S.G. Browne

(Previous color entry: And Now A Word From The Color Red)

Red is hot. She’s totally hot.

Dude, she could, like, sit next to me and hang out, maybe go surfing or to the skate park or shopping at the Natural Food store and everyone would look at us and say, “Whoa,” because we would look so awesomely perfect together.

This one time, these dudes were all, like, up in my face, totally resenting the fact that I was a way better surfer than they were. For some reason people seem to get all envious around me. So I was like,”Hey dudes, chill,” because really I’m all about harmony and peace. I’m a big fan of nature, too.

Anyway, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Red watching me. Totally checking me out. I could tell from the way she was blushing that she was totally impressed with my awesome freshness dealing with those dudes. Plus I’m pretty fertile. So when I strolled up to her and said “What’s up?” and she called me a stoner, I was like, that’s so uncool. But then I figured it was just because she was intimidated by my healing powers. And the fact that I’m, like, totally loaded.

She digs me, she just doesn’t know it, yet.

(Sound of bong water gurgling, followed by a long, satisfied exhalation).

Dude, what was I talking about?

First of all, I want to make one thing clear:

This is not a Best of List. A Best of List implies that I thought these were the best books of 2009. While to some extent that’s true, a Best of List is only my opinion, not a statement of fact, and has nothing to do with the value or the quality of the writing of the books I included. It’s just a reflection of my own personal tastes and perceptions.

I’m attempting to make this subtle clarification because people tend to take Best of Lists a little too personally and passionately, as if by leaving a particular book off the list I was somehow disparaging the author or showing my lack of taste or literary judgment. And I can show that just fine without being reminded of it, thank you.

So instead, these are simply my favorite books – the reads I enjoyed the most, for one reason or another. And before you say, “Hey, that book didn’t come out in 2009,” I never said these were my favorite books that hit the shelves last year. Just the favorite books I read.

1) Water for Elephants (Sara Gruen)
Books capture my imagination for a number of reasons, but this one captured them for all of them. Narrative voice, structure, style, flow, and a story populated with characters that I felt I could reach out and touch. Who doesn’t love a good story about a circus? I recommend this book to everyone. It was my favorite read of 2009.

2) Beat the Reaper (Josh Bazell)
“So I’m on my way to work and I stop to watch a pigeon fight a rat in the snow…” How can you top that for an opening line in a novel? A fun, unabashedly dark and imaginative debut novel, this one pushed all of my buttons. Darkly comic, entertaining, and a plot that never lets up. If you like your romance sprinkled with mafia hit men and hospital hi-jinks, then this is the book for you.

3) The Likeness (Tana French)
This is the follow up to Tana French’s debut In The Woods. Both novels are mysteries set in small towns on the outskirts of Dublin, Ireland. While I found the story and the mystery of her first novel more complex and compelling, The Likeness is one of those books where the characters seem so real that you can’t believe they’re not still hanging about once you’ve finished with the book. This one stayed with me for several days after I finished it.

4) Fool (Christopher Moore)
If you haven’t read any of Moore’s novels, you can’t go wrong starting off with this one. Richly detailed with research, Fool tells the story of King Lear from the viewpoint of Pocket, the King’s fool. Filled with trademark Christopher Moore humor and lots of tawdry Shakespearean antics, Fool is Christopher Moore at his best.

5) American Gods (Neil Gaiman)
Filled with beautiful prose and a dark, compelling, poignant story about the battle between the forgotten gods of the old world and the new gods who have sprung up to take their place, Gaiman manages to make the fantastic and magical seem possible. A rich, satisfying read.

Michael Boatman is the author of The Revenant Road, a dark horror comedy about a best-selling mystery writer who begrudgingly enters into the family monster-killing business and has to stop a supernatural killing spree while fighting off a hangover and trying to live up to his dead father’s reputation. Think Men in Black meets Shaun of the Dead.

I met Michael in San Diego, when we shared an author reading and signing at Mysterious Galaxy Books. A gifted actor as well as a talented writer, Michael has co-starred on Spin City and Arli$$ and is currently co-starring in the Lifetime television series SHERRI.

Tell us about your first zombie experience. How did you lose your undead virginity?
The first time I ever really became aware of zombies was during an episode of The Night Stalker, way back in the ‘70’s. Darren McGavin’s character, Kolchak discovers that someone has resurrected a dead gangster and sent him around to kill off a bunch of other gangsters by breaking their backs. This zombie was a more traditional voodoo-based zombie: a dead man sent by a sorcerer to exact horrifying revenge on the sorcerer’s enemies. The climax takes place in an old auto graveyard. To stop the zombie, Kolchak has to find it while it lies dormant inside one of the abandoned wrecks. He has to exorcise the zombie by filling its mouth with salt and sewing its lips shut. I guarantee you, the moment when the zombie opens its eyes is one of the scariest, and funniest moments in television horror history.

What’s your favorite zombie film?
Night of the Living Dead is still the greatest zombie film, and one of the greatest horror films of all time. It never ceases to terrify me and I’ve watched it every year since I was in high school.

It’s the zombie apocalypse. Do you use a gun, a machete, or a Louisville slugger?
I’m gonna go for the Louisville. It’s more reliable than a gun and I could use the workout.

If you were a zombie, who would you eat first?
George W. Bush. A close second would be Maxim model/actress Sophia Vergara, but for completely different reasons.

What’s the first thing you ever had published?
My first published short story was called “The Drop.” It’s a story about a mentally retarded but unusually well endowed man named Cyrell Biggs. Cyrell plots to murder his abusive cousin/boss at the behest of the woman they both love. That story contains rude alligators, a homicidal black mermaid, Southern family dysfunction and a beatdown by crowbar. (I’m still proud of it.) It was published in Horror Garage magazine.

Who’s your favorite author?
I have so many favorites, but two guys tie for my number one spot: Stephen King and David J. Schow.

What’s your favorite book?
The Road. It hit me like a ton of bricks and I didn’t expect it to. It sets the bar for post-Apocalyptic survival stories and is simply the most horrifying, heartbreaking novel I’ve ever read.

Name your favorite guilty pleasure.
Doritos. I can eat an entire duffel-bag of Doritos. Afterward I can sit there in my car, listening to my arteries clogging and still think, “Damn…that was good.”

Other than your favorite author/book, name something that inspires your writing.
Anger. I’m from the Midwest: Therefore I am deeply repressed. I’m the married father of four children: Therefore I spend a lot of time being wrong. Therefore I do my best writing when I’m pissed. I’ve written two and a half novels, dozens of short stories, six screenplays and a million un-mailed death threats. People see me on television and form one sort of opinion about me. Then they read my stories or follow me on Twitter or Facebook and they all write the same thing… “But you seem so nice.”

If you had a theme song that played when you walked into a room, what would it be?
“The Six Million Dollar Man.”

Shameless self-promotion bonus question: What’s coming up next?
I’m working on a novel about God, which is tough for an atheist. I’m also writing a short story about wizards in a post- apocalyptic Chicago.

Michael Boatman is the author of The Revenant Road and the short story collection, God Laughs When You Die: Mean Little Stories From the Wrong Side of the Tracks.

If you’d like to keep up with Micheal’s writing and acting endeavors, you can follow him at Twitter.com/MichaelPBoatman.

Okay. Let’s just get this over with right now.

My name is Scott and I am a Waterworld fan.

That’s right. Waterworld. One of the most famous box office flops in the history of Hollywood, right up there with Heaven’s Gate, Ishtar, Hudson Hawk, Gigli, Battlefield Earth, Howard the Duck, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, and Leonard Part 6.

It’s my favorite guilty pleasure film of all time. I can watch it over and over, from beginning to end, halfway into the film, two-thirds of the way in, doesn’t matter. I don’t know why I love the film so much. Maybe it’s because of the gills. Or the premise. Maybe it’s because it was such a ridiculous catastrophe. Or that I always get a kick out of Dennis Hopper. Or maybe it’s because I have a man-crush on Kevin Costner.

Okay, that’s admission number two. The Kevin Costner man-crush thing. Maybe it isn’t as deep as it was back in the 1980s when he was starring in films like The Untouchables, Bull Durham, and Field of Dreams, but it’s still there, lying dormant, ready to awaken whenever one of those films comes on TNT or TBS. I mean, come on, how could you not love him as Elliot Ness? What guy didn’t want to be Crash Davis? What guy didn’t cry when he asks his father if he wants to have a game of catch at the end of Field of Dreams? Admit it. Or live in denial. It’s your choice.

I even met him once, back in 1990 when I was working as a driver for a company that did post-production for the Disney Studios, finishing the television spots and theatrical trailers for all of their films. Costner was down the hall in another edit bay doing some work on what would turn out to be Dances With Wolves (which should have acceded it’s Best Picture Oscar to Goodfellas, but that’s another story).

We all knew he was at the editing facility (the Mustang he drove in Bull Durham was in the parking lot with a license plate that said CRASH D), so there was some buzz and I was thinking about what I would say if I had the chance to meet him. We were working on the Dick Tracy campaign (a catastrophe in its own right) and I was sitting on the couch, waiting for someone to tell me to take something somewhere, when a figure appeared in the doorway to my left. Before I glanced up, the figure said: “Is that Dick Tracy you’re working on in there?”

I turned to look and said “Yeah,” all at the same time. When I saw it was Kevin Costner, all of the lines I’d rehearsed had suddenly turned to static and I couldn’t think of anything else to say. So I just stood there and stared at him until he finally turned and walked away.

So that was how I met Kevin Costner. That was what I said. “Yeah.”

One word. Four letters. One syllable.

Now if you’ll excuse me, Waterworld is playing on TNT again.

Carrie Ryan is the author of the young adult novels, The Forest of Hands and Teeth and The Dead-Tossed Waves set in a world several generations after the zombie apocalypse. A recovering litigator, Carrie’s a full time writer living in Charlotte, NC.

Even as a young adult, I didn’t tend to read any YA novels. I don’t even know if Young Adult novels existed when I was part of the demographic. But having read a number of them this year, most of them admittedly either about zombies or vampires, I have to say I found Carrie’s debut effort a transcendent read.

Tell us about your first zombie experience. How did you lose your undead virginity?
I’d sworn off all scary movies ever since I was five years old and my babysitter talked me into watching Poltergeist by telling me how much I was like the little girl in the movie (same name, same blond hair, same closet full of stuffed animals). Of course, my parents came home and I never saw the ending and spent the next month unable to sleep with the lights off. Naturally, I wasn’t a fan of scary movies from that point on.

And yet, somehow during my second year of law school my fiancé talked me into going to the opening night of the Dawn of the Dead remake (I can only assume his argument went something along the lines of “It’s Durham NC, what else is there to do?”). I was terrified during the movie and yet so totally pumped up afterward. I couldn’t stop imagining what I’d do if the zombie apocalypse hit.

My fiancé fed my growing addiction with a steady diet of zombie movies and books — he even read The Zombie Survival Guide out loud to me (you can see why my first book is dedicated to him).

What’s your favorite zombie film?
That’s really an unfair question! I actually hated Night of the Living Dead when I first saw it because I was so frustrated the characters couldn’t get their stupid acts together. Then I found out that was the point of the film which I thought was brilliant. I also love Shawn of the Dead because it’s both so crazy hilarious and terribly sad and frightening — they were really able to tease out so many emotions with that film. And of course Dawn of the Dead because it started it all.

It’s the zombie apocalypse. Do you use a gun, a machete, or a Louisville slugger?
Machete. A gun’s only so good as the number of bullets you have and the slugger can (a) get slippery and (b) break.

If you were a zombie, who would you eat first?
The person standing closest to me. I’m lazy and I’m sure that quality will still remain after I’m dead.

What’s the first thing you ever had published?
Other than a few short stories in my college literary magazine, the first work I had published were two essays I wrote to get into law school. One of them was called “Torts vs. Tarts” and was all about how writing romance novels was going to help me be a better lawyer. Must have convinced the admissions office because I was accepted.

Who’s your favorite author?
I can’t play favorites! Right now I’m chewing through all of Jen Lancaster’s backlist because they crack me up.

What’s your favorite book?
I always feel weird saying this, especially since I write young adult books, but my favorite book is Nabokov’s Lolita. I just love the way he plays with language — all the tricks and wordplay and flat out gorgeous language. I also love the idea of taking a hideous subject and making the telling of it beautiful – it really messes with the question of how we define art.

Name your favorite guilty pleasure.
I never feel guilty for pleasure. I do like to sometimes sleep late on work days just because I can and I also love sitting in the shower and going through all the hot water while I drink a really cold beer.

Other than your favorite author/book, name something that inspires your writing.
I get inspired by such random things: music, taking a walk, listening to people talk. I feel like if you relax you’ll find inspiration all over the place.

If you had a theme song that played when you walked into a room, what would it be?
Ugh, I have one song stuck in my head which I just can’t put down. Hmmm… I know there’s a perfect song and I just can’t think of it right now. Looking at what’s most played in my iTunes, you’d think it would be “Praan” (which is the music to the Where The Hell is Matt video with him dancing all over the world). But usually my theme song would be something that would make you dance — “Hey Ya” would be a good one or Ben Folds Five’s “There’s Always Someone Cooler Than You.” And now you see just how indecisive I can be in my life!

Shameless self-promotion bonus question: What’s coming up next?
Next up is the paperback release of my debut, The Forest of Hands and Teeth, on February 8, 2010 and then The Dead-Tossed Waves, which is a companion to my debut, out March 9, 2010.

If you’d like to visit Carrie and learn more about her writing and her novels, you can find her at www.carrieryan.com. Or follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/carrieryan.