S.G. Browne

I’ve been asked a lot about a sequel for Breathers.

Am I writing one? Did I plan on one? When will the next one come out?

To be honest, I never intended to write a sequel to Breathers or to turn it into a series. First, I already had ideas for several novels after this one. Second, I didn’t want to be pigeonholed as a zombie author (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and be limited to that genre for my writing life. And third, the original ending for Breathers was much darker than the one that made it into print. No ambiguity. No hope. No chance of a sequel.

So while I prescribe to the concept of never say never, at the moment I don’t have any plans for a sequel to Breathers. If I can come up with an original idea that isn’t derivative of the original material and doesn’t tread over a lot of common ground, then maybe. But I have a hard time believing that a sequel would be better than the original.

Which brings me to the topic of this post…

It’s been rare that I’ve enjoyed any sequel or any second or third installment of a series as much as I enjoyed the original. Most of the time, they failed miserably to live up to the expectations of the first installment.

The Matrix. Star Wars. Indiana Jones.

I can watch the original Matrix over and over, but the sequels? Yawn. I thought The Empire Strikes Back was a lot of fun, but it ended like a serial, which pissed me off, even as a teenager when I saw it at the theater. Return of the Jedi was a little silly and the three prequels lacked any heart. And while The Last Crusade rivaled Raiders of the Lost Ark, the other two Indiana Jones films, especially the last one, bordered on being unwatchable.

Some other random sequels:

Airplane II had some wonderful moments but wasn’t nearly as funny as the original. Goldmember helped to redeem the Austin Powers series after The Spy Who Shagged Me, but still couldn’t measure up to the first of the bunch. And Men in Black II was such a huge disappointment that I often forget it was ever made.

And don’t even get me started on the Rocky series. Clubber Lang? Dolph Lungren? Please.

On the flip side, I loved the Alien trilogy, (though I’m trying to expunge Alien Resurrection from my brain). Yes, I even enjoyed Alien 3. The Road Warrior was a worthy sequel to Mad Max, but Beyond the Thunderdome was a bit of a blight on the series. I thought The Dark Knight was an excellent film on its own, perhaps even better than Batman Begins (Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker is worth multiple viewings). The only problem was the fact that Christian Bale started growling halfway through the film. None of the children of Tim Burton’s Batman were as good as their father.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy was a fun ride all the way through, though admittedly I’d never read Tolkien’s version so when the first film ended without an ending, I let out a groan along with most of the rest of the theater audience. The Bourne Ultimatum was an improvement over The Bourne Supremacy and arguably better than The Bourne Identity. And while Godfather III was an average film, The Godfather II was a worthy, and some will say better, follow-up to The Godfather. I’d say “it’s hard to argue with a Best Picture Oscar,” but Titanic won out over L.A. Confidential in 1997 and Dances With Wolves beat out Goodfellas in 1990, so I can’t use that criteria as justification.

Oh, and my vote for the best sequel based on how much an improvement they were on their originals? It’s a tie. Evil Dead 2 and Terminator 2.

Obviously, I’m leaving out a lot of series and sequels, including Star Trek, the James Bond franchise, Rambo, Friday the 13th, American Pie (I thought American Wedding was the funniest of the bunch), Hellboy, Die Hard, and Pirates of the Caribbean (the second and third installments weren’t nearly as good as the first).

And yes, since we’re here, I can’t forget the Romero Films, but other than the original Dawn of the Dead, I don’t think the last three in the series hold up to NOTLD.

Admittedly, I haven’t read as many series or sequels as I’ve seen on film. I think part of this is that, when I do a search for the Best Book Series of All Time, most of the lists I come across are filled with YA titles like Lemony Snicket, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Golden Compass.

While I did read the first Harry Potter and the first installment of Twilight (I’m of the opinion that Edward’s a psychotic stalker and that vampires should never sparkle). Although I know a lot of adults loved both series, they’re YA novels and I’m not exactly the target audience, so I didn’t feel a desire to continue.

While I’m sure there are sequels and series out there for adult readers, the only series I have read all the way through is Stephen King’s The Dark Tower saga, which I thought peaked with the fourth installment, Wizard and Glass. After that, I felt it sort of wound its way down rather than building up to the end.

And in case you’re wondering, no, I still haven’t read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

So what the hell does all of this rambling and listing accomplish other than to share my own personal tastes? It says that I’m dubious of sequels to stand up to the originals. Most of the time, they just don’t cut it, so going back to the original question about a sequel, the only way I will write one is if I think it will hold up to Breathers.

So what are your thoughts? On a sequel to Breathers? On the films and books I’ve listed? On the films and books I haven’t listed? On sequels and series in general?

So I’m back from Pittsburgh, where I spent the weekend at the Horror Realm Convention meeting lots of new writers, hanging out with a bunch of great people, and watching movie clips from a bunch of low budget 60’s and 70’s horror films with titles like Cannibal Girls, The Hanging Woman, and Scream Baby Scream.

Though my favorite movie clip was from the classic The Vampires Night Orgy, which prompted a discussion about how vampires have the best orgies, werewolves have the best pajama parties, and zombies have the best pot lucks. Though I can’t take credit for the discussion. That goes to Emily Fear and Maureen White of Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Pittsburgh, who graciously hosted me at their booth for the weekend signing books with Jonathan Maberry and eating gummy body parts.

In addition to the wonderful staff at Joseph-Beth, I met a bunch of zombie authors from Library of the Living Dead and Permuted Press, including, Rhiannon Frater, Eric S. Brown, Rob Fox, Kody Boye, Kim Paffenroth, and James Melzer, among others. You can read about all of the authors on the Author Page of the Horror Realm web site.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Pus, the force behind Library of the Living Dead, as well as Rebecca May, Sandy Stuhlfire, Rich Dalzotto, and the rest of the organizers of Horror Realm. Having never traveled to an event on the east coast south of Manhattan (and even then, not since 2002), I hadn’t met the majority of those who attended the convention but soon found myself enjoying their company and sharing in the camaraderie of the weekend.

However, in addition to the wonderful memories, I also brought a cold back with me from Pittsburgh and have been laid up the last couple of days trying to kick it out of my apartment, so if you’ll excuse me, I have to go exorcise my germs with some green tea and a shot of vitamin C.

Next time I’ll talk about why I think Tom Cruise should win the lifetime achievement award for running in movies.

I’ll be at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Pittsburgh South this weekend, September 18-20, for the Horror Realm Convention.

Although I’ll be hanging out and available most of the weekend, I do have a couple of scheduled signings and readings:

On Friday, from 6-7PM, I’ll be doing a sit and sign in the Dealer’s Room with Jonathan Mayberry, author of Patient Zero and Zombie CSU.  If you’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Jonathan, he’s a great guy.

On Saturday, I’ll be doing a reading followed by a Q&A from 11:30AM-12:30PM, followed by a solo sit and sign in the Dealer’s Room from 12:30-1:30PM.

So if you’re in the area, come on by. There’s lots of zombie goodness to be had.

Truth is, I’ve grown a bit tired of the A to Z of Breathers, which I started back on March 3 when the novel was released.  Six months later, I think I’ve exhausted most of my insight about Breathers and probably been repetitive and redundant along the way.  Plus I’ve run out of fresh ideas for the last four installments.  See?  I’m repeating myself already just in this blog.But I couldn’t think of anything that worked for X or Y.  (Z would obviously be for Zombies, which I think I’ve talked about more than once.)  And W is for World War Z is really a bit of a stretch.  Except I figured it was relevant since Breathers was tied to it, or at least to Max Brooks, on the back cover copy of the novel.

So consider this the last installment dealing with the What, Where, Who, When, and Why of Breathers.

On the back cover of Breathers, the copy reads:

For fans of Max Brooks’ The Zombie Survival Guide and zombie aficionados everywhere…

Truth is, while I bought a copy of The Zombie Survival Guide in 2004 and read through parts of it and enjoyed the dry and amusing take on zombie preparedness offered up by Max Brooks, I never really looked at it as anything similar to Breathers.  I was more of the opinion that fans of Chuck Palahniuk and Christopher Moore would enjoy my novel, which has been confirmed by a number of readers who asked me if I’d ever read either Palahniuk or Moore.  So that makes me happy, since I consider both of them talented novelists and influential in my own writing.

However, since The Zombie Survival Guide was a widely read humorous zombie novel, my publisher thought it would make sense to tie the two together and reach out to those fans.  Several readers commented that the comparisons between the two novels weren’t really relevant, while one reader went so far as to complain about the comparison and bash me for not measuring up to Brooks’ caliber of writing in World War Z.  Which is kind of bizarre because nowhere on the cover copy does it mention World War Z.  Whatever.

Is there a point to this?  I’m not really sure.  It’s late, I have an early morning call with my editor to discuss her thoughts on my next book, and I want some Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream but my freezer only has frozen edamame and Morningstar sausage links.  So naturally, I’m distracted.

But I think where I was going with this was that I didnt’ read World War Z until after I’d finished Breathers and had a publishing contract because I didn’t want to be influenced by any zombie fiction.  And while I enjoyed WWZ and found it a compelling and fascinating read, again, there’s not really any point of comparison between my writing and that of Max Brooks.  Though I think you can be a fan of both of us and still respect yourself in the morning.

Onward…

(This is a feature from Undead Anonymous where Andy, the main protagonist of Breathers, answers your questions.)

Ryan, a teenage zombie from the land of Yahoo!, asks:

As a fellow zombie, I’ve only, so far, been eating brains. I’ve lately been wanting to, uhh, expand my horizons, as it were, and I was wondering if you could recommend any of the juicier parts of the body. Thanks.

Well Ryan, personally I’ve always found brains to be a little soupy and messy and not worth the effort it takes to crack open the skull.  Plus there’s always the risk of mad Breather disease, so I tend to stick to the fleshier parts of the human body.

The main thing to remember when selecting a body part is that exercise and age toughen meat.  So using that as a guideline, the legs, neck, shoulder, butt, and flank will be far tougher than the seldom exercised rib and loin.  Old Breathers will be more sinewy than teenagers, especially the pampered ones, so it’s advisable to select a Breather that’s a couch potato under the age of 30.  Shopping in affluent neighborhoods is always a good rule of thumb, too.

My advice?  You can’t go wrong with ribs from an undergraduate at a private college.

Bon appetit!