by Jay Wilburn
Jack Wallen has established himself as a strong voice in many genre. He has great ongoing series including I Zombie, Zombie Radio, and his Reaper series. He has more surprising works such as Frankenstein Theory too and more we will discuss and link in this post.
For this tour, Jack Wallen chose to feature Middletown 3: Metal Apocalypse. This is the latest in a unique series of anthologies spearheaded by Jack Wallen. Wallen says when the first book came out, no one was doing anything like it. Which, in this day and age, is hard to come across. When he first announced the driving force behind the Middletown series (having multiple authors tell the same story), a lot of people were skeptical. As soon as the first anthology was released, the naysayers immediately realized his impulse was correct – that if you give good writers the same parameters, not one story will be the same.
I asked Wallen about his thoughts on short fiction in general and its place specifically with the zombie genre. He thinks the concept of “binge watching” television shows has seeped into the realm of books. The great thing about binge watching is that you can start watching a series and commit however much time you want. Since we’re talking (generally speaking) hour long episodes, it means your attention span isn’t going to be challenged all that much. The same thing holds true with short story fiction. You can pick up an anthology and digest a couple of quick stories with ease. This is also a boon for writers, as short, encapsulated stories can be written without having to worry so much about continuity of the book before and the book after. The Middletown series is a bit different, in that there is some continuity between books. But for the most part, it makes for a great tool that allows writers to get out a one-off story (one that might not need 60,000 plus words to be told). As for the zombie genre, he thinks short story fiction allows for authors to get a bit more creative, so they aren’t just cranking out the same old survival fiction.
I asked him how much more work now has to go into creating a zombie story that’s actually original. He admits it’s getting harder and harder and there are a number of factors involved. He thinks, due to what he calls the Walking Dead Syndrome, what has become acceptable within the genre has narrowed. It used to be anything goes – and that was a great time to be an author within the genre. There were no boundaries. What you could write was limited only by your imagination. With the popularity of The Walking Dead, what was acceptable within the genre began to grow smaller and smaller. All of the fans of The Walking Dead expected to read The Walking Dead. Because of this, it’s become harder and harder to write something unique that is also marketable.
I pressed him for details of what is next for his fans. Right now, he’s finishing up the sequel to Suicide Station. He’s also going to be releasing the sequel to the Dark Seduction in December. Once he finishes with Suicide Machine (the Suicide Station sequel), he will be co-authoring a new series for Devil Dog Press. As for the Zombie genre, he does plan on getting back to The Last Casket sometime very soon. There are also plans for the sequels to Frankenstein Theory and Among You, the third book in his steampunk series, and, in 2018, he will finally write a book to be submitted to the “Big 6” publishers.
I hope I have made the case for Jack Wallen. Check out Middletown 3 or any other the other great works linked above. If you want to know more about Wallen, check out this “case for” post from an earlier tour.
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Jack Wallen rules!