Hobbitses!!!

In case you haven't seen it!!!



Cannot wait!!!!!

Pick Your Apocalypse

This weekend I took in a film: Battle: LA. I will pretty much see any spectacular disaster movie, whether good or bad. I'd put Battle: LA in the good camp - it was an enjoyable romp with explosions abounding.

My husband and I bond over a shared love of the imagined apocalypse. While its depictions range from eye-rollingly ridiculous to thought provoking, there's something fascinating about the end of the world as we know it. In Buffyverse, though not one of my favorite character's, Riley Finn delivered one of the best lines of the series: "I find myself needing to know the plural of apocalypse."

Pop culture has indeed dreamed up a plethora of means by which the world might end and I tend to enjoy society's demise in all its forms. The Ides of March seem an appropriate day to examine a foreboding subject. Let's have a look see:

Alien apocalypse
Since I started out with Battle: LA I might as well continue in this vein. The alien apocalypse can be zany (Mars Attacks), insidious (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, X-Files), or bombastic (Independence Day, Battle: LA). It's interesting to see what our extraterrestrial neighbors look like, covet their superior technology, and wonder how humans will manage to prevail.

Viral ApocalypseMaybe more frightening because of its plausibility, the supervirus apocalypse (The Stand, Survivors) gets popular play though not as often as other armageddons. Sometimes it wipes out the population, sometimes it makes people into vampires (Daybreakers).

And in case you were worried that all this world-ending mayhem was mutually exclusive, sometimes viruses even bring...

Zombie apocalypseA perennial favorite, the zombie apocalypse comes in many forms. Whether wrought by the slow moving undead (George Romero's oeuvre) or the hyper-charged rage-diseased variety (28 Days Later), zombies spell bad news for society but give us lots of tips for survival. Double tap.

In fact, I'm not that frightened by the onset of zombie apocalypse because I think a good portion of the population is living in a zombie-apocalypse-ready state.

Climate apocalypse
A relative newcomer to the end of the world scenarios, you'll find a few blockbusters (The Day After Tomorrow) but mostly made-for-tv fare (Category 7: The End of the World is pretty awesome). To get serious for a moment, the climate apocalypse scenario hits pretty close to home when horrible disasters (and yes, I know tectonics isn't climate, but still) are affecting sites around the globe. If you aren't already donating to the Red Cross, please consider doing so.

Nuclear apocalypse

Like viral and climate apocalypses, nuclear apocalypse is plausible enough to be truly unsettling. But saw its popularity (Dr. Strangelove, The Day After, Reds, On the Beach) wane in the 21st century. I think "too close for comfort" is part of the we don't see more films of this variety. Also because the Cold War ended. Duh.

Biblical apocalypse
Classic. Who doesn't love a good angels vs. demons battle for the fate of the world? And the four horsemen: pretty hard to top. Whether the anti-Christ is being born (The Omen, Constantine) or Lucifer's running rampant (End of Days), this type of apocalypse is chock full of supernatural goodness.

Though I'd hope none of us are rooting for the end of the world, I'd still wager that we all favor a particular armageddon. My husband is a devoted nuclear apocalypse fan, I'm torn between zombie and biblical, which makes sense given that science fiction and fantasy are my favorite genres.

What's your apocalypse of choice?

Coming Soon

I'm giddy.

There has been such amazing news in the twitosphere (is that a term yet? If not, I call it) about oh-so-exciting film rights deals for fabulous YA authors.

Even though the making of said movies lies well in the future, I still am proud to present my own series of previews for movies I will be waiting in line to see on their some-day-hopefully-not-too-far-away release dates.

Wicked Lovely

Melissa Marr's fey on the silver screen. I get chills just imagining the possibilities.

The Mortal InstrumentsCassandra Clare's series kept me up all night turning pages. And the thought of Jace in the flesh? Swoon.

Shiver

Speaking of chills. Go werewolves! Maggie Stiefvater's lyrical prose and bittersweet tales of love will make for tear-jerking and spine-tingling goodness.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth

I am already terrified...but in a really, really good way.

The Duff
(so hot off the presses there isn't even a cover yet!)

Yay for fellow Tenner Kody Keplinger. The film talk compares her story to Juno (which I loved), and hello McG! Woo-hoo Kody! I can't wait for this film!

Beautiful Creatures
Finally, but hopefully only the continuation of more good news to come for the page to screen of YA, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl's southern gothic is the buzz around town. This movie is certain to make waves and I think it will be wonderful.

Three cheers for YA domination of Hollywood!!! And a Happy December to you all!

Happy Halloween!!!

(No this is not my house, I just wish I'd had the energy to make this lovely setting)

The rituals:

Morning - Watching Halloween episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, South Park, and Simpsons whilst lounging in bathrobe and sipping coffee
Afternoon - prep for harvest feast, carve pumpkins (why can I never manage to get this done before Halloween!)

Evening - friends arrive for harvest feast, dogs forced into costumes (I'll have about 1 minute to snap photos before they are shredded), candy to trick or treaters

Night - Scary movie-a-thon! On the docket: Carrie, The Craft, Rosemary's Baby, Night of the Living Dead, Donnie Darko

What will you be doing this Halloween?

Of "Wolves" and "Were"

Etymology, or the history of words, is kind of a hobby of mine. I'm no expert, but where words originate and how they change over time fascinates me.

And did you know words can go extinct? No one says, "I lost my azaleas to last night's gelicide (frost)," anymore. Gelicide - cool huh? Really evokes that whole 'killing frost' thing. Perhaps we should bring it back.

But I digress. Today's Hallo-week post is about werewolves. Werewolf has a particularly nifty etymology. What's interesting is that the idea of "were" (man) combining with "wolf" (uh...wolf) has so many origin points. There's the possible Old English 'wer,' but there's also the Gothic 'wair,' German 'ver,' and Norse 'verr.'

The variety of language birthplaces for werewolf is matched by the diversity of lycanthropic legends across cultures. So many, in fact, that I'd have to write a book to recount them all (...and that may happen). But for now you can visit this very cool site to read up.

So where do our furry friends fall in the pecking order of classic Halloween beasties? According to the Wall Street Journal werewolves are about to usurp vampires in the pop culture spot light (*rubs hands* excellent).

So whether you're a fan of the New Moon variety of wolves.



Or the more classic Wolf Man -



Get ready to howl. Oh, and Nightshade has the awesomest werewolves of all time. Just sayin.

How I Gained My Edge?

Once upon I time I was a horror wimp. I had a zero-tolerance scary movie policy. If it could make me scream, cringe, or dripped blood I couldn't take it.

I had nightmares after seeing the Poseidon Adventure: no joke. I'm a bit claustrophobic and I partly blame this film (the other part I blame on the time I got stuck in a sleeping bag).

As Halloween approaches I'm seeing perpetual homage to frights and freaks. Blogs posting lists of the all-time best horror films, windows full of spiders and ghosts, and I realize that at some point I shed my fragile disposition for a tougher one. And I'm wondering when that happened.

Was it simply a result of growing up? Maybe it's that my research focuses on violence in human history and at a certain point I just detached from the visceral fear that had accompanied scary stories. Maybe fear of the things that go bump in the night is always accompanied by fascination.

Because everyone loves vampires right now.
Even Buffy couldn't hate all of them.
I used to hide from scary stories, but now I write them. It was a bit startling when my editor and I concluded that we shouldn't have the swing set in my author photo because the content of my book was too dark for playgrounds. And it really is. And that's who I am now. I don't hide from the dark; I embrace it.

It's not that I don't get scared. There are moments when I'm writing that I freak out, shriek, ditch my laptop and run from the room. At which my husband says "what's wrong" and I say "I'm so scared - the story is so scary!" and he says "but you're writing it."

But it doesn't matter. That's living in the world you write, feeling the words and scenes scream through your veins - I write scary worlds.

So how did I go from "the X-Files is too scary" to mistress of the macabre? I don't know, but I think I like it.

Can't Help Myself...

Apologies to any Twilight haters out there, but...



I can't wait! Plus, it's nice to know that if someday my books could make the leap to movies at least they can do nice things with instant shape-shifting. I was also very happy to see that Summit sought out First Nations' actors to play the role of the Quileutes in New Moon. The deployment of "Indian" characters without the acknowledgment or realization that Native American peoples are very much a part of our contemporary world happens all too often in book, film, and real life. If you're interested in this topic two great works are Celluloid Indians and "Indian Wars: The Movie" in Indians in Unexpected Places.

Happy weekend!