See you on the other side (site)!

I've moved myself on over to the safer pastures of www.overlordmpress.com (see what I did there!) for my publishing, and T. R. Neff - Author for the blogging.  Hope to see you there!

Melange and Morsels are Available!

Check out www.overlordmpress.com for details! These two anthologies were absolute fun to write, and both include stories from my most beloved genre. Check out "Treasure" in Morsels, and the ten Microfiction stories under "Ain't No More Coffee" in Melange for my various takes of a crapsack world. 

The End is... On TV?

Short post: there seems to be a glut of reality shows dealing with the apocalypse (zombie or otherwise) and doomsday scenarios.

I will say this: "Preparedness should be like Fight Club."

I will say it again: "Preparedness should be like Fight Club."

There's an episode of The Twilight Zone, "The Shelter," which deals with exactly this kind of situation. I'd advise anyone interested in emergency situation preparedness to watch it. 

MAD MAX!!!! Ahem... sorry for shouting

But I can't help it, not really.

This looks amazing, and I hope it lives up to the hype. I will be on the beta bandwagon if I can help it. Or not. I've had mixed feelings about playtesting something not so polished and ended up feeling like my post-armageddon joy got tempered with a sandpaper scrub. Take Fallen Earth, for example, a post-apoc online RPG centered around Hoover Dam. I got to beta that one and I was unimpressed. I knew the gameplay would be a little wooden, but shooting was a nice touch. A nice change from the glut of fantasy RPGs out there, but when the premise seemed to be about cloning to play a character who could be killed over and over, as is wont to happen in such RPGs, I uttered a 'meh' and moved on.*

But this still looks amazing.

And it's Mad Max.

The only thing which would be WAAAAAAY cooler is just getting to play around in the world as a character I've created. Not just Max. Although it will be awesome to BE Max for a little bit. Am I rambling? Sorry. Just dreaming. Really looking forward to this one.

Mad Max.

Need I say more?


*Not that there hasn't been cloning in my fave post-apocs. Wasteland featured the ability, closer to the endgame, where you could fix a pod, pour in the right chemicals and scrape off a little DNA. I never did try it. And its not that I don't like clones (I've got a few stories I've written about the very subject) but I didn't like it in that particular setting. Kinda like eating a huge juicy steak with a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Two great tastes, does NOT taste great together.

Flash Fiction...

... I will keep this one short and just link to the post on my writing blog. I posted here because the short story I submitted for the contest has --drumroll-- a post-nuclear theme, called "Mourning Chorus."

Edit: The story was added to the site, but  too late to qualify for the May entry. I still got a few comments on it, however.

Changes

As of late, I haven't come across anything really exciting in the post-apoc genre to get me hot and bothered enough to post --

I have to stop there for a moment. How many of us get so excited by anything that the first reaction we have is to log into an account and type away. What? Oh, wait... yeah. Facebook. Twitter. Nevermind, hah! --

But a few things out there look promising. When I actually have some money again (separation and divorce are emotionally AND financially painful. I don't recommend it, but at the same time, its not worth fighting someone to get them to change their mind. Only makes them hurt you worse), I plan to plunk down a few bucks to see if they live up to the hype.

One of those things is: The Last of Us

When I saw the trailers for this one a while ago, I admit I was excited AND deflated. Years ago, I read about the zombie ants, due to the cordyceps fungus. Interesting, and best of all, REAL. I wondered then how I could work that into a story, but never found anywhere appropriate.

Fast forward. A few months ago, I am listening to a podcast with my husband and the guy mentions his regimen of vitamins and supplements. Among the items he lists were the cordyceps. Bells and whistles went off, as I recalled the cordyceps word ("Why does that sound familiar?") and, with the handy-dandy iPhone, pulled it up.

Here was a guy mentioning cordyceps as a supplement, and suddenly I had a vision of "THAT's where zombies are coming from! People taking these as supplements and the fungus mutating, taking over their brain and turning them into zombies that climb to the tops of buildings and --" Well, okay, not about the part where they climb to the tops of buildings. But being the instigator of zombification.

Fast forward again (gotta love that virtual remote) and I see the trailer crop up, and said "YES!" and then said "Oh no." Someone else came up with the end of the world scenario involving cordyceps before I could write and publish it. I do not know if it had anything to do with body-building supplements, but all the same, I am looking forward to playing The Last of Us, to see how the conceit plays out. Along with having an entertaining time, of course.

On a side note, this is a fantastic representation of the cordyceps at work, among his other magnificent pieces. Beautiful work, Mr. Fleming.

NaNoWriMo has begun!

Or will, by midnight. Head over to my writing blog, Torrie Burke, to view updates on my writing project for the month of November. Hope to see you there!