by Jay Wilburn
Winter of Zombie 2016 is underway. We are very excited to be part of helping you celebrate the apocalyptic possibilities represented in 2016. We are aware it is an election month here in the United States and many people are expecting a full on apocalypse depending on the results and your particular leanings.
That being said, it might be good to escape into the pages of apocalyptic zombie fiction. We have some great writers this year that might be able to help you escape the worries of the real world for just a little while or to prepare for the impending end of the world as the case may be.
At any rate, I, your awesomely humble host, Jay Wilburn, have put a lot of time and study into selecting the Winter of Zombie blog tour 2016 slate of authors and featured works. We have a good mix of established authors and writers that are new to the genre. We have classic takes on zombies that give great action and we have authors that took the zombies in wild new directions. In the end, I think we did well giving zombie fans a good reading list for this winter.
Rebecca Besser will be featuring her book Re-civilize: Chad (book 1) from her Zpoc Exception Series. It is another great offering from an author with interesting zombie works under her belt. We all look forward to seeing what she does with this series based on this great start. She tends to focus on characters and story with the zombies being an additional element of the action. Besser has also recently released Nurse Blood from the Organ Harvester series which I enjoyed. It delves into body and medical horror in interesting ways. She has a range of work worth checking out.
EE Isherwood has a great ongoing series. His latest offering and featured work for the tour will be Book 6 in his Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse series, Zombies Ever After. His series began with a young boy deciding to rescue his 104 year old great grandmother despite facing the impossible odds of the zombie apocalypse. From the first book Since the Sirens, that series has only expanded until we end up with a title like Zombies Vs. Polar Bears, book 5 in his series.
Armand Rosamilia is the founder of the Summer and Winter of Zombie tours. As his legend has grown, his time has not. He entrusted hosting duties to me and agreed to come on as a featured author for the tours. Armand is working to consolidate his Dying Days universe pulling all the secondary series into rereleases of the main series thread with new unifying covers that really encapsulate all that is Dying Days. His book Dying Days 7 is the featured work on the tour. We are in a very exciting phase of the evolution of his zombies and of his main character. This installment in the series takes readers in directions they have not seen before in Rosamilia’s work and probably in any zombie series. His extreme zombies have found a new and surprising way to be extreme.
Jaime Johnesse returns to the tour with her featured book Bob the Tacoholic. Her Bob the Zombie books have incorporated humor and a different take on zombies all along. Casual fans of the genre and horror like them. Hardcore fans enjoy getting something a little different from her. She has been involved in collaborations in and out of the zombie genre that are excellent works to check out too.
Jack Wallen has made appearances on the Zombie tours throughout the run of his I Zombie I series. Buy Zombie Buy is his featured work this time around. His I Zombie I series, Teenage Wasteland, and other zombie projects have been hinting at an approaching turn in his work. There was some evolution on the horizon for his series and his take on zombies. That groundwork is finally paying off in Buy Zombie Buy. Once I saw what he had done, I knew he had to be on again this year. This is a great moment to begin the series with I Zombie I or to jump back in to pick up with Buy Zombie Buy. Wallen is also the mastermind behind the Middletown Apocalypse anthology series. The first installment last year took one town, one outbreak, and one loose set of rules. The eleven top writers of zombies told that basic premise eleven different amazing ways and readers responded. With Middletown II, a new premise in a concept sequel shows once again how much potential is in the simple zombie story. This year’s Middletown includes other Winter of Zombie featured authors including Wallen, Rosamilia, Johnesse, and your fabulously humble host Jay Wilburn. There is a lot of great work to consider on this year’s tour.
Greg Ferrell is featuring his work Humanity’s Hope on this year’s tour as he rereleases his series and other zombie work he is putting together. He is in an interesting reworking of his writing and career at this moment. He is repackaging some work for rerelease. He is taking a few pieces that he created in isolation and first offered online and he is putting those together for a bigger release. I also see Ferrell exploring some new avenues with his zombies and other areas of writing. I think this is translating into some cool new ideas from him that are well represented by the quality of Humanity’s Hope.
Mark Ailes is returning to the tour with his Zombie World novel. This ongoing series has delivered great zombie action with cinematic style. Fans have responded. With the new level achieved in Zombie World, I had to tap the world of the Ailes Brothers of Terror again to bring Mark back on the tour for the fans. He and his brother Derek deliver great work individually. Derek has done something great with Undead Pool too. We are pleased that we were able find space for Mark and he was able to fit the Winter of Zombie tour into his schedule this time around as this team of brothers always promises a wild ride with zombies and with everything they write.
Dane Hatchell has been playing with zombies for a while now. A big theme in his forays into the zombie genre have been exploring deeper into the consequences for society and the survivors. He has dealt with the consequences of the responses to the apocalypse as well. You can see the path of his stories follow the question: What would happen next? This takes readers deeper and further than your average zombie book tends to go. That is a good representation of what you get with his collaboration The Dark Times which he cowrote with P.A. Douglas. They joined forces again to bring us The End. Readers will be well served by all the work these authors create together.
P.A. Douglas is featuring The End on the tour this year which he cowrote with Dane Hatchell. Douglas like Hatchell has good zombie work under his belt before bringing us this work. Any one of those novels would be well worth checking out. These authors are great separately, but they’ve created something special together with The Dark Times and with The End. We are pleased to have them both on as featured authors.
Jessica Gomez is featuring Immune, book 2 of the Flash series. Her series began with Infected and introduced an interesting new way of spurring the zombie apocalypse. The result was wiping out much of humanity, creating a deadly version of the zombie, and a few survivors to try to continue on in this hostile environment. A young mother with a newborn is left to find a way to live for herself and her baby. Her family and her concept of family will expand. This brings us forward in her series to the exciting place we are now.
Brice Chandler is a great find for a zombie reader. He has a lot to offer. I’m particularly fond of his work Whiskey Jack and would recommend it to any zombie or adventure fan. His featured work Where Fallen Angels Lie is something special and is the reason he is on the tour this time around. This work represents some of the most out on the edge use of zombies we have on the tour this time around. It is an incredible story and uses the concept of virtual reality in interesting ways too.
Alathia Morgan is featuring Infected Waters: A Titanic Disaster. I’m a big fan of alternate history and hidden history books. I also like when people use this concept with zombies and use it well. Morgan has added zombies into an exciting and harrowing tale that retells the story of the Titanic in fascinating ways.
Thad David is featuring Divide Then Conquer Book 1 of the Zombie Company Crusade series which he cowrote with J. L. Koszarek. This zombie thriller uses both zombie and human enemies well. Readers of this series are constantly surprised with where the story could go next.
J.L. Koszarek is featuring Divide Then Conquer Book 1 of their exciting co-written series The Zombie Company Crusade. In addition to their take on zombies, Koszarek dabbles in paranormal and contemporary romance as well. To all her work, she brings literary flair and real gut level emotion to her characters. Thad David and Koszarek make a good team in creating this series.
The ride is beginning! The authors and books are locked in. We have great discussions on zombies. We have teasers and details about these books. We have in depth explorations of the genre and how these particular books and authors serve readers and fans. Welcome aboard or the Winter of Zombie blog tour 2016. It’s going to be a great month for an apocalypse!!!
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