Free Contest and Pics--The Zombie's Lament in Black Chaos II

 

 

[No, this isn't about The Walking Dead, but it is about a free contest and a just-published zombie story I wrote.  If you can forgive this unabashed self-promotion--though it is my blog--then please read on and enter the free contest!]

 

On page 65 of Black Chaos II, edited by Bill Olver and published by Big Pulp Publications, you'll find my short story, "The Zombie's Lament." 

 

The cover looks great: bright colors, cool image from a known artist--Ken Knudtsen, who has worked on Wolverine for Marvel Comics, and on projects for David Geffen. 

 

I've been very lucky with covers of magazines and books for my short stories.  "Hide the Weird" was in an issue of Space and Time Magazine.  That cover was really cool, too.  Not too nerdy, very bright and colorful, and a skeleton is laying back, chilling out on the beach, having a drink--as the nuclear apocalypse mushrooms in the distance.  What else can you ask for?

 

The book's print is in good shape.  The ink is solid and it doesn't look unprofessional or cheap.  The author bio came out great.  There aren't any typos anywhere, and the book as a whole just looks good.

 

Anyway, the ISBN for Black Chaos II: More Tales of the Zombie, is 978-0-9896812-2-3.  It's available via bookstores, both brick-and-mortar and online.  The stories and poems are about zombies in relationships, zombies in the circus, zombies in a Christmas special, a mother-in-law zombie, and pissed-off zombies.  In short, if you like your zombies a little bit different, you'll like this book.

 

So, now, the contest!

 

On my published works blog (just click the tab above), you'll find "Everything's Connected" and "So Many Reasons to Celebrate the Season."  These stories were written by me and purchased and published by OverMyDeadBody.com and OnThePremises.com.  And they're free!  The first one is a very short, light detective piece and the latter is a very short (and, IMO, very funny--yet very not) slice-of-life piece about a writer coming home to a failing marriage and a houseload of people on Christmas Eve.  Jack Nicholson in full The Shining mode makes a brief appearance in that one.

 

Anyway, to enter the contest, all you have to do is go to my Published Works page, choose one of those two free stories, click the link, read it, and leave a thought or two about the story as a comment on my Published Works blog beneath that story.  Read both stories and comment on each and you get entered into the contest twice!  The winner gets a free copy of Black Chaos II: More Tales of the Zombie.  You don't pay for the book and you don't pay for the postage.

 

The contest will run until the end of June.  I'll notify the winner via email and get the mailing address at that time.  And because I have many readers outside the U.S., I'll leave the contest open to anyone in the world who wants to enter!

 

Thanks very much for doing so, and good luck!

 

And, by the way, if you've read "The Zombie's Lament," and you've found this blog entry from my author bio in the book, please feel free to leave a comment here and let me know what you thought of the story.  Please and thank you, and thanks for reading my work!

Black Chaos 2 and "The Zombie's Lament" Now Available!

Dear Readers:

This is an unfortunately necessary bit of self-promotion for my zombie story, "The Zombie's Lament," which is now available in e-book and (soon) print editions.  I've told myself it's okay to post here, since if you're reading about The Walking Dead, you're maybe interested in a short zombie story--that is, a short story about zombies, and not a story about short zombies.  So, please and thank you!

Sincerely,

Steven E. Belanger

Black Chaos II is on the way!  You can get my story--"The Zombie's Lament"--and 24 other great zombie stories for just $4.99 on Kindle and other devices.
 

The e-book versions are currently up for pre-order at Smashwords and Amazon. The print edition also will be available directly from Big Pulp and through any bookstore.  Links to those will follow.

 

Please support me by sharing this message and the links on your blog or Facebook page.  Thanks!

 

The premise of my story: It's about a guy who loses the love of his life, gets bitten in the face by a zombie, and tries to apologize to his beloved before he turns--or dies. 

The Walking Dead -- Spend

Yikes!  Rather gruesome entry, far more grotesque than usual lately, just to remind us that all is not well, and that--yes--this is still a zombie apocalypse.

--Alexandria, where everyone's got your back--until they run away from you when things get bad.

--Eugene finally grew a pair.  But would that have happened if he hadn't loved the woman he was saving?

--But he's approaching his character arc, it seems to me.  What significance does he have once Alexandria has been destroyed?  Where is there for him to go after this arc finishes?

--Poor Noah, but poor Glen, too.

--When Noah started talking about building things, and smiling, you knew he was gone.

--If you remember the trauma I went through when Beth bought it, you'll understand what I mean when I say that this episode bothered me because, if she died to save Noah, and Noah dies (so soon thereafter, and like this), what was the use?

--The Lady Senator is not going to believe that her son died the way they say he did.  Especially after Father Gabriel's visit.

--And what are his ulterior motives, exactly? 

--Carol is MESSED UP.

--She's been playing the group for awhile, too.  Perhaps a very long while, since Rick banished her.

--Looks more and more like what I said was true: Rick's group is going to implode the place.

--Though the "Porch D---" is certainly going to get it.  Surprised he hasn't already, actually.

--All might not be what it seems in his house, though.  He's certainly doing something, but is he the only one?

--The boy is nefarious.  Something not right about him.

--I don't mean to sound heartless, but--as per the clip from The Talking Dead--I don't care about Carl's romantic interludes.  There's no blooming love amongst the teens in a zombie apocalypse.

--So if the grenade walker couldn't be killed because he was wearing that headgear, are we sometime going to see the NFL walkers?

--Speaking of zombies, my short story, "The Zombie's Lament," will be published in Black Chaos II, an anthology of zombie stories, out next month.  The front cover looks like this:

There'll be more info to come, once I know it, but if you're interested in zombie stories, please consider it.  My story starts on page 65.  Here's the Table of Contents, via the proof sheets the publisher, Big Pulp, sent me recently with my story:

BLACK CHAOS II:  MORE TALES OF THE ZOMBIE

1 We Always Get Our Man by R.A. Williamson
12 Shackles of Death by Thomas Canfield
16 When It’s Not Love, It’s Hate by Dawn Wilson
25 Sweet Bird of Death by Gary Ives
30 Cold, Lifeless Fingers by James Dorr
34 Dave Vs. the Zombie Apocalypse by Angel Luis Colón
43 Zombees by Gabriel Valjan
53 In the Storm They Came by Sean Ealy
65 The Zombie’s Lament by Steven Belanger
72 Daddy’s Home by Bo Balder
75 The Dead of Summer by Wayne Laufert
80 White Light, White Heat by William Johnson
92 My Mother-in-Law is a Zombie by Anna Sykora
95 Memories by Nu Yang
100 Lucky 43 by Joriah Wood
108 In Reynolds by J. Boone Dryden
115 American Refugees by D. Jason Cooper
121 The Not Tom by Ian Welke
126 Inhuman Resources by Brenda Kezar
136 The Zombie Mike Christmas Special by Terry Alexander
149 Bitter Inheritance by Jason Ridler
157 The Last Circus by DeAnna Knippling
166 In the Age of Resurrection by Deborah Walker
171 Dead Moon by Jim Cort
181 Newsfeed Zombies by Aislinn Batstone

 

The Walking Dead Episode 6 Consuming

Really quick, as the hour is getting late:

--Lots of fire in this episode.  Theme alert!  Rising from the ashes.  Re-birth.  And Daryl and Carol are being consumed from within, partly by past abuse.

--So Daryl is reading a book about childhood abuse?  We know his father abused he and his brother regularly, but this new Daryl is ready for self-therapy and coming to terms.  The old Daryl wouldn't have been.

--Remember the previous episode's title: "Self-help."

--Another amazing thing is that there's enough positive thought and self-worth to think that one is worth coming to terms with such a thing even though they can die any moment.  Odd dichotomy.

--No, Carol was not really aiming for Noah's leg.

--And seriously wounding the leg of a guy who's already got a wounded leg is, in fact, killing him.

--No, I'm not sad Daryl and Carol didn't hook up.  Everyone would refer to them as "Daryl and Carol," which would get annoying, fast.  Especially if it was said fast.  And they don't have that kind of chemistry.  They're more like siblings, or close friends.

--Noah and Beth don't have that, either.  He has it more for her than she does for him.

--And I also don't see the Daryl / Beth thing.  And I don't see Rick with anybody at all.

--Really, this isn't that kind of show.  It's not a soap opera.  Well, Season One sort of was.  But that was really, really frustrating to me.  Ugh.

--Legal pads created in 1888.  Umm...Okay.

--Old Judge N172s, amongst the oldest set of baseball cards, came out heavily in 1888.  In poor condition, they're worth about $100 apiece.  In case anyone was wondering what to get me for Xmas.

--Chris Hardwicke makes me feel like I talk in slow motion.  And I talk very, very fast.

--Carol got hit by the only car in motion in all of Atlanta.  Possibly in all of Georgia.

--And Daryl got held back by a guy who couldn't hold back a small child.  Hmmm...

--When did burning bodies become a warm gesture of understanding?

--Poll #3: Nope, too many zombies.  Falling in the van was the way to go.

--But it was predictable.  The second they got in there, you knew they were riding it down.

--Noah couldn't get further away in two days?  There was no evidence in his character that he would've gotten pissed and stayed around to go back for her.  For them to suddenly say so...I don't know.  I would've needed to see more of that in their previous episode.

--I'm with Carol: I would've taken him down.  One does not steal weapons from people, and then leave them surrounded by many camping-out zombies, without expecting some retribution.

--Daryl showed a tremendous amount of understanding and compassion when he prevented her from shooting him.  And then Carol did the same later.  Without knowing his situation previously, I would not have thought him worthy either time.

--Good thing, though, or they would not have had proof that Beth was nearby.

--These aren't the same three people who were said to be on this episode at the end of last week's Talking Dead.  Only the guy who played Noah actually showed up.  The other two were last-second replacements.  What happened?   

The Walking Dead Episode 5 Self-help

Yup, posting this a week late, right before I post this week's episode's comments.  Trying my best here!  Just a little behind...

--Everyone knew Eugene was full of it.  No surprise there.  I haven't read the comics, but you didn't need to be to see this one coming.

--And I'm also not surprised to Abraham's life-purpose was to bring Eugene to D.C.  You knew he was over-compensating for whatever tragic thing happened to him, and you had to know it involved his family, because a) isn't that what happened to everyone else? and b) he never spoke of them.  He was way too militaristically gung-ho; you knew he had nothing else.

--Gale Ann Hurd hasn't gotten as much attention outside the industry as she should.  I mean, she's been producing since at least The Terminator, and she was married to James Cameron.

--Odd Rain Man moment with Eugene creeping on them in the library.

--The episode title was "Self-help," but it could've been "Self-serving."  But that wasn't the section of the library, of course.

--Sodden, super-soaked walkers.

--I think they're recycling a ton of walkers between episodes.  One of the firehose walkers looked exactly like the walker who got the machete in the face in "Consuming," Episode 6.  That was some really bad CGI, by the way.

--Criticism: The CGI has been consistently and badly glaring recently.  Whatever they'd been doing seasons past, they've got to go back to that.

--Poll #1: Was Eugene justified?  Well, I don't know.  Lots of people died protecting him and his lies.

--I needed to watch Talking Dead to know the grocery store bad guys were part of Abraham's traveling band and that they'd raped his family.  That explains the soupcan beatings.

--So Abraham's family gets raped, watches him go berserk and kill a few guys with an assist by Campbell Soup, and then leaves him, just to get annihilated by walkers.  I mean, DAMN.

--Michael Cudlitz has a really odd laugh.

--Eugene / Rain Man is not a bad comparison.  Yeah, they're definitely very similar, definitely very similar.

--Poll #2: Still go to D.C.?  Yeah, I think so.  If anything's to be done, it'll be by the federal government--if the government is still functioning at all.  But that's worth knowing.

--What a waste of water.  In a zombie apocalypse, and for real.  Ebola's spreading in Africa because of a lack of running water, and we're wasting hundreds of gallons of it on this show alone.  I'm not saying shows and movies can't be made with water, just as I know people will still water their lawns when there's a drought elsewhere in the world and tons of people are dying.  I'm just sayin'.  DAMN.

--Poll #3: Eugene's mullet--Hot or Not?  Ummm....Not.

--Supremely awkward moment on Talking Dead: Chris Hardwicke's below-the-belt reference of Cudlitz's red hair.  Hardwicke couldn't hyper-babble about something else fast enough.

--Josh McDermott needs a new fashion designer.  And that's me sayin' this.

--

The Walking Dead--Four Walls and A Roof--Episode Three

Photo: From the review of the episode from this Yahoo site.

--We haven't seen someone as cowardly as Father Gabriel since Dorothy went to Oz.

--Or, at least it seems that way.  But we live in a world of seems.

--I liked Gareth, in a strange way.  A well-spoken and charming cannibal.  Even Slash said he was articulate.

--So Martin ends up getting it, anyway.  But he was right about one thing: What was he kept alive for at that cabin?

--It would've been interesting to see if the last of the Terminians would've turned.  Was Bob's leg cooked enough?  Real viruses do die in fire.  (The U.S. Gov't had to bomb that medical research building in Reston, Virginia to kill Ebola Reston.  And when I say bomb, I don't mean like you do for insects.  I'm talking an H-bomb, right on the building.  But it worked.)  So...is that true for the zombie virus as well?

--Scariest person in the episode was Gareth.  He'd logically and lucidly and conversationally defended his position that the world had become "Eat or be eaten."  He was so matter-of-fact about it that there was no turning back for him.  Rick will swing violent, then farm.  But Gareth was all the way gone.

--Andrew J. West deserves another role on something, fast.  He plugged a movie on Talking Dead.

--Gareth monologued (to steal from the Talking Dead host) before killing like Christian Bale did in American Psycho.  True, Bale's character babbled about 80s kitschy pop, but really it's the same thing.

--Yes, Glen and Maggie needed to go to D.C. because

   a) The D.C. storyline needed to continue, so somebody major had to go with them to show it to us.
   b) The core of the group had been together, in whatever fashion, for too long.  Glen goes all the way back to fifth or so episode of Season One.  Time to shake things up.
   c) If they're to be in the spin-off, this would be a logical choice and a good way to start that.

--I agree that Darryl is bringing out Beth at the end.  Maybe Morgan from Season One, but I'm guessing Beth.  It's not Carol.

--Beth (Emily Kinney) is one of the guests in next week's Talking Dead.  That does not bode well for her character.

--Father Gabriel (Seth Gilliam), Darryl's brother (Michael Rooker), Herschel (Scot Wilson) and who knows who else will be at Comic Con this Saturday in Providence.  William Shatner and others from Star Trek, and Karen Allen and John Rhys-Davies from Raiders of the Lost Ark (and Davies was Gimli in the Lord of the Rings films), and Michael Biehn from Terminator, The Abyss, Tombstone, and many other films from the 80s and 90s, and--of all people--Anthony Michael Hall, from The Breakfast Club, Edward Scissorhands, The Dead Zone (TV show) and The Dark Knight---yes, Farmer Ted himself---will be there as well.  He was just added yesterday or today.

--Most importantly, I--a legend in my own mind, the movie that keeps on playing--will be there, too.

The Walking Dead--Strangers--Episode 2

 Photo: from Variety.com

Okay, so a few thoughts about this episode:

--Talking Dead Poll #1: I say Tyreese is retaining his humanity, and is not too kind for his own good.  Chad Coleman, the guy who plays him, agrees with me.

--Though Bob's leg got eaten at the end (a la the first Dawn of the Dead, the one that takes place underground in a shelter), the joke may be on the surviving Sanctuarians.  Cuz Bob got bitten in the food bank and just didn't show anyone.  So if they consume him, they'll be like him.  Otherwise, why was he so depressed, lonely and crying?  Why'd he go outside?

--I haven't read the comics, but from what I saw of Father Gabriel, I couldn't get him far enough away from me.

--Talking Dead Poll #2: Of course Father Gabriel is dangerous.  Very dangerous.

--I haven't heard the phrase "Church lady," this often since Dana Carvey.  And that's been a looooong time.

--Yes.  Maggie should've forgiven Tara.  Twas an episode of forgiveness, after all.  And they were in a church.

--Ditto for Tyreese and Carol.  Especially since she saved all their butts later.  And when he saw what Carol had to do to the blonde girl.

--Anybody know which of these characters, if any, are the core ones in the spinoff?

--Chad Coleman looks smaller in the show.  He's a big, big dude.  Took up half of the Talking Dead's couch.

--Did anybody catch the quote from the Bible in the church, on the arch above the communion table?  It said: "He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood has eternal life."  Perfect for a zombie apocalypse.

--Or, not, depending on your point of view.

--Why was Carol leaving again?  This time, on her own.

--Talking Dead poll #3: Yes, Carol needs to say what happened to the two little sister girls.  I mean, wasn't her fault one had a psychotic break and killed her sister.  Once that happened, what else could you do with her?

--Carl definitely respects Rick more when Rick's in beast mode.  Good call that Carl has become Rick's Jiminy Cricket.

--It is worth going into a basement sewer for food in a zombie apocalypse.  But cover up, especially your cuts and bruises.  Cuz that's a staph infection waiting to happen.

--Movie previews during the episode I want to see: Interstellar and Fury.

--Anybody notice more alcohol commercials during Walking Dead episodes now?  This time: Blue Moon, Dewar's and...something else, I forgot.  I'm just sayin'.

The Walking Dead--No Sanctuary--Episode One

Photos: from The Walking Dead's website via AMC.


The obliteration of peoples in the future might go something like this.

Actually, no.  Let me re-phrase.  This institutional evil has already happened in real history.

When Gareth strolls in with his clipboard and demands an account of bullets fired at Rick's group, he immediately stops the action--which, in this case, was some guy about to slaughter Glen with a hefty-looking aluminum bat, and then cut his throat over a trough.

He asks for the number of bullets fired at Rick's group.  He's got a clipboard and a checklist.  With more time and fewer commercial breaks, might he have asked about the weapons taken from them, or other valuable items?  I think so.  Three swords?  Check.  Six guns?  Check.  No where's that bag?

In World War II Germany, "valuable items" would be defined as paintings, gold (including gold teeth, or haven't you seen the same documentaries I have?), silver, china, art.  Any metal to be melted down to use as bullets, tanks, etc. for the German war effort.  In a Zombie Apocalypse, "valuable items" would be defined as weapons and bullets.

Did a Jew at Auschwitz live a few seconds longer as a soldier answered a superior's similar question?  Did this soldier keep the gun pressed against a prisoner's head as he said, "Five gold teeth and two works of art taken from this prisoner, sir," in German, to his superior officer, who was standing over him at the time with clipboard and pencil in hand?

Yes.  Yes, I believe that could have happened.

But real life isn't TV.  So then the gun would've fired.

Systematically.  Impersonally.  Just taking inventory.

Institutional evil.  I wish I could take credit for that phrase, but I heard it on Talking Dead later.  Probably it's been a phrase widely used, at least since World War II.

I write this because some have already remarked that the people in Sanctuary got more than they deserved.  That Sanctuary Mary (Denise Crosby, from Pet Sematary and other 80s movies, if you're as old as I am) didn't deserve what she got.  This was, in fact, a poll question during Talking Dead.

So this blog entry is written to those 25% to 30% of the viewers who texted in with a "Yes, the Sanctuary People got more than they deserved.  After all, they were a group like Rick's, and they got raped and beaten and killed.  They were just trying to stay alive.  You're either the butcher or you're the cattle, right?"

Because this is exactly what the Germans thought at the end of World War I.  They'd been bombed and obliterated.  Berliners were starving.  Diseased.  Dying.  And a few of them were really pissed off.  They were just trying to stay alive.  They were tired of being the cattle.  Better to be butchers.

And then a butcher walked in the door.  A failed artist who became a butcher, to be more precise.

Gareth and Sanctuary Mary hadn't always been such cold evil automatons.  Maybe she'd been a cook or a cafeteria worker before.  Someone who made food out of other things.  Maybe she saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre too often.  Gareth, opined Conan O'Brien, had maybe worked in a Starbucks and had been a little overzealous giving away Starbucks cups and screwing up the inventory. 

Conan's Starbucks reference got a ton of laughs, but he may have been more right than he realized. 

Comedy often springs from dreadful things.

Bad people often aren't born that way.  They become that way.

Or, they allow themselves to become that way.

And to defend their behavior--perhaps even to themselves--they allow themselves to believe certain self-serving clichés.

You're either the butcher or you're the cattle.

Or, more recently: You're either with us or you're against us.

Tragedy effects people in different ways. 

"Whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger," said another famous German, Friedrich Nietzsche.  But he didn't mean to slaughter because you've been slaughtered.  To kill because you've been killed.

He meant more of what Glen said, when he told Rick they had to save whoever was in that metal container because that's who we are.  He meant because they're stronger inside--humanely.  Because that's what separates Rick's group from Gareth's: humanity.  The ubermensch.  The Super Man.

What happened to the original Sanctuary Mary and her group, the raping, the beating, the psychological torture, the starving--those are all, of course, terrible and tragic things, such as what the average German saw during and after World War I. 

But that doesn't mean that they can "turn" like they did, into a zombie of a different sort, a living, zombified person who becomes so institutionalized, so regimented, so checklist / inventory focused that they aren't human anymore because they've forgotten what being human is. 

Like another group in real history, Gareth's group sat down and had a meeting and decided upon the machinations of their own version of The Final Solution.  This time it involved harvesting body parts and weapons rather than money, artwork and other saleable or war-usable items.

This time, instead of Jews, Gypsies and other "social undesirables," it was everybody.

But was it really any different?

Nietzsche, that famous German philosopher, had another popular aphorism: Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Gareth's group never learned that. 

Apparently, neither did 25% to 30% of the Talking Dead's poll-answering viewers.

P.S.--This is exactly why we should read.  You can learn a lot from reading.  Novels, graphic novels--anything.  You can learn a lot from artwork.  You really can.  The Walking Dead translates so well to the screen because it's important ideas were already laid out so well in its graphic novels.

The Walking Dead--Dead Weight. Episode Review

Better late than never, hopefully.  Sorry I'm so far behind.  Thanksgiving week, and all.

So, about The Governor:

--I wouldn't have let The Governor live, never mind join the group.  He's what Caesar said about Cassius: He's got the mean and hungry look.  Such men are dangerous.

--Many people have said enough with The Governor.

--So someone let the army people turn while tied to a tree or a chair, and then cut off their heads, but then kept the heads "alive?"  Now that's morbid, man.

--Martinez is bitter.  If you're going to rag on The Governor the whole time, why keep him alive?  So you can rag on him all the time?

--The Governor will not be led, or ordered around.

--I would not have made The Governor my golf caddy and then turned my back on him.

--This episode reminds me of a point made last week: Brian / The Governor = Anakin / Darth Vader.  On a less iconic scale, of course.

--In case you missed it, Norman Reedus (Daryl) misses the characters of Shane, Andrea, Dale and Sophia, in that order.

--I'm surprised to see Shane #1.  He annoyed me tremendously, and he was stuck in that Rick, Shane, Lori triangle that was going nowhere, that he was always going to lose.  Plus he had a lot of personal jealousy to boot.  He was the one who saved Rick in the hospital, after all.

--Though Shane could have been the series-long antagonist that apparently The Governor will be, instead.  Shane could've been as Good Guy before the Zombie Apocalypse brought out his Dark Side as The Governor is.

--The other surprise: Lori wasn't on that list.  What issue did Daryl have with her?  (Or that Norman Reedus had with Sarah Wayne Callies?)

--The Governor's got daddy issues.

--You had to know he'd take over somewhere, sometime soon, just to attack the prison again.  Though the image of the zombie forever reaching for the lake's surface was a brutal, but nice, touch.

The Walking Dead--Live Bait

Just a few things to say about the first non-Rick episode of the year, if not of the entire series:

--So the Governor is Brian Heriot?  Or did he just make that up?

--And he just strolls into the house of these two women?  And the kid, and the guy on oxygen?

--The Governor sorta looks like Kurt Russell in his 80s action movies, like Escape from New York.

--In the beginning of the series, most of the characters would kill almost all of the walkers that came at them, often out of sympathy.  (Or at least it seemed that way to me.)  Now, there's no pity.  The Governor, for example, just closed a door on one, and left one strapped into a wheelchair, theoretically forever.

--The guy got "killed" with the oxygen tank that the Governor got to save him.  If I remember right, that's called irony.

--This is the family guy before the zombie apocalypse transformed him to the dark side and he became the Governor.

--The creators of the show are giving the Governor a lot of his own time in order to set him up as Rick's foil character--that is, the one character who he is most similar to, but who also has a couple of glaring differences in order to set up the traits of both.

--The pit kills, especially the last one with the bone and the face-stretching, are the kills of the week.

--I don't mind the total focus on the Governor here, and it seems like next week will be more of the same, but I'm hearing that many viewers are less than thrilled.  A few are threatening to stop watching.

--The show's creators are taking a heckuva chance here, and if the ratings plummet over these two episodes, there'll be a lot of finger-pointing.

Walking Dead--Internment

Some quick thoughts about the episode:

--In an episode soon, Herschel won't have the time to wheel the dead out of view before he stabs them.

--How could Herschel possibly have gone this long without killing a single walker?

--What's up with Lizzie playing footsie in zombie blood?

--Carl's no longer whiny and annoying like he was last year.  Harsh, I know.

--You knew the fence would go soon.

--Hopefully Rick and Carl repaired the fence before they burned the bodies and picked peas.

--You knew the Governor would turn up soon, and that he'd been watching.

--I'll bet the Governor's talking to Carol when he says in next week's promo: "Don't you want to get back at him for what he did to you?"  Or something very close to that.

--Herschel has turned into one tough old dude.

--Quite the father/son and father/daughter bonding moments in this episode.  There's nothing that brings a family together more than annihilating large numbers of zombies together.

--Chris Hardwicke talked much faster than usual on the recent Talking Dead.  So fast that I couldn't tell what he was saying at times.  And that's me saying this.

--Josh, a guest on Talking Dead, asked an awesome question: Could Bob be a spy from the Governor?  I never would've thought of that.

--I've got to look up that Steinbeck quotation.

--I don't blame Rick for putting off talking to Darryl.

--I love the Tom Sawyer and Steinbeck allusions.

--"A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ."  I'm going to guess that was from East of Eden, or maybe Of Mice and Men.  But I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't, too, because I know those two pretty well, and I don't remember that quote in either one.

--Herschel has lately been the optimist that Rick used to be.

--Scott Wilson, who plays Herschel, said in an interview that ibuprofen got him through filming this episode.  Lately, ibuprofen's been swelling up my cheeks and sinuses to a painful extent.  It hurts now more than it helps.

--Okay.  According to Goodreads, the quote is actually:

“A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ.”

― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Episode 3--Isolation

--Maybe I'm an overthinker, but I believe this episode's title refers to spatial and emotional isolation.  Like, Carol's, for example.

--SMOOTH SEAS DO NOT MAKE GOOD SAILORS.  Indeed.

--I'd be surprised if Glen has reached his character arc already.  So I think he'll survive this illness.

--Was that Rick's Woods Woman sitting against the tree?

--Carol has somehow managed to look younger over the years.

--Something on the bloodied doorway told Rick that Carol had killed the sick and burned them?

--I never understood the whole Marilyn Manson thing, then or now, for those of you who saw him on Talking Dead.

--He's one of those people who makes a room more uncomfortable when they walk into it.

--And then speak.

--Something's up with Tyrese, or how else did he survive after being overwhelmed by attacking walkers?

--Judging by Gale Anne Hurd's inadvertent reaction to one of Chris's questions, Lizzie doesn't have too much longer.

--Marilyn Manson, shockingly, is stoned, or drunk, or something on Talking Dead tonight.

--And Chris Hardwicke, the host, is getting tired and frustrated with him, as of 10:20 pm.  Manson has said things like Carl should be spanked with the gun, so the frustration is understandable, especially during a live program, which Talking Dead is every night.

--During a zombie apocalypse, don't listen to the radio (even if there's finally a voice), and take your eyes off the road.

--And don't back up over a pile of walkers.  If you do, you can expect to have your tires turn on their entrails like wheels on slush and snow.

--Hardwicke has been ignoring or been snidely to Manson for about a half hour now.  Again, understandable, as Manson's been babbling and talking over people, and saying nonsensical things--and, again, it's a live program.

--This episode of Talking Dead has shown me that Chris Hardwicke, the host, does not book his guests.

--So does this mean that Carol was serving rats to the walkers, too?

Walking Dead: Episode 2--"Infected"

 Photo: from Time.com.  Karen, we hardly knew ya.  Unless, of course, you were wise enough to put your bracelet around someone else, knowing that someone was going to kill and burn the sick.  And if that actually happened, maybe you, Karen, are killing and burning the sick.  Or maybe I just overthink things.  But the more I think about it, the more I like this storyline of mine.

A few quick things about this episode:

--The sacrificing of the pigs was incredibly depressing.  I'm trying to convince myself that they were going to all get sick and die anyway.

--So much for Farmer Rick.

--Never once in any episode has anyone ever said the word "zombie."

--Why wouldn't the walkers go back to the gate and knock it down after they finished with the pigs?

--I liked Karen.  Oh, well.

--The squealing of the pigs reminded me of The Silence of the Lambs.  That's how my noggin' works.

--How come nobody smelled the burning bodies?

--I'm surprised more wasn't done with the cellblock and gate-crashing walkers.  Separate or together, they could've driven everyone out of the prison.  Permanently.  And the gate-crashers still might.

--I'm tiring of all of the ads for Walking Dead-related products and games.

--I've never heard of Hayley Williams or Paramore, for those of you who saw The Talking Dead afterwards.

--For awhile there, I thought the baby was going to turn and bite the blonde girl.  I'm so young, yet so cynical.

--I agree with The Talking Dead's guest: Lizzie is feeding rats to the gate-crashing walkers.

--And I'm saying that Herschel killed and burned the sick.

--Hopefully nobody from PETA watched this episode.

--Carol's gotten weird.

--And the kid who plays Carl had a massive growth spurt.

--If Daryl's in charge, he's not effectively keeping law and order amongst his own people.  Nobody would be feeding rats to the dead during the Ricktatorship.  (Yeah, I stole that.)

--Rick's a bit of a lost soul right now.  But he'll be asked to lead them again, and he'll reluctantly agree to do so.

--It's been so long since I've seen an episode as it aired that I didn't realize how impossibly long the commercial breaks were.  I know there's a lot of commercials, but this is way too much.

--Which is why I'm going to watch as many episodes as possible on DVR.

--A viewer's awesome question: Herschel was a veterinarian, so why didn't he look at the dead pig to find out how it died?  Greg Nicotero's answer was simple enough: Rick never told him about it.  Technically I guess that's true, but that answer still is unsatisfying BS.  But you can't think of everything, I guess.  And Herschel mentions in the middle of the episode that he knows there are sick hogs, and Rick says right there that he saw a dead pig the day before.

--And how did they know that Patrick was the first one to die?  Carol and the others in the library knew that he didn't feel well, but they had no evidence in the carnage that followed that he was the first to go.

--So I don't feel so old and out of touch, I'm going to Wikipedia Paramore now.  ::later:: Oh.  Eh.  Sort of like Hanson, but female.  I'm seeing some early 80s pink pop, a la Cyndi Lauper, kind of.  I'd read they were alternative rock, but that's not what I saw in the video "Still Into You."  That ain't alternative.  It's bubble-gum pop for girls between 7th and 11th grade, or so.  Like, whatever, man.

30 Days Without An Accident

Photo: To make it bigger, click on this great shot of Daryl and Michone, from http://entertainment.time.com/2013/10/13/the-walking-dead-watch-30-days-without-an-accident/

Loved the episode almost as much as I love the show (Andrea's exit notwithstanding.  It's the show's biggest strikeout, allowing her to have a casual conversation for so long with a guy who will obviously be a zombie soon.  Still not over that.)  But the title of this episode sounds like something you keep track of after a long and nasty stomach flu.  Maybe a really old person who's been wearing Depends for twenty years, trying to show some optimism.  Or me just being a bit immature.

Well, welcome to my blog about The Walking Dead.  I hope to cover a bit about each episode, so keep coming back if you like the show.  I'll probably include spoilers, so reader beware.

In this first episode of Season Four, we find the prison in a lax state.  They've got a garden, and the old man has a new leg.  Daryl has sort of taken over.  There's a lot of new people, and a lot of kids.  And we even have a library, which you know I like, if you've been reading my main blog at all.

And we've got some new romances.  If you're a diehard romantic like I am, you'll think right away: One of them's gonna get it.  Soon.  And then the nerdy kid shows up, and you know he's quick to go as well.  Sure enough, before you can say So young, yet so cynical, one of the young boys in love gets his neck and face chewed off--after saving someone else, no less--and the nerdy kid gets something nasty in the water (like the pig, probably), and turns while in the shower.  Sleeping cellblock beware, including the blonde girl who's been on the show awhile now, who shrugged her shoulders when told her boyfriend bought the farm.  (I swear that I predicted her reaction to someone as well.  She'd been rather la-de-da towards the kid before he'd left.)

I was about to be disappointed with the episode, with the predictability of it (you even knew the Copter Walkers would crash through the rotted roof soon), when the storyline with the weirdly pretty woods woman took over.  I was wondering if Rick was going to wonder why she was so green (literally; she was quite moldy) and you knew right away it was a mistake for him to give her the knife.  Luckily, she wasn't quite a killer, just a lovestruck and lost (and insanely depressed and starving) woman who just didn't want to go on anymore.  She wanted to serve her husband, you might say, and when she was unable to do that (her effort was rather lackluster), offered up herself instead.  She'll find, as she said, that you can't go back, and I doubt she'll find romance with her husband now that they're both walkers as well.  Look for them soon at the prison fence.

So where's the next episode to go?  You can expect a call for a cleanup in cellblock twelve, once Patrick is through with them.  Rick will regret telling the woods woman that having more people in the jail is a good thing, that there's safety in numbers.  There will be a lot of shambling walkers in the jail, many of whom had been just recently thirsty or sleeping.  Rick may also regret not killing the woods woman a second time before she could turn, and with her husband she will be amongst those who crash the fence.  And the fence will surely come down.  You know this not just because of the constant foreshadowing in the beginning, when all the characters were marveling at how the walkers knew to push at one part of the fence, and not be so spread out like they used to be.  Nope--you know this also because every before- (or was it after-) commercial promo has Rick standing in a section of ruined chain-link jail fence.  And you constantly hear the old man saying that everything they had tried to keep out has now made its way in.  Makes you regret The Governor hadn't won the jail war.

See you next week.