The End is Nigh! Let’s Party To Death!

By A.M. Harte

Posted May 23, 2011

591 words

Support the author of this article by liking it on Facebook!

Most Popular Posts Free stuff! Why I stopped reading. Serial Fiction: the New Wave of Publishing. Still Water. Genre Bending.

Most Recent Posts Camelot: Unbound Adventures in E-Publishing The Poetry Matters Project It’s (Inter)National Poetry Writing Month- Ready? Set? Write! Tree Books or E-books?

The End is Nigh! Let’s Party To Death!

Romance is DEAD! No, really. Like zombie-dead, but in a good way.

So you’ve frolicked with space pirates. You’ve taken classes from bears. You’ve fraternised with vampires.

But THIS week — the last week of our month-long party — you’re going to get down and dirty with some zombies.

That’s right. Party Like It’s 1889‘s last author is yours truly, A.M. Harte, also known as Anna ‘Mistress-of-all’ Harte.

And you’re going to help me show the other authors what a real party looks like.

To kick things off, let’s start with a 50% discount!

Feeling hungry? Grab yourself a bite of these delicious zombie tales. They’re tender, they’re spunky, they’re tragically funny and morbidly fascinating.

And best of all, some rogue zombie has taken a huge bite out of the $1.99 price! Shuffle over to Smashwords before Sunday May 29 and use coupon code ND25A to get your zombie fix for only $0.99! Impossible to resist!

STILL not convinced?

I’m far from done.

Up for grabs this week is a paperback of your choosing from the 1889 Labs library, not to mention a $10 Amazon voucher to spend on absolutely anything! Yes, even socks! #zombieslovesocks

The giveaway is open worldwide and winners will be chosen using a random number generator which will pull from all the comments my posts receive this week. The more comments you leave, the more chances you have to win, so get your fingers ready!

Get Bitten By Zombies Prizes!

For a chance to win the Amazon voucher or paperback, take a bite from as many victims below as possible!

1. Leave a comment on this very post right now telling me whether you think zombies can swim, and why.

2. Tweet about the contest using the hashtag #1889party and get your friends involved!

3. Post “I, too, am a zombie” on my Facebook page!

4. Check out this week’s recap to get extra entries into this week’s giveaway!

5. For TEN extra entries, post a photo on the 1889 Labs facebook wall of you, your cat, or whatever/whoever you want, reading Hungry For You (either print or ebook).

Couldn’t be easier! The contest closes Saturday May 28 at 11:59 EDT, with winners announced on Sunday.

Remember! Every comment you leave this week is also an entry into the grand prize giveaway for a Kindle, VIP tickets & more! #woohoo

This week’s your LAST chance to enter the grand prize giveaway! Up for grabs are a Kindle, VIP tickets (10+ free advance ebooks!), & an ARC of our next upcoming release! What are you waiting for? More details here.

About A.M. Harte

AM Harte is the editor-in-chief of 1889 Labs. She writes twisted speculative fiction, such as the zombie love anthology Hungry For You. She is excellent at missing deadlines, has long forgotten what ‘free time’ means, and enjoys procrastinating online.

Jaidis Shaw

I have mixed feelings as to if Zombies can swim. Personally I would think the decomposition would help them float, making it harder to swim. But then again, after awhile dead bodies sink so maybe they could just walk across the bottom

http://amharte.com a.m.harte

I guess it would depend on what stage of decay the zombie is at, then!

http://booksbyessie.blogspot.com Essie Holton

Can zombies swim? Absolutely not. They just aren’t smart enough. I’m not saying that they can’t walk along the bottom on the body of water that they want to cross, but their bodies will begin to bloat like any dead body dumped in the ocean (You’ve seen this on television before, I’m sure.) Once their bodies begin to bloat in the water, the fish and other marine life will begin to eat their decaying flesh as well. If they make it back out of the water, there will definitely be less zombie than there was going in, and it will be a much uglier and puffier zombie.

http://amharte.com a.m.harte

Yeah, I agree. The way I envisioned the story “Swimming Lessons” was actually more of a zombie walking across the bottom (seeing as they don’t need to breathe, after all!)

http://letitiacoynefiction.blogspot.com/ Letitia Coyne

Pirates of the Carribean – walked underwater. Land of the Dead – again, walked underwater. I take these serious documentaries as hard evidence that if they cannot swim, per se, they can certainly perambulate aqueously.

http://amharte.com a.m.harte

I don’t know whether the PotC pirates were really zombise though — they didn’t eat flesh, did they?

http://timsevenhuysen.com Tim Sevenhuysen

I would say no, zombies can’t swim. I think they would bloat-and-float, but they don’t have the muscle control to make their arms and legs problem them properly. You can’t stumble through water the way you can over dry land. You need quick, strong movements, and zombies don’t have the capability to make those types of movements.

http://amharte.com a.m.harte

Buuuuut what if there were brains on the other side of the river? Would the smell not excite zombies enough to move quickly, thereby helping them cross the water?

http://www.facebook.com/people/Pavarti-Devi/100002202994978 Pavarti Devi

Zombies can totally swim, but they have to be careful not to stay underwater too long or their skin will prune and drift away in the tide.

http://amharte.com a.m.harte

Sounds like a new kind of beauty treatment!

http://n3wt0n.com/ Kyle Newton

Woo woo! Zombies and love!

As for whether or not zombies can swim: Not in the traditional sense. When bloated and gassy they can float, posing a danger to survivors camping in small boats. When filled with holes, allowing gasses to escape, they’ll fill with water and sink to an appropriate depth.

Therefore, zombies cannot swim!

http://amharte.com a.m.harte

What if you gave a zombie lessons? Or stuck it into scuba gear?

mssmedia

Okay. I shouldn’t really need the encouragement of a Kindle to come post here — after all, I do lurk and read the articles. Figure I might as well.

Zombies are a favorite genre of mine. The concept has been a rough metaphor for the spread of disease and the fears accompanied from ancient humanity as to the disposition of dead bodies. After all, it’s already hard to understand the “gone” aspect in the problem of dead bodies, so the animation thereof becomes the next best thing.

I am down with the sock loving zombies.

On zombies and swimming. I have two possible takes on this (1) zombies will be in various stages of decomp, meaning that they’ll probably bloat and float, they might not have the overall coordination to swim properly but they’ll likely get where they’re going; (2) some zombies will have ruptured from putrescence and no longer have buoyancy (although this might also mean their muscles no longer function) meaning they won’t be able to swim, but little would stop them from hoofing it on the sea floor.

Crap. It chose the wrong thing to post me as. This is @kytsune ah well.

http://amharte.com a.m.harte

I think socks would be very useful for zombies. It would help keep their feet together… literally.

According to your theory, what about a freshly-made zombie? No bloating yet, probably no ruptures.

Armandrosamilia

Zombies cannot swim… I know this for a fact… they simply float around and let the tide take them (and the sharks and the fish) to the next beach so that they can feast on unsuspecting bathers and those damn surfers…

And I want to win something, lol…

Armand Rosamilia
author of the extreme zombie novella “Highway To Hell” (with no swimming zombies in it at all)

http://amharte.com a.m.harte

Now I have a funny image in my head of people going zombie surfing….

James R

Are we talking lakes and streams or the mighty ocean here? I think they’d probably get to walk the sediment fantastic in the former, while the latter would be a deadly trek of riptides, even more hungry for brains ocean predators and nibblers and cracks in the ocean floor to go down, down, down… I’ll keep my ‘In Case of Zombie Apocalypse’ yacht on standby and embrace a post apocalypse ocean lifestyle.

http://amharte.com a.m.harte

Water World: Zombies Beneath the Surface

James R

In deep water…no one can hear the zombies scream for braaaiins…

http://www.booksandbeyond.net Fran Coleman

Swim? I dont think so. I think if the water is low enuff they can shuffle across but not really swim. they r not coordinated enuff or strong enuff.

http://amharte.com a.m.harte

Aw, poor zombies! I’m not a great swimmer, either… although I’d like to think I’m a bit more coordinated than a zombie heehee

mcchots

Nope. Can’t swim. Short jerky and slow movements do not a swimmer make. But they can’t drown so make sure your moat is well stocked with crocs. Unless they like croc brains as well.

http://amharte.com a.m.harte

But would crocs eat zombies?? Surely they’d rather have fresh meat.

mcchots

Hadn’t thought of that. We’ll need sharks with frikkin’ lasers then.

Rynooo

Zombies /can/ swim…

…in the DEAD SEA (fnar!)
http://johnwiswell.blogspot.com John_W

Zombies definitely can’t swim. I go with the lone great feature of Romero’s Land of the Dead – they can walk on the floor of a river or sea. They don’t breathe and have no buoyancy, and also don’t have the muscle strength to keep up vigorous, dynamic swimming motion. If your zombies can swim, they aren’t really zombies anymore, just some other, more vigorous brand of undead.
http://twitter.com/WA_side Cathi Payne

Dammit, it’s already Sunday everywhere.

I think zombies can only swim short distances because they get soggy after a while, then they sink. Provided we blow up all sea and air transportation, I think we’re safe in Australia.
Shanielabutler

I think Zombies can swim . This is because their bodies are easily to float. But still, some you don’t know if their bodies may sink.

Who we are

About Us Authors

All content released under a Creative Commons license unless otherwise noted.

What we do

Books Series ULTRA