Comments on: HOURGLASS by Crystal Lynn Hilbert

By: Mr Twitchy

Mr Twitchy — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 02:50:46 +0000

As much as I loce the cold, creeping dread and unstopability of the regular old shambling hordes, this kind of “infectious insanity” zombie is great for a change up.

I loved the claustrophobic, feverish way the story was told in broken little chunks, skipping from one scene to another, the way your mind can’t focus on a single thought when you’ve got a high fever. A theme once again enforced by the way things werent just going offline, breaking down, like they tend to in the traditional zombie story, but degenerating, getting stuck in loops, becoming nonsensical in the pursuit of fulfilling their intended tasks long after those tasks ceased to be necessary.

If most zombie stories are tales of cold dread, this was a tale of sweating, shivering, babbling insanity.

And that sound they make, the “shrill, broken whinnying”, well I have such a clear idea in my mind of what that sounds like and isn’t it just the god damn scariest noise to ever come out of a human throat.

This was a well deserved winner.

P.S. Jamie; I guess you never noticed theres a whole selection of stories on this site with the tag line “Unique zombies”?

By: Ellen R

Ellen R — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 21:36:14 +0000

Beautiful imagery. Loved the piece with the young male anchor. Very sad – captured the feeling of the end of the world.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Wed, 12 May 2010 19:56:04 +0000

I liked it, but I do think it’s important that we stay true to the WWZ “established facts” regarding zombies – like their losing all conscious thought and, most importantly, having no physical strength greater than prior to their transformation.

Adding details and revelations is great, but whenever we cross these lines, we risk confusing the whole episode. We can’t imagine as vividly when we have to set aside what we already “know.”

By: Evil Genius Prime

Evil Genius Prime — Wed, 05 May 2010 04:03:44 +0000

Loved it! I would love to read more of your work. They aren’t enough female zombie fic writers out there.

By: Zombie killa

Zombie killa — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:28:13 +0000

I dont get it lmao
zombie freaks OMFG!

By: cdugger

cdugger — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 01:58:23 +0000

Really vivid imagery in this one. Very easy to see the story as I was reading. Good pacing, too.

This is a good one, and should give the judges something to think about.

I hate that. I can’t win if you people keep putting up these great stories!

You may stop now.

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 06:18:27 +0000

My apologies, I meant that normality makes more sense, not that normalcy is a made up word of course

Sorry!

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 06:15:33 +0000

Just awesome. I developed a perfect visualization of everything in the story (: the zombies were genuinely scary and intuitive, the story was short and gruesome and your character, though not built up, made me feel sorry for her and she was likeable.

Only one stigma I have is with normalcy that’s not a word, it should have been normality.

By: Hazzard

Hazzard — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 20:37:03 +0000

I really enjoyed this one, it played like a movie in my head, I think it would translate well to a short film