I wrote “The Siege of Fort Buzzard” years ago, and the nice folks over at “Tales of the Zombie War” published it in 2013.
The zombie “Youth Scouts” you find here are of course meant as zombie Cub Scouts; I just wanted to avoid any trademark infringement.
“The Siege of Fort Buzzard,” by Eric Robert Nolan
Photo credit: By Mobilus In Mobili (https://www.flickr.com/photos/mobili/15441340349/) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
No Freudians need respond.
Roanoke College.
College Lutheran Church.
I keep telling people on my native Long Island how hilly it is in Southwest Virginia. Depending on where you live, you might need to walk up or down just to visit your nextdoor neighbor. It seems like nothing to people who raised here. But it can feel utterly strange at first to anyone who grew up in a region that is almost uniformly flat.
True to its manga origins, Netflix’ “Death Note” (2017) seems cartoonish and sometimes intentionally silly. That doesn’t stop it from being a lot of fun, though — this is the most original, offbeat horror tale I’ve seen in a while, and I’d rate it an 8 out of 10.
It’s definitely a genre-buster — it’s one part comic book, one part horror tale, one part eastern theological fantasy and one part dark teen romance. It succeeds in part because it has an interesting supernatural story setup that seems reminiscent an episode of “The X-Files.” (A magical notebook allows it owner to sentence anyone to death, simply by writing the victim’s name down, and describing how they die.)
It also succeeds because it has a great bogeyman — a seemingly omnipotent demon named Ryuk. His visual design is creative and wickedly creepy, and his character is menacingly voiced by none other than Willem Dafoe.
Finally, Shea Whigham is very good as the teen protagonist’s tough but likable dad. I thought I remembered him only from his relatively minor role in this year’s “Kong Skull Island.” But, as it turns out, he was actually the sympathetic escaped convict from 2008’s criminally underrated monster movie, “Splinter.” He’s a great actor.
I really liked this. I’d recommend it.
I don’t pay much attention to the “solstices.” (A solstice is a pagan god, right?) But it doesn’t matter — every school kid knows that summer ends when September begins and school is about to start.
Well, that flew by, didn’t it? I have it on good authority (read: everybody older than me) that the older you get, the faster the time flies right by you.
That’s a little scary.
[Update: Guys, I was joking earlier when I said that I did not know what a solstice was. I’m receiving educational e-mails about the subject from every hippy in the world who is not high right now (all seven of them).]
The first is a terrible picture, of course; it was taken from a moving car. I’m sharing it here anyway, because I still like the effect of the backlit entrance to the Confederate Cemetery at dusk.
The second photo is of houses on Amelia Street.
You can see the ominous great sable shape of the moon as it slowly encroaches waiiiiiiiiiiiiiitaminute that’s my giant white nerd head about to obscure the sun. Sorry.
(You can tell by the glasses.)
Hey, guys — if you liked my nanotechnology horror story that was published by The Bees Are Dead on Monday, then you might also enjoy my time-travel horror story, “Shine Now, Fiercely, Forever.”
It was featured by B.A.D. back in January, and it’s an important public service announcement about why you should never set foot inside a time machine.
You can find it at the link below:
“Shine Now, Fiercely, Forever”
Photo credit: By Bureau of Land Management – #conservationlands15 Social Media Takeover, June 15th, Top 15 Places to Stargaze on the #mypubliclandsroadtrip in BLM California, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42086907
The lingering pinks are burning away before they recede into smoldering violets.
The clouds over them have grown implacably slate.
Fellow native New Yorkers, if you haven’t seen the mountains of Virginia, then you must do so at least once in this lifetime.
After finishing its seventh season, I’ve reached the point where I’d name “Game of Thrones” as the best fantasy I’ve ever read or seen. It’s also among the best television I’ve ever seen, period. I’d cheerfully rate this penultimate season a perfect 10.
I do understand some of the criticisms I’ve read from other fans. Yes, this shorter, more eventful, seven-episode arc could seem a little rushed when compared with prior seasons. And certain plot points in the last several episodes here are easy to nitpick.
But I can’t give less than a perfect rating to a show that I enjoyed this much. Season 7 added great action and special effects, lots of momentum, frightening horror, and some long-awaited conclusions to story arcs that began back in Season 1. And the show still has the best dialogue of any current television show that I’m aware of, usually supported by terrific acting.
I won’t say more for fear of spoilers. But I obviously loved this season.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 