''Gil's All Fright Diner'' is an

urban fantasy Urban fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy which places imaginary and unreal elements in an approximation of a contemporary urban setting. The combination provides the writer with quixotic plot-drivers, unusual character traits, and a platform for cl ...

novel by

A. Lee Martinez A. Lee Martinez (born January 12, 1973) is an American fantasy and science fiction author. He has been a member of the DFW Writers' Workshop since 1995. He currently resides in Terrell, Texas. Biography A. Lee Martinez was born in El Paso, Te ...

first published in 2005.

Plot summary

In the backwoods southern town of Rockwood, a vampire and a werewolf in a run-down old truck come across Gil's All Night Diner, a 24-hour restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Nearly out of gas, they stop in at the diner only to discover it is the target of

zombie A zombie (Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in whic ...

attacks, hauntings, and occult activity. The manager of the diner, Loretta, offers them a job helping her out around the diner, and maybe helping solve her

problem. They accept.

Characters

* Duke – a werewolf who is big and hairy. * Earl – a vampire who is lean and balding. * Loretta – the owner of a diner. * Tammy – also known as Mistress Lillith to her cult, a teenaged sorceress who wants to unleash the old gods to destroy the earth. * Chad – a not-too-bright jock who does the bidding of Tammy. * Marshall Kopp – the sheriff of Rockwood. * Gil – the former owner of the diner who disappeared some time before the events in the story. * Cathy – a sweet-natured

ghost A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to rea ...

who falls for Earl. * Napoleon – a ghostly

Scottish Terrier The Scottish Terrier ( gd, Abhag Albannach; also known as the Aberdeen Terrier), popularly called the Scottie, is a breed of dog. Initially one of the highland breeds of terrier that were grouped under the name of ''Skye Terrier'', it is one o ...

References to other works

There are multiple references to the

Necronomicon The ', also referred to as the ''Book of the Dead'', or under a purported original Arabic title of ', is a fictional grimoire (textbook of magic) appearing in stories by the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft and his followers. It was first menti ...

from the works of H. P. Lovecraft.

Film adaptation

By December 2009,

DreamWorks Animation DreamWorks Animation LLC (DWA, also known as DreamWorks Animation Studios and simply known as DreamWorks) is an American animation studio that produces animated films and television programs and is a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, a division ...

had set screenwriters Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris to write a film adaptation of the book, with

Barry Sonnenfeld Barry Sonnenfeld (born April 1, 1953) is an American filmmaker and television director. He originally worked as a cinematographer for the Coen brothers before directing films such as ''The Addams Family'' (1991) and its sequel ''Addams Family Va ...

attached to direct it. In 2011, Martinez was working with DreamWorks on a project based on an original idea, and not on ''Gil's All Fright Diner''. In March 2013, Martinez expressed uncertainty for any film adaptation: "Your guess is as good as mine. It's all a matter of convincing someone with the clout necessary to make it happen".

Awards and nominations

* 2006 Alex Award

Release details

* 2005, USA, Tor Books , pub date 28 April 2005, hardcover * 2005, USA, Tor Books , pub date 28 April 2005, paperback * 2006, USA, Tor Books , pub date 27 June 2006, mass market paperback

References

{{Reflist

External links

Author's official website
2005 novels 2005 science fiction novels