What’s so special about February?
Valentine’s Day? Sure. But more than that, February is WOMEN IN HORROR RECOGNITION MONTH! For 28 days, we celebrate all the beautiful, fantastic, filthy minded women in the horror industry.
(hmm I think this should be celebrated every day of the year, don’t you?)
I reviewed my list of 10 BOOKS THAT ROCKED MY 2013 and realized one thing… my god, it’s a total sausagefest! lol (Do check out those books, by the way, they’re all awesome.)
So this month, I decided to pick up a book from a female horror author. And because I also have a thing for stylish hats, this particular writer caught my attention.
Lori R. Lopez
Lori R. Lopez is an author, poet, artist, actress, songwriter, musician and activist for conservation, children and animal rights.
I love short story collections. If I want to know the range of an author I read one of their collections and if at least half of those stories do it for me then there’s a very high possibility that I might read more of their published works. As a hobbyist who writes horror fiction, I’ve read very few zombie stories (my favorite by the way is Poppy Z. Brite’s ‘Calcutta, Lord Of Nerves’) so I decided to go for Lori R. Lopez’s 3-Z.
3-Z is a collection of three zombie stories.
The first story is ‘Pound of Flesh’. From the beginning, Lopez’s wonderful writing grabbed me.
From the book: “SACRIFICE. That’s what it’s all about. Giving your pound of flesh to get ahead in this world, this modern megalopolis we have wrought with hammers and sweat and steel. Plenty of concrete.”
Then and there, I knew I was going to end up reviewing this piece. Despite the title, this zombie tale is gore-free. What you get instead is a story with depth. I truly felt the main character’s desperation in this piece. Still, the writer managed to inject a great deal of humor into the dreadful scenario. The result: a totally enjoyable read.
The second story, ‘A Big Problem’ wasn’t exactly as scary or as crazy as I hoped it would be. I like my bizarro extremely descriptive and batshit insane. But I did enjoy the exchanges between the main characters and read the story with a small smile on my face. This didn’t quite do it for me but in the end, Lori Lopez’s good writing and humor became this story’s redeeming factor.
The last story ‘Knock, Knock’ was more like old school horror. And that’s a cool thing. It’s like when you already have an idea of what’s going to happen next but still, the story constantly grips you. The pros in this story were the well-realized characters and the scene with the cats, oh yeah, I loved that particular part. 🙂
So what did I learn from this short story collection? That Lori R. Lopez is a versatile horror author perfect for the eclectic reader (like me). And yes, I’m going to check out her other books as well.
I devoured Lori R. Lopez’s 3-Z in one sitting. My rating? A FABULOUS FOUR! 🙂
WOMEN IN HORROR RECOGNITION MONTH just gave me another reason to love February. This month (or every month), I encourage you to grab a book by a female horror author. Oh and btw, a reprint of my story “The Other Child” will be featured in Sirens Call #13 Women in Horror Issue and I’m really proud to be a part of this very special edition. Lori R. Lopez will be in this February’s issue as well! Watch out for it. 😉 Support female horror writers! (UPDATE: the ezine is out now! check out the website to download it for FREE)
xo
K.Z.
P.S.
3-Z is currently free on Kindle and Smashwords. What the hell are you waiting for? 🙂
The Eclectic Eccentric 