2012-01-27 11:32:01 från
”Swedish Zombie: What was it that made you start writing about the apocalypse and zombies? What were your first influences? Mark Rogers: Actually, the primary inspiration for my book The Dead was Brueghel’s painting, The Triumph of Death…if any of you folks out there have never seen it; you should check it out online. Absolutely batshit terrifying. Swedish Zombie: How do you look upon the zombies? What do they mean to you? Are they metaphors, or simply cool monsters? Mark Rogers: Well, in my novel, they’re damned people brought back to the life by the Resurrection of the Dead, so if …”
Taggar: handla böcker och köp böcker. Läs bokrecensioner om kultur och litteratur. Swedish Zombie: What was it that made you start writing about the apocalypse and zombies? What were your first influences? Mark Rogers: Actually, the primary inspiration for my book The Dead was Brueghel’s painting, The Triumph of Death…if any of you folks out there have never seen it; you should check it out online. Absolutely batshit terrifying. Swedish Zombie: How do you look upon the zombies? What do they mean to you? Are they metaphors, or simply cool monsters? Mark Rogers: Well, in my novel, they’re damned people brought back to the life by the Resurrection of the Dead, so if they’re metaphorical, they’re metaphorical of human evil in general Swedish Zombie: Zombie enthusiasts are often conservative. How much do you think that one should experiment with the concept? Mark Rogers: I presume you’re talking about the portrayal of zombies, not political conservatism. There are people out there who want Romero zombies and nothing but…of course; Romero’s basic concept was considerably at variance from zombie stuff up till that point. Your classical zombie is a barely-sentient agricultural slave. There’s nothing about cannibalism or headshots, or the end of the world. So in that respect, Romero’s work was itself a departure. But I always had problems with aspects of Romero’s zombies…for one thing, they wouldn’t be very formidable. It’s impossible to imagine them taking over the world, or doing much more than being wiped out in very short order. The zombies in my book are fast and clever and they simply can’t be killed. They can be temporarily blinded or crippled, but they just regenerate, and they’re not cannibals…they’re killing people to swell their own ranks. I short, I guess you could say my work was a departure too…my zombies are as different from Romero’s as Romero’s are from classical zombies. Swedish Zombie: It is often hard to pick favorites, perhaps it is simply foolish to try. But are there two or threembooks in modern zombie fiction that you think has meant something extra for the genre? Mark Rogers: Actually, I haven’t read anybody else’s zombie stuff. Heroic Fantasy is my primary genre. I wanted to get into horror thirty years ago…The Dead was written in 1980 or ’81, and wasn’t published for another eight years…nobody bought it, so I pretty much gave up on horror and pursued other things…I read mostly non-fiction, which serves as raw material for my fantasies. Swedish Zombie: What do you consider the genre’s future? Zombies seem to be viable. Can this peek last and if so what is then required by the authors? Mark Rogers: I have no idea what’s going to happen with the zombie craze…probably it’ll burn out, although it’s riding high at the moment…if the World War Z movie is a big hit, that’ll probably fuel things for a while. As for myself, I wouldn’t mind writing a sequel to The Dead, and I’ve got some pretty clear ideas on how to go about it, but no one seems particularly interested. Swedish Zombie : A good book is always right. Some writers want to renew, others strive to convey an already well-known story with his oh hers unique twist. How do you look upon your own writings? Mark Rogers: Actually, I’m a believer in the muse theory of inspiration. I think that stories are kinda hanging out there like mathematical theorems, and you receive them rather than create them…I write what comes in over my mental transom. If my stuff seems original, that’s because I got the transmission instead of someone else. Swedish Zombie: Through the ages, writers and directors stuck to various explanations for the end of the world: Infections from space, environmental degradation, military experiments, terrorism etc. Which scenario behind the zombie apocalypse do you think is most interesting / believable at the moment? Mark Rogers: In The Dead , the explanation is theological…we’re dealing with the Last Judgement and the Resurrection. I might point out that the Resurrection is really the archetype that underlies all these other zombie apocalypses. The whole concept of an apocalypse is of course, religious. A number of zombie stories have kinda flirted with the idea, although they usually didn’t do anything much with it. Regarding scientific-materialist explanations for zombies, well…why bother? They’re nonsense no matter what, even if there’s some scientific pretense. Short of a miracle, people don’t come back from the dead. Period. I was once on a panel about coming up with actual scientific rationalizations for zombies…one of the guys was actually arguing that you could make a case, at which point we got into the whole question of what death truly and essentially consists in. I argued that it consists in the breakdown of the conditions that make life possible. If you don’t have that breakdown, people aren’t dead. If you do, they don’t function. Simple as that. Swedish Zombie: What will you write in the future? What stories remain in you, do you think? Is there anything in particular you feel like writing? Mark Rogers: As I said, I would like to do a sequel to The Dead , but I don’t think it’s going to happen. I’m perfectly happy writing my own particular brand of heroic fantasy, namely, the Zorachus books. Just finished another entry in the series, called Flaming Sword, although right at the moment, I’m working on a crime-novel/contemporary Italian Western thing called Cainville. Actually, if you’re interested in taking a quick peek at that, there’s an excerpt on my blog, Choppertime … I post all sorts of stuff, movie lists, excerpts from other books, historical material. I think there are 68 posts on it at the moment, some of them way too long… Mark Rogers The Dead was published by Permuted Press in 2009. Rogers has also written several other books in other genres. For further information, do check out: Info on THE DEAD Mark Rogers BLOG Mark Rogers on GOODREADS Andra om Intervju , författare , Mark Rogers , The Dead , Permuted Press , apokalys , zombier
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