SERIAL READER.

Welcome to day 8 of the OctoberFrights Blog Hop. Today I'm talking serials and introducing you to my new dreadpunk, gothic, detective, fairy tale serial coming out in December called 'Beautiful Freaks'.

Leave a comment to be in with a chance of winning these really fab Jack earrings and a paperback copy of the orginal novel, Beautiful Freaks, which inspired the series.

I know that many of you have  fallen in love with drama series thanks to NETFLIX, HBO and FOX. And having the technology to record, store and consume episodes has made following series an even more delectable experience. I'm a series junkie too; Hannibal, American Horror Story, Game of Thrones, The Following to name a few that have captured my adoration over the last few years. There are many approaches to the consumption of serials, but whether you are a binger or a pacer, the one thing most people agree is that serials allow the viewer to really engage in a world, and to bond with the characters in a very unique fashion.

So T.V series are fab, but have you tried the same principle with your reading? I'm not talking traditional novel series, where each full length book is released at eagerly anticipated 12+
month intervals, but a weekly, Thursday downloadable episode, each of a short novella length and designed specifically to keep you on the edge of your seat as you wait for Thursday to come around again.

Whilst attending UtopYA I came across this amazing concept and curious, I became hooked. I love the whole experience of consuming an episode and then being forced to wait with anticipation for the next.

This December sees the release of my own 12 episode serial called 'Beautiful Freaks'.

BEAUTIFUL FREAKS: A 12 PART SERIAL
STARTING DECEMBER 3rd 2015 until 28th FEBRUARY 2016

PRE-ORDER YOUR DOWNLOADS NOW TO RECIEVE THEM INSTANTLY TO YOUR KINDLE OR E-READING DEVICE ON RELEASE DAY.
 

A dark and twisted saga that winds its way through the Victorian streets of London like a luxurious and lethal ribbon.

When a series of terrifying and seemingly paranormal murders occur at a rapid rate, panic and fear grip the city. Still haunted by the ghost of the Whitechapel Ripper case, Inspector Steptree is forced to admit the murderer he now pursues maybe even more wicked and brutal. As the case closes down on the mysterious No.7 club, owned by the enigmatic Evangeline Valentine, Steptree discovers that evil is far from a fantasy.

It is against this backdrop that Kaspian Blackthorne turns eighteen and begins his apprenticeship under the scientific maverick, Doctor Greyson, a pioneer in brain surgery, and human transplantation. Whilst Kaspian is introduced to the horrors and wonders of man’s scientific progress, he also begins an epic adventure of self-discovery and infatuation. Guided into the decadent and luxuriant world of the London West End night scene by his new friend Hugh Denvers, Kaspian tastes the sweet temptation of a life less ordinary, but such a privilege comes at a terrible price.

A cast of timeless characters and dark, grown-up fairy tales interweave to create a rich and haunting tale of fear and desire.

Based on the original novel, ‘Beautiful Freaks’ written and published in 2013 by Katie M John, this series is a development of that world. This is the first season of a planned three seasons.

You can find out more about this season and forthcoming seasons on the official site. www.katiemjohn.com

#Gothic #Dreadpunk #Paranormal #Demons #Fae #FairyTales #Phantoms #Vampires #Creations #Frankenstein #ParanormalRomance #Murder #Detective #Horror #SecretSocieties #CrossOver #UpperYA

 Published by Little Bird Publishing, Katie M John is the author of the U.K No.1 best-selling YA Paranormal Romance and Dark Fairy Tale series, The Knight Trilogy.

You can find out more about Katie and her books over at her Amazon Author Page

Katie's Amazon Author Page

www.katiemjohn.com

@KnightTrilogy

LINK TO EPISODE 1 & 2 Of Beautiful Freaks out on Thursday 3rd December 2015
EPISODE 1
Amazon.UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B0164JRJYU
Amazon USA http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0164JRJYU EPISODE 2
Amazon UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0164K9GKY
Amazon USA http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0164K9GKY

DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE YOUR COMMENT. RANDOM WINNER SELECTED IN THE NEXT WEEK OR SO. LEAVE YOUR TWITTER HANDLE TOO.

Tales From The Asylum I - New Nurse #OctoberFrightsBlogHop

It's day two of the October Frights Blog Hop and I thought I would share with you a short story from 'The Rookeries' collection; a series that runs on my blog  as blog exclusive serial.

In order to be entered for you mystery Trick or Treat goodie bag then don't forget to leave a comment.

Tales from The Rookeries Asylum I - New Nurse
Originally posted Sunday 29th March

Welcome to the first posting of  Tales from The Asylum, a blog #FlashFiction project of short stories, all less than 2000 words (a 5-10max read). The stories are inspired by location of The Rookeries Asylum, which features in The Meadowsweet Chronicles. I hope you enjoy this short little read. It's called 'New Nurse'. Don't forget to sign up to the blog for updates on the stories to follow. You can read about this blog project in the introductory post, and you can find in the right sidebar a live-link table to other stories in the series as they appear.

Tales from The Asylum I: New Nurse
(1951)

The bus dropped me off in the village of Heargton. The Asylum, I had been told, was just a short ten minute walk through the village on the East Road. The Matron had neglected to inform me that the way would be little more than a mud track through a creepy wood. I looked down at my once pristine white nurses’ shoes and sighed. Mud-spattered was not the first impression I had intended to make. I hoped she would put it down to youthful ignorance rather than carelessness.

My mother had cried when I’d left for my first day in my new job. She’d had noble and romantic notions of me being a modern day Florence Nightingale; falling for some heroic soldier who I helped heal in both body and soul, not spending my days tending to the violent and criminally insane.

I shivered with the quiet fear that was unravelling in my stomach. The wind wound its way through the trunks of the tall Scots Pines creating an eerie, mournful moan. As I walked, it became a chorus of other pitiful cries – those of human relics. I looked at my watch, knowing exactly what time it was. I had planned my journey meticulously. But there was something in the shadowy gloom that made me question momentarily if I hadn’t somehow been tricked. It read two p.m.

The Rookeries grew from some haunted looking dolls’ house into a Victorian redbrick monstrosity. Gothic revival in style, the whole thing was decorated like an over the top wedding cake, as if somehow they could hide the ugliness incarcerated within from the outside world. I wasn’t fooled. There was something sinister about the florid stone floristry – as if it might contain a hundred deadly vipers.

I rang the bell and waited. I didn’t have to wait for long. It was opened by a squat woman with a sour mouth. Her eyes coldly and slowly appraised me from head to toe. Her lips twisted at the sight of my shoes. There was something in her look that made me feel naked, as if I were little more than meat on a butcher’s counter.

   “You’re late,” she said by way of welcome.
I glanced down at my watch. It was three minutes past two.
   “I’m sorry,” I said doing my best to hide my irritation with a look of contrition.
   “Well, you’d better come in. Doctor Mappin is waiting for you,” she said, turning her back on me and leading me into the cave-like hallway.

I scanned the room, taking in the heavy oak furniture and black and white tiles. It looked like the hallway of a country house, rather than an asylum, although I was soon to learn that like everything else I had seen of the place so far, it was a front to the inner horror.

A scream came from somewhere deep inside the hospital and startled me. As if the nurse had eyes in the back of her head, she said,
  “You get used to the noises after a time.” She led me up the sweeping staircase and along a corridor of glass windowed offices. Some of them had a row of sorry little metal chairs outside, which I guessed were for waiting relatives. I was instructed to take one of them outside an office which had the title of MATRON painted in gold on its window. The nurse walked further down the corridor before knocking on what I presumed must be the office of Doctor Mappin. ‘Strange’ I thought, that I should not have been asked to sit on one of the chairs outside of his office.

*

“The girl has finally arrived.”

Doctor Mappin peered over his papers. His half-moon glasses glinted in the afternoon grey winter light.  
   “Good, good.” He nodded.
Nurse Mary waited for the doctor to enquire more, but his attention was clearly drawn to whatever reading material he was holding.
   “She seems quite perfect. I’m sure that she will meet his specific requirements,” Mary said, trying to engage the doctor.
He flicked her a look, and Mary thought she saw the slightest shudder run through his shoulders. Doctor Mappin was essentially a good man, although The Rookeries Asylum was a world within a world in which the usual laws of good and bad were somewhat skewed. He was certainly, of the four doctors that worked here, the best of them. Mary had heard the rumours amongst the patients and other nurses; she’d walked past the locked rooms. No signs instructed, ‘No Entry’ but the keys could never be found.
   “Quite,” he said dismissively, although Mary knew that it was not disinterest but an unwillingness to be too deeply involved in the dark matter.
   “So shall I call her in?”
   “No. Take her straight down to him.”
Mary’s forehead crumpled. “But won’t she find that… strange, doctor?”
  “I really think that is the least of her problems, don’t you?”
Mary nodded and padded silently out of the room.

She smiled at the girl, whose name escaped her. It didn’t matter. In some ways it was better for her not to know. The Matron would take care of contacting her parents; informing them that she hadn’t turned up for her appointment and that her job offer had been withdrawn. They might contact the police and trace her steps as far as the bus station but that would be it. The Rookeries was owned and protected very powerful people.

*

The nurse came out of the office and smiled at me. It was the first time she had smiled since we’d met. I preferred her scowl; there was something over sweet about her smile, as if her teeth were fashioned of sugar cubes. She apologised on behalf of the doctor, who was ‘very busy’ and had requested that she show me around. She informed me that I was to work primarily with one of their patients; the son of a very wealthy family, although he was not, as he would no doubt claim in his conversations, a prince.

  “No, no, no – imagine the scandal!” she exclaimed in such a way that I immediately suspected that the man may be a prince. “The poor man suffers from delusions of grandeur – he’s very convincing.”

I nodded sagely, hoping that my inexperience and excited curiosity was not too obvious. “Why is he here?”
She flinched, and I wondered what horrible malady the man must suffer to make even an experienced psychiatric nurse recoil.
   “He has…” she struggled with her words, clearly not wanting to tell me and yet feeling compelled to answer a question she’d been asked. “Perhaps it would be an interesting exercise to see what your own assessment is after you meet him.”
Excitement flared. “But he’s,” I cleared my throat, “he’s safe for me to work with, yes?”
   “Aubery is a perfect gentleman,” she reassured.

She pushed open the door and we stepped into the twisted soul of the building. It was a soul made of iron bars, soiled stiff calico and tears – some silent, some screaming. I couldn’t help but look in at the wretched creatures held in their cells. Regardless of their crimes, there was something inhumane and cruel about their plight. My presence caused a ripple of eerie catcalls and outpourings of desperation. As if sensing my horror, the nurse explained,
   “This ward is for the most criminally insane. They are here because their crimes are so awful that Satan himself would have reservations over allowing them in to Hell. Don’t let them move you to pity. If you knew their stories, you’d feel entirely different. Female nurses never work in here. Only the Matron and I are allowed access so that we might tend to Aubery.”

My instincts started a quiet warning. Questions whispered in my mind. Why was I ‘allowed’ here? ‘Why was Aubery so close to such monsters if he wasn’t a monster too?’ My nerves jangled and I felt small the small prickle of sweat on my palms.

At last, we reached the end of the corridor and the nurse rummaged her chatelaine of keys before inserting a large metal key into the lock of the barred door. One through, she locked it behind her, adding to my mounting paranoia. Here, the corridor was flanked either side with wooden doors that were still clearly cells but which offered more privacy than the ones in the previous section. She guided me down to the end and I wondered how often I would have to make this journey before it became part of normal. Here there was silence behind the doors, and I wondered if in fact they were inhabited at all. I wasn’t sure what was worse – to be locked away surrounded by the cries of the tormented mad, or to be cocooned in silence.

The nurse knocked on the door and I was surprised to see that on invite she simply turned the handle and entered: the patient apparently free to enter and leave his room as he pleased.

   “Mary,” he greeted with a voice like a velvet ribbon. “How nice of you to call.”
I smiled inwardly. At last I knew the nurse’s name, and she had been right about his gentlemanly sense of delusion. I stepped into the room behind her and saw how it was far more like an apartment than the cold brick cells I had seen on my journey so far. There were heavy velvet drapes at the barred window, which even at this time of the day, were drawn against the sombre afternoon light. The man, who was unnervingly handsome, was reclined on a threadbare chaise and dressed as if he had raided the clothes rail of the local amateur dramatics society.

Mary turned to me, beckoning me forward and I saw his eyes swivel towards me, giving the unnerving impression of a lizard. He smiled approvingly, and it seemed simple good manners to hold my hand out in greeting, even though it was the very last thing that nursing protocol demanded. I sensed Mary moving towards the door and looked to her for clarification as to what it was I was meant to be doing.

She was already half way out – her body slinking through the closing gap of the door.

   “Enjoy your meal, Aubery,” she said as the door clicked behind her.
I looked to the man and saw him smile. We had not brought a tray of food with us and as I scanned the room, I could see no other lunch set out. I backed towards the door, not taking my eyes off the man on the chaise. His impossibly pointed teeth bit down onto the cushion of his lips, and a flare of hunger flashed through his eyes.
   “Come, little lamb,” he crooned, swinging his legs off the chaise and patting the seat next to him. “Let me tell you a story before I dine.”

The realisation of my fate struck me so hard that I felt physically winded. I tried the door handle, but it simply rattled in my hand, stubbornly refusing to turn. I pummelled the door with my fists until they burned, crying out for Mary – but Mary was gone, and with her, all my hope.

#12DaysofCreepfest Author Interview with Red Tash

WELCOME:
Welcome to the 12 Days of Creepfest; a celebration of Christmas spooks and horror and an opportunity to introduce you to some wonderful horror and Dark Fairytale writers. Firstly thanks to the wonderful Rebecca Treadway (@creepywalker) for organising this fun trip.
Today I am happy to welcome the brilliant Red Tash, Author of 'This Brilliant Darkness.'

BIO:Red Tash was born in a rain barrel behind the old aluminum barn on the back 40 of her parents’ Indiana homestead. After self-learnin’ herself to spell and type, riding side-saddle on a rusted-out, empty Silgas tank, she ran away from home to join the journalism circus, and began writing comic strips and 100% fabricated horoscopes for a network of local newspapers across These Here United States of America.

Eventually, Red tired of making up corny jokes and telling fortunes, so she retired from the newspaper biz to become a VJ on MTV. You might remember Red spinning out the hits between news reports from Kurt Loder, and the indecipherable jokes made by Downtown Julie Brown.

Then again, you might not.

Because some of the above was false.

The truth:

Red Tash knows that all you really care about is that she writes good stories. She does that. Red’s books make you think, make you wonder, make you laugh, and keep you turning pages. They’ve been known to keep hardened readers up at night, racing to the end of the book.

Presently, Red has one (count ‘em) one longform book available, entitled This Brilliant Darkness. It is the first in a series, and someday it hopes to be a graphic novel.


INTERVIEW:

In 140 characters, describe your private self.
Mother, fighter, kick-ass writer, newlywed and ex-rollergirl

In 140 characters, describe your writerly self.
Erudite, boastful, proud, ridiculously creative, generous, funny, dark.

Tell us more about your current work and projects?
Finishing a YA roller derby fantasy set in rural Indiana, starring a queer kid and a bunch of drug-addicted fairies and trolls. You know, popcorn stuff.

Which writers are your biggest influence?
Holly Black, Neil Gaiman, Jo Rowling, Stephen King, Melissa Marr.

What is your favourite book / story of all time?
Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire. When I die, I'm going to the Yule Ball to dance forever.

How do you like to bring the 'dark side' into Christmas?
Christmas is an inherently dark time. I think the better question (for me) is "How do you bring the light, without making it corny?" In my personal life, I give myself over completely to the corniness. I sing Christmas Carols with the kids, I bake--but at the end of the day, I will weep along to O Holy Night, and I realize the reason I cry so hard is because of all those sad memories of Christmas. I know I'm not the only one who's had a real Severus Snape kind of childhood. It is what it is--there'll never be an appreciation for the goodness & light if one hasn't experienced the pain of what Christmas is supposed to be--and found oneself left out of that.

Describe your perfect fantasy Christmas day.
Having all my family with me on Christmas morning, a lovely fire, a huge tree, everyone is happy with their gifts, and I don't have to clean up the mess!

Which six famous figures (dead or alive) would you love to have sitting at your Christmas table?
Jesus (it's his party, right?), T.S. Eliot, Einstein, Dumbledore, & Leonardo da Vinci

What are your New Year wishes?
Beyond the standard Peace on Earth thing, I'd love for everyone I love to be healthy. I'd also love to make a living from my writing. I traded a freelance career for this experiment in fiction, and I'd love for that gamble to break even.

Just for fun: TRIVIA

Christmas pudding or Stilton Cheese?
No idea. I'll go with the cheese.

Bing Crosby or The Pogues?
The Pogues

The Queen's Speech or Taking out your own eyeballs?
I'm going to pass!

Turkey or Ham?
Beans & rice! Animal food grosses me out. I eat it, but I can't think about it too much.

Brussel Sprouts or Carrots?
Sprouts!

Jolliness or Bah Humbug?
Super corny Holy Jolly. ;)

BUY ON AMAZON
VISIT THE WEBSITE

#12DaysofCreepfest Author Interview: Annetta Ribken

Author Bio:

Annetta has been writing since words were carved on stone tablets with chisels. Not only does she write her own words, Annetta is also an accomplished editor. She lives just outside of St. Louis with her evil feline overlord, a rescued shelter cat named Athena


"Athena's Promise" synopsis:
Compared to Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden series, meet Pallas, the heroine of "Athena's Promise". As the front desk manager of a hotel on the edge of Zombietown, Pallas is used to dealing with angry centaurs, surly trolls, and zombie housekeepers. The trouble really starts when one of her guests ends up dead. But that's not her only problem.

A cop with an attitude – can he be trusted to be more than just a pain in her ass or does he have a more sinister agenda?

A new Guest Services Manager, out for her job and ready to sacrifice anyone in his way – what does he really want?

The attractive maintenance guy, endangering the promise she made out of necessity to the Goddess Athena – does he know more than he's telling?

A mermaid diva, whose show at the Sparkling Butterfly must go on – or else. Pallas needs to find the killer, and fast, or she'll lose her job, her home, and the ragtag family she's adopted out of her crew of "critters". In the course of the investigation Pallas uncovers connections to a nasty Oddities dealer deep in the heart of Zombietown, forcing her to expose a trauma from her past which could threaten her future.

With everyone and everything she loves in danger, the promise made to the Goddess Athena may well damn her if she breaks it, but she is bound and determined to save her friends, her home, and everything she's built.

No matter what it takes.

INTERVIEW:

In 140 characters, describe your private self.
Silly, serious, loyal, focused, addicted to words. Professional hermit with a deep allergy to the Out. Cat lover, mother, grandmother, but only 19 years old in my head.

In 140 characters, describe your writerly self.
I am a driven workaholic with an overactive imagination and a number of storylines I'm trying to untangle. I love the creative process; it's exhilarating and amazing fun.

Tell us more about your current work and projects.
Every day is different, which is one of the things I love the most about my job. I have three editing projects going on in various stages; working with a client on a large project; poking around trying to get "Athena's Chains", the next book in my trilogy plotted; several shorts planned. A boss of mine used to say, "Busy is good." I agree.

Which writers are your biggest influence?
Stephen King and Robin McKinley. I think Stephen King is amazingly talented in the way he brings people to life. There are very few books I've read of his that I feel I could not recognize his characters were I to bump into them on the street. I admire that more than I can say.

Robin McKinley has a beautiful, lyrical style that really appeals to me. Her book, "Deerskin", moved me in so many ways. I love taking a fairy tale or established mythology and give it a good twist, which is what she does here without the usual happy ending. It's a fabulous book.

What is your favourite book / story of all time?
This is too difficult. I would say if I were on a deserted island and could only bring one book, it would have to be "Dragonriders of Pern" by Anne McCaffrey.

How do you like to bring the 'dark side' into Christmas?
I like to watch Christmas movies like the Blade Trilogy, Nightmare Before Christmas, and Rocky Horror Picture Show. The Grinch is my hero before he gets all mushy. Christmas today is a whole lot different than when I grew up, and I don't like it much now. I try to avoid all the commercialism, the sales, the pressure to clean and cook and shop and wrap and bake and…well, you get the picture.

Describe your perfect fantasy Christmas day.
My perfect fantasy Christmas day would start off by coffee served in bed by a naked minion, while another naked minion cooks dinner. My kids would be here with my grandson for a visit, and we would enjoy the cookies made by yet another naked minion.

Well, maybe not naked if my kids were here.

After a nice meal, everybody goes home. Go on. Get out.

Which six famous figures (dead or alive) would you love to have sitting at your Christmas table?
Nathan Fillion, Stephen King, Louisa May Alcott, Adam Levine, Queen Elizabeth I, Anne McCaffrey.

What are your New Year wishes?
Health, wealth, and happiness. Oh, and world peace. That would be nice.

Just for fun: TRIVIA

Christmas pudding or Stilton Cheese?
Cheese.

Bing Crosby or The Pogues?
Bing.

The Queen's Speech or Taking out your own eyeballs?
Taking out my own eyeballs. Or maybe taking out the Queen's eyeballs. Hey, I know! Eyeballs that talk with the Queen's Speech!

Turkey or Ham?
Roast beef.

Brussel Sprouts or Carrots?
Roasted Brussel sprouts. MMMMM!

Jolliness or Bah Humbug?
Jolly humbug. Heh.

Buy links:

BUY COPY AT AMAZON

BUY PRINT COPY

BUY AT SMASHWORDS

12 Days of #CreepFest: Author Interview with Stant Litore

WELCOME:
Welcome to the 12 Days of Creepfest; a celebration of Christmas spooks and horror and an opportunity to introduce you to some wonderful horror and Dark Fairytale writers. Firstly thanks to the wonderful Rebecca Treadway (@creepywalker) for organising this fun trip.

Today I am happy to welcome the brilliant Stant Litore, author of the series The Zombie Bible.

INTERVIEW:
In 140 characters, describe your private self.
Will stop on a blizzard day to help someone whose car is busted. Have an incurable phobia of zombies, jellyfish, and Westboro Baptist Church.

In 140 characters, describe your writerly self.
Knives flashing in the dark. Sometimes you have to cut deep to find the real beating heart of the story.

Tell us more about your current work and projects?
You’re going to want to check out The Zombie Bible. It’s a series of biblical tales retold as episodes of humanity’s long struggle against hunger and the hungry dead. Not your parents’ Sunday School. These stories have teeth. And heart. The most recent novel is set in second-century Rome and it’s about a priest who can bring peace to the walking, ravenous dead. But Rome might burn him for it.

How do you like to bring the 'dark side' into Christmas?
I’ll be honest, Christmas is the one day of the year that my mind is not dwelling on horror. In Hamlet, the guards describe how all the ghosts and bogeymen go to sleep when the cock crows at dawn on Christmas day. It’s the day when peace and goodwill lies over the earth.
But I will say this; While we eat our Christmas dinners and spend time with family, in many parts of the world children are starving, women in remote villages are walking ten miles to fetch a bucket of clean water while other women in crowded cities – right here in our own country – are working strip clubs under duress because if they don’t, they’ll have the shit beat out of them. Still other people are watching their homes be burned, or are packing in a hurry to get out. The dark side of Christmas is that a whole lot of people are suffering, and most of us aren’t thinking about them or acting to see justice done. Most of us are just breathing a sigh of relief that we managed to buy so many things before they sold out; in many cases, these are things manufactured in sweat shops and slave factories on distant shores.
I think if we really want to talk about wishing a merry Christmas and a happy New Year, we should have a moment of silence somewhere in the day and resolve to do what we can to make one hell of a difference this next year. Even if we just make a big difference for one person. Because otherwise, our Christmas dinner is a dinner served on the backs of broken and enslaved people and on the beaten bones of children, and the beautiful truths we tell ourselves about the season start to become lies.

Describe your perfect fantasy Christmas day.
Now that is a happier question. I actually think I am going to skip over the first few hours of that perfect Christmas and not describe them at all, and as my beautiful wife would be intimately involved in those hours, I think she’d appreciate that. But later in the morning I would see my two girls opening gifts and playing together, and we would have family calling in or visiting in the afternoon, and a dinner with some glorious vegetarian options for my wife and the most delicious turkey or ham you can find, for me. There would be wine. There would be laughter. There would be pictures and old stories. Wouldn’t mind a bit of snow outside and warmth in the hearth. I suppose this sounds real lazy – someone interviewed on here is going to want to go sky-diving on Christmas Day, I just know it – but there it is. Just Christmas at home with the people who matter to me.

Which six famous figures (dead or alive) would you love to have sitting at your Christmas table?
Since it’s the Christmas table, I’d pick the famous people who knew how to party and how to laugh fit to shake the room. I’d want Hafiz there – I think he’d be belly-laughing over pretty much everything, and trying to get the rest of us to. I think Abe Lincoln, because I admire him and he really needed a break and some people to cheer him up, there toward the end. Think we might could do that; my family is a cheerful crew.

Let’s see, how many left, four? Anne McCaffrey. She’d be spinning yarns, and a Christmas dinner isn’t anything without a few good yarns. And, well, I miss her. How about Themistocles, the hero of the Persian Wars? Frankly, you need a veteran at the table. He’ll show off his scars, his voice will boom out when there’s a lull, he’ll belt out carols off-key, and he may well try to dominate the table, but we’ll enjoy having him there.

Also, I’m sure this is one of those ‘oh come on, you didn’t pick him’ answers, but let’s get the Rabbi Jesus there, too. We won’t run out of wine, and he always seemed to have just the right thing to say. And since I’ve got one left, Barack Obama. If you’ve seen the benefits dinners, you know. Man can tell a joke.

What are your New Year wishes?
I’d like to introduce a lot more people to The Zombie Bible. :) Seriously, though, I would really like to be a better father this year. I am acutely aware that my two daughters are growing fast, and I’m aware of how much of a man gets sunk into work and projects. My girls need me, and I don’t want to miss one moment with them.

Just for fun: TRIVIA
Bing Crosby or The Pogues?
Crosby for Christmas. But please give me some good Celtic music the next day.

Jolliness or Bah Humbug?
Jolliness. I’m not old and bitter yet. May I never be.

http://zombiebible.blogspot.com
http://zombiebible.blogspot.com