Regular readers of Fantasy-Faction will remember that following the closure of Strange Chemistry – an event that saw many writers thrust into the unfortunate position where they were unexpectedly out of contract – we offered our site to those authors who were going to pursue the self publishing route. Because the closure of Strange Chemistry was so sudden, a number of authors were mid-way through a series or expecting to have a place to publish further work… As a community site it felt right to support these members of our community by doing everything we can – although it isn’t much, we will be bringing you a number of guest posts, interviews, reviews and so on from these authors in an attempt to get them further exposure and to help them broadcast the fact that they’re still right there writing as planned. More here.
I hand you over now to former Strange Chemistry author, Sean Cummings:
Anyone who has read my books knows there’s always a lot of humor. As a primarily urban fantasy author, I’m hard-wired to write books featuring a strong protagonist who is a bit self-deprecating, defiant in the face of danger and one with a wise crack in his/her back pocket because that’s what you do when your enemy threatens to kill you: you tell them to get stuffed. In Julie Richardson, my teenage witch from Poltergeeks and Student Bodies, I wrote about a girl coming into her power facing terrible danger and somehow maintaining her snarky nature throughout. In my two Valerie Stevens books (Shade Fright and Funeral Pallor) Val surrounds herself with allies that are the humorous ones – she plays straight while characters like Caroline the zombie or Fifty Dollar Bill get to crack all the one liners. In my book Unseen World (now reprinted under the title Marshall Conrad: A Superhero Story) my protagonist is a cranky forty-something hermit who goes out and slams evil because he gets headaches that show him glimpses of crimes waiting to happen. His journey is one where a man (albeit a man with super-powers) who has lost everything and has shut himself away from the world has to come out of his shell and save the city from a very bad guy named Grim Geoffrey – a demon of sorts from the unseen world. All five of my books follow the classic UF formula and each book works nicely in its own way.
And then I wrote The North.
I started the project in 2011 during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and I did a couple of revisions before I sent it off to my agent. And together we worked for the next two years on making the story what it is today. I’ve self-published it because apparently editors out there say we have reached “peak zombie” and “the market is flooded”. I’m not sure I agree with them given that TV’s The Walking Dead is a bona-fide phenomenon and AMC has just ordered a spinoff series, but I digress.
First off, I wanted to write a Canadian zombie novel. There’s not a lot of ‘em. And what could be more Canadian than freezing your butt off for five months of the year? Bitter cold and snow are your constant companions throughout the novel.
The North is a dark and often terrifying book. It’s six months past the end of the world. A group of teenage militia soldiers are hunkered down in their armory and they’ve just lost their platoon Sergeant – he was the last adult to die. They’re running out of fresh water that had been stored in plastic Jerry cans, winter is coming and they’re trapped smack dab in the middle of a city with likely a million or so of the living dead waiting to chow down on them.
But there’s a weak radio broadcast from a place called Sanctuary Base. They have to get out of the armory. They could head to the mountains but the prospect of other people, medical help and living in a place that could potentially be zombie-free has everyone ready to begin their perilous journey.
And peril is really an understatement. They have to fight their way out of the city. They’ve got to head to open country and deal with survivalists who will drag them into the weeds and cut their collective throats just to get the boots on their feet. The main character is sixteen-year-old David Simmons. He has to somehow lead this rag-tag group of weekend warriors to something resembling the Promised Land. And he has skin in the game: his eight-year-old sister Jo. He will do anything to protect her – everyone will.
This is a road story in a world gone to hell. It’s a book where team tension builds up and threatens to destroy the family they’ve created for each other. They have two common enemies as well, the zombies and a dangerous person called SUNRAY who is your average, run of the mill megalomaniac and dime store psychopath.
This is also a military story. I’m a combat arms veteran, so I’m writing about what I know. From the smell of diesel inside of an armored personnel carrier to the severe burn the crew commander gets when a hot shell casing from the turret gun falls down the back of his neck. (I have a few scars). It’s genuine, bleak and brutal at times.
And it’s the complete opposite of what I normally write – a huge risk for any author. I hope I pulled it off. The North is the first in a planned trilogy.
On a personal note, this has been a very challenging year for me professionally. None of us authors saw the demise of Strange Chemistry Books coming. Many of us got our projects canceled. For many of us, there is money that is owed and we’d all like to have our rights reverted back so we can self-publish the books. Really, Strange Chemistry is out of business, they absolutely should give the authors back their rights as quickly as possible. Please support them. They are:
Rosie Best Gwenda Bond M.G. Buehrlen Cassandra Rose Clarke T.L. Costa Eliza Crewe Kim Curran Amalie Howard Jonathan L. Howard Danielle Jensen Ingrid Jonach Laura Lam Rachel Neumeier Lisa O’Kane Bryony Pearce Sarah Raughley Kat Ross A.E. Rought Christian Schoon Julianna Scott Martha Wells
Onward.
Jennie Ivins
Dan Hanks