A Long Time Coming

You might recall...if you read all my blogs, that my New Years resolution for 2015 was to sell my home. Two weeks after writing that post I found out I was pregnant! I also found out that I am fully useless as a pregnant person. Everything else was on hold while I made a human in my body. My writing, most housework, I had to go down to part-time at work, and I couldn't help renovate our home for the market... So, no selling my home. Sadness. 

Then 2016 came along and I was determined to make good on my promise to myself. From February till November, Hubby and I worked our butts off on that house on the weekends, between caring for two little ones, using up our vacation time and dealing with money constraints. Fun times... 

But we finally, finally, finally, with sore bods and tired minds, were done by November 9th. We were DONE!!!! 

One week later it was listed on the market, November 17th, my birthday! 

One day later offers were coming in!

Two days after the house went on the market, we accepted an offer...Lets all hope everything goes very smoothly. I haven't been able to sleep more than a few hours a day since this all began, and sleep deprivation makes you go a little crazy... and chubby. I've gained so much weight, what with the near constant stress and no sleep... Oh Boy! 

RAGE + ROT = ZOMBIE

So I don't like writing "because magic." I hate that. For me, there has to be some scientific reason for everything, VERY LOOSELY scientific, but I can't just write something like, she used her magic to make him this or that, or magic brought the zombie back to life, or vampire magic...there has to be a "reason" for everything. Biological, chemical, neurological, something tied into something real.

I made vampirism a virus that acts like a parasite, which changes the host's body to better suit it's continued existence. Everything about the vampire is tied to this; from it's super human talents, to it's aversion to the sun. 

Gods are aliens who have advanced to the point of sentient energy. They've learned to manipulate matter on a molecular level and Angels are their slave robots, also made of pure energy. Demons and Devils are simply put, Gods and Angels of a different view point not popular among the species. 

Witches are half-breed offspring of demons, thus gaining some talent in manipulating molecular structures. But lacking the foresight into the consequences of their actions, often what they do comes back to bite them, so they believe in some rubbish about magic having a price and create "familiars" animals and people who they feed their blood in order to place the burden of their magical deeds on them instead, when really it's all about luck and expectation. Blah, blah...seems legit, right?

So Zombies...The myth: these are undead folk brought back from death by magic and they are super hungry for brains or flesh, almost exclusively human bits. Yummy. But it makes no sense whatsoever. 

Dead people can't function because the very nature of our biological existence would never allow it. Also, dead bodies don't function, therefor they do no feel hunger pains. 

The best idea I can come up with to explain their murderous, rotting, contagious ways:

Murder: Must be some kind of brain damage that creates blind aggression. They rip, bite, destroy anything and everything; animals, humans, moving parts and each other. The parts of the brain that must be damaged is the part of the brain that controls serotonin (empathy). Also the logic center of the brain and the memories. Without logic, empathy and our memories we don't add up to much. Add in overproduction of certain flight or fight hormones and boom, murderous rage!

Rotting People:  People do rot while living. It's called Gangrene and it's caused by lack of blood circulation. When a part of the human body loses blood flow for a long period of time it starts to die off, first by the destruction of the nerves and then the ability feel goes. When you can't feel a part of yourself, you can't be as careful as you need to be, and a cut can become infected, which will progress unimpeded by the health benefits of white blood cells. That part of you becomes gangrenous and rots away. The rot can spread fast. So, if a disease of some kind takes away the blood flow to the majority of your body, especially around the surface areas, you can hurt yourself while attacking someone in a murderous rage and then gangrene sets in and rot spreads from there. 

Contagious: Believe it or not, but this was the hardest part for me to rationalize. Violence, easy...brain damage that's caused by some kind of drug or disease or parasite. Rotting flesh, easy....gangrene. How all of that can be transferred from person to person...harden than you think. Most movies and books have the disease spread through bites and claw marks. Basically it's blood to blood contact, assuming the zombie has oozing bloody stubs of fingers and shredded lips. Or it could be in the blood and saliva. But, in The Walking Dead the zombie virus is in everyone and no matter how you die, you will come back a zombie. I'm more interested in zombism as a contagion to be avoided. 

Introducing a manufactured disease created for biological warfare; Nezhit’ Kontsa.

Nez for short, it causes the brain to shut down higher functions, increases aggression and kills red blood cells in the skin and extremities. The person is actually still alive, but they are crazy murderous and rotting with gangrene. Nez has two stages of contagion. When first released into a populated area it's a gas, but once it infects a host it becomes blood born, only transferable by blood to blood contact.

ANGRY MUTANTS

I'm still on my hunt to unlock my own personal take on Zombies, but this article on Violent Genes (and you may know where my mind is heading with this) is very interesting. 

How Brain's Chemistry Unleashes Violence

I haven't yet researched this sites claims but if it's right then what it's found is remarkable, which is why I'm remarking about it now. 

Apparently there is a mutated gene that only appears on the X chromosome, meaning it can only be passed down by women, Moms. This mutation can cause aggression in people by reducing or eliminating the amount of serotonin the brain makes, making people anywhere between mean spirited to downright sociopaths, from that insensitive ass-hat you avoid, to murdering rapists. Environment may be the determining factor there.... 

This mutation effects men worse since women have 2 X chromosome, meaning there is a greater chance that one will not have the mutation, and will be expressed while the mutated gene lays dormant. But, men only have 1 X and 1 Y, so if they get a mutated X gene, they are screwed....

Again, I haven't confirmed the validity of this article's claims. 

I'm just spreading possible ignorance. Fun. 

MADE IN THE STARS BY JIM PROCTOR

One of my favorite authors, Jim Proctor has a brilliant novella you really must check out if you love sweet romance (not whips and chains and all that) and Science Fictions. 

The book leaves you wanting more!

Mankind has spread to dozens of worlds throughout the universe, and traveling to another world is as simple as stepping through a wormhole or walking onto a Starliner to travel through hyperspace. Finding true love across the vastness of space has been relegated to mathematical algorithms and supercomputers.

Keylann Ascentia is looking for love. With the aid of her Mate Technician, Torina Gates, her search takes her to new worlds. As much as some things change, others remain the same. Sometimes, when you least expect it, love finds you.

So Clever, So good!

Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: Made in the Stars (Kindle Edition)

I didn't realize it was a short story when I started reading it, so as I was grooving alone on this lovely story about a woman named Keylann who is seeking love in a universe where humanity is all over the place...yeah, and you think it's hard finding a date on Earth...lol. Their version of E-Harmony are Mate Technicians, like personal match makers. The story is very enduring.

A great quick sci-fi romance read. 5 Stars!

I thought I should add more here. If you've ever read Jim Proctors other novels, you know he has a huge talent in showing us the advanced technology of these other futuristic civilizations. In Made in the Stars, I especially loved the wormholes the people use to get from planet to planet.

A-DICK-TION SUCKS

I always thought of myself as having a non-addictive personality. I tried smoking cigarettes to the point of addiction, but it never took. No matter how often I smoked, I never craved it, I never longed for it. Every time I lit up it took effort of willpower to do so. Alcohol was the same for me. I dated a evil prick of a man when I was in high school. He wanted me to be a drinker and I tried...especially while dealing with him, but I never could get to the point where I craved it. I loved sweet alcoholic drinks that were more desert than poison, but beer was always piss in a bottle to me. 

I thought of myself as someone who just didn't get addicted to things. Then I realized drugs and alcohol aren't the only addictions out there. 

Meat is addictive. To a meat eater, they LOVE it. The crave animal meat. They sometimes become aggressive toward those who denounce their precious meat. They look forward to their daily fixes. They usually have trouble shitting and get ass cancer but MEAT! MEAT! MEAT! 

Soda is addictive! Got to have diet coke. Diet in the morning, diet in the evening, diet at supper time. When you're addicted to diet coke, you MUST HAVE IT ALL THE TIME!!!! Someone addicted to diet coke might make outrageous claims like; it's good for me because it's mostly water and it's good for my teeth...yeah, right, NOPE. LOL ^_^ 

Bread is addictive. I was totally addicted to bread. I ate it every single day. I would say things like, if I had to eat only one food for the rest of my life, I'd happily choose bread. Now, I can go forever without. I don't even think about it. I'm not sure how I kicked the habit.  Probably when I had gestational diabetes with my first baby. 9 months without bread will do that to you. 

Sugar!!!! The most evil poison. Food manufactures put it in everything because they know it's addictive. More addictive than cocaine and cigarettes. I'm currently trying to kick this addictions, but it's an up hill battle. Sugar is everywhere and in everything. I can go without meat. I can go without bread. I can go without soda and alcohol, but I find it near impossible to go without sugar....I'm pretty sure I have full on diabetes now. Sucks. 

ZOMBIES, HOW, WHY, WHAT?

For some ungodly reason we are obsessed with zombies! I don't know why that is. Maybe our fascination isn't with the zombies themselves, but more with the idea of being alone, or fewer because of some crazy mass extinction, which is somehow less sad and more exciting by the fact that the dead are undead! That doesn't seem so crazy a fantasy in a world of over 7 billion....  Or maybe we are fascinated by their lack of humanity. It's a David and Goliath story, man vs beast, humanity vs the exact opposite. 

In my Zombie Book I've set the tone...The zombie apocalypses was brought about by government or corporate means, in which they used a new drug as a scapegoat for the unexplainable zombie violence on the streets...until it was too late and most of humanity has been killed...fun times. But what were these powers that be up to? How exactly did the ever sought after ZA happen?

Here's what's going on in my mind:

In my 4th Raina Kirkland novel DEADLY ENCOUNTERS, zompires come into play. In Raina's world zombies are totally a thing. But, they aren't particularly dangerous. They are animated corpses brought back to life my necromancers for whatever reason; as slaves, entertainment, religious business...whatever. Zompires (zombies vampires) is a whole other ball game. Vampires in Raina's world are humans who are playing host to a parasitic virus that alters their body. But during the first few days of infection the human is a ravenous crazy beast who would likely eat their own grandparents...blood rage. During this period, the body is changing. the bones are become denser, the fatty tissue and lower bowels are being recycled by the body, the skin is becoming tougher and there is increased blood flow to the brain. The body is become a vampire; faster, smarter, stronger...but with zompires only the brain is infected with the virus. It doesn't go beyond that point...so, while the brain is telling the body it's blood rage time. Let's kill some people because we got to change, the body is just rotting away, zompires.  

The above is an example of a brain parasite or rage virus, like in 28 Days Later. Almost all zombie fiction explains away zombies as having some kind of brain thing; a neurotoxin that wipes out our humanity and makes us killing machines, 

In real life their are some very real chemicals and brain diseases that can create zombies. There are all natural plants, fungus, parasites that find their way into brains and control the hosts and there are diseases, such as mad cow disease that make humans violent. There are also drugs, like bath salts, that have been linked to irrational violent behavior. 

If I wanted to go ultra sci-fi on you guys I could say it's all nanobots who have taken their job description (repair human tissue) too far and with too little skill...so we get zombies.  But, as much as I like to mix my loose understanding of science with fantasy, uh no. 

So you can see that I'm quit perplexed by this issue. I've done zombies before...well, zompires. And I truly enjoyed writing them, but that was in an urban fantasy world. This is a post apocalyptic world of today. No witches and no vampire; just evil humans, zombies and the very few decent people left on this planet. 

I'm thinking...there's something in the water or meat supply...or maybe it's the never suspected VEGGIES! 

ONE GIANT CLUSTERFUCK

I've been wondering to myself for a while now as to why Toxic Warrior, the last book in the Raina Kirkland series, is about 75 to 144 pages shorter than the other 4 books? I didn't realize the answer until tonight.

Duh...

Every other book has life going on, as it does, while serious business is going down.

Raina is dealing with family drama, while seeking answers/ revenge for what was done to her and her brothers.

399 pages

Raina is buying a house to appease a demon, while taking care of her drama packed family and dealing with evil faeries....you know, as you do.

351 pages

Raina is going to a wedding and dealing with a huge life altering surprise, while immortal hit-men are murdering people on a massive scale.

420 pages

Raina is reuniting with her loved ones, while fighting zombies and the demon living inside her.

392 pages

There's always life happening around tragedy. Life doesn't just stop when it's most convenient.

...Until

Toxic Warrior. Raina is at war, that is all.

276 pages

Open war has a way of stopping life from going on. There are no side stories in Toxic Warrior. It's just Raina in one giant clusterfuck!