They might not be raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens, but that doesn’t mean that we love them any less. Welcome back to My Favorite Things, the weekly column where we grab someone in speculative circles to gab about the greatest in geek. This week, we sit down with author Lauren Baratz-Logsted, whose forthcoming novel, Zombie Abbey (releasing April 3), is giving Pride & Prejudice & Zombies a run for its money.
What does Lauren Baratz-Logsted love when she’s not writing about historical zombies? Spoiler alert: a western all about women, impossible choices, an Oscar-winning film, intricate covers, a music video that was speculative in its day, and joys of being a spec fic writer. Intrigued? Read on for more!
Favorite TV Show: You thought I was going to say The Good Place, didn’t you? But I can see that’s been covered here many times before — and deservedly so! — so I’m going with Godless. What makes this stellar seven-episode Netflix series speculative to me is that it is largely populated with characters rarely heard from in the typical Western: women. This story, set in the 1880s, is about an outlaw’s dogged search for a former comrade who deserted him, but it’s primarily the story of a town with very few men in sight, because a mining disaster has left the women in charge of everything. It features the likes of Michelle Dockery (of Downton Abbey Lady Mary fame) and Merritt Wever (as excellent as a gunwoman as she was as a nurse in Nurse Jackie) being equally badass in their respective roles. The male actors — led by Jeff Daniels, Jack O’Connell and a very unlike-Grace and Frankie Sam Waterston — are all excellent too and they know when to get out of the women’s way. While we’re here, have you seen The Good Place? It’s amazing! That rare bird, a comedy of ideas, it’s easily the freshest comedy on network TV.
Favorite Book: It’s not every day that the Wall Street Journal and I agree on anything, but on this we do: We both have All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai on our respective Best of 2017 lists. Since I can’t top the publisher’s description, I’ll go with that to tell you about it:
It’s 2016, and in Tom Barren’s world, technology has solved all of humanity’s problems — there’s no war, no poverty, no under-ripe avocadoes. Unfortunately, Tom isn’t happy. He’s lost the girl of his dreams. And what do you do when you’re heartbroken and have a time machine? Something stupid.
Finding himself stranded in a terrible alternate reality — which we immediately recognize as our 2016 — Tom is desperate to fix his mistake and go home. Right up until the moment he discovers wonderfully unexpected versions of his family, his career, and the woman who may just be the love of his life.
Now Tom faces an impossible choice. Go back to his perfect but loveless life. Or stay in our messy reality with a soulmate by his side. His search for the answer takes him across continents and timelines in a quest to figure out, finally, who he really is and what his future — our future — is supposed to be.
My take: Time travel, comedy, drama, science, adventure, romance — come on, if you haven’t read this already, you want to read it now, don’t you?
Favorite Film: Get Out. Sure, it’s billed as a horror film, but I’d also call it a dark comedy. Comedy is rarely shown much respect, certainly nowhere near the respect shown to drama, but as someone who’s written both, I promise you that it’s a lot harder to create a comedy that large cross sections of people will agree is funny. The great thing about dark comedy is that there’s typically an important message conveyed between the laughs, so that while you’re — hopefully! — entertaining people, you’re also (again, hopefully!) provoking them to see the world in a different way. The Shape of Water and Wonder Woman were also excellent, and I can’t wait to see Black Panther. Honestly, it’s been an amazing year for speculative film.
Favorite Book Cover: The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert. I want to walk right into that cover and immediately start having adventures. I want to get chased by a witch who wants to cook me for dinner, and I want to fight dragons. I want to face whatever dangers might be on offer in the world depicted by these illustrations, and then I want to be able to use my wits to get out safely again. In short, I want to marry this cover. Of course, I also want to marry the font used on By a Charm and a Curse by Jaime Questell, so if you called me a cover polygamist, you wouldn’t be wrong.
Favorite Music Video: Prince’s “1999,” because: Prince. And thanks to writing this feature for Speculative Chic, I finally know all the words. I want the sky to go all purple and I want to have a lion in my pocket.Today, the year 1999 is nearly 20 years in our past, it’s history, but when Prince released the song, the year was 1982, making it all speculation.
Bonus: These are my three favorite things about speculative fiction from a writing point of view: 1) The opportunity to play Goddess: I get to decide who lives or dies, I get to decide whether or not the hero gets the girl — or the guy!– in the end, I get to create the world I want and then do whatever I’d like with it; the power is staggering. 2) If a story is set in the future, waiting — if I can stay alive long enough! — for history to judge me. For example, I first read 1984 when I was 12, leaving me to wait another 10 years to see how much Orwell got right. 3) The chance to ask the writer’s favorite question: What If? What if there’s a dog who’s a great detective, a war-vet surgeon who’s a cat, and they both live in an alternate-universe London in which it’s widely accepted that animals can talk but there’s much prejudice between the various species, especially humans? (The Adventures of Sherlock Bones) What if the lead singer of the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World has a younger brother, who also records music but far less famously, and the lead singer’s sister-in-law has quite a story to tell? (The Other Brother) What if you take a Downton Abbey type of world and throw a zombie menace into the mix???
Thank you, Speculative Chic, for having me!
Lauren Baratz-Logsted is the author of over 30 books for adults (Vertigo), teens (The Twin’s Daughter) and children (The Sisters 8 series which she created with her husband and daughter). She’d love to dress up in period costume from the 1920s, but she’d be a lot less excited about meeting zombies. Lauren lives in Danbury, CT, with her husband and daughter and cat, all of whom are writers (well, maybe not the cat).
Okay, I love the author photo. Cats for the win!
You’ve got me really curious about Godless and All Our Wrong Todays. Thanks so much for sharing!
I’ve picked up (and then put down) All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai at Barnes & Noble several times. I’m leaning more towards reading it now. I love, love, love Prince but my favorite Prince song is “Purple Rain.” I once almost hit myself in the face with a dumbbell at the gym because an old man on the elliptical was absolutely belting out “Purple Rain,” but I understood because Prince is my jam, too.