Last week, curt from The Groovy Age of Horror made a great suggestion that I read George Macdonald’s Victorian-era horror novel Lilith since she is a central character in my horror manuscript. My novel uses several characters from Victorian literature and it would be easy enough to make a few changes as a nod to George Macdonald’s classic. Today’s thought for today from a spiritual site I subscribe to was this:

Annihilation itself is no death to evil. Only good where evil was, is
evil dead. An evil thing must live with its evil until it chooses to be
good. That alone is the slaying of evil.

Why did God allow evil to
enter the world?

Source: George Macdonald, “Lilith”

I do not want to give any spoilers to my manuscript, but I got a chill down my spine reading that quote.

Since the teaching of the theory of evolution is now being subjected to the “he said/she said” treatment at public schools with the teaching of biblical creationism, does this mean the teaching of gravity will receive similar treatment by the Christian right? Because there are many theories regarding gravity, does this mean we should throw scientific knowledge out the window? Perhaps we shouldn’t even teach students about gravity since the Bible doesn’t mention it. However, for those of us who believe in the separation of church and state, we should consider whether the right-wing faux Christians have reached their zenith and what currently is up will soon come crashing down.

Heh. Indeed:

But really, zombies are not “supposed to be metaphors.” They’re supposed to be friggin’ zombies. They follow the Zombie Rules: they rise from death to eat the flesh of the living, they shuffle in slow pursuit (or should, anyway), and most important, they multiply exponentially. They bring civilization down, taking all but the most resourceful, lucky and well-armed among us, whom they save for last. They make us the hunted; all of us.

Quite the rant on people who don’t ‘get’ fantastic writing. Read the comments for gems like this:

When I’m in a particularly bitchy mood, I tend to suspect that the sort of reader/reviewer who has trouble understanding that zombies in sf and fantasy are meant to be actual, real, materially present zombies in addition to whatever freight of meaning and metaphor they may be dragging in their shuffling wake is the sort of reader who is unwilling to step backwards toward childhood long enough to play a wholehearted game of Let’s Pretend.

When I’m feeling even bitchier than that, I tend to suspect that the people who worry most about being forced to relinquish their Grownup Society Membership Cards are the very ones who are the least secure in their possession of same.

I love this blog – Patrick & Teresa Nielsen Hayden write and edit for Tor Books, and produce a very erudite blog that frequently manages to produce some of the best comment threads out there, attracting as it does people from all aspects of fandom & writing.

Not that I’ve been on a lost worlds kick or anything, but this morning I stumbled across this:

Tsunami clue to ‘Atlantis’ found
A submerged island that could be the source of the Atlantis myth was hit by a large earthquake and tsunami 12,000 years ago, a geologist has discovered.

Spartel Island now lies 60m under the sea in the Straits of Gibraltar, but some think it once lay above water.

Lest we get too excited, I feel I would be remiss should I not point out additional Atlantis articles on the Beeb here, here, here, here, here, and here. The BBC also has a great page for their series Ancient Apocalypse which examined historical collapses here.

[Right after I published this, I found the homepage for the BBC science program Horizon which has broadcast a number of shows on lost civilizations, including this one on a land-locked Greek city which may also have been the inspiration for Atlantis. The Horizon archives have a number of stories that could provide plenty of grist for the horror writer's mill: plagues, lost civilizations, alternate dimensions... good stuff.]

Dead Pets Game.

Dark and twisted…and addicting.

Hat tip to cookie jill, a woman after my own heart (to keep in a jar no doubt).