Happy BLITEOTW, everyone!

Enjoy posting as if zombies were taking over the world! I wish I could do more for it!

At least we all can sleep easy tonight knowing that there's no such thing as real zombies.

Wait a moment - there's someone banging on the door.

[connection broken]

Good news, everyone!

Futurama is coming back!

This is the funniest thing I've read for a while. I had to share it.

BLITEOTW 2009

If you're looking for some zombie mayhem on June 13 this year, don't look here at MEAD!

Instead, check out this cool Blog Like It's the End of the World signup form/feed aggregator!

I thought they simply did a spellcheck before emailing it to be printed ... maybe that could be the fellow's alibi?

Controversation here.

New Trek: Good but not great!

The new Star Trek was enjoyable! Go see it! J. J. Abrams did a good job in making an exciting and accessible preview. I won't say much more, but look out for a cameo appearance by the Rambaldi device!

Edit: I mean the Mueller Device.

China Mieville on Hugh Cook

"2009 might be when Hugh Cook, who died tragically young this year, begins to get the credit he deserves, with the reissue of his The Walrus and the Warwolf (full disclosure -- I wrote the new introduction). Cook was a fantasy writer whose 1980s and early 90s decology Chronicles of an Age of Darkness, though hidden from the attentions of the middlebrow lit-snob by their wizards, dragons and high-kitsch covers, are intensely clever, humane, witty, meta-textually adventurous and pulp-avant-garde works. I read and loved several this year -- The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers and The Walrus and the Warwolf in particular."

Source: Ready Steady Book

Hugh Cook on eBay

Volumes 1-8 of the Chronicles of an Age of Darkness for sale.

Hugh Cook 9 August 1956 - 8 November 2008

Sad news.

Hugh Cook, my favourite fantasy/science fiction author, has died after a long struggle with cancer.

I re-read his 10-volume series The Chronicles of an Age of Darkness every year. I still can't get over the audacity of a 10-volume series in which each volume's action is concurrent, not consecutive.

His works are gritty, anarchic, and relentlessy true to his vision (and probably hence uncommercial).

The genre has lost a unique voice, and the shame of it is that it seems like few will note the fact.

Robert Rankin: Prophet

Robert Rankin clearly was on to something (or on something) when he wrote his hilarious Armageddon series of humorous fantasy novels, featuring a time-travelling Elvis. Read this news story about an ancient Roman carving of Elvis.

Here's part of the cover blurb for Rankin's The Suburban Book of the Dead:

And verily in the midst of his labours did Rex's spade strike a buried object of not inconsiderable size. And lo. It were a marble statue of Elvis Presley.

Oh yes siree! For Elvis looms large here, much to Rex's discomfort. Which is further increased when he discovers that the walls of Jericho fell to the strains of 'It's Now or Never' and that David slew the dwarf Goliath wearing blue suede shoes.

BLITEOTW 2008 is over

According to my calculations, it's June 14 pretty much everywhere now. Thanks to all of the people who took part this year: it's been amazingly creative yet again! A shout out to the BLITEOTW livejournal community members (community maintained by chaoticasylum!).

Thanks in particular to BLITEOTW host Jeff Jones from Blue Moon Rising for posting his series of updates, and working to promote the event! As I said: I didn't really have time to do any promotion myself other than a few posts on MEAD.

If anyone has feedback about this year's event, please leave it in the comments section of this post. Here are some subjects:

• What did you think of the Frappr map? I really would have preferred to use a Google map, but I couldn't find a way to create a map that could be posted on by anyone other than the creator. I didn't really like the format, but wanted to find a way to help people in particular cities coordinate their blogging.
• Do you have any ideas for a particular apocalypse in 2009? I still have a desire to do Blog Like It's the War of the Worlds (BLITWOTW) ... but that's a more complicated subject to write about than zombies.
  
• I've seen a few people suggest making the event longer than a single day: let me know what you think of the idea. Personally, I wouldn't want to mandate it for participants ... and there were livejournal communities, for instance, for people who wanted to continue after BLITEOTW last year. Also, I found a social network for zombies ... Lost Zombies.
  

A dispatch from the zombie wars

I'm dead now, of course.

Here's some good information I found.

BLITEOTW