Tad about his contribution:

One of those unexpected pleasures was "The Storm Door" by Tad Williams.

It's not the author's usual fantasy fare so what does he like about zombies? "Zombies are just one of those classic ideas," says Williams, "the blurring of the line between the living and the dead, something that has always intrigued and terrified us. Vampires fascinate us because they're about being more than merely human, zombies because they're about being less. Lots of people would like to be vampires, but I don't know anyone who really wants to be a brain-eating walking corpse."

So how did Williams come to writing about corpses? "I met Christopher Golden at Comic-Con and did a story for him for his anthology, Hellboy: Oddest Jobs. After that, he asked me if I'd like to write a zombie story for Zombie. I said, "RRR, BRAAIIIINSSSS..." or something similar, and it was agreed."

The story includes a lot of details about Tibetan Buddhist beliefs. "I really wanted to talk about the transition between life and death, and the Tibetan Buddhists are among the few modern (in other words, still commonly practiced) religions that really spend a lot of time thinking and talking about it. (The ancient Egyptians were similar, but I've already done a few Egypt-related things.)

"That gave me a handle, which is what I usually look for to start a story -- something that engages me immediately. It also gives you the immediate backdrop that you have to build up in a novel, but don't have much time for in a short story."

You don't often find Williams in shorts. "I love writing short stories, because I can experiment with other styles and modes, especially humour, which is a big part of everything I do, but not as big a part of my novels.

"The only thing hard about shorts is finding the time to write them. As it is, I tend to only write them when someone interests me in an anthology, because most of the time I'm too busy writing my novels to write anything else."

http://sfsite.com/columns/booknews316.htm

Last edited by Olaf (2010-03-18 15:11:42)

Ahem.

Everywhere except Georgia, that is.

What?!?! It's been at least a month.

Last edited by Maladroit (2010-03-19 20:38:01)