44.13: The Happy Zombie Sunrise Home, by Margaret Atwood and Naomi Alderman (Wattpad 2012)

Wattpad is an free app that provides readers with access to free books and reading material. Many of these books are written by amateurs, rife with fan fiction and the like, but some of the material shared is of high quality. Corey Doctorow has released his recent book on Wattpad, and Margaret Atwood has jumped on board--first with some poetry and now with this novella, co-written with Alderman in alternating chapters.

While one might expect an author best known for her dystopic novels about our future to have a negative view of technology, Atwood is quite the opposite. She was among the first adopters of Twitter and tweets out regularly--her own tweets, versus those created and posted by a publicist or staffer. So, her support of the Wattpad platform is not surprising in this regard. And, the change of platform has allowed for a bit more frivolity and fun. The piece, as described in the title, it about zombies. And, as much as I like zombies, how could I not like zombies as seen by my favorite author?

(For those interested in more of Atwood's digital productions, two recent short stories are available in eBook format only: "I Dream of Zenia with the Bright Red Teeth" (a follow-up to Cat's Eye) and I'm Starved for You" (the first in a post-apocalyptic serial now titled Positron--and in its fourth installment). Both are available via Amazon/Kindle.