by Jay Wilburn
RJ Spears is a prolific writer with the bulk of his work in zombie horror and zombie dystopian survival stories. He has two strong zombie series out with Books of the Dead, including his latest featured work of book 5 in the series, The Living and the Dead, and his other powerful zombie series in Forget the Zombies. His entire catalog of work is worth checking out and he has a lot to offer to keep readers busy and thoroughly entertained.
I found it interesting that he actually started out wanting to be a mystery writer – first person PI specifically. He had one book written to kick off a series, but he had it out with beta readers and the reviews weren’t great, so he shelved it at that time. He does tinker with it at times, though. There are some great crime and mystery-thriller stories available from him on Amazon. As for it influencing his style, it gave him that first person voice that he likes writing in. It has worked really well with his zombie stories, in my opinion. He says, greats like John D. MacDonald, Travis McGee, and Robert B. Parker’s Spenser helped him find that voice.
I asked Spears about writing two zombie series as intricate as Books and Forget are. He told me it’s very demanding. The main characters in both books are written as a different, more competent and heroic version of himself, so in a way they were easy to write because he was tapping into what he knew about – himself. Always a potentially good starting point, I think. At one point, he was writing both series at the same time and that was crazy. Balancing two narratives at the same time and keeping them both fresh was hard. His Forget the Zombies series is mostly completed, but he thinks it might have one more book in it. That would come later, he tells me. The Books of the Dead series is in full gear and having one series to focus on at a time makes things easier.
I like both series for different reasons. I would say the key difference may be in scope and perspective. Forget the Zombies is told in the first person and that allows a single focus of his main character’s perspective. Spears does a good job of letting us experience it all inside this guy’s head. In Book 2 of his Books of the Dead series, he decided to break from the tight, singular first person narrative and included multiple perspectives. That exploded the scope of the rest of the series going forward. I think it worked great to bring us in on book one and then to spread out the experience over the growing cast of characters from there. The series started out as a trilogy, but now we are featuring book 5. I’m looking forward to continuing with this series as a reader.
He has some great short stories available in his Amazon offerings too. I asked him about his short fiction. Spears thinks writing short stories is a very different art from writing novels. It has to be a self-contained story, forcing an economy of scope and focus. He loves writing short stories, but it’s challenging because he says he has stretched his ideas out while writing novels. The main reasons he writes short stories now is that he benefits from the break from writing long form pieces. He might have a burst of short inspirations. He also writes them as giveaways for email newsletter subscribers.
As a side note, RJ Spears does his own covers. I bring that up because his covers are pretty eye catching. There are a number of authors who do this themselves with questionable results, but I think Spears is pulling it off pretty consistently. Another reason I bring this up is because the cover for Flashlight Tag caught my attention enough for me to check it out and to ask him about it. Flashlight Tag was inspired by a short film Spears wanted to make. He has a twin brother and they both went to film school together years ago. RJ Spears’s brother went to Hollywood and worked there for almost 20 years. Anyway, each year in Columbus, Ohio, there is a short horror film contest and they made short films to enter. The idea for Flashlight Tag was one of the ideas they did not end up making for their entry, but the idea just wouldn’t let go of RJ Spears, so he decided to write it in short story form. Without giving it all away, it’s a story about a three person search team, looking for a missing girl, but they find more they bargained for. It’s worth picking up for a quick, cool read.
There is more to come from RJ Spears. Books of the Dead is still rolling. We probably have one more coming for Forget the Zombies some time in the future. Spears has a three part thriller series that he’s going to release this summer (2018) that he co-wrote with his brother and there is a mystery underlying it bringing us back to his roots as a writer. Back to his short fiction, he’s currently writing a set of independent, but connected short stories that he will release in a collection at some point.
I hope I have made the case for RJ Spears. Pick up The Living and the Dead: Books of the Dead 5 or begin with book one of that series now. You should also begin the Forget the Zombies series now too. Also, check out any of the other work linked above.
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