So this week I’m reading That Risen Snow, by Rob E. Boley, which answers a question no one ever thought to ask: What if, after being kissed by the Prince, Snow White awakened as a ravenous zombie?
Grouchy frowns at the always-visible church spire. Swobs. What dipshits want to spend eternity floating in the clouds? And if heaven’s in the sky, why antagonize it by poking it with churches? Fumping swobs.
So far this seems like a pretty standard zombie book, of the “fast zombie” variety. Infection spread by bites? Check. Dwindling party? Check. Survivors barricaded in isolated house? Check. Indeed, the most interesting aspect of the book so far, as the astute reader may have noticed up there in the Teaser, is how the names of the dwarves have been reworked, presumably to avoid irritating the House of Mouse, with some personality and/or occupational changes to go along with it. To wit:
- Bashful is now “Blushful”, and, yep, blushes a lot.
- Doc is now “Bones”, and appears to be a psychotherapist.
- Grumpy is now “Grouchy”, seems to be the main character, and, yeah, is still a grouch.
- Happy is now “Merry” and is some manner of Stepford Smiler.
- Sneezy is now “Coughy” and is a hypochondriacal germophobe.
- Sleepy is now “Snoozy” and, uh, self-medicates with, uh, “herbs”.
- Dopey is now “Dim”, is still bald and child-like, and doesn’t talk because of a previous unfortunate and probably intentionally-inflected tongue injury.
So, yeah, those are the seven dwarves. Or rather, the four dwarves, the doctor from Star Trek, a smurf, and one of the hobbits from The Lord of the Rings. At least that’s how I’m picturing them.
Meanwhile, speaking of coming back wrong, that happens more than once in Father’s Books:
And beside the couch, with deep wells of darkness for eyes and a chin glistening with drool, the thick opaque plastic wrap from the hospital morgue draped over his shoulder down to cover the lower half of his body, stood the shriveled, pasty form of the old man.
In a hoarse, bubbly voice, the he said, “Wake up, Richard.”
Yeah, Richard, wake up! But not like Snow White did.
I’m now back to applying the paper edits made over the last several weeks, after which I’ll print it out again to check for typos (really, that’s all I’m going to do this time), and then it will finally be time to start putting the book together. I swear.
Viscosity 