by Jay Wilburn
It’s a little strange writing this due to the fact that many Tufo fans reading this know as much or more about the writer and his work as I would be able to tell them. But on the off chance that one or two people reading this may be new to the legend that is Mark Tufo, I’ll give you my case for reading Tufo’s work.
Mark Tufo is the author of the ongoing Zombie Fallout series. Readers enjoy his writing because he knows how to put ordinary people through extraordinary action. His prose is fast paced and easy to read. It moves in a way that feels natural to readers and they respond by really getting into his story telling.
His focus in the 2016 Summer of Zombie tour was the third and final book in the Timothy series. He started this series back in 2012. Due to an unusual negotiation on rights with a publisher, the offer was laid out that they would basically take any series or book he had to offer. Tufo took that as a challenge and came up with a crazy concept for a character and a story. You have a sadistic undead character and a self aware virus in Tim. Tim may be Tufo’s darkest horror to date and it is worth the read for any stripe of horror fan.
He also took a turn into other monsters with his Lycan Fallout series. Lycan Fallout 4 is on the way and it’s my understanding that a big new series is going to be introduced at the end of that book. I have no idea what the big reveal is going to be because Tufo is being stubbornly tight lipped about it, but I’m excited to see what it might be. Whatever it is, I believe him when he says it will be big. Tufo has had a lot of great series going over the years including Zombie Fallout, Indian Hills, Riley, Tim, and more. This year it appears that Riley and Tim are coming to a close so that opens up a lot of creative space for what is next and Tufo is not one to let fans down.
Mark Tufo is an interesting person and writer. He’ll tell you that he is just a plain guy with a Boston accent. I don’t think he views himself as anything special. He has a range of interests that make him uniquely qualified to write a zombie survival series and the range of characters he creates. His writing moves easy with a plain spoken feel, but there is a surprising depth to his stories. It sneaks up on you and I think his loyal readers see that.
He started off simply. He wrote his first book between jobs. He learned some lessons there, but was almost prepared to trash it at one point after he published it. Instead, he reedited and continued to write and create. It’s hard to imagine a world where Tufo gave up on writing, went back to some other job, and we had none of the great work he put out there.
Mark Tufo credits Armand Rosamilia with helping him figure out how to begin with writing back at the start of Tufo’s career. Both of these writers have been generous with their time and have helped with other writers ever since. As their careers and popularity grow, they find more and more ways to give back. I’m personally very excited about the United States of Apocalypse book that these two authors created together. That is well worth the read to see what they created with their combined talent. Spoiler: It’s very good.
I hope I have made the case for Mark Tufo. Check out Zombie Fallout, Tim, Lycan Fallout, and really anything that has Tufo’s name on it.
Check out Book 2 of the Dead Song Legend by Jay Wilburn.
Jay Wilburn lives with his wife and two sons in Conway, South Carolina near the Atlantic coast of the southern United States. He has a Masters Degree in education and he taught public school for sixteen years before becoming a full time writer. He is the author of many short stories including work in Best Horror of the Year volume 5, Zombies More Recent Dead, Shadows Over Mainstreet, and Truth or Dare. He is the author of the Dead Song Legend Dodecology and the music of the five song soundtrack recorded as if by the characters within the world of the novel The Sound May Suffer. He also wrote the novels Loose Ends and Time Eaters. He is one of the four authors behind the Hellmouth trilogy. He cowrote The Enemy Held Near with Armand Rosamilia. Jay Wilburn is a regular columnist with Dark Moon Digest. Follow his many dark thoughts on Twitter, Instagram, and Periscope as @AmongTheZombies, his Facebook author page, and at JayWilburn.com
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