Lincoln Crisler

Here’s the latest and greatest:

• 1500 words into a fearful fable of domestic violence avenged and dimensional travel!
• 2000 words into a sizzling story of a dogged detective and a mysterious murder, set in the Wild West!
• 5800 words into a terrible tale about a serial killer and the daughter he didn’t know he had!
• 12000 words into my (hopefully) mass-market masterpiece about a magician who deals poorly with rejection!

Plus:

• “Tradition,” my nasty narrative of a hunting trip in the aftermath of a minor zombie apocalypse, has been sent out to a couple of markets.
• “Slice of Life,” a collection of essays I’ll be selling off the site, is in the final stages, awaiting only the possibility of my adding more original work.

To tide you over until these works become public, here’s a vintage interview with the lovely Gabrielle Faust and a link to issue 92 of HUB, which includes my short story, ”Three Blind Dice.” Enjoy!

Rot tells an entirely different sort of zombie tale. There’s no zombie apocalypse, and the streets aren’t awash with the flesh and blood of humanity. Instead, the type of society Lee describes kind of makes you wish it would be consumed: people raise their dead loved ones because they can’t stand the thought of them being dead, and then foist them off on what’s basically a nursing home for the undead. Dean, hired by the company that runs the nursing home to re-kill zombies when they inevitably lapse into savagery, falls in love with one of the residents, a zombie lass named Amy. Another zombie, a dead gay man named Patrick resurrected by his parents in order to save his soul from Hell, also has a special place in his heart for Amy. When she goes missing, Dean and Patrick team up to find her, and in the process uncover a hideous plot that further condemns the already damned and unwanted living dead.

I was really enthusiastic about Michele’s approach when I first heard about the book; I’m a big fan of Brian Keene, so I already have my zombie apocalypse fix covered. Instead, she uses the classic monster to tell a different type of story. My biggest gripe about Rot is that it’s too short; I definitely think Michele could have delved deeper into the various pits of depravity created when mankind raises it’s dead to live among them again. She only scratches the surface slightly with an offhand mention of a woman brought back to life to provide milk for the baby she died birthing and the merest hint of the horrors of a zombie escort service. I definitely think she should shoot for a novel-length adaptation of Rot; the small taste she gives us with the novella is executed so well, it’s hard to be satisfied with fifty pages knowing the untapped potential that’s out there. I also wish there had been more of the relationship between Amy and Dean; yeah, falling in love with a zombie is kinda disgusting, but the way Michele describes her it doesn’t sound outside the realm of possibility.

Bottom line: pick up a copy of Rot and then hound Michele en masse to finish what she started. And tell her Lincoln sent you. 8.5/10