen by Bavmorda, and the spell broken at her death.  At the end of the movie, we do see Scorsha and Madmartigan waving from the castle of Tir Asleen, obviously taking up the raising of Elora, and presumably ruling of the city, but there’s no explanation of why that’s possible.

While I’m happy that I got the extra detail from the novel, I would still recommend it more as a companion to the movie, rather than advising to read the novel instead of watching the movie.  The movie’s a cult classic, and by not seeing it you’d be missing out on a lot of antics and action that, being visually appealing, the book doesn’t have.

Unfortunately, the novel is now out of print, but there are plenty of used copies available on Amazon.   Otherwise, you can find the movie here: Willow (1988)

I’ve been a lover of book series ever since I was a kid.   When I was in elementary school I remember reading the Sweet Valley High and The Babysitter Club books; I wanted to be those girls, so badly!  I even tried creating my own Babysitter’s Club, that failed completely.

In Junior high I fell in love with V.C. Andrews and read all of her series up until they were publishing her unpublished works after her death.  Even then, I felt like there was a reason they had been unpublished, and it’s kinda sad when people take advantage of an artist’s death just to make more money.   Then there was the Clan of the Cave Bear books, which I (scandalously) found in the high school library.  There was a bit of an uproar about that, if I recall correctly.  That’s one series that doesn’t really belong in the categoy of fun childhood reads, though, cuz I’m still eager for the publication of the latest novel.

I’ve blogged about some of my favorite series on the blog before, but they’ve always been series that I would go back and re-read, because they remain timeless, to me.  For a change, I decided to write about my very first favorite series, that while completely absorbing at the time, attempts to go back to it have failed. While all of the series listed above were good books, none of them captured my attention like the works of David Eddings.

It was during the summer after I graduated from high school that my aunt brought me a box of books from a garage sale, containing all four fantasy series, available at the time: The Belgariad, and it’s sequel The Mallorian, The Elenium, and The Tamuli.  In a period of two weeks I managed to read all 18 novels, and then I went to the library and tracked down his two other novels, High Hunt and The Losers.   Looking back, it was David Eddings who turned me onto Fantasy books, and after him I went through a period when I read almost nothing but fantasy.  It’s still a favorite genre, but I’m branch out a lot more, now.

What loved about them was that for the first time I was transported into a world whereanything was possible.  Magic (which I was fascinated with) was made as simple as will and command.   Even today, ordering my word through my will is one of my most ardent wishes.  I also found the characters to be very real and endearing.  Polgara was my most favorite and I was thrilled to find an entire book on her history, and Belgarath was the friendly grandfather figure that I really missed in my teen years.

In my first few years of university I jumped on the Eddings’ newest releases, but for some reason, the magic was gone for me.   This didn’t just appeal to the newest series, Dreamers, either.   I recommended the Belgariad to my boyfriend at the time (now my husband)  and I don’t think he even got through the first book.  I tried to read them again, and what held me rapt for two weeks that one summer just wasn’t there.  I found the books to be simple, slow and a little juvenile and to be honest it made me sad; it was like discovering there’s no Santa Claus.

David Eddings was once quoted as saying, ”I am here to teach a generation or two how to read. After they’ve finished with me and I don’t challenge them any more, they can move on to somebody important like Homer or Milton.”   Maybe that’s what happened to me; I grew up and went on to more challenging and more sophisticated novels, although, that could be arguable.  

Regardless, I will always look upon the Eddings’ series fondly, as old friends, and maybe I’ll come back to them again, some day.  I’ll also continue to suggest them to new readers of fantasy, or even as YA fiction, because they are good books.   I couldn’t have been drawn to them fin the first place, if they weren’t.    I think that if David Eddings’ goal was to teach a generation to appreciate fiction, then he was successfull.   I just learned, in my research for this article, that he died in June 2009, and I think that he can rest now, comfortable in knowing that he was successful, not just for his writing, but for opening up worlds to thousands of readers.

Since my husband is fresh out of short story ideas,  I took pity of him and opened up my writing file.   The only thing I felt was really worth posting (a lot of my stuff sucks, apparently), was this story that I started three or more years ago and never finished, until now, although I still feel that there’s more story in it.    It’s based on a character that I played in the mmorpg Eve Online, and takes place in the Eve universe.    This is almost my first attempt at writing science fiction.

****

My name is Kyrana. My last name isn’t important, well unless you’re my parents or relatives or the entire Gallente federation. I am the only daughter of the ruling house of the Gallente people – the Gallente’s being one of the first houses to colonize Eve, a galaxy cut off from Solaris and Earth by a collapsed wormhole. The Archivists say that we’re decedents of Earth’s French people, whatever that means.

Anyway, like I said, I am the only daughter of the ruling house of Gallente. I have two older brothers, both being raised and prepared to run Gallente space when my parents choose not be cloned any longer. My job as the only daughter, is to get married. Rumor has it that they want me married to a Caldari, to bring the two peoples closer together and ease tensions between them.

I did go to school, however, to gain some basic skills to help me do what was required of me. It wasn’t the school that my parents picked for me. The Federal Navy Academy isn’t exactly a charm school. That’s where things went wrong, for my parents at least. I fell in love with flying. I loved being in a pod and connected to a ship. My mother, a properly raised Gallente Lady, was understandably horrified. Understandably, because a real “lady” should never want to immerse herself in biogenic goo and hardwire her body to the computer of a ship.

They could have lived with that, though. They could see it being an amusing hobby, and useful if it really came down to it. What they really objected to were the people I met and the friends I made. Especially men. For someone who is to marry in order to unite two peoples, meeting men is frowned upon. Unless, of course, they are politically influential.

The day I graduated from the Academy and was given my first ship, a rookie ship called a Velator, was one of the best days of my life. I had at my fingertips, well directly connected to my brain, actually, the means to my freedom; to a life I could create for myself without anyone else telling me what was right, or proper, or my duty.

I spent the next month flying around Gallente space, doing courier missions for agents, running training complexes and training up skills, until I had enough ISK to buy and insure my very first frigate, my Tristan. By then, the thrill of the kill…chasing down pirates had gotten into my blood and I started to do kill missions for agents and hunt down pirates in the astroid belts.

It didn’t take long before that wasn’t enough for me, and I wanted more than I could handle on my own. I needed a corp. I got lucky when I found one that was taking graduates, usually they aren’t willing to train, and hire only based on experience, skill and implants. Sometimes you can buy your way into them. So, I started out in the Carbide Industries Initiate Academy, and I was trained by a Caldari named Xeserox. He was a veteran of low sec space, and fought in two wars. He was loyal, tough, and I’d become accustomed to asking how high, when he said jump.

Like today. I was sleeping in the hangar when an emergency broadcast went out across all ships belonging to the corp. It was an Urgent message for all ships to respond to a 0.0 section of space. That’s as low security as you can get – no gate guns, pirates guaranteed to jump you and nearly everyone’s a wanted criminal. I don’t go below 0.5 security, because as much as I love the thrill of the hunt and the kill, I’m not stupid and I don’t want to be cloned. I like my original body, so I avoid it. They call me a Care Bear. Yeah, I talk tough, but when the hunt gets truly dangerous I get nervous.

Coordinates were immediately provided, and a quick check at the nav-map showed that it was only ten jumps away from my current headquarters at the Atari II space station. My mind hovered over the launch command, hesitating, and I could feel my heart pounding and my respiration beginning to climb. “Anyone know what’s going on?” I sent over the comm line.

“Command demands radio silence” was the instant response, flashing red in front of my eyes. “Just get your ass to the coordinates.”

With a deep breath, and a thought, I sent the signal to open hangar gates and nudged my ship outside, hovering in the protective bubble of its shields. To my left, an identical pair of doors opened and a familiar ship slid into view, accelerated and was gone before I could blink. Green text floated in my field of vision, and I could almost hear the half laughing, half gloating voice of Valeria, “Common Kyr, lets kill something! Meet you at the gate!”

That got me moving. In an instant, coordinates to the low sec space were imputed into my nav-computer, and I was flying through space and jumping through gates. There is no way to describe the ecstasy of symbiosis with the power of a ship. I can only imagine that this is what the birds back on Gallente feel like, as they race across the sky; their bodies soaring, turning on a dime, diving for prey. My entire body thrumbed with power, eager for release; shooting at something was nearly orgasmic.

It was very easy to see how people could go rogue or turn into pirates, getting pleasure out of hunting down and destroying other ships. The only difference between them and me was that I still had a conscience.

The next thing I knew I was hovering at the last gate in safe space. I still felt super charged, as if pumped full of electricity, but on top of it all I felt like I had been drenched in ice water. If I went through this gate, I could die. Valeria was already gone, and radio silence meant I couldn’t contact her. Blips on my map showed that corp members were amassed in space three jumps away, so close that I could almost reach out and touch them…and yet…

“Xeserox?” I silently messaged, praying for an answer.

“Sup?” he blinked back, “are you on the way?”

“Umm…” my hesitation translated itself on the screen.

“We need everyone we can get, Kyr, you can do this. I trained you to do it, now get your ass in here.”

“Yes sir!” I responded, closing the chat. Then I jumped.

As difficult as it is to describe the sensation of being melded to your ship, jumping is even more so, yet completely different. It’s kinda like, when your hand falls asleep and you get pins and needles, except it’s all over your body and you feel like it’s gonna tear it apart. Then, just when you can’t stand it anymore, you’re at the other gate. It always takes a little while to orient yourself, and for your computer to get a bead on what’s in the area. This is the most dangerous part of flight, especially in low sec space, with no military protection or turret guns to target high bounty ships.

So, when I could see again, and realized I was still I alive, I took a deep breath of relief and then ran like hell to the next gate. They can’t shoot you when you’re on route. It’s the only way to get away from a pirate that’s after you. If you drop out of hyperspace half way between destinations, you might get lucky and lose them, but otherwise you run from planet to planet, until you find a station you can hide in. Then you hope they go away.

Xeserox told me, once, that I shouldn’t worry so much about being shot down. “You’ll always clone back” he said, “no big deal. So you lose a few implants, but you’re not gonna die, at least, not permanently.” I always told him it’s not myself I worry about, it’s my ship. I don’t wanna lose my ship. I’m not sure how honest I was being.

So, after all my imaginings of being blown to smithereens, imagine my surprise when I jumped into the last gate in 0.0 space, as listed on my coordinates, to be met with nothing but debris. There were canisters all over the place; a quick scan showed they were full of weapons, ammo and some ore. There was nothing on my screen, no friendlies and no blinking, beeping read dots, thankfully. “What the hell?” I said to myself, rotating on the spot, checking the space around me for anything I missed. “Do I have the right coordinates? Maybe I’m at the wrong gate.”

“Hey, guys?” I sent out a message, “is the radio silence still on? I”m at the coordinates and there’s nothing here.”

Silence.

“Hello?” I send out again.

“Kyrana! RUN!” The words flashed bright in my vision just as a wave of ships materialized right above my head, from the gate. They were all blinking red.

I gunned up my engines and made a desperate run for the gate, keying the launch sequence, praying no one had seen me. There was a flash of light, a hot red rush of energy and the feeling of pins and needles, only multiplied to the point that I felt a scream rip out of my throat, only to be enveloped in complete, sensory deprivation blackness.

I don’t know how long it took to recover, but I do know that “Shit,”was the first word I spoke in my new body, back in Gallente. My mother was not impressed.

Today we review a 115 year old book, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. Written in 1895 it was one of the first works to explore the idea of time travel.  It’s told from the point of view of a friend of the main character, identified only as The Time Traveller, who is retelling the story at a later date (presumably to the reader).

The story opens with a group of friends gathering at The Time Traveller’s house where The Time Traveller is detailing his ideas on time travel to his friends. He then wows the assembled group by producing a small model of the machine he has devised and sends it winging off though time. The following week the group gathers together again only to find The Time Traveller late for dinner, when he does finally emerge from his workshop he’s disheveled and has an amazing story to tell.

The Time Traveler details his travels far forward in time to the year 802,701 where he’s found humanity has evolved into a two separate races, a peaceful and happy race of stunted surface dwellers called the Eoli and a deformed race of underground cannibals called the Morlocks. The Time Traveler theorizes that humanity has ended up in this state due to technological advancement that allowed the people of the surface world to live an ‘toil-free’ existance while the underground workers kept their surface machines alive and they eventually evoloved into monsters that fed on the flesh of the Eoli.

The Morlocks steal The Time Travelers machine and he must recover it from them in a somewhat anti-climactic battle and he flings himself forward some 30 million years into the future to watch the death of the earth before he finally comes back to his workshop and relates the tale to his friends.

Since this novel, it’s quite short, a novella really, is so old the language is quite archaic but it doesn’t detract much from the story and Wells evokes powerful imagery of a far distant future. While much of what Wells describes for the future of mankind, and his ideas about how time and space work, misses the mark based on what we know about science these days his ideas are none-the-less interesting and insightful. In the end this work of fiction is a great look at both history and the origins of science fiction and a very entertaining read.

Best of all, since it’s 115 years old it’s WELL out of copyright so can be downloaded for free from all over the place. The copy I read was from Project Guetenburg and very well edited and formatted. You can grab your own copy below. Enjoy

***

The Time Machine

The idea for this post came to me last night on a wave of inspiration after my husband said “don’t judge a book by it’s cover!”   I don’t remember what he was talking about, but my first thought was, that’d make a great post, because that’s actually a really stupid saying, as forward thinking as it tries to be.   The truth of the matter is pretty near everyone judges books by their covers; it’s inevitable.   The cover art is the very first thing, and if it grabs your attention, you turn the book to read the synopsis on the back.  If *that* grabs you, then you read the first page, or a random few in the middle to see if the book is worth reading.   Or at least, that’s the order I go with.   I’m usually very reluctant to give a novel a chance, if the cover doesn’t give me a visual of what to expect out of the story.

I think that most authors and publishers are aware of the importance of cover art to their novel, and I’ve seen many artists over the last few months, jumping with anticipation at seeing the new art for their novels, or sharing with  pride what artists have come up with.  This is how it should be!  Even self published authors generally try, or should try, to make an effort at creating their own eye catching covers; Photoshop is your friend!

Every once in a while, though, you have to wonder what the author or publisher was thinking when they chose the cover they did.   Bad covers range from the (unintentionally) extremely boring, to the unfortunately drawn, to those that misrepresent the novel’s contents.    There is also the intentionally boring, i.e. plain, covers that I’m not a huge fan of, either, but usually in those cases publishers still manage to make plain look interesting; the right font and colors can go a long way;  the cover for Cryptonomicon comes to mind.   Do you see how the subtle lines on the dark background draw you in, and the brightness of the title just pops?  The image makes the novel feel mysterious and intriguing and leaves you wondering, what could this novel be about?   Before you even begin to read, the atmosphere of the novel is created by the cover.

These two cover examples bring me to another point.  Cover art should be ART.   If you look at these two covers, the first may convey more information about the novel than the second, (as far as there might be a gun, a knife and a stick (baseball bat?) in it,) but it’s just not pretty – it’s not art.    I tend to dislike book covers that are simple photographs, unless the photograph is well enough done to qualify as art.  The image above does not, and as such, it flops.

The cover is your novel’s first impression; what the audience sees on the outside, they expect to read on the inside.  Even well drawn cover art needs to be careful, however of what the cover portrays.  There are plenty elegantly drawn covers which just don’t fit into the story.   For example, Terry Brook’s Genesis of Shannara series all feature a scene from the novel as the cover art.   However, the cover art for Elves of Cintra shows the main character standing in front of the cave of the ice dragon, holding a burning torch.  The problem with this, is that this series takes place not long after armageddon, in a time when technology still works – this series represents a switch from sci-fi to fantasy in the Shannara universe.   So, in reality, in this scene the main character is carrying a flash light, and not wearing fantasy-style clothes.   I actually remember talking to my husband about this when I read the novel.   I was unimpressed with the lack of attention to detail on behalf of the artist.

Anyway, this is, by far, not the only blog or website to point out unfortunate novel covers, so I’d like to give others a nod.   The most memorable, for me, is a comedy piece that Cracked.com did on the Best (worst) Fantasy and Science Fiction Book Covers.  I like this article the best because of the author’s humorous reasons of why the cover is so bad. Most bad cover art sites just list thumbnails of bad covers, but I did find an exception that I’m definitely going to have to spend more time going through archives, because the front page was enough to hook me.  It’s kinda like Cakewrecks, but for books;  Judge a Book By it’s Cover does exactly that, and it’s really quite funny.

*Today’s post is written in memory of my Great Grandma, Veronica Rattell, who passed away Thursday, August 5 at the ripe age of 102.  My apologies to other #teasertuesday bloggers, that I’m not around today to read your posts.*

Happy #teasertuesday!   The hotel has informed their guests that the quarantine would end in 3 days – when the military would arrive and ‘clean house’, as it were.   Julia knows that what this means is she has smuggle Brian out, before he’s exterminated, but first, she’ll need supplies.

****

Without hesitating, she opened the door to the kitchen and stepped inside. She found herself in the waitress prep area, thankfully empty, for the moment. There were trays and glasses to the left, the soda fountain and coffee pots to the right, beside the window into the kitchen, with the heating lamp above it. At the moment there was a lone steak sandwich with a pile of thick steak fries, baked golden, sitting under the heat lamp, awaiting delivery to a table. That meant that Julia had to work fast, the waitress would be back soon.

Quickly, she grabbed an apron and tied it around her waist, hoping it would make anyone who saw here there think that she belonged. Then she walked into the kitchen and prayed she didn’t run into any of the cooks.

The kitchen, she assumed, was an ordinary restaurant kitchen. When she walked in, it was directly at a dividing wall. To her right, where the majority of the heat was coming from, she figured would be the ovens and grills, though she couldn’t see them because of the dividing wall. What she could see was a cook working at the side board assembling a dish on the counter top, his back towards her, whistling softly to himself as he worked.

To her left was what appeared to be the prep area. There was a large marble-looking counter top, a large meat slicer, and an even larger mixer with metal bowl attached. The walls were covered in shelves holding pots and pans of all shapes and sizes. At the end of the room was the large silver door of a walk-in refrigerator. Hopefully, she thought to herself, there were enough supplies in there to be of use.

She made her way across the kitchen, her heart pounding nervously in her chest, and slipped inside the fridge, making note that there was a handle on the inside, so she would be able to get back out on her own. The frigid temperature immediately brought goose bumps to her skin, and she rubbed her hands along her arms to try to work up enough friction to keep herself warm.

The fridge was large, about eight feet long and six feet wide. The wall to her immediate left had three shelves, on which was stacked large buckets full of different kinds of salad: green, romaine for making cesars, and spinach for spinach salads. Also on these shelves were large trays of prepared vegetables, ready for steaming or adding to the salads or garnishes as necessary. On the far wall, right across from her were tubs of prepared food: soups, stews and various containers the contents of which she couldn’t identify. At the end of that shelf were platters of meat: raw roasts, steaks, buckets of chicken breasts and wings, even whole chickens. The very right shelf was filled with dairy: eggs, cheeses, milk, and yogurt, and more unidentified containers.

“Well”, she thought to herself, shivering, her nose beginning to run with the cold. She sniffed delicately, and the noise in the small enclosed space was shockingly loud. “I suppose the steaks and roast would be fine though, I’d much rather have preferred cooked meat or more beef jerky. The raw stuff’ll go bad pretty quick. Though, I really have no idea if Brian can eat bad meat or not.”

She walked over to the shelf and started going through the meats. “Oh, shoot,” she said out loud, her voice echoing slightly. “What the heck am I going to put this stuff in? Good job, Julie. Way to think things through.” She shivered, and breathed warm air into her hands, which were getting stiff with the cold, then looked around the space for anything she could use. At the top of the shelf of produce, there was a large plastic tray, like the kind she’d seen busboys use to clear tables with.

She stood on her tiptoes, and eased the tray to the edge of the shelf, with her finger tips. Thankfully, it was quite light. When she managed to get the tray down she saw that it contained the remnants of some roasted garlic, but otherwise it was empty. Quickly she started filling the tray with steaks, then decided to go through some of the containers to see if there was anything cooked. However, the containers were filled with chopped up beef cubes for stews, and bones and scraps for making soup. She would have preferred to bring the cubes, but they were really heavy.

She sighed and prepared to leave the refrigerator with her, in her opinion, way too small collection of steaks. When she turned, however, she discovered an entire new row of shelves right behind her. “Oh, that was really observant of you, Julia,” she said to herself, “makes sense that a square fridge would have four walls though, doesn’t it.”

Shaking her head at herself, she went through the contents of the newly discovered shelves. After five minutes, she had managed to add an entire bag of bagels, a loaf of bread, a bunch of bananas, a tray of macadamia nut cookies, and an entire box of unopened ‘hotrods’ pepperoni sticks.

“Score!” she said outloud, grinning from ear to ear at her unexpected success. The tray was quite heavy, now, and she was beginning to doubt how easy it would be to get away with both Brian and the unwieldy supplies.

“I’ll think about it later,” she said to herself, and gratefully stepped out of the fridge into the hot, fragrant kitchen. The chef was now at the prep table, massaging a ball of pizza dough into a large pan. For a moment, her heart flipped up into her throat, expecting to be caught, however, the chef, apparently absorbed in his work, didn’t look up.

She dodged into the kitchen, and quickly made her way back to the waitress prep area. As she passed the large grill, she saw that there were large slabs of prime rib sizzling over the flame. The aroma wafted up towards her, and her mouth immediately filled with saliva. Julia grabbed the tongs from the rack of utensils hanging above the counter, and grabbed the two steaks as well, before making a quick retreat.

She used her room key and opened up the door to find Brian just where she left hin, sitting on the couch, watching a new soap opera. He didn’t look up when she walked in, though he grunted appreciatively when she put a Hot Rod into his hand. Then she walked into the bedroom and began contemplating her luggage.

She put the tray full of food on the bed, and eyed its contents. Everything would probably fit in one of the smaller wheeled bags, and so she grabbed one at random, opened it and dumped the contents on the bed. It was Brian’s bag, and what came tumbling out was his shaving kit, a change of clothes, including a change of shoes, a light jacket, a thick hard covered book, the newest Steven King, and his Play Station Portable.

She shook her head, Brian always acted so sophisticated, but he really was a child at heart, playing video games in his free time. He would have said he was going to use it to watch movies on the plane, but she knew the real truth of it. Sure enough, bundled among the change of clothes was the small case carrying his game disks. There was also a small, golden colored box, sealed with a slender golden ribbon.

“Ohh…” she breathed, as she held the box in both hands, her fingers running over the slightly textured paper, and the silkiness of the bow. She really wanted to open it, but at the same time, was scared of what she would find. Finally, she took a deep shaky breath and slid the ribbon off the box. It fell on the floor and curled, slightly. Then she slowly lifted the lid, and her eyes filled with tears. Inside, resting on a bed of white cotton was the pendant of a necklace, the silver chain folded back under the cotton;  It’s two interlocking hearts glimmered with an abundance of diamonds wrapped in white gold.

As she picked the pendant up in her hand and let the box fall to the floor to rest forlornly beside the ribbon, her eyes overflowed and tears tracked town her cheeks to drip off of her chin. Gently she turned the pendant over to see that on the back Brian had had engraved, in a delicate, flowing script, “together forever, July 11, 2009”.

Her hand balled into a fist, the necklace digging into her palm, then she lay down on the bed amongst the spilled contents of Brian’s bag, curled her self up into a ball and shook as she sobbed.

It’s difficult to do a review on a novel that is such a classic as to be consider canon for University literature classes.   Basically by elevating it to the status of canon means that there’s plenty of room for literary praise, discussion and dissection, but the time for reviews is long gone.   So I hesitated, when I first thought of discussing the novel-to-movie transition of such a highly esteemed, if controversial, classic.

I won’t lie, the very first time I read this novel, I wasn’t paying much attention and certainly didn’t appreciate it for what it was.   There’s a lot to be said (that has been said) about it’s subject matter, and a lot of people steer away from the novel for that very reason.   When I matured a lot more and went back to the novel of my own volition, I was a lot more impressed by the writing style than put off by the story.  It really is a beautifully told, sophisticated novel that opens up the world and thoughts of a disturbed mind, while subtly hi-lighting the character, strength and bravery of a young girl, turned victim.

That being said, because it is a novel, the literary genius of it can be focussed on, tothe exclusion of the disturbing subject of pedophilia.  This, unfortunately, doesn’t transfer over to the movie,  which I found infinitely more disturbing.  (The novel has been turned into two film adaptations, but I’m most familiar with the original 1969 version so all mycomments about the movie relate to it.)   Without the prose, all that is left is a director’s vision of a man who falls in love with, kidnaps (essentially) and sexually assaults a young girl until she finally runs away with another man, and goes on with her life as best she can.

The synopsis (a extremely brief as it is) doesn’t make it sound too horrible.   My problem with the movie is the sheer amount of time that focuses on Lolita’s ‘nymphete’ status, showing why Humbert Humbert finds her so desirable, and the very disturbing scenes of their sexual relationship.   It makes me shudder just to think of it – I have no need what-so-ever, to see a grown man have sex with a 12 year old girl.

However, my personal feelings on the subject matter, however, I’m not saying that it’s a bad movie; quite the contrary.  The novel does a fairly good job of following the plot, and the actors are disturbingly convincing in their characters.   In the end, the novel and the movie helped to alter society (both literature and film) significantly and some would say that it lead to a sexualization of children than is unfortunate, however,  undeniably more and more prevalent.

Ultimately, it continues to beg the question of if the novel and movies  should have been allowed to be published and produced.  Which is more important, do you think, sharing the art or banning the subject?

You can find the novel here:  Lolita

and the movies here:  Lolita (1962), Lolita (1997)

I’ve mentioned, off and on, in my blog that I’m not really a classics person.   This actually made my English degree really difficult, because the majority of what we had to read, were classics.  I remember cheating with Moby Dick and watching the movie instead, because the book was so boring.    In my defense, I was a stupid teenager.   I have since read many of the books that I disparaged in the late 90s and enjoyed them immensely, however the experience has left a bad taste in my mouth and I keep thinking that I’m not a classics person.

The exception to this lies in Jane Austen.   When I was 12 my best friend bought me this huge book for my birthday that was a compilation of Pride and Prejudice, Emma and Northanger Abby, and I’ve loved Jane Austen ever since.  Because of this, when I first saw Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in the book store, I was intrigued.   It passed my read test, when the first page left me chuckling, and I begged for the book for Christmas.  My husband bought it for me, and I didn’t put it down for the rest of holiday vacation. I laughed all the way through;  it was brilliant!

What I like most about this book is that it’s two essential components are so completely at odds that they shouldn’t work together so well.  However, I was amazed at how seamlessly Seth Grahame-Smith added zombies into such a well known classic;  it was like Pride and Prejudice has always taken place in a world beset with zombies, that it was always supposed to be a zombie story.  Not only that, but the zombies add a large does of humor that kept me chuckling throughout, when the original novel was so serious and composed.

It’s not often when someone re-does a novel, or adds to a story, that they improve upon it, in my opinion.  The ‘sequel’ to Gone With the Wind comes to mind: it took novel full of fire and tension, with an unhappy ending, and turned it into your typical historical romance where everyone lives happily ever after.  Normally I like that kinda thing, but in this case, yuck!    Anyway,  I often find fan fiction to be kinda cheesy.  This novel, however, I feel fairly safe in saying, improved on the original and opened it up to an entirely new audience by making it more desirable to read.

It is because of this that I’m really looking forward to reading Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters,  Abraham Linclon: Vampire Hunter and the other regency adventure/horror novels which have popped up since the popularity of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.