Zombies: The Recent Dead Part 51

About the Editor.

Paula Guran is the editor of Pocket Book's Juno fantasy imprint and nonfiction editor for Weird Tales magazine. In an earlier life she produced weekly e-mail newsletter DarkEcho (winning two Bram Stoker Awards, an International Horror Guild Award award, and a World Fantasy Award nomination), edited Horror Garage magazine (earning another IHG and a second World Fantasy nomination), and has contributed reviews, interviews, and articles to numerous professional publications. She's also done a great deal of other various and sundry work in sf/f/h publis.h.i.+ng. Earlier anthologies Guran has edited include Embraces, Best New Paranormal Romance, and Best New Romantic Fantasy 2. In addition to this anthology, she recently edited the first of the new Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror anthology series for Prime Books. Forthcoming anthologies for Prime include Vampires: The Recent Undead and Halloween! By the end of 2010 she will also have edited four dozen published novels and three collections.

Footnotes.

[1] Yes, there is a grand literary and folkloric tradition of the undead. Some posit Mary Wollstonecraft Sh.e.l.ley's Frankenstein, Bram Stoker's Dracula, some of Edgar Allan Poe's stories and H.P. Lovecraft's tales, etc. are the roots of the modern zombie. Romero himself has often acknowledged the Richard Matheson novel I Am Legend as his direct influence. But just read David J. Schow's introduction, okay?

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[2] For in-depth background, please consult The Complete Night of the Living Dead Filmbook by John Russo (Harmony Books, 1985), The Zombies That Ate Pittsburgh: The Films of George A. Romero by Paul R. Gagne (Dodd, Mead & Co., 1987), Night of the Living Dead by John Russo (novelization based on the screenplay by Romero and John Russo, Warner, 1974), Dawn of the Dead by George A. Romero and Susanna Sparrow (novelization based on the screenplay by Romero, St Martin's Press, 1978), and Day of the Dead, by George A. Romero and John Russo (novelization based on the screenplay by Romero, Simon & Schuster, 1988). Watching the movies might help you along, too.

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[3]The White House / Living Dead connection was explicated by Robert Bloch in one of the last short stories written before his death, "Maternal Instinct," which depicts a President who proposes n.a.z.i-like ma.s.s cremations to control the exponentially swelling numbers of unruly "necros," while revealing himself to be a much better cla.s.s of zombie-one killed with a fast-acting poison in order to reanimate with nearly all of his mental faculties intact, and thus remain in power in a world full of intellectually-dead cannibal corpses.

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[4] Bloch in fact cites Dr. Arnoldi in the text of "Maternal Instinct."

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[5] The Great Green Wall: a prewar environmental restoration project intended to halt desertification.

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