I was reading “Handling the Undead” (John Ajvide Lindqvist, Quercus, 384 pp, 1900, according to Amazon, also morans) and wondered what other people thought about it, and checked goodreads.com. And then I got curious whether anyone I knew had written anything about it there, so I created an account and checked to see if anyone I knew was there, and instead goodreads sent out invitations to everyone or something. Which is fine, I guess, except that it used made-up names for some reason. Which is funny.

[pause for canned laughter to abate]

Now if I could only get goodreads to stop posting to my twitter account every time I blow my nose. Guess I’ll go change permissions there if I remember to.

[more canned laughter]

Not sure what you think of Lindqvist. I loved “Let the Right One In,” not least because it was sort of detoxifying after Twilight.

[applause, and hooting]

And the p3d0 angle was way creepier than anything else I’ve ever read in any vampire story. So I had high hopes for “Handling the Undead”. Who are known as the “reliving” in the book, which I thought was a nice touch. And I was not disappointed with the book, although I did not think it was as excellent as “Let the Right One In”, I thought it was very good.

See, it’s my review-writing style that makes me hesitant to post to goodreads.

[canned laughter]

Lindqvist does interesting things with the rules of the genre.

I like how the zombies are nearly, but not entirely, blank. And how it is not clear, really, until the end, what is behind the event, what the evil thing in the book is.

And other stuff that would be spoilers if I described it.

Jesus, spoilers, gotta remember that if you write about stuff like this.

I am trying to do something zombie related, something involving words on paper, so this was interesting for me for that reason as well. My idea was more B-movieish, but this gives me more ambition.

For what, really, is the difference between “literature” and genre writing, but ambition and quality?

[canned laughter]