Abe Lincoln - Vampire Hunter?

paperbacklove

I eat dinosaurs! >)
Registered
Joined
Feb 28, 2009
Messages
33
Reaction score
5
Location
at an antique roll-top near the window
Paul Revere - Lord of the Jungle
Mozart - Ninja
Marie Antoinette - Assasin
Moses - Private Detective
Leonardo Da Vinci - Post-Apocalyptic Hero
Ernest Hemmingway - Masked Avenger
Ben Franklin - Dark Lord
Cassandra - Steampunk Heroine

Hmmmmmm????

Oh, man. I have a steampunk short story in planning, see, and Cassandra's one of my MCs. XD

My generator results included "William Penn - Masked Avenger" and "Lewis Carroll - Dragon-slayer," the latter of which actually makes a strange kind of sense.

(On a completely unrelated note: first post, woo!! :D)
 

Suse

wants mutant powers
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 18, 2009
Messages
591
Reaction score
233
Hammurabi - fighter pilot :D

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has been so popular because it appealed "to Austen fans as well as people who can't stand her writing and would enjoy seeing Mr Darcy have his brain eaten"

That would stop me yawning.
 

RichardB

THIS! IS!! VENNNNNICE!!!!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 10, 2009
Messages
474
Reaction score
121
Location
Albany, NY
Website
www.saintmarksbody.com
I had been considering a sort of alternate historical concept where a Valkyrie chooses a few historical people just BEFORE they are slain. To wit:

RICHARD III: Verily, my enemies are nearly upon me! Oh, I would give my kingdom at this moment if I only had-- what's this? Thank you, Madam, for this fine horse! What, you say you wish me to mount and follow you away from this accursed battlefield? Gladly!
#​
CONFEDERATE SENTRY #1: Halt! *BANG* Who goes there!
CONFEDERATE SENTRY #2: Crissakes, Bobby, yer supposed to wait for 'em to answer afore you shoot 'em!
GENERAL STONEWALL JACKSON: Cease fire you dunder-heads! You've shot a woman!
Ma'am, you've been shot! I must get you to-- oh, I see you are unharmed. Well, then may I offer you the hospitality of-- you wish me to follow you? I must say I do feel compelled. Perhaps it is the allure of your lustrous metal corset.
#​
JAPANESE PILOT: <<It's a trap! We're hit, Admiral! I'll try to crash into one of those P-38s. BANZAAAAAIIIII!!!!!!1!!>>
ADMIRAL ISOROKU YAMAMOTO: <<Excuse me, blond woman. What are you doing on the wing of my aircraft?>>

I haven't decided yet whether they're going to slay zombies, vampires, travel back in time to kill Genghis Khan or just play poker.
 

Puma

Retired and loving it!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 21, 2006
Messages
7,340
Reaction score
1,535
Location
Central Ohio
Well, my feeling is we can expect to see two mediocre at best novels come from this. It seems to me that all too often, writers who get multi-book contracts can't keep up the level of intensity they had in their first book which landed them the contract. And, I look at this as - there are two more chances for an unknown with a damn good book down the tubes, although with the money being spent, it's probably a lot more than two. And that's a shame. Puma
 
Joined
Aug 7, 2005
Messages
47,985
Reaction score
13,245
Well, my feeling is we can expect to see two mediocre at best novels come from this. It seems to me that all too often, writers who get multi-book contracts can't keep up the level of intensity they had in their first book which landed them the contract. And, I look at this as - there are two more chances for an unknown with a damn good book down the tubes, although with the money being spent, it's probably a lot more than two. And that's a shame. Puma

I really don't understand this reasoning at all. Not every author (which isn't what you said, I acknowledge) suffers from the second-book-slump. Few do, or their publishers wouldn't accept it.

As for the 'two more chances for an unknown' thing, this is just not, not, not true. Someone else getting a book deal takes nothing away from you.

It is not a zero-sum game and I wish people would just stop thinking that way. It reads like sour grapes, not genuine concern.
 

RichardB

THIS! IS!! VENNNNNICE!!!!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 10, 2009
Messages
474
Reaction score
121
Location
Albany, NY
Website
www.saintmarksbody.com
I think it's true that a debut novel has to be incredible to get published. A second novel just has to be good. A 30th novel will get published even if it stinks.

Imagine how good sequels would be if published authors had to go through QLH all over again!
 

RichardB

THIS! IS!! VENNNNNICE!!!!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 10, 2009
Messages
474
Reaction score
121
Location
Albany, NY
Website
www.saintmarksbody.com
It is not a zero-sum game and I wish people would just stop thinking that way. It reads like sour grapes, not genuine concern.

I must disagree: aren't there a finite number of book slots planned for each each year? I can't imagine a publishing house deciding to change their business plan for "just one more book", especially in this climate. That makes it a zero-sum game by definition.
 
Joined
Aug 7, 2005
Messages
47,985
Reaction score
13,245
Even if it is a zero-sum game, the solution isn't to bitch about others' success but to write a better book yourself.
 

Adam

Not dead.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 24, 2008
Messages
7,640
Reaction score
2,900
I can't imagine a publishing house deciding to change their business plan for "just one more book", especially in this climate.

Surely that would depend on the book? ;)
 

Puma

Retired and loving it!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 21, 2006
Messages
7,340
Reaction score
1,535
Location
Central Ohio
I'm not bitching about the author's success, I'm making an observation based on my observations. I feel sorry for successful authors like Michael Crichton who wrote some excellent stories and then his later stories suffered from being written too quickly and a lack of decent editing. Which means that in the final analysis he'll be considered an acceptable author, but if he'd stopped about the time he wrote Lost World his overall rating would be much higher. But now he has poor books like Next and State of Fear balancing out Jurassic Park, Congo, and Sphere. But I guess it's all a matter of what was most important at that time. Puma
 

Stlight

ideas are floating where they will
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
2,604
Reaction score
1,069
Location
where you can put sugar sprinkles on lots of thing
I think it's interesting that the going-to-be-vampire-hunter-author felt he had to say the book would be fiction.

Puma, I thought Sphere was a disappointment and somewhat insulting to humankind. It did say that humans weren't really capable of empathy, didn't it? Or did it just read that way to me?
 

pdr

Banned
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
4,259
Reaction score
832
Location
Home - but for how long?
The indecent...

amount of the advance for such a book has me gasping. I'm with Puma. Some good books aren't going to make publication for something I personally can't even call readable fiction.
 

Puma

Retired and loving it!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 21, 2006
Messages
7,340
Reaction score
1,535
Location
Central Ohio
Hi Stlight - It's been a long time since I read Sphere so I can't honestly answer your question - which I think means I probably didn't see it that way. Puma
 

OpheliaRevived

Real Men Have Gills
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 11, 2008
Messages
995
Reaction score
92
Location
The Cold Deep
I went to said Sanctum and apparently, Napoleon was really.... *gasp* a space marine. I knew it. No one is that short on purpose.
 

Doogs

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 2, 2007
Messages
1,047
Reaction score
213
Location
Austin, TX
Website
doogs.wordpress.com
A few thoughts...

1 - Casting Lincoln as a vampire hunter strikes me as harmless fun. Is it meant as serious literature? No. But who cares? As long as the work knows what it is, I enjoy the preposterous from time to time.

2 - I don't see how this can be seen as somehow an affront to Lincoln's legacy. It's no more an affront than the aforementioned Mountain Dew ad, or the countless presidential parodies Saturday Night Live has done over the years. Now, if this guy REALLY wanted to rile some feathers, he'd do a graphic novel with Mohammed as a vampire hunter (or maybe a werewolf).

3 - The advance is disgusting, yes.

4 - From a purely intellectual standpoint, I'm curious if those who are disgusted by this find it more or less reprehensible than Pride & Prejudice & Zombies...which if I recall was railed against for mutilating an existing work of literature. Presumably the Lincoln book will be an original creation.

5 - Also...is it better to distort history in such a way that the uninformed might think it true (i.e. Braveheart)...or to go completely off the rails like this?
 

Suse

wants mutant powers
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 18, 2009
Messages
591
Reaction score
233
It's always open season for comedians to send up whoever they like, so why shouldn't novelists? Maybe there should be a few boundaries, and I'm thinking of things very close to the bone. Political figures and works of literature? No way. (Homer and Sophocles excepted ;)). I admire Abe Lincoln's legacy, but this book is just a bit of fun. The writer's work might be amusing. It might be rubbish. I'm all for his right to write it.
 

RichardB

THIS! IS!! VENNNNNICE!!!!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 10, 2009
Messages
474
Reaction score
121
Location
Albany, NY
Website
www.saintmarksbody.com
We talk about a "slot" for a better book being lost... but in this climate I think I will rush my alternate history horror book into production. I've got Napoleon. I've got mummies. I've got an army of living dead in bearskin hats singing La Marseillaise while they fire musket volleys at terrified Russians.

Perhaps all I need to make this concept a winner is Thomas Jefferson, Undead Slayer and his faithful sidekick / tomb raider Sally Hemings.
 

Doogs

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 2, 2007
Messages
1,047
Reaction score
213
Location
Austin, TX
Website
doogs.wordpress.com
We talk about a "slot" for a better book being lost... but in this climate I think I will rush my alternate history horror book into production. I've got Napoleon. I've got mummies. I've got an army of living dead in bearskin hats singing La Marseillaise while they fire musket volleys at terrified Russians.

Hmm...

Varus' three legions weren't ambushed and slaughtered in Teutoberg Forest. Okay, they were, but they come back as zombie legions.

There's totally a story there.
 

Puma

Retired and loving it!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 21, 2006
Messages
7,340
Reaction score
1,535
Location
Central Ohio
In answer to your questions, Doogs, I think I find the Austen take-off more reprehensible. There's something in me that thinks any creative work by an individual should be sacrosanct. (Although I do like some of the classical compositions set to beats).

My daughter was an art major in college. In a jewelry class, the prof suggested she bend and turn a piece a different way than she had - and did what he was suggesting while he was talking to her. She didn't like it and couldn't get it back the way she had it. That piece of jewelry was forever ruined in her eyes. It's the same thing. An individual's creation should be solely that individual's.

And - your last question - my preference would be for completely off the rails rather than alter history in such a way the uninformed wouldn't know it was wrong. Puma
 

RichardB

THIS! IS!! VENNNNNICE!!!!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 10, 2009
Messages
474
Reaction score
121
Location
Albany, NY
Website
www.saintmarksbody.com
Hmm...

Varus' three legions weren't ambushed and slaughtered in Teutoberg Forest. Okay, they were, but they come back as zombie legions.

There's totally a story there.

Oh yeah...


ROME
CAESAR: "VARUS! GIVE ME BACK MY LEGIONS!!"

HADES
VARUS: Well? How about it?
PLUTO: Oh, what the Hades. Why not?
GERMANIA
UNDEAD CENTURION: Cerebrae..... cerebrae.....
 

RichardB

THIS! IS!! VENNNNNICE!!!!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 10, 2009
Messages
474
Reaction score
121
Location
Albany, NY
Website
www.saintmarksbody.com
My daughter was an art major in college. In a jewelry class, the prof suggested she bend and turn a piece a different way than she had - and did what he was suggesting while he was talking to her. She didn't like it and couldn't get it back the way she had it. That

That's awful! But at least with literature, the original can never be destroyed as long as one copy remains-- or if one person remains who can remember it like in Fahrenheit 451.
 

eLfwriter

Indiscriminate Tree-Hugger
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 31, 2008
Messages
252
Reaction score
45
Location
A little left of right.
Sort of only a little off topic ...

I figure Abe Lincoln would make a great vampire hunter. I mean, it's no worse an idea than the show I saw on Scream the other night that casted George Washington as a cannibal that ate a family of immigrants.


I wonder what Franklin and Roosevelt will end up as ...? Hm.
 

lkp

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 3, 2007
Messages
1,263
Reaction score
256
A few thoughts...

5 - Also...is it better to distort history in such a way that the uninformed might think it true (i.e. Braveheart)...or to go completely off the rails like this?

All great questions but this is the one I want to address because Braveheart was the first thing I thought of when heard of this book.

I loathed everything about Braveheart, except one thing: the fact that tons of college students wandered into medieval history classrooms because they had been excited about the movie and wanted to learn more. I suspect the same is true of all these popular alt histories/parodies. So I'm all for them.

And to answer the question: I'd much rather a work go obviously off the rails than distort history and pretend it is true. Much.
 

AZ_Dawn

AW Addict
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 28, 2008
Messages
1,298
Reaction score
229
Location
Southern Arizona
I must admit, if this were a comedy short a la the Gandhi 2 commercial in UHF, I'd watch it.

eLfwriter said:
I wonder what Franklin and Roosevelt will end up as ...? Hm.
*fiddles with History Scrambler*
Ben Franklin - Stereotypical Romance Novel Hero
Teddy Roosevelt - Computer Nerd
Franklin Roosevelt - Robot Pilot
Eleanor Roosevelt - Space Marine

There you have it. :D