“Alice in Deadland” by Mainak Dhar

Anyone who knows me well will know that, among my extensive list of Loves, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and zombies are pretty high on the list. I’m sure this is true for a pretty healthy amount of people, too, so I’m sure they’d be just as intrigued and interested in a book that promises to combine the two of them in an action-packed post-apocalyptic novel. However, I would then be obligated, as their friend and fellow lover of the combination of awesome things, to generally avoid Alice in Deadland by Mainak Dhar, with the caveat that they should go ahead and tackle it if they’re like me and want to read everything, or if they want a good example of a really fantastic idea executed extremely poorly.

It’s such a shame, too, because the foundation of Dhar’s Deadland is actually quite unique and different, but the book suffers from a very blatant case of bad writing. Our post-apocalyptic tale takes place in what used to be India, already giving the story a flair for not being the typical zombie story I’m used to encountering, and recalling up one of my favorite short stories, “Calcutta, Lord of Nerves” by Poppy Z. Brite. Zombies (or Biters, as they’re called in Dhar’s tale) have taken over the world, and right about there is where Brite and Dhar’s interpretation start to part ways, both plot-wise and aesthetically. Brite’s story is rich, compelling, and terrifying; Dhar’s is dry, unengaged, and frankly uninteresting. We have Alice, a young girl born after the world changed, who does not know of a world before Biters, though there are others who do. And then she happens across the Queen, a strange Biter-human hybrid that holds what she believes is a prophesy in the form of a copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. She touts Alice as their Savior, though the connection beyond the name and the fact that Alice is white and blonde like the girl in the book, and then the military gets involved and it’s really just kind of a mess.

The premise starts out well, but the plot gets convoluted and convenient. The most challenging thing for me, personally, was how utterly lackluster Dhar’s prose is. There is very minimal description, the characters never fully develop beyond the first dimension, and he has a cache of phrases and terms that he uses ad nausuem. At best, the writing is amatuerish; at worst, it’s just bad. It feels as though very little writerly effort was put into the tale, which is such a shame because the concept has so much opportunity to be a epic tale, and it’s just thrown away. A definite disappointment, although I suppose that just opens up the opportunity for me to take a better stab at it.

Books read: 30/100.

That said, perhaps this missed opportunity for Alice in Zombieland might be a good prompt for my Anthology Contest! I’m not the only one thinking it’s a good idea; Face Off, which inspired this contest in the first place, did an Alice/Resident Evil cross-over episode that yielded some pretty good results (and some pretty bad ones, too, if we’re honest!). So, today’s prompt for the contest is “Alice in Zombieland,” and here are my two favorite looks from the episode, by Derek Garcia and Laura Tyler, respectively:

Happy writing!

Returning as Judges are Ve Neill and Glenn Hetrick, Joined by New Judge Neville Page

Guest Judge Appearances Include Brian Grazer, Kevin Smith, Gale Anne Hurd, Sean Astin, Matthew Wood, Paul WS Anderson, Laila Ali and Barney Burman

A new season of infinite imagination and fantastic make-up magic ignites with the third season of Syfy‘s most popular unscripted series, Face Off, premiering on a new night and time, Tuesday, August 21 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. The season will introduce a talented group of special effects make-up artists who will meet face to face in Los Angeles to compete in a series of elaborate challenges that will ultimately determine just who has the skillful hand to win Face Off.

Face Off is an authentic depiction of the high creative standards necessary for a special effects make-up artist to succeed in their craft. The series debuted in January 2011 as a new reality competition program to critical and ratings success. The second season finale of Face Off became the most watched unscripted telecast in Syfy’s nearly 20-year history, transforming 3.58 million total viewers, based on Live +7 data. This also established a Syfy original series record – for scripted and unscripted programs – for most Adults 18-34 viewers with 1.01 million.

Returning to the lab for the new season is actress and host McKenzie Westmore, along with judges Ve Neill (The Hunger Games, Pirates of the Caribbean) and Glenn Hetrick (Mad Men, Heroes). Patrick Tatopolous will sit on the judges’ panel for the premiere episode, before he starts production design on his latest project, 300: Battle of Artemisia.

Joining the series as the new judge is Neville Page, Lead Creature Designer on the highest grossing movie of all time Avatar, Character Designer on Ridley Scott’s recent blockbuster Prometheus, Lead Creature and Character Designer on J.J. Abram’s Star Trek, Lead Concept Designer on Tron: Legacy and Creature Designer on Super 8. Page’s upcoming films include Creature Designer on The Amazing Spider-Man and his most recent work on J.J. Abram’s highly anticipated next installment of the Star Trek film-franchise.

The season also boasts an array of prominent guest judge appearances including Academy-Award winning producer Brian Grazer (How The Grinch Stole Christmas, A Beautiful Mind), Kevin Smith (Red State), Gale Anne Hurd (Aliens, The Walking Dead), Sean Astin (Lord of the Rings), LucasFilm collaborator and actor Matthew Wood (Star Wars prequels), Paul WS Anderson (Alien vs. Predator, Resident Evil: Afterlife), boxer Laila Ali and Oscar-nominated makeup artist Barney Burman (Star Trek, Mission Impossible III).

The challenges featured will be some of the most difficult, creative and inventive yet: the contestants will create eye-popping new creatures inspired by the whimsical world of Dr. Seuss, an original alien character inspired by the classic cantina scene from Star Wars: A New Hope, as well as creations for a challenge inspired by the NBC series Grimm. The challenges will be set against the backdrop of Southern California, from the high seas off the coast of San Diego to the WhoVille set at the Universal Studios Hollywood backlot.

The Face Off contestants will be whittled down week by week as they compete to outshine their competition. The winning artist will receive $100,000 and will also be given the opportunity to become a guest lecturer at the MAKE UP FOR EVER Academies in New York and Paris.

To meet the cast of season three, see photo galleries and video, visit www.syfy.com/faceoff. Photography and bios are also available at www.nbcumv.com. Following are the season three Face Off contestants:

• Carpucine Childs, 30 – Marietta, GA
• Nicole Chilelli, 28 – Sacramento, CA
• Derek Garcia, 32 – Pembroke Pines, FL
• Eric Garcia, 32 – Kissimmee, FL
• Rod Maxwell, 47 – West Hollywood, CA
• Jason Milani, 25 – Hopewell Jct, NY
• Sarah Miller, 29 – Vancouver, BC
• Thomas Pietch, 27 – Columbus, OH
• Alana Schiro, 36 – Northridge, CA
• Laura Tyler, 28 – Orlando, FL
• Roy Wooley, 46 – Tucker, GA

Face Off is a production of Mission Control Media with Dwight D. Smith, Michael Agbabian and Derek Atherton serving as executive producers.

Syfy is a media destination for imagination-based entertainment. With year round acclaimed original series, events, blockbuster movies, classic science fiction and fantasy programming, a dynamic Web site (www.Syfy.com), and a portfolio of adjacent business (Syfy Ventures), Syfy is a passport to limitless possibilities. Originally launched in 1992 as SCI FI Channel, and currently in more than 98 million homes, Syfy is a network of NBCUniversal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies. (Syfy. Imagine greater.)

via Syfy Press Release

One of our recovery swim sessions in Poway.

Right now I’m focused on putting in the work and building myself to be an entirely new athlete, each day. At camp there is more accountability to work hard because all of the athletes I train with will give me a hard time if I’m slacking off, but at home I’m on my own. On June 2, I will showcase my work, in Dallas.

Recently, heavy news was dropped on The Triathlon Squad, as one of our athletes was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Derek Garcia and his family are in my thoughts. Not only does cancer affect the people who have the disease, but also the support system around them. Derek’s a great guy and I know he’ll fight cancer with the same tenacity in which he approaches the rest of his life.

Final conclusions on camp in San Diego:

• Paulo Sousa drives like a maniac. (He refers to it as “Lisbon Driving”.)
• Running fast takes restraint and guts alike.
• Mt. Palomar is my favorite ride/climb.
• Nutella and ice-cream are great training tools.
• A great coach will not only be involved in the training process, but will also care about the lives of their athletes.
• Support systems are invaluable.
• Life goes on outside of this Triathlon game.

The guys I train with: Kevin Collington, Derek Garcia, AJ Baucco, and Joe Maloy, are fun to be around and they expect me to work hard at every session we do together. The competitive environment mixed with occasional banter (when we can catch our breaths) has me waking up eager to train every morning. I show up to each session as if it were race day. We beat each other up in the pool, on the road, and on the trails.

In the past two weeks, we’ve climbed Mt. Palomar twice, which has been my favorite ride. I look forward to it every week because it’s 4 hours of total riding time and more than 13 miles of climbing for the meaty part, up Mt. Palomar. I like to pretend I’m in the Tour de France while I battle my squad mates to the top.

Our swim sessions have all been outside, mostly LCM, which is ideal. I don’t like swimming indoors and training SCY is not as effective. The running out here has been good as well, with lots of trails and warm weather. One of the best things I’ll take away from camp is a nice speedo tan, but really, I’m looking forward to carrying my fitness to my races this year. That’s right, I’ll actually show up fit, so look out!

One of the highlights of camp so far...demolishing this one-pound cheeseburger.

The Swim: The effect of The Rivalry started before the gun even went off, I had changed my mind about swimming upriver (RTR is a point to point race) to the start of the race until I overheard Derek say, casually, that he was going to. “It is a good warm up, and there is a lot of time left, and I don’t want to walk, it hurts my feet”, I thought to myself. Swimming up river is not easy, and this year it really isn’t easy. Halfway up I poked my head out and heard the announcer say “4 minutes to the elite wave start”, and panicked, I probably still had 8 minutes of swimming left. So I swam back to the nearest dock, sprinted up the bank (good thing I practiced walking around barefoot in hayfields that had just been mown when I was a kid) and managed to get into the water with everyone just as the start countdown began. And that was the good part. The swim started and Roger and Derek took off like crazy people; I managed to draft for all of 2 minutes before it was clear that swimming with them would probably make me throw up, and not be able to get to my bike from the dock. The only thing that really “saved” my swim, if you can call it that, is that I could see they were being pulled away from the exit ramp by the current, so I started angling in toward shore as we neared the last buoy, and I think I gained a full 20-30 seconds on them from that, still coming out of the water about 40 seconds down.

T1: The exertion from swimming always shows itself very plainly in my transitions, heart pounding, head befuddled, in addition to the time I lost on the swim, it took me a full 30 seconds longer than Derek and Roger to assemble myself and get out on the bike. This fall I am determined to master swimming. It is the Mt. Everest of my thirties, 54 minute IM swim next year or bust.

Bike: A fun 3 loop, 11 mile course with plenty of opportunity to see the competition, nothing really special to report here, my watts were way better than at Hayden, I didn’t feel the effect of my long ride from the day before, and I’m not too bruised up from the bumpy Seltice section.

Run: I have really been working on my run form, from keying in on efficiency at a locked heart rate, to hard track sessions mixing intensity with form. It really paid off in this race as I was able to produce my most solid 5k in a triathlon, probably ever (17:16). This helped me finally catch Roger, and brought me within striking distance of Derek, but after starting about a minute down there just wasn’t enough left in the tank to seal the deal.

Which brings me back to The Rivalry. If you go online and search for race results for local triathlon races in any given town (which would actually probably be very boring, so just trust me), you don’t usually see such a narrow margin of victory representing people racing at or near the same ability. Usually there is one guy who everybody “bows down to” as the local or regional triathlete master, and the next finisher is 2-3 minutes back. This guy shows up at races expecting to win easily, and this changes the way the whole day unfolds, vs. when there is real competition. No real challenge, he or she are basically just having a good workout in front of a crowd. That’s why having Derek and Roger in this race was so cool. A win in this race, however short, really meant something. Even if I wasn’t the one to get the win today, now I’ll be that much faster next time.