Zombie Time

I had considered writing a sequel to THE LIVING END. I still have it plotted and I may write that novel at some time. Its title is THE NEW ECOLOGY OF DEATH, but I have so many other writing projects on my desk that I can't see my way clear to work on that one just now.

In addition, I signed a new contract to produce three zombie novels. These will be something a lot different from my own vision of the zombie trope. They're grounded firmly in the Romero-esque world of zombie fiction, which to my way of thinking is the only way to treat zombies.


Some authors have produced stories and films where zombies aren't dead, merely infected with a disease. That's not my take, at all. Others have produced the undead as super-fast so that they're like Olympic sprinters with a bad attitude. That's not my take, either.

And, of course, there are those who have zombies that eat things other than living humans, that develop the ability to reason, that come back to life within instants of having been infected and killed. That ain't my idea of the basis of a zombie tale, either.

George Romero and John Russo laid down the rules back in 1968, and I'm stickin' to those, even if their creators veer from them from time to time. The zombies are all but mindless. They're slow and implacable and can only be stopped by destroying their brains. If you're bitten by a zombie, you might have a few days, but you're going to get very sick and you're going to die. And no matter what kills you, unless your brain is destroyed, you're going to come back as a zombie, too.

Those are the rules.

Look for my three-book series (written as Robert Mathis Kurtz) coming soon.