The Fields

by Ty Schwamberger, Jonathan Maberry (Introduction)

Billy Fletcher learned to farm the family's tobacco fields--and beat slaves--by the hands of his father. Now, his father is dead, the slaves have long since been freed, and the once-lush fields are dying. Salvation by the name of Abraham knocks on the farmhouse door, bringing wild ideas. He can help Billy Save the plantation and return the fields to their former glory... by raising his father's slaves from the dead.

Can the resurrected slaves breathe life back into the Fletcher farm? Having brought the slaves back from graves that his father sent them, can Billy be the kind master his father wasn't? Is keeping the farm worth denying the men the freedom they earned with death?

Billy's conscience holds the key to those mysteries, but not the biggest one: what does Abraham really want from the former slave owner's son?

Welcome to The Fields.

Praise:
"The walking dead, a post-Civil-War setting, and a sinister Lincolnesque figure add up to a fresh new take on the zombie mythos."
- Tim Waggoner, author of Nekropolis, Broken Shadows and Darkness Wakes

"With The Fields, Ty Schwamberger did the near-impossible: made zombies interesting to me again. Not only interesting, but frightening, as well. Throw in more than a dash of scathing social commentary, a pace that never stops to catch its breath, and a sly bit of gallows humor, and you've got a winner. Kick yourself if you miss this one."
- Gary A. Braunbeck, Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild Award-winner, author of To Each Their Darkness and A Cracked and Broken Path

63 pages, Paperback

First published December 16, 2011

About the author

Ty Schwamberger is an award-winning author & editor in the horror genre. He is the author of a novel, multiple novellas, collections and editor on several anthologies. In addition, he’s had many short stories published online and in print. Three stories, “Cake Batter” (released in 2010), “House Call” (released in June 2013) and DININ’ (optioned in July 2013), have been optioned for film adaptation. He is an Active Member of the International Thriller Writers. Learn more at http://tyschwamberger.com or follow on Twitter @SchwambergerTy.

Reviews

[Karl · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is copy numbered 1 of 100 signed numbered copies and is signed by:

Ty Schwamberger
Ben Baldwin (Cover Art)
Tara Bush (Interior Illustrations)

The forward is by Joe Mckinney
Introduction by Jonathan Maberry

The book is number 2 in the SST Novella Series.

The Fields by Ty Schwamberger

This novella by Mr. Schwamberger has totally missed the mark for me. For example, the author spent four paragraphs describing how the protagonist retrieved a pitcher of milk from the ice box, sniffed the contents, and then poured the into a glass. This scene is repeated later in the book. Next having to listening to the repeated whining, by the main character, about how the crops are failing on the farm over and over and over again became quite tedious., as did the hoeing of the ever present rocks.

My first heads up should have been the first three pages of the book, They contained blurbs from some credible folks as to just how grand this story was. This can usually be a sign of danger in paperback editions of books. Next we have a forward and an introduction, also by a couple of famous zombie authors, perhaps all this hype made it impossible for the book to attain any of the expectations set. NOT.

The book promised Zombies. The book delivered perhaps six pages of Zombie inaction. And quite lame Zombie inaction a best. Most of the time was spent in theoretical mis-direction as to what the plot was about. And never delivered on any of it’s promises.

The story was to have taken place around the turn of the century in the late 1800’s. I don’t believe folks said things like” Jesus Christ on a rubber crutch” , or called their slaves negro’s. The whole book was executed on a junior high reading level. Perhaps that was the intention.

All the published words aside, the hardcover version of this book from SST has a beautiful dust jacket by Ben Baldwin and the interior illustrations a quite haunting.

I don’t know who I could recommend this book to.

[Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Fields by Ty Schwamberger
Review by Howard Allan

After I received an advanced copy of Ty Schwamberger’s novella The Fields, I turned the first pages and immediately began reading kudos by notable authors and magazines such as Gary A. Braunbeck and Shroud Magazine. I never judge a book by its cover, but I do start judging books by their praise. And with an introduction by Jonathan Maberry (Rot and Ruin, Patient Zero), I was excited to start reading.
Jonathan Maberry starts off his introduction stating “The Fields is a morality tale. With Zombies.” Maberry then explains to the reader that zombie tales are more than cannibalistic and mindless corpses. These tales, if written with feelings and responsibility, remind the reader zombies are people and they have life and their own stories. This is what Ty Schwamberger accomplishes with The Fields. He, as many authors have tried but failed, brings out the emotion of the characters but not just the living, but the dead also with much success.
The opening chapter sets The Fields pace; quick with that sense of emotion that is mentioned in Maberry’s introduction. The reader is drawn in as Billy Fletcher, son of plantation owner in the Deep South, is racing through the darkness with zombie in tow. Schwamberger describes Billy’s friendly relationship with the former slave now turned zombie Samuel. Yes, that could happen and yes, if you’ve studied American history, friendly relationship between slaves and owners did indeed exist. With not giving away too much of the plot, Billy survives the zombie encounter.
The novella moves on to an odd and unexpected meeting between Billy and a man named Abraham, a long since forgotten friend of Billy’s deceased and “hard son-of-a-gun” father. The plantation is in dire straits and Abraham promises Billy that with help, the plantation can once again be resurrected to its former glory, the days before the Civil war.
Unsure of Abraham’s motives, Billy keeps himself from revealing too much about the past few years of his life and about his father’s death until Abraham’s cryptic mannerisms gets the best of Billy. Billy then explains the past years and again, Abraham offers help. This help is sinister. To transform the plantation back its glory days involves exhuming the dead slaves from the plantation cemetery to revivify the slaves and the plantation.
Billy scoffs. But by the end of the day, he is overcome by exhaustion by tending to the tobacco fields and the livestock alone. He is clouded by flashbacks of his father’s brutality against the slaves. Billy relives moments of slaves being tied up and beaten. He even relives his own abuse by his father for simple mistakes such as arriving at school late.
The writing of the beatings is brilliant. The sounds of the whipping stick come to life through Schwamberger’s descriptive writing. The reader can nearly feel every whip and the pain that the slave and even Billy endure.
More so, the reader is able to relate to Billy’s struggle for parental acceptance. Like many children today, Billy feels he hasn’t lived up to their parents’ expectations, especially his father’s. And with another meeting with Abraham, Billy decides it’s time that he makes his deceased father proud of his son for the first time.
The pace of The Fields picks up from here. It was already fast-paced but now it’s an enjoyable and emotional rollercoaster. Billy knows he has to follow through with Abraham’s continuing offer of help, to exhume the dead slaves. What Billy will find out from Abraham though, it’s not the slaves or the plantation that Billy is truly resurrecting.
The chapters to follow describe the dead as they appear in old zombie movies from the 1940s and 1950s, mindless field workers who go about their work (ala White Zombie staring Bela Lugosi). Schwamberger even pays homage to the Haitian form of zombification, harmless zombies kept mindless in order for them to help their masters. This is where the originality comes in. Schwamberger doesn’t create typical flesh-eating zombies, he draws his influence from old school horror, a practice getting lost by today’s influence from AMC’s The Walking Dead and the George A. Romero generation. It’s Schwamberger’s ability to ignore the typical and easy copout of the modern zombies that leads to the surprise ending, which deserves its own praise. The reader will never see it coming.
The press release for The Fields, with its many well-know author kudos, is dead on with their praises. The Fields isn’t your average zombie tale. It’s much more. It’s a game changer. It delivers what the genre is suffering from, which is originality. It negates the typical overrun town and city streets of the gut-thirsty walking dead so typical of the majority of novels, novellas, and anthologies. The Fields brings emotion, ignites the need for unity, highlights the important struggle of family responsibility and above all, brings fun back into the zombie genre. Schwamberger also reminds us; the dead have a story to tell and to live.

[Gef · Rating 4 out of 5]

It turns out that one way to go forward with the zombie genre is to go backwards--in time, anyway. Ty Schwamberger's novella, The Fields, offers up the story set in the days following the American Civil War of Billy Fletcher, a young plantation owner in dire need of help to keep the farm going before the tobacco crop dies. He inherited it after his father passed away, a cruel slave-owner who didn't just exploit those indentured on his farm, but tortured them as well, even burying slaves behind his expansive tobacco fields. Even his son wound up the receiving end of more than a few beatings for showing sympathy for the slaves and other deeds considered sins in his father's eyes.

But despite vowing to run the plantation differently from his father, to work the land himself rather than resort to slave labor, the young man is failing. Enter a man named Abraham who knocks on Billy's door one day and offers him a solution. There's no real telling where Abraham came from, but he sure seems to know a lot about Billy and his father, and assures Billy that what he needs to do is follow in his father's footsteps. And that's something that Billy is adamant about avoiding, because he doesn't want to be a slave-owner like his father. But what if the slaves are already dead?

This was a tremendously creepy zombie story, due mainly because of the racial current running through it. The idea that a person would only be enslaved during when they're alive, but when they're dead as well, is an unsettling one to say the least. One thing I had trouble envisioning as I read the book was the farm. Billy, Abraham, and the zombies jumped off the page, but the plantation itself felt very much like a stage-dressing when I was expecting something much more vivid. But, maybe tobacco fields just aren't that much to look at.

Apex seems to have a knack for using its imprint, The Zombie Feed, to showcase books in the genre that stray from the road most traveled. And Ty is an emerging talent in the horror genre, to be sure. I'd only read some of his short fiction prior to this, so it was nice to sit down with a longer work and see how he brings a story to life when there's a little more room to breathe. I've got a couple more of his novellas on my to-be-read pile, and I'm definitely looking forward to checking them out, too.

[Gothic Readers Book Club · Rating 5 out of 5]

GOTHIC READERS CHOICE AWARD WINNER

Several weeks ago, our members engaged in an intense debate over zombies. There are many great zombie stories out there, but are they Gothic literature? We agreed that although many are fantastic horror, zombies just don't quite fit the Gothic literary tradition. The emphasis in a zombie story is gore over suspense. Character and setting development take second place to the horror elements through plot. Ty Schwamberger's novella The Fields is a rare exception. It's both a fantastic horror story and a great piece of Gothic fiction. Rather than an eating brains/ walking dead story, Schwamberger has crafted a tale of human frailty, ignorance, and evil within the framework of the zombie story. The walking dead serve the Gothic narrative rather than serve as the plot device. It's more a tale of humans than shambling corpses and this one of the most critical facets to Gothic literature. Do not be afraid of the zombies with this one.

If you like: Guy de Maupassant, H.P. Lovecraft

http://gothicreadersbookclub.blogspot...

[Rob Allens · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not a zombie fan and I almost passed on this one. But it had some great reviews and I gave it shot. WOW! It's one of the best zombie stories I've read since Max Brooks. Relying less on the gore and guts and more on intense storytelling, Schwamberger hooks us in from the first page. Great characters and great action make this a fantastic story!

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not your run of the mill zombie story.

Sometimes people try so hard to do what is right they inevitably fail. Billy learns the hard way that two wrongs do not make a right.

[Padre · Rating 1 out of 5]

Here's ONE sentence from 'The Fields':
'He hoped that, by that time, Abraham would forget about him, he would get the fields back up to par and would be able to put the entire thing - from nightmare of an undead Samuel chasing him through the fields and trying to rip out of piece of his neck, to having to dig up bodies that would more than likely include his former friend and stick them in the barn, for whatever reason - out of his head and be able to move on with his mundane life of being plantation owner after the Abolitionist Movement'

Mr Schwamberger, did you read your own book?

[Mick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting take on zombie genre, but poorly executed. The error-strewn, pedantic writing style didn't do this short story too many favours. Surprised to read that the author is an editor of some horror anthologies, as he hasn't taken the time to edit his own work sufficiently.