No one wants to end up on the wrong side of history, but I’m afraid we’re being sold a bill of goods when it comes to the supposed e-book revolution, people. The increasing popularity of the digital book doesn’t signify a renewal of interest in reading, anymore than the profusion of comment threads in response to online articles and blogs can be said to represent a growing fondness for writing. It’s an infatuation, the eventual outcome of which it would be folly to predict, as with any trend in the publishing world. How we can be so quick to embrace every technological breakthrough that comes along—when virtually every machine in creation has turned against us at one time or another—lies beyond my understanding.

Forget, for a moment, that people aren't likely to pay as much attention to what they read on a screen as they are to what they read on a page. Ignore, if you like, the fact that all the hype right now is about selling e-readers, not books. And by all means, pretend, if you must, that the blind acceptance of technological advancement doesn't threaten to obviate the process of publication altogether. I appreciate that ignorance is bliss. But there's one delusion I cannot condone or ignore: the delusion that good writers will continue to be drawn to a creative medium from which all demand for, and expectation of, quality has been stripped and burned. Can it ever possibly mean anything for an aspiring writer to publish at all, if what that entails is uploading her Word document to an e-distributor? Dear god, where's the chase?

Now, I’ve enjoyed using online texts for research purposes, since it’s much easier to search for passages and quotations with a simple Ctrl-F than it is to riffle through a tome of onionskin. I have no doubt that such functionality will be refined on e-readers very soon. Hell, I may even want one of the damn things one day for reading magazines and newspaper. It’s not like I’m against saving the odd tree. (The price is going to have to come down a considerable bit, though.) But let’s not take the environmental stance too seriously, shall we? Sure, if all the worthless crap that gets published were to be banished to the Land of E-books, no problem. The planet would be saved and we’d all be happy. But the stuff that’s meaningful to people—whether it’s fiction, non-fiction, or poetry—deserves a corporeal existence. If it’s worth publishing, maybe it ought to be worth the death of a tree. By no means should we ignore the environmental impact of book publishing. I just think we should be rational and realistic about it. Put it in its proper context.

And yes, goddamn it, there's something about a book, and there's something about a bookstore, and there's something about stumbling across an out-of-print gem, and there's something about writers getting paid for their work. It’s one thing for successful writers to sing the praises of e-books. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Kind of like how the Jonas Brothers don't need to give a rip about file sharing. It's simply more publicity for them. But I’m not convinced that the rush to kill off the printed book equates to a fairer market for up-and-coming writers. In fact, I fear that we’re headed for a future in which we demand all of our entertainment for next to nothing, as we’ve done with food, clothing, and other household goods already. What's going to come of the next generation's artists, writers, musicians, etc.? If we don't want to pay for our art, we'll end up with nothing but part-time artists, and any writer who has to hold a day job to survive can tell you, that ain’t optimal. I don’t think most writers are greedy by nature, either. But money is time—time that can be spent writing, which is what writers love to do, after all. The more money a writer makes from her fiction, the more time she’ll have to do what she loves. The benefit for readers should be obvious.

I really do believe that many of the world's most serious problems are tied, to varying degrees, to an overall decrease in (or absence of) meaningful exposure to the arts. It's not just a liberal anthem for me. This is serious stuff, and I get the feeling that the transition to digital publishing is a leap into uncharted waters. There’s nothing wrong with being curious about uncharted waters, but why not wade in before taking the plunge? The consequences may prove as irreversible as they are profound. Like the emergence of a world without books that can be seen, heard, touched, smelled, and thrown across a room, for instance. A world of invisible books. No thanks.

Hey, I’m looking forward to more crazy fun next time, so do come back.

Anyone familiar with my work for Fearfodder will know that I’m not exactly an easy mark for sequels and remakes. But Rob Zombie’s re-working of John Carpenter’s revered Halloween film caught my attention, so I checked it out from the library. I’ll give you the bad news first: The film is too long by half an hour and the original kicks its ass. However, it’s one of the best horror remakes I’ve seen (not that I’ve seen many).

If you love Carpenter’s classic, as I do, the remake will have some interest for you. The first forty minutes tease you into thinking that it’s going to be a much grittier film than it ends up being, but I’ll say this about Zombie’s interpretation of the material: It does a nice job of filling in a few plot gaps that will forever mar the original series of movies. In fact, if both films were stories and I read them in a book, I might even prefer the remake. It’s a slightly tighter story with a bit more character development, at least where Michael Myers is concerned.

But do we watch the original Halloween for the depth of its plot or the psychological realism of its characters? Of course not. We watch it for the seamless Hitchcockian suspense that Carpenter delivers so well, and on a shoestring budget. Here’s where Zombie’s Halloween suffers. We’re never quite sure where we are or why, and we don’t particularly care. On the plus side, we’re treated to performances by the legendary Brad Dourif and Malcolm McDowell. But then again, Donald Pleasence more than picked up any slack in the acting department with his portrayal of Dr. Loomis in the original, so I’m not sure if anything is really gained in the updated version.

There’s one scene in particular in the remake that gave me the cold feeling there was little hope for an ending with the kind of power found in the coda of Carpenter’s film. Myers finally corners his sister, Laurie Strode, but instead of hacking her to bits, he drops his weapon and removes a photograph from the breast pocket of his coveralls. He forces her to look at it, hoping to convey to her, without speaking, that they are the boy and girl in the photo, and that they are brother and sister. This isn’t quite as hokey as it sounds, because Zombie does a decent job of laying the groundwork for Myers’ special feelings toward Laurie, but the moment does show a human side to Myers that runs counter to the blank soul we’ve all come to fear over the years.

Now, I’m not against a little humanizing of my favorite movie slashers, but this was too much. For an example of how this sort of thing can be done more effectively, we need look no further than Steve Miner’s Halloween H2O. (This and the original remain the only must-see films in the franchise, but Zombie’s take is a close third.) There are a few scenes in that film that touch on Myers’ inner nature, actually. In one of them, he can be seen shuffling through a ring of keys so he can unlock a gate behind which two of his would-be victims are trapped. In another he steels a woman’s purse by reaching under the stall door at the rest area where she’s using the facilities. We assume she and her young daughter in the adjacent stall are dead meat, but Myers is only after the keys to their vehicle. He has more important business to tend to, so the woman and child are spared—though Myers does appear to consider the alternative for a moment.

These scenes are creepy in the extreme, because suddenly we see Myers not only as a rampaging, almost supernatural, psychopath, but as a human being with the very human trait of patience. They also show us that keys and locks are important in the film, but that’s another matter. More to the point here is that these moments of pathos in H2O foreshadow the film's conclusion, in which Laurie and Michael share a brief tender moment before the Shape is dispatched once and for all. It’s earned, so we fall for it. We’ve seen this possibility bubbling to the surface, so when it comes to a full boil, there’s a very satisfying electricity to it all.

Zombie’s Halloween doesn’t have that kind of subtlety, but it is a lot of fun. It loses its ability to frighten long before the closing credits role, which is always the biggest danger of retreading an effective horror film; the lion’s share of the shock value is simply out the window, no matter how innovative the treatment of the material. But fans will enjoy tackling the familiar subject matter from a new angle. I know I did. It’s just hard not to feel that this thing could have been something more. Maybe next time. Which brings us to the inevitable question, Is Zombie's Halloween II the sequel to a remake, or a remake of a sequel. I like to leave you with a little something to ponder when I can.