Taking place a year before THE ENEMY, Charlie Higson gives us a glimpse of what it was like for the kids who had to start fighting the zombie-like adults only weeks after the disaster that either killed or turned everyone over 14-years-old into crazed monsters.

Ed makes a great reluctant hero. Readers will grow to love him even though his weaknesses at the beginning of the novel make him seem like he’ll be more of a hinderance than help.

Higson provides us with the tiniest bit of character cross-over, making it fun to see how some of the characters we met in THE ENEMY got their start.

If you enjoyed THE ENEMY, you’ll love THE DEAD as well.

It’s the kids against the grownups – literally. A virus has crippled England.  Everyone 14-years-old and older is effected.  The lucky ones die.  The others become crazed, confused monsters that chase, attack and eat anyone they can catch. Kids are left to fend for themselves. 

Small bands of children gather in abandoned houses and stores – anywhere they can make a stand against the Grown-ups. 

One group survives in a grocery store.  They’ve secured the place with barricades and other safety measures hoping to stay alive. The problem comes when they have to leave the store.  Everyday they have to send out a party to scavenge for food.  Some places are safer than others, but there are dangers lurking everywhere.

The kids are forced to expand their searches farther from the store as supplies are depleted, presenting new dangers everyday. Imagine their surprise when a stranger shows up and tells there is a safe place – free of Grown-ups with plenty of food. Buckingham Palace is a safe haven.  Should they trust the stranger?

After taking a vote, they decide to leave the safety of the grocery store and begin to navigate the treacherous route to Buckingham Palace.  Danger is around every corner and not everybody makes it alive.  Will the journey be worth the risk? 

THE ENEMY is an action-packed novel filled with friendship, death, and power struggles. Think LORD OF THE FLIES with zombies! Charlie Higson keeps the reader on the edge of their seat right to the last page.  You’ll be dying to read the sequel.

I am at the end of my rope. Life is only getting worse everyday.  Even in our supposed “safe” communities we are forced to live surrounded by high fences, afraid they will fail at any time.

 The Can Heads are taking over more and more territory in the city. Policeman don’t even feel safe on the streets.  My next door neighbor, Jack Murphy is a policeman with the NYPD and recently lost his partner in a terrible attack.  Jack has to take time off of work just to get his head straight again.  

The other day, Jack’s wife came over to let our little boys play and she told me about a place where she and her family are going for a week or so.  It is called Paterville Family Camp. It sounds too good to be true.  Apparently, families can swim in the lake, take boats out on the water, and get this – enjoy REAL food.  They have gardens or something that allow them to provide for the campers. Just the thought of eating a real meal is enough to make me want to pack up the car and go.  She left behind a brochure.

As soon as she left I went to the computer to pull up their website. It looks amazing.  They have fireworks, bonfires, and movie nights. But, is it really safe? 

I’m going to have to talk to my husband about this. Maybe we’ll go with the Murphys.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jack Murphy is a policeman in New York and has seen the world quickly deteriorate to where there are very few “safe” places left.  The areas that are safe are surrounded by tall fences meant to keep out the Can Heads.

During a particularly bad night at a Can Head siting, Jack watches as his partner walks into a trap and gets eaten alive. Jack himself suffered terrible injuries forcing him to take time off the job and endure many painful weeks of exercise and physical therapy.

After being told by his superiors that he won’t be allowed back to work until he takes some vacation time, he reluctantly agrees to go away with his wife and kids to Paterville Family Camp – a fortress-like compound in the mountains, where families can relax and do things people used to do on vacations like hike, swim, and take boats out on the water.

Everything is great at Paterville.  The kids get in the water everyday, his wife lays on the beach in the sun, and they even meet a nice couple they chit chat with at dinner every night. Another perk to being at Paterville is the food.  There is plenty of it and it isn’t the synthetic food they are used to at home.  At first Jack finds it hard to relax – always on alert for danger, but he eventually sees how much his family is enjoying their time at the Camp and decides to give relaxation a try.

The picture perfect vacation is ruined when Can Heads breach the Camp’s extensive security. With Jack’s help, the guards are able to fight off the attack and put things back in order.  Life is back to normal the next morning with people having fun in the lake like always. Jack never lets his guard down again though and he starts to see strange things that alert his policeman senses to possible sinister goings on at the Camp.

Jack decides he and his family need to leave – no matter what!

VACATION is a fast-paced story that hooks the reader on page one and doesn’t let go until the end.  I label it as a YA Crossover book because while there is quiet a bit of blood and gore and some language, it isn’t anything that older teens can’t handle. This is perfect for your older horror fans.

 

 

Alex is taking a trip to the Waucamaw Wilderness with her parents. She is planning on taking twelve days to hike through the mountains so she can say goodbye. She doesn’t have the will to fight anymore and thinks spreading her parents ashes in one of their favorite places in the world is the best way to end her life and her fight with the tumor in her brain.

When an electromagnetic pulse sweeps though the sky while she is still camping, every electronic device is destroyed and billions of people are killed. Those that survive fall into two categories – the humans and the Changed.

Alex, saddled with a young girl whose grandfather died during the EMP, meets up with a young army veteran named Tom.  Together, the three of them attempt to survive in this post-apocalyptic world and stay away from the deadly group of zombies willing to kill and eat anyone that gets in their path.

ASHES is a fantastic addition to the post-apocalyptic “genre.” It is a page-turner filled with suspense, horror, and romance. This is an absolutely fantastic story.

Karin’s Book Nook would like to welcome Ty Drago, author of THE UNDERTAKERS: RISE OF THE CORPSES, to the blog.  He was kind enough to send a write up about his book launch party in April. I wish I could have been there. But, even though we couldn’t enjoy this wonder event, the publisher is making it possible for you to get your hands on a book.  Two lucky blog readers will win a copy of THE UNDERTAKERS: RISE OF THE CORPSES.  Just fill out the form below by Friday, Sept. 23rd.

On Saturday April 9th at 1:00 PM, a group of about twenty-five people gathered at Children’s Book World in Haverford, PA to listen to — well — me.

The occasion was the launch of my new Middle Grade thriller, THE UNDERTAKERS: RISE OF THE CORPSES.

This book, the first in a series, chronicles the adventures of twelve-year-old Will Ritter, who steps out of his house one day to discover that his next door neighbor, his math teacher, and his assistant principal have all become the walking dead.  But these aren’t the slow, stupid zombies of movie fame.  No, these rotting cadavers are intelligent, organized, and bent on world domination!  And that’s not the bad news.

The bad news is that the “Corpses” somehow disguise themselves as normal men and women, an illusion that can only be penetrated by a few rare individuals, all kids.  The invaders know this, and so the Corpses infiltrate the schools and neighborhoods, and when they uncover a Seer, they silence him or her — permanently.

So Will must run, leaving his home and family behind.  He joins a rag tag army of resistance fighters in Philadelphia.  They call themselves the Undertakers, and the oldest of them is only seventeen.  Together, they stand as humanity’s only hope against an invasion that only they know about.

That’s more or less how I explained it to the kids and adults who gathered at Children’s Book World to hear about my novel and — hopefully — buy themselves a signed copy.

But a launch has to be more than a book signing.  To properly propel a novel forward, it has to be an event.  It has to have an agenda, a time table, prizes and even guests. I knew from the start that it wouldn’t be enough to talk Undertakers and scrawl my name on some books.  I had to put on a show!

So I started with a contest.  My publicist and I dubbed it the Undertakers Undead Art Contest.  Sourcebooks promoted it on their Teenfire website (teenfire.sourcebooks.com), and I promoted on the series’ website (www.jointheundertakers.com).  Then I went about contacting more than forty middle schools, all in my home state of New Jersey, telling them about the contest and urging their artistic participation.

The theme was simple: zombies — but zombies wearing, not rags, but clothes or uniforms or whatever.  In other words: Corpse drawing.

The response surprised me.  We received close to thirty entries from artists ranging in age from eight to seventeen. 

Contest; check.

Next came the swag, the fun trinkets that you can hand out to promote your book.  The good people at Sourcebooks sprang for the bookmarks.  These were, and are, outstanding — double-sided and colorful, with the Undertakers branding on one side and a bar code on the other that, when read by a phone capable of such things, immediately accesses the YouTube book trailer.

Oh, didn’t I mention the trailer?  We’ll get to that.

The buttons I paid for myself, though the graphics department at Sourcebooks designed them for me.  These come in two flavors.  One is red with a bit of business from the cover, the title of the book, my name, and the words “I AM AN UNDERAKER” and “www.jointheundertakers.com” around its rim.  The other is green, sports a few dead folks, and bears the same words, but with “I AM A CORPSE.” 

Swag; check.

The trailer I actually did more than a year ago, filming it in my basement with a handheld night vision camera that I bought on Amazon for ninety bucks, and two actors who basically did it for free.  The result was pretty dramatic, and we had it playing at the launch — another arrow in my promotional quiver.  To see it, visit www.jointheundertakers.com.

Trailer; check.

For the event itself, I managed to convince those same two actors to return.  One, a talented young pro named Griffin Back, played my hero Will Ritter.  The other, an equally talented make-up artist named Josh Hahn, portrayed the loathsome Kenny Booth, animated cadaver and overall bad dude.

At the launch, I had a table set up with three chairs.  Griffin sat on my left and Josh on my right. Josh was in his “Corpse” make-up.  His girlfriend, Alicia Manoski, came as well — made-up to look like the sinister Lilith Cavanaugh, the Corpse villainess from Undertakers Book Two.

In front of each was a stack of stills taken from the trailer and printed out in glorious (greenish night vision) color.  Then, just to add atmosphere to the event, the Undead Art Contest entries were taped up around the table and behind us on the wall.  The plan was simple: when kids (or adults) came up with a book to be signed, I would sign the book.  Then Griffin and Josh would each sign pictures of themselves, and each add a button — one Undertaker and one Corpse.  Then the pictures, the buttons, and a bookmark would go back to the customer along with the autographed book!

Guests; check.

The launch’s agenda went like this:

1.     Introduced by Heather of Children’s Book World

2.     A brief talk about myself and about the book series

3.     A brief reading of Chapter One

4.     Announcement of the Undead Art Contest winners

5.     Book signing and photo ops

Agenda; check.

The event, arranged by my Sourcebooks publicist, was widely publicized and the good folks at Children’s Book World were welcoming and professional.  The weather was perfect, and the bookstore itself small but charming.

But how did it go, you ask?

There were a fair number of people on hand, and I sold a solid number of books.  The time went quickly; it always does at such events.  My friends and most of my family showed up, along with a reasonable quantity of kids who were just there for the book.  By the end of it Josh, still in his Corpse make-up, had pulled a couple of “running” stilts out of his car and was hoping all around the outside of the building, still in his undead garb!  A sight to see!

And then it was over.  All that planning and prep — done.

Except, of course, it isn’t.

A launch is exactly what the word implies.  It’s the beginning of something, not its ending.  My promotional efforts are far from over.  In addition to the interviews and blog tours (this one included), my publicist and I are preparing visits to schools and libraries, literacy events and, of course, more bookstore book signings.

THE UNDERTAKERS: RISE OF THE CORPSES, to take the ship analogy perhaps a step too far, has been successfully launched.  Now my job is to take the wheel and guide her through the treacherous waters ahead.  Its success or failure depends entirely on the kids out there who love a good “zombie” story and are willing to shell out the eight bucks to buy one.

The novel, like a good “ship”, has enjoyed an admirable send off.

But there are no guarantees.

In the modern publishing world, there never are.

Thanks, Ty.  We look forward to reading this one and the sequel, THE UNDERTAKERS: QUEEN OF THE DEAD.

If so, visit Join the Undertakers.

They can help you.

Josh is a top-rated player in a virtual zombie hunting game. He plays every chance he gets – even though his other frequently grounds him from it.  Hunting zombies isn’t a game to his mother.  Her sister was infected with the virus that turned her into a raving, deadly monster.

The video game models what the world went through years ago when zombies were a problem.  The government formed teams of Torchers to hunt and kill the zombies and a lot of people still have those horrible pictures in their minds.  The kids playing the virtual reality game  didn’t live through the horrors of the zombie scare and find it thrilling to hunt and torch them.

When Josh gets a personal invitation to join an elite group of players to hunt very realistic zombies, he is thrilled.  Not only does he get to play the game he loves up close and personal, but it is live action and he gets a chance to make some money too.  The better he plays, the more he makes.

It doesn’t take long for Josh to realize things aren’t exactly as they seem.  The zombies they are fighting are extremely realistic and some of his teammates begin to disappear. He soon finds out what it means to fight for his life and what it was like when zombies could pop up anywhere at anytime.

Z is a story filled with a lot of zombie-killing action. If you need a book to lure in a reluctant boy reader – this is it!!!

Every day Tom trains Benny, Nix, Lilah, and Chong. He prepares them to fight the Zoms they are sure to encounter on their long trek across the dangerous country. Everyone has different feeling about leaving home. Benny isn’t sure he wants to leave FOREVER, but is willing to in order to be with Nix. Nix, who has nothing left is desperate to leave behind all the bad memories. Lilah just wants to feel freedom and live outside the fences again. Tom decides he has to leave since his countless pleas to the town leader’s to build up defenses have fallen on deaf ears. Chong, without the permission of his parents, is staying behind.

Tom plans an overnight trip to help the kids practice living beyond the fences. Chong is given permission to accompany his friends for this short adventure which gives him more time to spend with Lilah.

The overnight outing doesn’t go as planned and the kids are separated from each other and Tom. Evidence points to the possibility that Gameland is up and running again and even worse, could Charlie Pink Eye still be alive?

DUST & DECAY is filled with danger and excitement, love and hatred. It keeps the reader engaged from the first page. The horrors the characters live through is heartbreaking. This is a zombie book that will bring you to tears.

Today I was hoping to have a guest post by Jonathan Maberry for everyone, but it didn’t work out that way.  Instead I decided I would link to two of his most recent posts where he talks about Why Zombies?

Why Zombies? Part 1

Why Zombies? Part 2

I was so excited when I got to say hello to Jonathan Maberry and get an autographed copy of ROT & RUIN at BEA in May. I really enjoyed it and I wasn’t even aware he had written an adult level zombie book called PATIENT ZERO.  Below are the book descriptions of both books. Here is my review of ROT & RUIN.

In the zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic America where Benny Imura lives, every teenager must find a job by the time they turn fifteen or get their rations cut in half. Benny doesn’t want to apprentice as a zombie hunter with his boring older brother Tom, but he has no choice. He expects a tedious job whacking zoms for cash, but what he gets is a vocation that will teach him what it means to be human.

When you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week there’s either something wrong with your world or something wrong with your skills… and there’s nothing wrong with Joe Ledger’s skills.  And that’s both a good, and a bad thing.  It’s good because he’s a Baltimore detective that has just been secretly recruited by the government to lead a new taskforce created to deal with the problems that Homeland Security can’t handle. This rapid response group is called the Department of Military Sciences or the DMS for short. It’s bad because his first mission is to help stop a group of terrorists from releasing a dreadful bio-weapon that can turn ordinary people into zombies. The fate of the world hangs in the balance…

Jonathan Maberry is the New York Times bestselling, and two-time Bram Stoker winning author of the Joe Ledger series of Novels, Patient Zero (St. Martins Minotaur, 2009), The Dragon Factory (St. Martins Minotaur, 2010) and King of Plagues (St. Martins Minotaur, 2011); The Wolfman (Tor Books 2010); Rot & Ruin (Simon & Shuster, October 2010) and Dust & Decay (Simon & Shuster 2011).

His nonfiction works include Zombie CSU: Forensics of the Living Dead (Citadel 2008); They Bite! Endless Cravings of Supernatural Predators (Citadel 2009); The Cryptopedia: A Dictionary of the Weird, Strange, and Downright Bizarre (Citadel 2007) and Wanted Undead or Alive: Vampire Hunters and Other Kickass Enemies of Evil (Citadel 2010).

His work for Marvel Comics includes issues of The Punisher, Marvel Zombies Return, The Black Panther and Doomwar.

His short story, Family Business, is featured in Christopher Golden’s zombie anthology, The New Dead (St. Martin’s Press 2010)

Welcome to Day 5 of the Supernatural Showdown.  Today Karin’s Book Nook is highlighting some of the drool-worthy hunks from the zombie books we love so much. Granted, when you think of zombies you don’t think HOT so since the choice is limited, I am considering any HOT male character from a zombie novel for inclusion on this list.

Nick Gautier from INFINITY by Sherrilyn Kenyon (Dark Hunter series)

I’m what most people call poor white trash. My father was a career felon, my mother a stripper. I grew up in the back rooms of the strip club where she worked, helping the bouncers hustle clients.

I was in and out of trouble a lot as a kid and we won’t talk about how thick my juvenile record is. Thank God, they seal those things.

Anyway, I took the wrong turn down an alley one night and came face to face with Kyrian who changed my life. He took me off the streets, gave me a legal job and got me back into school.

Though I find him offensively annoying 95% of the time, I owe him everything and I would die or kill to protect him and the rest of the Dark-Hunters.

I’m their, shall we say, procurement expert. I find the things they need and can get an army mobilized within an hour. I also do a lot of their computer work and maintain the site.

Adam from GENERATION DEAD by Daniel Waters

What’s not to like about Adam.  He is a tall, handsome football player, a caring friend, and friendly to all the differently biotic kids at school.  He stands by Phoebe when she is attempting a relationship with Tommy, even though he has feelings for her himself.  He is willing to take ridicule from his teammates when he supports Tommy’s decision to join the football team. Adam risks EVERYTHING for his friends.

Ethan from YOU ARE SO UNDEAD TO ME and UNDEAD MUCH? by Stacey Jay

Ethan, a zombie settler, helps Megan learn how to use her powers in order to save the town from a rash of zombie risings.  Who wouldn’t want a SUPER HOT teacher.

Travis from THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH by Carrie Ryan

Travis has blond hair and green eyes, He’s got looks worthy of Mary’s lifelong crush and he’s strong, but also vulnerable and trusting. The attraction is palpable between Mary and Travis.  Carrie Ryan does a great job showing the tension between them as they attempt to go about their lives even though they are both with different people.

Hunter Parrish is who MTV picked to play Travis in the movie.

Aden Stone from INTERTWINED by Gena Showalter

Aden Stone is sixteen years old, has black hair with blond roots, green, brown, blue, gold, and black intense eyes. WOW! He definitely has the bad boy vibe since he’s been in and out of institutions his whole life.  People think he’s crazy since he seems to be talking to himself a lot and spacing out, but in reality it is because he has 4 souls inside his head and they all have their own personalities and sometimes make his life difficult.

Doug from I KISSED A ZOMBIE AND LIKED IT by Adam Selzer

Doug catches Alley’s attention when he sings a Cole Porter song. His interpretation of the classic is unique and sexy. It doesn’t take long for Alley to fall head-over-heels in love with Doug. It doesn’t matter to her that he wears the same suit every time she sees him, can’t talk for very much at a time, or has a strange smell about him (Doug tells her he has a sickness). The way he makes her feel makes up for his strangeness.

Be sure to check out Lisa’s post about the Angel Hunks here.

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.