Nathan Bransford - The Forums

Mira wrote:
One should only create characters that want to dance in the daisies and frolic with the little bunny rabbits.

Funny you should mention bunny rabbits. I have a scene in one of my books where a two of my characters roast bunnies over a fire for dinner.

Mike R wrote:

Mira wrote:
One should only create characters that want to dance in the daisies and frolic with the little bunny rabbits.

Funny you should mention bunny rabbits. I have a scene in one of my books where a two of my characters roast bunnies over a fire for dinner.

Funny you should mention roasting bunnies over a fire for dinner, this happens in a scene in my zombie book.

Although, it is about half a page away from a scene of flesh eating violence, so I don't know if it counts as delicious or not.

Bunnies are always delicious and nutritious. Zombies, not so much.

Mike R wrote:Bunnies are always delicious and nutritious. Zombies, not so much.

Well, if you're not going to frolic with the bunnies, I guess eating them is the next best thing. But if you're going to eat Zombies, make sure to floss. So much can get stuck in your teeth.

Roast zombie tastes like indifferently rancid pork. Highly toxic melatonin levels.

Zombies are best boiled into a thick broth, that mess is dehydrated, the resulting cake is ground and used like protein powder.

Mike R wrote:Zombies are best boiled into a thick broth, that mess is dehydrated, the resulting cake is ground and used like protein powder.

I expect we have differing senses of what zombies symbolize.

I've sampled several dozen manuscripts trying for sympathetic viewpoint zombie characters, speaking of dead viewpoint characters. They feel flat from shortcomings in their realization of what sympathetic zombies mean. I suspect there's an artful novel coming soon that will fully realize the potentials of sympathetic zombies. Meyers did it with vampires. Werewolves too. Someone has or will soon fully realize the potentials of sympathetic lychans (lycanthrope).

I'm sorry, but are you sure you guys have eaten a zombie? Maybe it was a just some dead guy and you were mistaken. The taste of zombie is quite recognizable and distinct.

Zombies taste like chicken.

Mira wrote:I'm sorry, but are you sure you guys have eaten a zombie? Maybe it was a just some dead guy and you were mistaken. The taste of zombie is quite recognizable and distinct.

Zombies taste like chicken.

Alligator, rattle snake, gecko, opossum, racoon, squirrel, rabbit, hare, and jackalope taste like chicken I know from personal experience. Marine or terrestrial snails like rubber liver and kidleys, except escargot, which are tender delicious in a nice garlic marsala butter sauce served with toast points. Open this spoiler at your own risk: Long pig, according to cannibal traditions, tastes like pork.

Polymath, I think we need to have a talk. I'm okay that you're eating zombies, but a gecko? There has to be a line somewhere that we just don't cross.

No offense, but bleh. ;p

When one visits with other cultures, sometimes one is asked to partake of the local cuisine. To refuse hospitality can have tragic consequences. When in Rome and all that. I've also eaten exotic plant and insect and algae and fungi and liverwort and worm and avian species. I am an omnivore.

Perhaps one of the more exotic recipes in my collection is known as hunter's bread. It's prepared by neolithic hunters in the field during prolonged periods of deprivation, from briar root. Briar root has a taste like yucca root, which tastes like artichoke heart, not the pickled variety. Hunter's bread was a men's sacred recipe that was not shared with women. One thing I know; I won't starve to death when there's plenty to eat from the wild. If only I didn't have health complications proscribing participation, I'd be a natural on Survivor.

The express division of labors during neolithic eras kept men from doing women's work and vice versa. Food foraging and preparation was women's dominion. However, in our enlightened age I can go against tradition and share the recipe for hunter's bread. Harvest a quantity of briar root. Available and plentiful year-round in most temparate climates. Rinse if possible or brush off any soil. Pound to a pulp. Spread in a thin layer on a rock or other flat surface and allow to dry. The drier the more portable for carrying intact. End result is something like a small tortilla in shape and consistency.

Polymath, jokes aside, your experience with exotic foods is pretty impressive!

I have a serious problem with "rules" like this. The basic question is why?

I'm currently completing a trilogy that involves many generations of characters, and although the story is told by a "narrator" a great deal of the material is experienced by the characters, and their point of view is important to the whole idea of the story. So, obviously they tend to die along the way. Since the saga starts (more or less) about 13000 BC and ends in the year 2000 there really aren't many options available to keep them alive.

Personally I think the story flows much better using their POV rather than having the narrator speak for them. Oh well.

George R. R. Martin has no problem with killing off major POV characters, and he sells millions of books, so clearly it can work.