DD: Thanks for plugging in, Steve! First, tell us about your DEAD TIDE zombie series.
SN: Dead Tide is an on-going, minute by minute story of a zombie apocalypse as experienced by diverse groups or individual survivors in the Tampa Bay area. There are multiple viewpoint characters and each chapter features a different person’s perspective. Unless a character dies the story works around to them again.
DD: What can fans expect in the fourth entry, DEAD TIDE RAGE?
SN: A lot of closure. There is still a story to tell, but it moves into a different phase after RAGE.
DD: Working on this series for as long as you have, what are the benefits and challenges you find as you return to the DEAD TIDE universe?
SN: The DT world is one that the survivors are now familiar with and they have a clear idea of what they are striving for. The problem is the challenges aren’t growing any easier, and if anything, more difficult. Distrust, greed, fear---all the same dividing factors are still in place and the world is far less civilized than it was…
DD: You also write sci-fi. Your most recent release in the genre is THE DRIFTER. Do I remember correctly that you read from an early version of this at our Horror Realm panel in 2009? What's it about?
SN: I did read an excerpt from that book at Horror Realm. It became a novella. There was so much more to explore in that world that when the book was re-released by Permuted Press last year it had doubled in size. What it is about is a bleak future where unemployment on Earth is rampant, but offworld the demand for ‘the human commodity’ has skyrocketed. Our ability to exploit the universe (and ourselves) has also increased exponentially. In this grim future the government not only sanctions press gangs to recruit ‘interstellar’ colonists, but does so to anyone caught out after curfew that doesn’t possess proper i.d. and proof of employment. Criminals face the prospect of memory erasure and ego-shaping to make them more productive and compliant. The main character in The Drifter can’t even be sure his memories are real.
DD: Is there anything you'd like to see more (or less) of in zombie lit?
SN: The genre’s popularity still hasn’t waned in my opinion. I’d like to see more stories. The approaches taken by authors such as Dr. Kim Paffenroth, David Dunwoody, J.L. Bourne, Travis Adkins, Timothy Long, Eric S. Brown, Eric Shelman, DL Snell, Sheri Gambino, Suzanne Robb, Rhiannon Frater, WJ Lundy, Armand Rosamilia, Sue Edge, Bowie Ibarra, Scott Baker, Peter Clines, Zach Recht, Brian Keene, Jonathan Maberry, Patrick D’Orazio, Joe McKinney, Craig Saunders, Tony Faville, Brian Parker, Jamie Mason, Craig DiLouie, Charles Phipps, Shane Gregory and Rob Fox have been so varied and entertaining that I have to ask for more.
Would also like to see the return of Dr. Pus.
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