Just a reminder … The Bees Are Dead is interested in your darkest visions about terrible future worlds!
Below is our transatlantic webzine’s inaugural call for submissions. Send us your dystopian or post-apocalyptic poetry, prose, art or photography.
I got some more nice news today — Haikuniverse featured my micro-poem, “Our Drive Home.” Haikuniverse is a project of the Poetry Super Highway, and daily publishes either a haiku or a micro-poem. (Readers can sign up for an e-mail from Haikuniverse each day.)
Thanks so much to Editor Rick Lupert for allowing me to share my very brief poem.
You can find it below:
I’m honored to report here today that another of my poems was featured by Dead Snakes.
Click here to read “Smiling Among Inert Shipwrecks.”
Once again, thank you to Editor Stephen Jarrell Williams!
I was surprised a couple of weeks ago when some friends of mine remembered “Highlights;” does anyone remember “Cricket?”
This is still being published. (I thought it was a 70’s thing, since I haven’t seen or heard of it since I was a young boy.) It’s a literary magazine aimed at older children — I had a couple of copies flapping around my bookcase or closet for years.
There was one issue that had an illustration of a young girl riding her bicycle on a pier, and there was a shark in the water swimming along below her. That drawing both scared me and piqued my interest in … 1978 or 1979 or so. I couldn’t read it — the story was just beyond my reading level. This is an incredibly obscure online query, but if anyone knows the title of that story, let me know. It would really tickle my nostalgia.
“Smiling Among Inert Shipwrecks”
by Eric Robert Nolan
[For Robert and Kathleen Nolan]
Oh, to extinguish the seas,
and make the waves recede.
The nights between you both and me
are oceans that separate.
To meet at a nadir
between continents,
to traverse
dryness in endless leagues,
to descend
the fathoms now made shining canyons,
where all the former depths are rendered
newly whitening plains,
I would find you
smiling among inert shipwrecks.
All their rusting hulls would be
as iron strange oases,
now in an ironic desert —
the seabed under midday.
A warm new noon alights their wakes.
Intermittent citadels
of masts again in sun
would brightly tower over
their resurrected figureheads;
their mermaids’ opaque eyes would find
we three gladdened
among the once benighted bows.
There’d be an incongruity
between crustaceans now
slowed almost to stillness
in the blanching sun, while we …
we rushed to an embrace.
Our shouts would break
the silence of epochs.
Somewhere on a shore, this night,
beached upon an altar
of lunar-like nocturnal sands,
finally, face to face,
dessicated starfish
stare at their namesakes in heaven.
(c) Eric Robert Nolan 2016
Calling all storytellers, poets, photographers and artists who harbor dark visions of the future in their hearts — submit your work to “The Bees Are Dead!” B.A.D. is an entirely new transatlantic webzine devoted to dystopian, futuristic and post-apocalyptic literature, and it released its first official Call for Submissions today:
The Bees Are Dead – Call for Submissions
I am honored to share here that I’ve been invited to partner in B.A.D.’s development with two friends and distinguished colleagues of mine. The first is Philippe Atherton-Blenkiron, and the second is Dennis Williamson. (If you’re familiar with my blog, then you’re well aware that I have long admired both men’s work.) As a third of “The Triumvirate,” I’ll be privileged to read and view your own interpretations of terrible days ahead.
So, please, visit the site, peruse our guidelines, and consider whether you might want to share any glimpses of the doomed worlds of your own creation.
Do it now … while there is still time.
The lower-budget “Cell” (2016) wasn’t quite the spectacular horror movie that I was hoping for. (A Stephen King zombie film?!) But it was still pretty good — I’d give it an 8 out of 10.
The screenwriting and directing are average. The acting seems uneven too. And, yes, that includes its curiously low-key performances by John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson. But the opening action set piece was well done, and it succeeds in capturing the creepiness and originality of King’s 2006 novel. What a neat genre-buster too — this is zombie movie meets sci-fi film meets supernatural horror epic meets art-house road movie. It really is an interesting (and quite divergent) variation of the zombie subgenre.
I’ll go ahead and answer the million dollar question for those who have read the book. Yes, that widely unpopular ambiguous ending has been changed, and what we are shown is far more conclusive and satisfying.
By the way, this isn’t King’s first venture into zombie horror. He wrote an excellent short story entitled “Home Delivery,” which I cheerfully recommend. It’s far closer to mainstream zombie horror, and I think it would appeal to “The Walking Dead” fans. I first read it in a worn copy of 1989’s “Book of the Dead” zombie anthology; it also appears in 1993’s “Nightmares & Dreamscapes.”
If you peek too long at the cat, the cat also peeks at you.
I just received some nice news — two of my poems were featured today at both Dead Snakes and UFO Gigolo. The first is entitled “June, Washington, 1998,” and was first published by Dead Beats Literary blog in 2012. The second is a short, humorous poem entitled “Crow’s Feet,” and appeared on this blog last week.
You can find the poems here at Dead Snakes, and here at UFO Gigolo.
As in the past, I am quite grateful to Stephen Jarrell Williams, Editor for both Dead Snakes and UFO Gigolo!
Photo credit: Qwerty0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
I liked Season 1 of “Game of Thrones;” I really did. I don’t yet love the show in the same way that so many other people do, however, and I’d honestly rate this 10-episode season an 8 out of 10. If that sounds like faint praise for a show that seems universally loved, I concede that my criticisms really reflect my own personal tastes, not to mention my admittedly narrow attention span.
It’s an undeniably well made show, in terms of everything from acting to set design. Its densely plotted story (with so many characters!) suggests to me that it is probably true to George R. R. Martin’s books, which I have not read. The show seems like an authentic adaptation that respects the viewer’s intelligence and consequently demands a lot of him or her.
There is a lot to admire, such as the show’s attention to a myriad of details in order to meticulously render Martin’s fantasy universe. Peter Dinklage is consistently wonderful to watch as Tyrion Lannister. Aidan Gillen and Conleth Hill are both downright Shakespearian as Littlefinger and Varys, the two duplicitous members of the Court at King’s Landing. Lena Headey (Cersei Lannister), Charles Dance (Tywin Lannister) and Iain Glen (Jorah Mormont) are also all favorites of mine. (Glen is none other than the “Resident Evil” films’ original Wesker! And he has such a damn cool voice.)
The script, direction and production values all usually seem quite good. The show even has moments of brilliance — the first episode’s opening teaser, in which we witness an attack on the border wall by the icy “White Walker” monsters, was scarier than a hell of a lot of horror movies I’ve seen.
Which brings us to my frustrations, and, yes, they are mostly subjective. I actually did bring certain appetites as an audience member that weren’t met. I craved more action, and greater emotional payoff for the dialogue-heavy story arcs that built tension throughout the first season. (Caveat: I am a fan of both horror movies and war films, and I suspect I’m not exactly the target audience for what is essentially a political thriller in a fantasy context.)
The inaugural episode’s White Walkers were what I was dying to see the most. And I do think they should have been featured more prominently, from a storytelling perspective. Otherwise they shouldn’t have served as the teaser-opener for the entire season. Nor should they have been the plot driver for the storylines connected with the Wall and The Night’s Watch.
We also see extensive preparations for war, and military maneuvering — we even have important scenes taking place at troop encampments. But there is absolutely no climax for these steadily building plot developments. I know I sound like a 13 year old, and maybe I am just not sophisticated enough to enjoy the show on its current levels, but I wanted see a battle. From a storytelling perspective, I suggest it’s a bad creative decision to end the season without allowing us to truly witness a major land engagement. I do realize that we indeed see one house’s brutal invasion of another’s castle, and that it’s well done. But it was too brief. Again, while “Game of Thrones” has all the trappings of a period war series, this is a political thriller in a fantasy context.
As for the Machiavellian politics, I am embarrassed to admit that I got lost early on. Yes, I’m fully aware that others are able to follow these plot threads quite easily. (My college chums can.) I’d just advise another viewer of average intelligence that their enjoyment might be affected by an unusually detailed story that requires their strict attention.
Finally, I do feel that there is a dearth of likeable and identifiable characters. Nearly every major player is motivated by an ignoble goal (power). Many betray one another; that’s the show’s favorite plot point. Sean Bean’s Eddard Stark is only a putative hero, to me. Yes, he’s fighting for the rightful heir to the throne, but he’s still serving a monarchy; he’s not sticking up for the common man or anything. (We see loyalty among various characters to various noblemen, but nobody seems to care about the peasants.) Furthermore, Stark’s actions toward a scared subordinate in the first episode made me unsympathetic to him. (I don’t care who has vowed to do what — his action in the series premier was unwarranted.)
Jon Snow is well scripted as a “good” character, but the actor portraying him needs to work on his range. Kit Harrington is decent in the role, but he too often looks like a sad, spurned poet. (Hey, it’s okay, Snowman, I’ve been there myself.)
Daenerys Targaryen appears to be a “good” character, and I do like her. She’s thinly rendered, though, despite what seems like an inordinate amount of screen time devoted to her major subplot. (And this subplot, with its legions of bare-chested barbarians, seems like a slowly paced cousin of the 1990’s “Xena: Warrior Princess.”) Daenerys seems like an obvious power-fantasy for victimized women. (Yeah, I know there’s nothing wrong with that. And, yeah, I know that people say something similar about my beloved comic book movies.)
With all of these criticisms, it may sound as though I didn’t enjoy “Game of Thrones.” To the contrary, I did. If you like fantasy and are looking for something well made and different, I’d recommend you try this. I think maybe I’m just trying to justify my more modest enthusiasm for one of contemporary pop culture’s sacred cows.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 