In 1968, the world experienced a brand-new kind of terror with the debut of George A. Romero’s landmark movie Night of the Living Dead. The newly dead rose to attack the living. Not as vampires or werewolves. This was something new . . . and terrifying. Since then, zombies have invaded every aspect of popular culture.
But it all started on that dreadful night in a remote farmhouse. . . .
Nights of the Living Dead returns to that night, to the outbreak, to where it all began. New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Maberry teams with the godfather of the living dead himself, George A. Romero, to present a collection of all-new tales set during the forty-eight hours of that legendary outbreak.
Nights of the Living Dead includes stories by some of today’s most important writers: Brian Keene, Carrie Ryan, Chuck Wendig, Craig E. Engler, David J. Schow, David Wellington, Isaac Marion, Jay Bonansinga, Joe R. Lansdale, John A. Russo, John Skipp, Keith R.A. DeCandido, Max Brallier, Mike Carey, Mira Grant, Neal and Brenda Shusterman, and Ryan Brown. Plus original stories by Romero and Maberry!
For anyone who loves scary stories, take a bite out of this!
David J. Schow was born in Marburg, Germany and was adopted by American parents then living in Middlesex, England.
After publishing non-fiction book and film criticism in newspapers and magazines, his first professionally published fiction was a novelette in Galileo Magazine in 1978. He spent the next decade honing his skills in the short fiction form. He won a Dimension Award from Twilight Zone Magazine (for most popular short story) in 1985 and a World Fantasy Award (best short fiction) in 1987.
He commenced screenwriting in 1989 with an uncredited dialogue polish on A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 5: The Dream Child, after which both his first teleplay and first screenplay were bought and produced (the Freddy's Nightmares episode "Safe Sex" and the feature Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III respectively).
After inventing the rubric "stalk-and-slash" in 1977 to describe the genre later simplified as "slasher films," Schow similarly coined the notorious neologism "splatterpunk" in 1986. To reflect the shifting climate of the horror aesthetic during the early 1990s, he logged 41 installments of his popular "Raving & Drooling" column for Fangoria Magazine. This and other non-fiction op-ed material was collected in the book Wild Hairs (2000), which won the International Horror Guild's award for best nonfiction in 2001.
Schow is the world’s foremost authority on the 1963-65 television series The Outer Limits. The revised, updated 1998 edition of his Outer Limits Companion contains everything anyone would ever care to know about this cult classic.
As editor, Schow’s works include the three-volume Lost Bloch series (1999-2000-2002; exploring the pulp work of Psycho author Robert Bloch), the John Farris short story collection Elvisland (2004), and The Art of Drew Struzan (2010).
Schow's published canon includes eight novels, seven collections of his short stories, and a number of pseudonymously published series and tie-in paperbacks done earlier in his career.
Schow's television work includes The Outer Limits (1995), Perversions of Science (1997, a Tales from the Crypt spinoff), The Hunger (five episodes,1997-2000), and Masters of Horror (two episodes, 2006-2007).
In the early 1990s he screenwrote the cult classic The Crow (1994) and most recently has worked on Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006) and The Hills Run Red from Warner Premiere and Dark Castle Entertainment (2009).
He wrote large text supplements for such DVDs as Reservoir Dogs and From Hell, contributed to several British documentaries for BBC4 both on- and off-camera, and appears as expert witness on DVD supplements for such movies as The Dirty Dozen, The Green Mile, Incubus and Creature from the Black Lagoon. He co-produced and filmed much of the on-location supplemental material seen on the discs for I, Robot (2004) and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe (2005). He also makes sneaky cameo appearances (credited and uncredited) in his own films as well as those of friends.
Upgunned is the latest novel in what Schow calls his “blue steel” phase of modern hardboiled writing jacked up with “horror perceptions,” which commenced with the Hard Case Crime novel Gun Work (2008) and continued in the Thomas Dunne-published Internecine (2010), which Publisher’s Weekly called “a smart new thriller … hip, hardboiled entertainment.”
Schow lives in the Hollywood Hills (right under the sign) in a 1926 house christened Ravenseye.
“George Romero is one of my all time heroes–of the films I saw as a young man, the two that had a huge impact on my creative life are Night of the Living Dead and Planet of the Apes. Zombies and Mutations in general lead me down a path directly to where I am today–the Night, Dawn, and Day films I still watch regularly to this day–with the same thrill as the first time I saw them. He has influenced countless 'Creators' in an amazing cross section of genres–he’s on my bucket list to meet, shake his hand, and thank him personally for all he’s done for me, and my career.” –Kevin Eastman, artist and co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
“Some projects made on a shoestring budget become classics, and Night of the Living Dead is one of those.” –Charlaine Harris, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse novels which became HBO’s hit True Blood.
“With Night of the Living Dead, George A. Romero created a mythology that is both a lens through which to view the fissures at civilization's core, and a mirror whose reflection offers an unflinching view into man’s very soul. Ignore the skeptics; the 'Zombie Apocalypse' paradigm will never be irrelevant." –Axel Alonso, Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics.
“Night of the Living Dead is to zombies what Gone With the Wind is to romance. George Romero found a way to re-invent terror with this groundbreaking film that birthed an entire genre.” –Doug Jones (star of Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy 1&2, and Hocus Pocus)
“The zombie phenomena originally scratched its way out of the grave in George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and now Romero is surrounded by his [progeny] Jonathan Maberry and many other talented-but-horrific folk to give the living dead another night in which to scare the bejeezus out of all of us." –Chris Ryall, creative director for IDW Comics, author of Zombies vs Robots
“Zombies? They’re George’s toys and we’re all just playing with them. Some kids play with them right, some don’t. I hope when I’ve played with them it’s the former. Without NOTLD none of us would be enamored of rotting, flesh-eating, zombies. We may bend the rules to suit our needs, but he wrote the rules and we all owe him a barge-load of gratitude.” –Robert Fingerman, cartoonist and author of Recess Pieces, and Pariah
“George Romero is the Father of the Living Dead. There would be no Walking Dead, Resident Evil, World War Z, Zombieland, etc., without the template he created with the landmark Night of the Living Dead in 1968. Romero set the standard that continues to be copied to this day. You can’t discuss the modern zombie without acknowledging George Romero and his immeasurable contributions to the genre." –Tony Timpone, Editor Emeritus, Fangoria
“Night Of The Living Dead didn’t just invent the zombie genre as we know it; it also established that genre’s most significant theme: that we, humanity, are more dangerous than the undead.” –Christos Gage, New York Times bestselling writer of comics (Buffy, Spider-Man), television (Daredevil, Law & Order: SVU), film and video games.
“Romero’s’ imagination took the name zombie from fairly obscure Haitian folklore practice, and supercharged it with a new mythology that ultimately changed not only the horror genre, it changed global pop culture. Decades after Night of the Living Dead was released theatrically, the zombie zeitgeist Romero created has spread like a virus, infecting books, movies, TV, comics, animation, modern art, gaming, and even academic paperwork. The actual worldwide zombie takeover, sparked in 1968, has been unfolding into a very successful, multi-layered, and gruesomely wonderful one.” – Joyce Chin
