A Cool Send Off to a Long Month

It’s 58 degrees Fahrenheit at 1:36 p.m. The cycle of drizzle/rain has started again. My throat is sore from post-nasal drip. Some hot decaf chai tea and a nap would be perfect right now. But first....

Is it hot where you are? Call the Ice Witch!
She'll cool your jets.

What a month. Seems like a year ago already since I did that last temp gig hustling fuel additives at King Sooper’s gas stations from South Academy Boulevard to the corner of North Union and Briargate Parkway. The Fourth was a curiously subdued affair, but I enjoyed having my grown daughter over to visit. 

I finally shouldered off the rewrite of Grace Among the Dead to Severed Press on the 7th, wrote the jacket copy on the 13th, and anticipated one more read-through. No, the publisher was done waiting on my slow ass (and who could blame them?) and my second novel hit Kindle on the 17th, with the paperback available on the 28th.

The first chapter to Book 3, The Wrong Kind of Dead, went into production on the 23rd. I’ve got so much bad craziness going on those eight pages I’ve had to take a break before moving on. That, and I landed another temp gig. I’m not yet in a position to turn these things down. At least I’m indoors this time.

Sometime around the 26th I got an email from the proprietor of Luzifer Verlag. The German translation of Bleeding Kansas is done, and the book is set to drop in the ancestral homeland on 23 October. It already has its own page at the (German) Amazon.de site.

I write all this, not to boast, but to remind myself the month wasn’t a total wash. It feels that way, especially when the weather is unnatural, you’re feeling a little sick, you’re tired, and that third book still isn’t writing itself. 

“A Tale of Love and Redemption, the Living Dead and a Monster Truck”

I couldn’t let the night go without a peek at the back cover of my paperback. I’m proud of the copy. There were two more paragraphs that got cropped, but this works out better. There’s a lot going on with Grace Among the Dead, but there’s no need to give it all away. It’s good to leave room for surprises.

A monster truck does get involved at some time during the conflict. A monster truck and the kind of accessory monster trucks are known for. I can say no more. Except that you really need to buy this. In Kindle or paperback:

Now with two exploding heads on the cover. Bleeding Kansas has one because it’s the first in the series, get it?

A Weird, Wet Summer Winds Down

It’s safe to say we’ve endured the last of our 90-degree Fahrenheit days for 2014. I can also say I’ve seen the eeriest weather ever today: all-day rain in Colorado Springs. When I drove to Marietta, South Carolina, last year, my host apologized for all the rain we had during my short visit. He seemed incredulous when I told him he had nothing to apologize for, that I’d missed such peaceful, quiet days where the rain falls softly, but steadily all day and into the night.

Such dark, gray tranquility feels unnatural back in Colorado. On the other hand, any year in which we’re not exploding into flames is a good one here in the land of 300 Days of Sunshine. I’ll take it.

The view northeast from my driveway 13 months ago as the Black Forest Fire set about destroying some 500 homes. The year before, the Waldo Canyon Fire laid its stench across us on the hot days so that we couldn’t open our windows at night. This is seriously inconveniencing when you don’t have air conditioning.

Second Promotional Image for Zombie Thriller GRACE AMONG THE DEAD

It’s a little better than the last time. I managed to get the Severed Press logo in there., but for reasons known only to the developers of Photoshop, it’s stuck in the lower center of the image. I couldn’t resize it, either. Just another couple of after-action notes I’ll need to follow up on.

On the bright side, I’ve got a mess of these brutal little pull quotes from Grace Among the Dead. This one really paints a picture:

Click here for the Kindle edition, and here for the paperback. Solidly entertaining zombie apocalypse adventure at reasonable prices!

I wanted to put “from the author of BLEEDING KANSAS” in there but the design seemed busy enough. 

At least it’s better than the one before it. Here’s hoping the next one surpasses this.

Notes on a Pleasantly Warm and Quiet Summer's Evening

I’ve been slowly building Chapter 1 of my third book from outline, and what’s coming off my fingertips still surprises me. It’s true, structure really does unleash the creativity. The Wrong Kind of Dead is going to be layered with all kinds of deep, dark goodness.

The downside of that is I already should be done with Chapter 1. This is taking longer than I’d like. Gotta pick up the pace! Summer’s almost gone.

___________________________________________

A layer of clouds has settled in, trapping the heat. Tonight must be race night on Woodmen Road, because I can hear the engines roar along those wide six lanes between the hospital on the high ridge to the east and the shopping center a couple of terraces down from me. 

It doesn’t bother us when we sleep. I rather like knowing there’s some kind of life going on out there while I quietly drink my beer and contemplate the best way to wrap Chapter 1.

___________________________________________

Crickets now. Back to work. I should be doing something to promote my books, but you know what? Let’s give it a rest. I think I covered it all pretty well in the last post. For the time being. Tonight, I drink beer, and push my way to the end of Chapter 1 of Book 3.

Ah, summertime.

“Do I Need to Read Book 1 First?” No!

Frequently Asked Questions About GRACE AMONG THE DEAD
You Frequently Forgot to Remember to Ask

Grace Among the Dead is Book 2 in The Saga of the Dead Silencer, but written in such a way that it can stand on its own. There are references throughout Grace to what happened in Bleeding Kansas, and though it would help to read that book first, it’s not absolutely necessary.

The idea here is if you like Grace Among the Dead, you’ll want to read the book that came before it, because I can tell a tale of the zombie apocalypse like no one’s business, and you like that. Demand, meet Supply. 

I saw one blurb for the book that went,  A TALE OF LOVE AND REDEMPTION, OF THE LIVING DEAD AND A MONSTER TRUCK. There’s another tagline that goes, IN THE HEART OF DARKEST HORROR, YOU’LL FIND GRACE AMONG THE DEAD. Is GATD a comedy? A dramedy? What?

Make no mistake, Grace Among the Dead is a dark and violent book, a horror novel that transcends its genre in terms of squirm-inducing scenes. The first act, “Decision Points,” is distilled from the most brutal narrative I’ve ever written, and I worry that I might put a lot of people off with that. Derek Grace has much to redeem himself for. But there is love and redemption to be had, and it won’t give us sugar shock.


Nor is our hero’s redemption of the religious kind, although Derek Grace owes much of his rehabilitation to a friendly pastor. A megachurch settlement is the setting for most of the novel, but, contrary to that old and busted narrative cliché, the church is not evil. A megachurch, good, bad, or indifferent, has the organizational tools (e.g., small groups) to survive the apocalypse. Abundant Life has unwittingly taken in a corrupting influence, and the good people there are counting on Grace to clean up the town. In this respect, Grace Among the Dead is a classic Wild West tale.

But the living dead are very much a presence—an evolving presence, at that—and it doesn’t make the narrative any less serious, either.  As for the monster truck, I’ve said all I dare say for those who haven’t read the book yet. 

Here’s the tl;dr: There are humorous moments, but Grace Among the Dead is not a dramedy. It’s an action-adventure story involving zombies and a moral quest. There’s a good deal of outright horror. But there is heroism, too. And a monster truck.

You will be hard-pressed to find a more professionally written tale of the zombie apocalypse. This is not Guns and Ammo porn with two-legged targets (although I’d really like that police-issue Remington 700 with the bipod and scope to shoot Mountain Dew cans with). You can read passages aloud from Grace Among the Dead and not feel like you’re making fun of the developmentally disabled. 

I cross the little bridge over the creek and nearly hit three ghouls stumbling over to check out the commotion. One of them used to be a little girl, judging by what’s left of the dress hanging on her scabbed-over bones.

You don’t often see undead children, but when you do, it’s a mess. Not having a lot of mass and meat to begin with, they’re usually thoroughly gnawed over when they’re not (as is most often the case) pulled apart entirely. 

The two used-to-be young men reach out towards my open window high on the truck, moaning through their dried scab-beards in frustration. The little girl-thing, though, she’s all business. She’s zeroed in on the screams and small-arms fire of the feast ahead. 

A mile away at the main road and the gunfire is loud enough to wake the dead. Here they come, one here, three there, pushing through the littered, overgrown fields, limping up the highway, homing in on the sounds of desperate, frightened food.

Grace Among the Dead is a book written by a guy who’s read books, and has a good idea of what they should look like. It’s from Severed Press, a small, indie publisher, but I don’t own the company. Someone else thought they could make money from my story. If that’s not an endorsement, I don’t know what is.

So let’s roll out our Call to Action here, in case you haven’t already been clicking on the links I’ve put in with mentions of the title. This is Grace Among the Dead, Book 2 in The Saga of the Dead Silencer:

Only $4.99 in Kindle! Less than a pint!

And this is Bleeding Kansas, Book 1, which you don’t have to read first to enjoy Grace Among the Dead. It simply would be nice.

Only $2.99 in Kindle!

For those for whom it is never dark nor edgy enough, this is the controversial first edition of Bleeding Kansas, with more snark, more dark, and a questionable death in Chapter 9 that I was asked to remove by the publisher due to reader complaints. It’s only available in paperback, but it’s a neat study in creative editing when read alongside the second edition.

Only $9.49 in paperback, with one available used!
Controversial, yet rated half a star higher than the second edition, and with more reviews!

Photos from 2009 Colorado Springs Zombie Crawl, taken and
Copyright © 2009, 2014 by Lawrence Roy Aiken

Hibernating Zombies Awaken Ravenous

Production Begins on The WRONG KIND of DEAD

Ready or not, whoomp, here it is.

As yet another cool, wet week gives way to the relentless July sun, I begin writing the third and last novel in my zombie apocalypse series. I would have started it on Thursday but I got caught up in the surprise release of my second book. I tried to get busy with promotion but came up mostly flat. Looking at my blog posts for last week, I’ve had trouble writing, period. It’s like something got broken over the last couple of weeks. And here I am griping that I didn’t get to do a final read on Grace Among the Dead. 

Enjoy your Sunday. I’ve got to make one and one-half pages into a full chapter by bedtime. The living dead at this point in the saga have been hibernating over the frigid Colorado winter and have awoken crazy hungry. They will fling themselves to pieces coming at you. And then another visitor appears, and in Chapter 2 he will present a message of hope—and a warning.

For Derek and Agnes and Elyssa and Brother Christopher and the whole merry crew, The Wrong Kind of Dead will be a worlds-shattering experience. All of human civilization will hang in the balance of the final conflict. And that’s all I can say about it other than I’m excited to be back in the post-apocalyptic world of Derek Samuel Grace. The “saga” in my series title will no longer be ironic by the time I’m done.