I have been in love with Daniel Waters since I got my hands on the GENERATION DEAD ARC at the NCTE Conference in 2007.  I reviewed it on Karin’s Book Nook late November 2007.  Shortly after posting the review I heard from Daniel and he told me that I was his FIRST EVER Reviewer! I was so excited.  He was nice enough to send me an ARC of his second book, KISS OF LIFE. Here is what he included inside.

Well, I read it, loved it, and posted the review of KISS OF LIST in November 2008.  I couldn’t wait for the third installment and was excited when I found out it was going to highlight Karen’s story.  I reviewed PASSING STRANGE in June of this year.

Of course, when I paired up with Lisa from Badass Bookie for the Supernatural Showdown I was thrilled she wanted to focus on the Angels. When it was set in stone I was going to highlight zombies, I knew I had to ask Daniel for a guest post.  I was thrilled when he agreed. So, without further ado, here is Daniel on the subject of zombies.

Why I Write About Zombies

Here’s the thing.

I don’t, really.

Examine the evidence—there isn’t any consumption of gray matter, no gnawing on entrails.  No voodoo.  No Trioxin or strange radiation from outer space.  No one says “Braaaiiiiinnns!”, except maybe for ironic intent.  Sure, people call them zombies—or differently biotic, if they are being more politically correct about it—but really they are just people.  Dead people.

But let’s say for the sake of argument I’m writing about zombies.  Or for the sake of Karin, who invited me to write about the topic (I owe Karin; she’s the first person to ever review one of my books.  Thank you, Karin!).  Besides, haven’t I gone on record with a pretty broad definition of what a zombie is?  Book Blogger X: “Dan, what are your favorite zombie novels or movies?”  Dan: “The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin, The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, 1984 by George Orwell.  Oh yeah, and Return of the Living Dead.”  So I’ll cop to writing about zombies.  And zombie romance. (ZomRom) and zombie comedy. (Zombedie) and zombie romance/comedy ZomComRom (all actual, Google-able terms, btw.  Gentlepeople, start your search engines!) No zombie apocalypse tales (zombacalypses) for me, though.  Yet.  Who knows?

The main reason I enjoy writing about zombies because they are just like us, except they’re dead.  I guess I’m making assumptions about you there, aren’t I?  Heck, I’m making assumptions about myself.  But really, that’s the appeal of the trusty zombie to me.  Us, but dead.  I’m often asked why I didn’t go with a more, um, uptempo undead critter for the Generation Dead series.  Like vampires.  Vampires are like the superheroes of the supernatural world.  They fly.  They’ve got super-strength, and super speed and are super sexy and some of them even sparkle.  You know, stuff we can all relate to.        Wheeee!  My guys?  Definitely not superheroes.  They shuffle.  They talk kinda funny.  They hope they won’t get hassled on the school bus.  Well, and this one guy named Popeye takes skin art further than piercing and tattooing by whittling down pieces of his epidermis.   A bunch of them live in a lake because it is safer there than being outside.   And Karen—she’s the pretty one, the one that just about any of us would be thrilled to have a date with—she seems to be healing in the newest GenDead novel, Passing Strange.  What’s up with that?  Most un-zombielike behavior, if you ask me.  Which no one did.

So my zombies do a few strange things, at least .  They also fall in love (arguably yet another strange thing, but let’s let it pass).  And they wish that they were more popular, and that people didn’t hate them for what feels to them like no reason.  And they have problems with their families and really no one understands them.  They don’t even understand themselves.

Just like you and me.

But dead.

The other thing about them is that they’ve gone through this process that you and I and everyone else we know will get to go through someday. Death.  A few of them think they’ve gotten some extra insight or wisdom from their brief trip into the afterlife, but most are left confused and unsettled by the experience, just like anyone who has passed through their sophomore year of high school.  I guess I imagine death will be very similar to life; something that you’ll never really figure out.  You won’t figure it, out but you’ll have fun hanging out with your friends and trying.

I like writing about zombies because you can use them to comment upon just about any aspect of the human condition.  Probably because theyare the human condition—maybe more so than us beating hearts.

Ultimately, I’ll shamble away from writing about zombies.  Maybe there’s some less personal monsters in my near future—Yeti or chupacabras or something—but I’m sure I’ll always look back fondly on the days when I was able to write about people that were just like us.

But dead.

Thank you so much Daniel.  I appreciate what you’ve done for young adult literature.