on the cover: Tyler Landry http://dugost.com/tyler/
Dave Wellington is the author of the serialized horror novel, ‘Monster Island’ and a contributor to “BRAINCHILD...”
1.) What's new in Dave's world? Any big news or upcoming events we should know about ?
The biggest news is that "Monster Island", my zombie novel, is going to be published in April 2006 by Thunder's Mouth Press. This is the first time one of my novels has been published and of course I'm extremely excited. Right now readers can pre-order the book on Amazon, just search for "David Wellington Monster Island". Also, I'm going to have a new novel onlinestarting January 2006. It's a vampire story this time, but with a twist, of course. Anyone who enjoyed my previous writing will like this story, I promise.
2.) It's been noted that you've picked up the torch lit by pioneers like Fulci and Romero and really run with it, expanding the genre in new and inventive ways. What are your thoughts on this and was the decision deliberate or more the outcome of an intuitive process?
Well, I think that's an awfully nice thing of somebody to say, first off, but I don't know how much credit I deserve. I just wanted to tell a good story. Really, that was what I was thinking. I had just watched all three (at the time) Romero films. I'd seen them before--I grew up in Pittsburgh where he's kind of a local hero--but what I really noticed this time was how he could focus on these very small frames--one farmhouse, one mall, one salt mine--but he never let you forget that what was happening was going on everywhere, that people were fighting for survival all over the world. It made me wonder what the first day of a zombie uprising would be like in NewYork City. Just the sheer chaos of it. My story evolved from there is a very organic fashion, and if anything it was more of a trimming process thana creative one. Romero inspired a million ideas in my mind--I had to pick the right ones to focus on. That being said, I made a point of not getting myself stuck by trying to slavishly imitate Romero. The director doesn't worry too much himself about "the rules" of zombiedom. His zombies change over the course of the trilogy, so I wasn't afraid to adjust my zombies a little to better fit the story I wanted to tell.
3.) Besides being a compelling read, the 'Monster' series is interesting for its presentation, being readily available for download to iPod. What was the impetus for this content delivery decision and do you believe it has contributed to your growing readership?
The whole idea at first was just to get my writing somewhere that people could see it. That was the easy part, I guess--blogging software was easy to come by, and server space is pretty cheap these days. What my webmaster Alex and I found, though, was that people use the web their own ways. For every person who read "Monster Island" on a CRT screen on their lunch break there was somebody who wanted to read it on their cellphone, or their iPod, or their Apple Newton. I'd like to think that somebody somewhere read it one word at a time on one of those internet-capable wristwatches. The real innovation wasn't in how I wrote the book but in how people read it and we tried to support that in every way possible. It was a lot of work but we loved it, especially when somebody in Japan would send me an email saying he was reading my book on the subway at that exact moment. How could I not love that? As for the growing readership, well, I expect most people are going to read it in the one format I never expected to be able to provide an actual paper and ink book. But I think the Newtonians will always be my favorite.
4.) What creeps you out?
All the usual stuff. The fact that I'll die some day. The scale of the universe and the tiny part of it we inhabit. The fact that our minds, our personalities, our relationships are all just the result of a very fallible array of electro-chemical reactions inside our soggy little brains. I'll tell you what really bugged me recently: there was a Japanese scientist who determined that by careful application of magnetic fields to the lobes of a subject's brain, he could make people walk left, or right, or in circles. And they couldn't resist. There was no fight for control, no grimacing struggle for supremacy--the subject just turned left and started walking. The implications chilled me to the bone.
5.) As you know, "Ology" refers to "the study of". What is your Ology?
Storytelling. Whether I'm trying to scare people with monsters or awe them with fantasy it all boils down to how to tell a good story--who to describe a setting, how to make my characters sound like real people when they talk, and so on. Horror writing interests me especially because I think it's the oldest and most primitive kind of storytelling. A hundred thousand years ago our ancestors were sitting together around a campfire one night with real monsters lurking in the shadows and the started telling tales, trying to scare each other with ghost stories, because when you scare somebody else you shake off some of your own fear. The difference between that and what I do is just a question of degree. There are a couple rules to storytelling you can learn in an afternoon, but the study of the nuances and the finer points takes more than one lifetime. I'm just getting started, myself.
To learn more about Dave Wellington please visit www.monsternovel.com.
Eleventy Billion Miles Away is...
I'm Your Voodoo
I’m your voodoo, I’m your boogie
I’m the fire on your tongue
I’m your holyman
I’m your holyman
I’m your starlight flavored potion
Bringing word from the satellites
at the bottom of the ocean
I’m your magic man
And I have come to kill all your fear
The world is changing, rearranging
all your atmospheres
You come alive with wild eyes
if it’s the right words you hear
I love your madness and your sadness,
I will keep it here In my heart,
in my bones, in my blood, yeah yeah
I’m the spirit that compells you
I can reach out and touch you
I’m your idle hand
I’m your idle hand
And I’m running on the rooftops
And I’m drinking down the raindrops
And it feels so fucking good to be alive right now
And I have come to burn all your money
I’m your acrobatic heartbeat
As you’re doing naked cartwheels in space
Past a planet spinning out of control
Oh someone pull me back in I’m just a little ship
And it feels so fucking good to be alive right now
And I don’t know what will happen
The world is changing, rearranging all your atmospheres
It’s evolution, revolution, our time is near
I love your madness and your sadness,
I will keep it here In my heart, in my bones, in my blood
The world is changing, rearranging all your atmospheres
You come alive with wild eyes if it’s the right words you hear
I love your madness and your sadness, I will keep it here
In my heart, in my bones, in my blood, yeah yeah
To learn more about Eleventy Billion Miles Away please visit www.omnibucket.com/eleventybillion.
Movie Reviews... of the Future !
I VAGUELY RECALL HEARING ABOUT SOMETHING YOU MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE DONE LAST SUMMER -Jennifer Love Hewitt’s breasts make their stunning return to the big screen. In this “story” Love’s right breast is stalked by her left breast in a brutal campaign of terror.
Defining moment: “There can be only one.”
MAD MAX 3: THE PASSION OF THE MAX In the opening shot of this sequel we see Mel Gibson as Max telling a post-apocalyptic motorcycle gang about the “good news” of Jesus. Max is then beaten for the remainder of the movie. I give it four stars!!!
Defining moment: “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone…Ouch, stones!”
The Carlos Ray Living Memorial to the Unknown Contributor A few little-known facts about... Mr. Chuck Norris
In Chuck's formative years, he roundhouse kicked someone so hard that his foot broke the speed of light, went back in time, and killed Amelia Earhart while she was flying over the Pacific Ocean.
Chuck Norris, when clean-shaven, radiates the heat of three suns.
Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
The quickest way to a man's heart is with Chuck Norris's fist.
Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.
The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.
If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can't see
Chuck Norris, you are probably seconds away from death.
Chuck Norris does not hunt because the word hunting infers the probability of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing.
Chuck Norris sold his soul to the devil for his rugged good looks and unparalleled martial arts ability. Shortly after the transaction was finalized, Chuck roundhouse kicked the devil in the face and took his soul back. The devil, who appreciated the irony, couldn't stay mad and admitted he should have seen it coming. They now play poker every second Wednesday of the month.
Chuck Norris counted to infinity - twice.
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No, it's not pneumonia...it's something better.
Why are there so many damn songs about rainbows?
We don't know, but what we do know is that you take care of the people that take care of you, like these two.
