David Barr Kirtley

Science fiction author and podcaster

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5-Point Zombie Response Plan: My Perspective

August 30, 2008 by David Barr Kirtley Leave a Comment

I was just looking over an old interview with me from 2005 that originally appeared in Tobias S. Buckell‘s newsletter, and I noticed that at the end there’s this question about zombies. Given the imminent publication of my story “The Skull-Faced Boy” in the anthology The Living Dead, I thought I’d reproduce this segment of the interview here:

TB: Last, but not least, if zombies were spreading throughout the land by infectious bite what would be your 5 point response?

DK: 1. Make careful field observations. What exactly are we dealing with here? Are these the walking dead or merely the infected living? Are these old-school shambling zombies, or newer-model dashing zombies? Most importantly, if you chop off their arm with a chainsaw, will the arm just lie there, or will it crawl along and try to strangle you? These small details matter.

2. Hide in the attic. Not, I repeat not, in the basement.

3. If the group of survivors contains some loudmouthed jerk, just shoot him now. If you don’t, you’ll only be sorry later, and he’s going to die anyway.

4. Wrap your entire body in bite-proof bailing wire. Why does no one ever think of this?

5. We’re going to the Winchester.

Filed Under: the skull-faced boy, Uncategorized

Miscellaneous Publishing News

July 28, 2008 by David Barr Kirtley Leave a Comment

In the dealers room at Confluence I found a copy of Fantasy: The Best of the Year 2008, which includes my story “Save Me Plz” (alongside stories by authors such as Garth Nix, Karen Joy Fowler, Kelly Link, Andy Duncan, Ian R. MacLeod, Theodora Goss, Daniel Abraham, and Rachel Swirsky). So … the book is out, it’s real. My first year’s best appearance. Very exciting.

Edmund Schubert has updated the blog for Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show with my essay about how I conceived and wrote my short story “Red Road.”

And here’s a really nice blog post by Lisa Marie Andrews about my story “The Skull-Faced Boy”:

We’ve all heard the same old zombie spiel over and over again. Zombies rise. They are hungry. Living people run and hide before rising up and stomping zombie butt. (Well, some of the time.) What happens, though, when there is a zombie overlord? What happens when some of the zombies are the living dead with a mind still intact? Is there actually an original zombie story left out there? Well, I’ll answer that last question … YES! And this is it!

One of the first things to pop into my mind after hearing this is that this story would make a perfect episode of The Twilight Zone. A very good episode of The Twilight Zone. This is also probably one of the only zombie … well, anything! … that does not have massive amounts of gore flying around and detailed descriptions of mauling. Is there zombie grossness? Of course. But this guy has finesse!

I’ll be looking up more of this author and I highly recommend heading over to Pseudopod and downloading the audible version, as the reading was also excellent.

Filed Under: the skull-faced boy, Uncategorized

Final Cover Design for Anthology The Living Dead

July 8, 2008 by David Barr Kirtley Leave a Comment

Here’s the final cover design for John Joseph Adams’ anthology The Living Dead, which will include my story “The Skull-Faced Boy” (available as a podcast from Pseudopod).

The cover of the anthology The Living Dead edited by John Joseph Adams.

Filed Under: the skull-faced boy, Uncategorized

John Joseph Adams’ Introduction to Anthology The Living Dead Now Online

July 6, 2008 by David Barr Kirtley Leave a Comment

The cover of the anthology The Living Dead edited by John Joseph Adams.   I just noticed that the introduction to John Joseph Adams’ upcoming zombie fiction anthology The Living Dead is now online. Here’s my characteristically pithy contribution:

David Barr Kirtley, author of “The Skull-Faced Boy,” says that there are two reasons we find zombies appealing. “One, I think there’s an enormous segment of our brain that’s evolved for running away from packs of predators, and zombie stories give us a rare opportunity to take this primal part of our psyches out for a spin,” he says. “And, two, zombies are a great metaphor. The great mass of humanity often comes across to us as unreasoningly hostile and driven to consumption, and the image of the zombie captures this perfectly.”

Read the complete introduction.

Filed Under: the skull-faced boy, Uncategorized

The Living Dead Anthology at Amazon.com

June 23, 2008 by David Barr Kirtley Leave a Comment

I notice there’s now a page up at Amazon.com for the anthology The Living Dead (which will contain my short story “The Skull-Faced Boy”). The page also includes this preliminary cover art (at least, I hope it’s preliminary, since John Joseph Adams’ name is spelled wrong):

Cover of the anthology The Living Dead edited by John Joseph Adams.

Filed Under: the skull-faced boy, Uncategorized

Reader Reactions to My Short Story “The Skull-Faced Boy”

June 16, 2008 by David Barr Kirtley 1 Comment

Pseudopod listeners are beginning to post responses to my story “The Skull-Faced Boy.” See here and here.

Overall I think the feedback is pretty positive. Deflective writes: “This story is everything Pseudopod! A classic scenario with a twist. An action-driven plot with a hint of meaning. Just right for audio. Well-performed audio at that.” Sylvan calls the piece “a fascinating story that takes the zombie genre to new places,” and M. says it’s “some of the best listening I’ve done in a while.”

Chivalrybean writes: “The whole smart zombie aspect was brilliant. Not done before as far as the extent that my zombie experiences reach. Commanzomdos [commando zombies]. How cool is that?”

Many listeners seem to think that the story could or should be longer, either because they think some aspect of it is underdeveloped (boo) or because they think the setup is just really neat (yay). For example, Clinton Trucks notes, “This is the first Pseudopod offering that I thought could be expanded to novel length without suffering a dilution of its central idea.”

One thing I’ve noticed in writing workshops is that people will often say of a short story “This should be a novel” or “I wanted to see more of x,” and I almost always disagree. (Not just about my own stories, but with stories in general.) Part of it I’m sure is just taste. I know that I tend more than most people to prefer stories that are short and to the point and that always feel like they’re going somewhere. I also think it’s natural if you basically enjoy a story to feel that you want more of it … but that doesn’t necessarily mean that if you actually got more of it you’d be happier. I think there’s a lot to be said for leaving the reader wanting more. It certainly seems to me that it’s preferable to err in that direction than to err on the side of boring the reader. (There are also practical limits to how long you can make a piece that you’re hoping to sell to a magazine.) Still, given the number of listeners so far who seem to want more, more, more, it’s certainly something I’ll be thinking about vis-a-vis future stories.

Finally, I also came across a nice mention of “The Skull-Faced Boy” on this amusing blog post about zombies:

Filed Under: letters/comments/reviews, my fiction, the skull-faced boy

My Short Story “The Skull-Faced Boy” Now Available on the Pseudopod Podcast

June 13, 2008 by David Barr Kirtley Leave a Comment

My short story “The Skull-Faced Boy” is now available as a free podcast from Pseudopod. As with the last story I had up there, “The Disciple,” they did a really nice job on the production, with Ralph Walters of the Frequency of Fear podcast performing the story. And remember to keep an eye out for “The Skull-Faced Boy” later this year in the Night Shade Books anthology The Living Dead (which will also feature stories by Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, George R. R. Martin, and many other well-known writers).
 



Filed Under: my fiction, the skull-faced boy

My Short Story “The Skull-Faced Boy” to Appear on the Pseudopod Horror Fiction Podcast

April 14, 2008 by David Barr Kirtley Leave a Comment

I just got word that my short story “The Skull-Faced Boy,” which will be appearing later this year in the anthology The Living Dead (edited by John Joseph Adams), will also be appearing on the Pseudopod horror fiction podcast. Pseudopod did a really nice job with the last story of mine that they ran, “The Disciple,” so go check that out if you’re so inclined.

I was just glancing at the Escape Pod message board, and I noticed that the topic for my story “Blood of Virgins” has received the most page views of any story over there. I figured, well, it’s one of the oldest stories, so it’s had the most time to accrue views, and it was a somewhat controversial story, so that probably inflated the count, and it also probably gets a lot of visits from the same pervs who constantly barrage my website with google searches on variations of “blood sex video virgins first time.” So I didn’t think much of it. But then I noticed that my story “Save Me Plz” is right up there too, as the fourth most-viewed. “Save Me Plz” is relatively recent, was not particularly controversial, and is much less likely to draw in the sex-fiend traffic. So then I popped over to the Pseudopod message board and noticed that my story “The Disciple” has the most page views of any story over there. Okay, so that definitely seems to be a pattern. I hope it means that my stories are attracting a lot of interest from readers, but I’m really not sure how meaningful the “page views” thing is or how to interpret it. I do note that the second and third most-viewed topics on the Escape Pod board are for “The 43 Antarean Dynasties” by Mike Resnick and “Impossible Dreams” by Tim Pratt, both Hugo Award-winning stories, so that does seem to indicate that there’s at least some correlation between page views and how well a story is being received.

Filed Under: the skull-faced boy, Uncategorized

Table of Contents for the Anthology The Living Dead

April 7, 2008 by David Barr Kirtley Leave a Comment

I updated the page for my story “The Skull-Faced Boy” with the newly-announced table of contents for the anthology The Living Dead, which will feature stories by Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, George R. R. Martin, and many, many other well-known writers.

Filed Under: the skull-faced boy, Uncategorized

My Short Story “The Skull-Faced Boy” to Appear in the Anthology The Living Dead

February 24, 2008 by David Barr Kirtley Leave a Comment

  Back in 2002, my offbeat zombie horror story “The Skull-Faced Boy” was published on Gothic.net. The story disappeared off their site a long time ago, but now the story is coming back. You might even say back from the dead. “The Skull-Faced Boy” is set to be reprinted in a Night Shade Books anthology titled The Living Dead, edited by John Joseph Adams, whose previous Night Shade project, Wastelands, is getting some great buzz. The Living Dead will feature a real powerhouse lineup, including Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, George R. R. Martin, Laurell K. Hamilton, Clive Barker, Harlan Ellison & Robert Silverberg, Poppy Z. Brite, Kelly Link, and Joe Hill.

Filed Under: the skull-faced boy, Uncategorized

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Geek's Guide to the Galaxy is a podcast hosted by author David Barr Kirtley and produced by Lightspeed Magazine editor John Joseph Adams. The show features conversations about fantasy & science … Read more

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My grandfather Roger Barr passed away early this morning at the age of 98. He was my mom’s father, and was my last surviving grandparent. He was being cared for by my uncle Steve (his son) and aunt Denice — both medical professionals — and was still sharp and good-humored in his final days. Yesterday […]

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David Barr Kirtley

David Barr Kirtley is an author and the host of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast on Wired.com, for which he’s interviewed well over a hundred guests, including George R. R. Martin, Richard Dawkins, Paul Krugman, Simon Pegg, Margaret Atwood, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Ursula K. Le Guin.
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