Outbreak: Long Road Back and other news

Outbreak: Boston and its sequel, Outbreak: Brave New World are available for your Kindle here!

Alright everybody! How's things? I hope you're all doing well. So let's get right to the big news! I know I've said in previous posts that the last book in the Outbreak series would be out soon. Well guess what! I'm going to release it this Friday, October 3rd.
I really can't wait for everybody to get the the last book. I think I do a good job of bringing the series to a close and I hope you all enjoy it. However I can't help but feel a little weird about the end of the whole thing. I've been living with these characters for close to five or six years now...and now I have to move on. I might pop back in for a visit now and again (say some short stories or something put up as posts here) but that's it. It's kind of like having good friends move out of town or something. You don't get to see them nearly as often as you like but you might take a couple vacation days once in awhile to go see them.

So! On to the next challenge, hey? I've already got an idea for a new book and we'll have to see where it goes. I've had a few ideas that didn't quite pan out but I think I've got a good one going here. All I'll say right now is that it's loosely based on the historical events (such as we know) surrounding Spartacus and/or the British queen Boudicca.
For those of you unfamiliar with Boudicca take a second to check out THIS right here from the absolutely crotch clubbingly awesome badassoftheweek.com run by a guy named Ben Thompson. Also if you've got the urge I highly recommend his three books for sale on the site. They're all really really good reads.

I mean seriously why isn't that made into a major freaking blockbuster summer action flick? It's got everything you need right in it. I mean sure it doesn't have the happy Hollywood ending but it isn't like historical accuracy has ever stopped a movie studio in the history of ever. Oh! And there's some reasonably good evidence that the heroine of the story might have had tons of innocent civilians sacrificed to the Celtic goddess of victory so there's that too.

Also it's got a gigantor horde of super omega pissed vengeance seeking Britons headbutting Romans all over the place til their heads explode and Sparta Kicking Legionaries into huge flaming piles of suck that used to be their forts. Anyways that's about all I got for right now. Click on the link at the top of the post to get to my eBooks on Amazon. If you're on Facebook check out my book's page there at www.facebook.com/OutbreakBoston and give it a like. I keep an eye on various current events there including the ever spreading Ebola epidemic there so go ahead. What could it hurt? Thanks for reading!

Ferguson Riots and more Book News.

My Ebooks are available for your Amazon Kindle here! Enjoy!

Hello everyone! I hope this post finds you all healthy and happy and Ebola free. Anyways to business! First off thank you very much to Amazon user copyleft for the five star review on Outbreak: Boston's product page. I really can't even begin to tell you guys how much it means to me that you guys enjoy and appreciate my humble efforts. Thank you.
So...what's been going on lately? Well, I'm about 2/3 of the way through the first draft of the third and final book in the Outbreak series. I'm looking forward to seeing what you folks out there make of it and I really hope you like it. I may end up doing something on Smashwords so that I can sell on iBooks and the Nook as well though we'll have to see.
I'd like to talk for just a little bit about what's going on right now in this little suburb of St. Louis, Missouri here in the States. If anyone doesn't know here's the facts that I've able to gather so far. An unarmed eighteen year old black man was shot by a policeman. The man had apparently just come from roughing up a clerk at a convenience store a few blocks away and stealing some cigars (the policeman didn't know about this at the time however). So naturally a prayer vigil for the young man ended with looting and stuff being lit on fire.
I almost have to wonder if there wasn't a couple plants in the crowd. I can't prove anything but I'm curious as to how peaceful protests end up turning into violent crapstorms. I'm just talking out of my butt here but it does seem like there's lots of people who were awful keen to bust out all their high speed low drag kit and go play soldier. Gotta justify all those MRAPs and M4s to the taxpayers somehow, right? What better excuse than a genuine honest to God race riot?
And of course Al Sharpton had to show up. As a quick aside why don't people realize that people like Al Sharpton's income is directly dependent on how much they can make a certain segment of the population feel like a victim? Anyways...
Here's my takeaway from the whole affair: prepare prepare prepare. Have a good supply of food on hand and the means to cook it if the power goes out. Need a good cheap way to store some water? Try this out: get yourself a trash bag. A big one like 30 gallons or more. Then when your milk jugs get empty wash them out and leave them open on the windowsill for about 24 hours or so to kill any bacteria that might be in there. Then stash them in the trash bag and stuff them in the closet. In an emergency bust out your bag of milk jugs, go to the bathroom and fill them up from the tub. Then put the stopper in the tub and fill that up too as well as the sinks and anything else you can think of.
Get a gun and learn how to use it. Think fast, hot shot! Which stores in Ferguson aren't being looted? Too late! It's the ones with the groups of armed civilians standing out front! That's right. Apparently the police have pulled back basically leaving people on their own.

And here's the most important thing you can have. I mean primo A number one tippy top of the list can not go without here. That picture right there illustrates it perfectly. You need people you can trust to watch your back. You can have all the awesomesauce tacticool guns in the world and piles of MREs...but you're going to have to sleep sometime. One dude isn't that scary to a pack of looters. Six guys with ARs? Um...I'd really think that they're going to go hit that place up down the street.
Speaking of 'Tacticool' take a look at this guy.

I'm sure you've seen this picture. I just had to kind of shake my head. I mean look at this guy's rifle. How freakin' ridiculous. Okay dude. You're wearing body armor, helmet and all manner of kit in the summer in Missouri (it gets seriously hot there in the summer with like 300% humidity) with no water source. Then you're going to bolt like ten pounds of crap onto a six pound rifle. A bipod and a tripod? Really, dude? I would point and laugh at you if I saw you walking around with that. And that big ass scope too? Must be a lot of 900-1000 meter shots you're planning on taking you know...in a small town urban environment.

   

Remember nothing says Gangsta like cruising your bike through the lingerie section with your Red Ryder bb gun.        
Wait a minute! I think I know what all the looting's about! All these guys are just trying to find shirts! 

Anyways that's all I got for right now. Please click on the link at the top of the post to visit my Amazon author's page where you can find my two eBooks for sale. If you enjoy them please take a moment to post a review. Thanks! 

Outbreak News and State of Decay: Lifeline

My eBooks, Outbreak: Boston and it's sequel Outbreak: Brave New World are available here for your Kindle!

Hello, everybody! I hope everything is going well for you. Things are going pretty well for me here. Anyways! To business!
First thing's first: the good news for you guys (and there has to be at least one of you out there) waiting for my new book: I'm now officially about 4/5 of the way through the first draft. So I'm shooting for a 4th of July release date for the third and probably final book in the Outbreak series. Also I believe I've made literary history as this next book features (as far as I know) the very first 'daring escape via lawn tractor' scene in the history of people writing things down. Of course I have the major advantage of people like Homer and so forth not having a clue what a lawn tractor is so there's that anyways...

Also as some of you out there might have heard there's a game available for the Xbox 360 called State of Decay. If you don't have it already I highly recommend that you plunk down your hard earned $20 and get it. It is quite possibly the closest we'll ever get to a perfect zombie game. Seriously. And the neat thing is it's an open sandbox style game but it doesn't run into the problem that I have with so many of those sorts of games. It has side quests that aren't really essential to the main story but not so many that the edges of your little side map isn't covered with little specks telling you to go in every direction at once (I'm looking at you, Fallout 3...)
The side quests are kind of important though: rescuing survivors or helping them with stuff eventually makes them want to join your merry band which is important as you instantly switch to a new character if the one you're currently controlling dies. And as long as we're on the subject: if a character dies they're gone for good. There's no restarting from your last save point to get them back so be careful!
Though since it's open sandbox you can do what you feel like. Want to spend six hours looting every single house in town? Go for it! Feel like spending all afternoon driving a high end sports car through hordes of zombies at top speed? Knock yourself out! Incidentally that last bit can be humorous as the physics engine in the game can be a little...twitchy...sometimes. It's hilarious to plow into a zombie and see it go shooting off through the air and over the horizon.

Speaking of bugs, if there is one flaw in the game, I would have to say that there are a few bugs in it but that's kind of to be expected considering it's a $20 download only game. They range from the funny (the flying zombies mentioned above or once I watched one of my fellow survivors carpet swim across the compound) to the disturbing (in one playthrough a friendly character ended up blowing himself up with a hand grenade to kill the zombies eating him...which instead got him stuck in a fence where he hovered screaming and flailing about) to the irritating (the camera angle shifting unexpectedly in combat, zombies appearing out of thin air in a previously secure location, zombies running through walls, etc.)

It's amazing especially considering it came from Undead Labs an indie game developer out of Seattle, Washington. Not that all indie games are bad or anything but this is a really face rockingly awesome game.
Anyways Undead Labs is releasing the latest DLC for State of Decay tomorrow which is called State of Decay: Lifeline and I can't freakin' wait to get my hands on it. From what I've been able to gather the plot is this: you take control of a unit of National Guard troops at the start of the outbreak (gee...sounds kinda familiar... :-P) and in between foraging for supplies you have to go out and rescue various civilian personnel still stranded throughout the city. From what I've read it's going to cost $7 USD in the Xbox store thingy (I don't have a PC that can do much beyond writing and Interneting so I don't have Steam).

 It looks like it's going to be a freaking blast. In addition to the stuff I liked from the first game in the new DLC you'll apparently be actually able to stash supplies in your vehicles too! So instead of say picking up a bundle of food and having to run all the way back to your base you can just stash it in your truck and go back for more stuff and run the whole thing back when you get it full up. Of course if your vehicle gets destroyed then all the supplies get toasted too so...

Anyways check out these screenshots from the new DLC!

Insert obligatory "GET TO DA CHOPPA!!" here... :-P 

 Chem Toilets: The key to surviving any zombie apocalypse.

 Here's some of the characters that are apparently going to be your starting characters.

So I guess that's all I got for now. Have to get some writing done before State of Decay: Lifeline hits tomorrow as I have a sneaking suspicion it will murder my weekend. Click the link at the top of the post to check out my two previous eBooks for your Kindle which are available to borrow if you're signed up with Amazon Prime. If you're so inclined please take a moment to write a review on the books' pages and/or tell a friend about them. Or you can Like Outbreak: Boston's Facebook Page. Find it by simply entering Outbreak: Boston into the search bar on the page. I'm a one man operation here with a limited (read no) advertising budget so word of mouth really helps. 

Thanks for reading and watch your brains!

Back In The Saddle Again

My eBooks are available here for your Amazon Kindle!

Hello, everybody! I hope everything is going well for you. Have to admit that things are going pretty good here. So! Right to business, right? 

So first thing's first. After a couple weeks of work I decided that I should stick to my guns so to speak and finish Outbreak: The Surge before I go ahead and start any other projects. It was an interesting change of pace for a little bit and I got a first chapter done on that Fantasy novel but it should wait until I'm done with SrA Frays and the rest. Or, depending on how you look at it, SrA Frays and the rest are done with me. They keep popping up in my thoughts now and again and even sometimes in my dreams (or nightmares if you like).
Anyways, good news is I'm about a third of the way through Outbreak: The Surge. I was projecting it to be about a hundred and fifty thousand words or so and right about now I'm sitting at around fifty one thousand. So pretty good so far considering.
And well I'm really looking forward to seeing how it ends as much as the rest of you. I have an idea of how it would shape up at the start and...I honestly have to say that I'm a bit saddened and disappointed in some ways and happy in others. The characters you, Dear Reader, and I have gotten attached to will change in this last bit of the story in some ways and in others they're the same scared tired kids we met at the start of the whole mess. 

Oh! Say, as long as I've got your attention for a moment here check this out! I made up a playlist on Spotify. Think of it as kind of a soundtrack to the books. It starts out following Frays in Iraq and just afterwards leading up to the events of Outbreak: Boston and through that to the end of Outbreak: The Surge. I add to it whenever I happen to ear a song that fits a certain mood or part in the story. For instance here's one of my favorites (in fact it appears twice, once by the original artist and once by a cover band that none the less rocks this tune's sock like somebody gave them the keys to a nuclear powered sock rocking machine.) 

Anyways, that's all I got for now. Please click on the link at the top of the page to find my books for your Amazon Kindle and if you have the time please take a minute and write a review. Thanks and enjoy!

Outbreak News... A New Book?

 MY BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE HERE!

Hello everybody! How are you? I hope you're having a good day or night...whatever time it is that you happen to be reading this. You get my point, right?
First off I'd like to thank Sharon Honyumptewa for the wonderful review you gave my first book, Outbreak: Boston on its Amazon page. You're awesome like back flippin' ninja monkeys popping totally sweet wheelies on flaming motorcycles. Seriously. You guys have no idea how much every positive review means to me. From the bottom of my heart thank each and every one of you that has taken the time to write a review.

That said I regret to say that as of a couple weeks ago I decided that I had to put the third book in the Outbreak series temporarily on hold. I found that, while I love the characters and the overall story, I was getting burned out both physically and creatively. I feel that if I continued I was just going to write a pile of rubbish just to get the series over and done with and I, as a writer, feel I owe my readers who plunk down their hard earned cashy money better than that. I don't like it when I feel an author does it (Stephen King I'm looking at you *shakes fist*) so I damn sure am not going to do it myself.

That said I thought I'd take a shot at switching genres for a little while. I thought I'd try a Fantasy novel for a change of pace and I think I've come up with a pretty interesting idea. So here's a synopsis:
The head of this Thief's Guild wants this item from a rich guy's house. Rather than paying for it like an honest man he instead sends one of his underbosses out to hire a crew of thieves to burgle the crap out of the guy's house. The deal is pretty simple: in addition to a small fee the crew can keep whatever they feel like swiping out of the guy's house. However everything in the guy's safe goes into the underboss's grubby mits.

Things get...kinda complicated... First off the item the boss wasn't in the safe but out on a table and one of the thieves pockets it. The boss is in no mood to argue semantics. And further complicating matters the man the thieves robbed is a closet black magician and he's not exactly best pleased that somebody rifled through his things.
So basically the crew has to figure out what exactly they swiped and why they want it so bad while dodging the boss's enforcers, crooked city watchmen and some freaking monsters that want to eat their faces.
As soon as I can work up a title and stuff I'll probably set up a Facebook page for the new book until if you're interested pop over to www.facebook.com/OutbreakBoston and give it a like. I tend to update that page way more than I take the time to write up another blog post.
So anyways that's all I got. Talk to you later!

Legal Pot and Outbreak News

Check out my eBooks available for your Kindle HERE!

Hello, everyone! I hope you are all not unwell. Before I start I'd like to thank Christine McAny for her lovely review of my first book, Outbreak: Boston on its Amazon page. I'm glad that you enjoyed the book and I really do appreciate it. Please, if you've read any of my books and you liked them, take a moment and review them.
Also if you are so inclined pop over to my books' Facebook page and give it a Like. I not only post updates about the upcoming book (the third one will most likely be out sometime either this Summer or Fall) but I also post links to relevant news articles and funny zombie related pictures. 

So, on to the subject of this post now that we've got that bit of business out of the way. As a lot of you have probably heard here in the United States, Colorado and Washington State have legalized the sale and possession of marijuana up to I believe an ounce or whatever arbitrary amount it is if you're over the age of 21. And you know what? I could honestly care less. 

I personally think it's bullshit that pot's illegal in the first place. It's largely harmless (I say largely just because as a quick aside I'm actually allergic to it. If I'm around it I cough until I throw up and then I suffer from migraines for about three to six hours afterwards). If somebody wants to have a joint in their own home I could honestly care less. It's none of my business what anybody does in their home as long as everybody's of age and nobody's getting hurt that doesn't want to be. I fully realize that there are some strange people out there who like getting hurt but...well...I think it's weird but still if nobody's being forced into it then hey have fun just leave me out of it, right?

I also have a good laugh at the people freaking out because "ZOMG!! TEENAGERS WILL GET POT!!" Because as we all know since pot's illegal no teenager ever smoked grass. No not at all. Nope not ever. No high school kid ever in the history of the United States ever used marijuana since it was illegal. Of course I'm being sarcastic. Anyone who ever actually went to high school here in the states would know that's full of crap.

Or how about the argument that pot makes people crazy. This largely stems from the propaganda films back in the 50's and 60's about the 'dangers of marijuana'. For instance there was a case in Florida back in the 50's (I believe) wherein a young man who was suffering from violent schizophrenia smoked a joint then went in the house and murdered his entire family with an ax. Well...when William Randolph Hearst got a hold of the story he decided that his newspapers would leave out the bit about the young man's history of mental illness and hype the fact that he smoked a joint before committing the crime. Of course Mr. Hearst was also trying his damnedest to get US hemp farmers put out of business at the time so there's that. Did you ever stop to think that maybe the people suffering from these torturous mental illnesses were self medicating using pot?

As long as I'm on the subject there are some pretty interesting studies being done regarding the medicinal properties of marijuana. Do I think it's the miracle drug that some people think it is? No, but I think it's certainly worth looking into for things like terminal cancer, AIDS patients and the like. I had a grandfather die of pancreatic cancer a few years ago and I'm here to tell you that it's one ugly way to go. If something slightly less harsh as the bucket loads of morphine they were pumping into him could have helped in any way shape or form I'm all for it.
So far as I can tell the only side effects of marijuana use are the munchies, terrible taste in music (I'm sorry but in my opinion you have to be stoned to enjoy the Grateful Dead) and possibly some...unfortunate...personal hygiene choices. I'm sorry but white kids with dreadlocks look stupid and smearing yourself with patchouli just makes you stink. Take a damn shower. 

Anyways that's all I got for right now. Thanks for reading and please click on the link at the top of the page to take a look at my eBooks. All purchases are greatly appreciated and if you're an Amazon Prime member you can borrow them for free. Thanks and have a great day!   

Drunken Carnivorous Goldfish, Character Portraits and Doctor Who.

BEHOLD! MY EBOOKS ARE AVAILABLE HERE!! ENJOY!!

Hello, everyone! How are you? I hope you're all doing just fine. Hope everybody's got their holiday shopping done. If you haven't and you're still looking for something for that special somebody who 1. likes zombies, 2. likes to read and/or 3. has a Kindle click on the link above. It takes you to my Author's Page on Amazon.com where you can purchase my eBooks. I promise that's going to be about it for the shameless self promotion portion of this entry. Oh! And thank you oh so much D. McKillip for taking the time to write a review on Outbreak: Boston's Amazon page. 

So anyways on to business, yeah?

The perfect description for the zombies in my books just occurred to me just yesterday. Drunken carnivorous goldfish. Think about it a minute. No seriously stop laughing a minute and think about it. They're terribly uncoordinated what with all the tripping over stuff and stumbling about. The carnivorous bit is fairly self explanatory as they tear people to tiny little bits and eat them. Now here's where the goldfish bit comes into play.

The zombies aren't terribly bright due to the whole rotting and being dead thing. They'll eat until they run out of food even though they aren't hungry. I'm not entirely certain if they'd actually eat until they pop...which would be rather disgusting as it would literally involve their withered internals bursting. When confronted with new food (another person) they drop whatever they're eating and attack immediately (a wholly unnatural action, by the way. No predator actually does that. Creepy!). 

They aren't bright enough to say make the connection between the loud popping noises of gunfire and the zombie next to them falling over with its head broke open but they can somehow understand that they can't catch a speeding car so they'll stop chasing it. Strange, that.

Oh! And say here's a little thing I've been working on once in awhile when I get the time: Character portraits! If you like come on over to Outbreak: Boston's Facebook Page and read the accompanying biographies I put up there. Also, if you like the page I'll keep you abreast of any funny zombie themed pictures and zombie related news stories I stumble across (if you'll pardon the pun) as well as updates on the upcoming third book. 

Now feast your eyes upon my amateur Photoshop skills!

Lastly, as you might have heard, the 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who aired recently setting a world record for the most viewers of a simulcast world wide. I happened to catch it in the local movie theater which was AWESOME because there were 3D Daleks. Don't worry that's all I'm going to say about the episode in case you haven't seen it.

Anyways, it also made me think of something that showed up in my Facebook feed awhile ago. Say The Doctor turns up on your doorstep and says to you that he'd let you change one thing in history. And after a moment's thought I came up with two ideas.

My first thought was to get rid of Hitler, though not in the way you're probably thinking. In fact I would think that The Doctor would actually approve of my plan as (and here's the clever bit) nobody dies. First thing's first: go back to say late 2012 or earlier this year and leave myself a note to get in on the ground floor of this whole Bitcoin thing. Then, when The Doctor turns up, we go buy a whole bunch of silver bars with the proceeds of my smart investment. After that we jump in the TARDIS and go to Austria 1907 and pay a little visit to the people that make decisions as to who gets into The Academy of Fine Arts and (with luck) after the proverbial thirty pieces of silver change hands young Adolph would be painting his little paintings instead of hanging around a slum a few years later thinking about how much he hated Jews so much.

Then again I thought I'd try and do that one better. Here's how: basically I'd prevent World War One, which led to World War Two, The Cold War, Hippies, Vietnam and all that other horrible stuff that happened in the 20th century.

This is *really* clever. Check this out, guys. Okay. For those of you who might have had a bit since your last History class here's what happened. A group calling itself The Black Hand (not as cool as they sound, by the way. They were like five idiot college students in Sarajevo) lobbed a hand grenade at Archduke Ferdinand's motorcade. The assassination attempt failed miserably because, being idiot college students, none of them knew how to 'cook off' a grenade and blew up the car behind the Archduke. 

Archduke Ferdinand then ordered his driver to take him to the hospital to visit the people wounded in the attack despite everyone in his security detail telling him it was obviously a really shit idea and they should just get the hell away from the city as someone had tried to kill him already once that day. Long story short one of the guys from The Black Hand happened to be eating a sandwich at a sidewalk cafe when the Archduke's car pulled up at the stoplight at the corner. Probably after doing a double take and pinching himself the walked up to the car, pulled a gun from his pocket and shot the Archduke thus setting the stage for millions and millions of horrifically violent deaths across eighty some odd years or so.

So here's what I'd do: I'd have The Doctor take me to that exact street corner about say ten or fifteen minutes before the successful assassination. Then I'd chat up the assassin pretending to be some guy he knows from school or whatever until the Archduke's car went through the stoplight. Or hell push come shove I'd just tackle the guy when he goes to make his move if that didn't work. And again, if everything goes according to plan, nobody dies so I'd think The Doctor would be on board.

So that's all I've got for right now. Please, if you enjoyed this, like my books' Facebook page, subscribe to this blog and take a look at my eBooks through the links at the top of this page. Thanks for reading!