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Some of today's best writers are asked about the recent zombie-like events...and they answer. Very entertaining article with today's top-notch writers within the horror genre answering the question "Is The Zombie Apocalypse Starting?"
http://www.examiner.com/article/zomb...mbie-apocalype
In case you hadn’t heard, there might be a zombie apocalypse happening.
From Florida to New Jersey, strange outbreaks of people eating people, flesh-eating bacteria, chemicals gone wild, and entrails throwing have made headlines all around the globe.
Has the invasion of the living dead finally begun?
The Examiner contacted some of the most knowledgeable experts in the field of zombies to ask their opinion of the current state of affairs. Who better to interpret zombie activities then the men and women who write the best-selling, award winning novels on that exact subject?
Each author expert was given the same question, and they responded based on their own opinions on the current face-munching crisis. Jonathan Maberry, Joe McKinney, Mira Grant, Scott Nicholson, and David Youngquist have all provided a thoughtful answer to the question that is on everyone’s mind this week:
Do you think the zombie/cannibal outbreaks in Florida are real? Could the zombie apocalypse really have begun?
Jonathan Maberry – New York Times best-selling author and multiple Bram Stoker Award winner. Author of such best-selling books as Dead of Night: A Zombie Novel and the popular Joe Ledger series including Patient Zero, The King of Plagues, and Assassin’s Code.
Maberry states: “On the Miami attacks…As shocking as the attacks in Florida are, I don’t think we’re seeing the start of the zombie apocalypse. However we’ve become attuned to the phenomenon of the zombie apocalypse and between these attacks, news stories about insect ‘zombie parasites’ and other strange happenings it’s becoming easier to believe that some kind of devastating pandemic is poised to hit.
On the likelihood of a zombie apocalypse…Every day were discovering that the line between science fiction and today’s headlines is becoming blurred. There are parasites, bacterium and viruses that could easily get out of hand, and some of these could be tweaked with a bit of very doable mad science. My recent novel, DEAD OF NIGHT, was built around the potential for Mother Nature to get cranky in just this kind of way.”
Mira Grant – New York Times best-selling author for The Newsflash Trilogy of novels titled Feed, Deadline, and the blockbuster release Blackout. Grant recently optioned her books for film production.
Grant states: "The incidents which are sparking the current 'zombie apocalypse' furor are absolutely real. They're tragedies, they're horrifying proof of how unrealistic reality can get, but they're real. I don't believe that they signal the beginning of the zombie apocalypse, but--to put on my fiction writer hat for a moment--I can see them continuing the process of desensitizing the population to the Rising when it finally begins. "Oh, it's just like Florida" could be our unintentional epitaph.
Scott Nicholson – one of the premier authors to be invited to publish under Amazon’s prestigious new Thomas and Mercer Press, Nicholson is the author of many best-selling books including Liquid Fear, Chronic Fear, and Speed Dating with the Dead.
Nicholson states: "I don't think people are any weirder than they ever were. We just happen to live in a world where gruesome news is captured on an iPhone and sent around the Internet within seconds. Everything seems far more terrible today, but we've always had monsters among us. In the good old days, Elizabeth Bathoray and Vlad Dracul could slay hundreds at leisure. Even Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer got in some serious grubbig before people caught on to his act. But I guess back then everyone wasn't shopping for a reality show. No zombies, just humans, which may in fact be even more of an apocalypse."
Joe McKinney – has been a patrol officer for the San Antonio Police Department, a homicide detective, a disaster mitigation specialist, a patrol commander, and a successful novelist. His books include the four part Dead World series, Quarantined and Apocalypse of the Dead. He just won the coveted 2012 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel for his book Flesh Eaters.
McKinney states: “I have to echo the CDC's comments. We're not in the middle of the zombie apocalypse...not for real anyway. Closer to the truth, I think, is a collective sort of frustration and uncertainty with where we're headed as a society. The zombie has become a symbol for our blind stumbling into an uncertain future, almost mythic in its ubiquity. That's probably the only connection between this craziness in the news and the zombie that I can see. The zombie has become so universal as a symbol that the unhinged in our society imitate it...sort of life imitating art.”
David Youngquist - President of Dark Continents Publishing, a press which specializes in all things related to Horror and Speculative fiction, recently released Snareville and Snareville II: Circles.
Youngquist states: "There is good reason to think the Z-Poc is finally starting. All we have to do is watch the news and see what's going on for ourselves. With all the types of viruses being discovered and their effects on humans, mixed with the variety of illicit drugs out there, there's good reason to believe that the Z-Poc is knocking on our door. Even the Book of Revelations predicts something along those lines. If this isn't the beginning of it, I don't know what is."
Time will tell how the current gruesome and bizarre rash of potential zombie scares will work out. Until then, grab one of these great books by one of these talented authors, and learn all kinds of survival techniques which may (or may not) come in very handy in the new future!
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For more information on S.L. Schmitz, visit slschmitz.com, follow her on twitter @sl_schmitz, and like her on Facebook on her author profile page here. Current novel Let It Bleed, is available on Amazon.