This Halloween the dead are walking

Book one and two available now.

Book three early 2013

A new kind of terror

The first two parts of my zombie trilogy  are out there now. The third and concluding part will be out late October/early November and so maybe now is a good chance to jump in on the saga which is getting positive reviews. Take a dip into the zombiverse and you won't be disappointed as the story takes the reader to the edge of pur gut wrenching terror.

Both parts can be found by clicking your relevant region – US      UK

The story may, at first seem like your standard zombie apocalypse thriller but there’s so much more to it than that, and the trilogy will take the reader from the ordinary into Necropolis itself.

“Missy is also having dreams where the dead are talking to her, demanding, and she doesn’t understand what it means.
The author carries this segment of his story into new ground once again. His extremely readable prose has me wondering what he wil come up with in the third installment. I eagerly await it.” Amazon five star review

Some said it was viral.
Others claimed it was an act of God.
Either way the result was the same and the dead walked.
The story that started in the bestselling novella, The Dead Walked continues, as Missy and Johnny find themselves having to adjust to life in the land of the dead.

“Hey, if you love zombies (and who doesn’t) this is a fab read. The author is proving a master at several genres, all his novels are well worth reading.”

A story of survival
A story of Destiny
A story of true gut wrenching horror

“Simple but not boring i enjoyed the book more so because of the simplicity.I cannot wait for the next book to find out what happens to Missy,and her odd destiny,Johnny and of course the hybrid demon zombie thing! Is it time for them to die now they are surrounded by hordes of zombies? The worst one being trapped indoors with them? Need to know!” Five star Amazon review

Book 3 – Necropolis coming soon

Vinnie's back....

If you’ve not yet read my novel,  The Dead Walked, available on Amazon then now is the time to do so. The novella, the first in a trilogy is available to download at an incredibly low price and kicks off this trilogy of terror. Book Two will be published this coming Friday and continues the story, taking the reader into areas not usually covered by the zombie sub-genre.

It’s a new kind of storytelling that harks back to the golden age of serial fiction – a time when novellas, and not heavily padded five hundred page books,  were the norm.

September was her favourite time of the year, and late September, when the autumn was just preparing to hand over to winter, when there was still a residue of the late summer warmth in the air, as well as the crisp promise of the iciness to come, had always been, as far as Missy was concerned, the finest chunk of that particular month.

Not for her was the spectacle of high summer, nor the morose beauty of mid winter. Of course they both had their fineries but these paled next to the season when the leaves glittered with reflected sunlight. It was the autumn, with September being the highlight of that season, which she loved – a time when nature put on its finest display as the lush summer growth was magically transformed.
The sky itself seemed to glow at this time of year.
            September was a time of promise.
            A time of rebirth.
            Not this September, though.

This September, Missy would remember as, the time the dead walked.

Book two available now:

Book Three: Necropolis follows soon.

It's as good as FREE...dead free, that is

For the next week my novella, The Dead Walked: Outbreak, the first in The Dead Walked trilogy is available at the special offer price of  $0.99 US and £0.77 UK. The book has been receiving great reviews and there has never been a better time to snap it up - in seven days it reverts back to its usual price.

GO GET IT.

CLICK IMAGE

Some said it was viral.
Others claimed it was an act of God.
Either way the result was the same and the dead walked.

September was her favourite time of the year, and late September, when the autumn was just preparing to hand over to winter, when there was still a residue of the late summer warmth in the air, as well as the crisp promise of the iciness to come, had always been, as far as Missy was concerned, the finest chunk of that particular month.
Not for her was the spectacle of high summer, nor the morose beauty of mid winter. Of course they both had their fineries but these paled next to the season when the leaves glittered with reflected sunlight. It was the autumn, with September being the highlight of that season, which she loved – a time when nature put on its finest display as the lush summer growth was magically transformed.
The sky itself seemed to glow at this time of year.
September was a time of promise.
A time of rebirth.
Not this September, though.
This September, Missy would remember as, the time the dead walked.


AND PLEASE LEAVE AN AMAZON REVIEW AFTER READING THE BOOK.



FROM THE REVIEWS:

Hey, if you love zombies (and who doesn't) this is a fab read. The author is proving a master at several genres, all his novels are well worth reading.
***

Vincent Stark, otherwise known as Gary Dobbs, presents a new look at the zombie story. A group of people trying to survive in a world gone nuts. Sound familiar. Of course.

But Stark has injected his own elements into the story. A pregnant woman and a plot thread I've not seen in a zombie story before. The ending threw a twist in and sets up the next part of the story, coming soon.

Zombie stories are not a type I read a lot of, but I've come to expect good stuff from Stark/Dobbs/Martin, whatever genre he writes in.
***
read a lot of zombie books,the dead walked is the best book i have read in a while cant wait the next instalment.

Ghouls and Goblins

Introducing Vincent Stark

Vincent Stark is a reclusive writer, who shuns all contact with the outside world. He has not been seen in public since 1979. Although, from time to time, there have been rumours of sightings of the author lurking in the shadows of the cemetery behind his dilapidated mansion house deep in the Rhondda Valley countryside.
It is said that he is suffering from a skin condition which is aggravated by sunlight and is thus forced into his twilight existence. There is much debate over his well known skill with, the Stylophone and his penchant for playing jazz phrases on his own podcast, Scary Motherfucker. Indeed Stark seems to have picked up this skill overnight and there is one urban legend of him visiting the crossroads one evening and selling his soul to the devil in exchange for his ability on the stylophone.

The devil has all the best tunes

December 2011 saw the  publication of a new novel, The Dead Walked and the author, showing the first signs of clawing his way back into the public consciousness now has a Facebook page – please support the author by clicking like on his page, HERE
However for now Vincent Stark remains hidden away, his groceries delivered by a string of crucifix wearing delivery men and his bills paid by automatic withdrawal from the blood bank.

My novella, The Dead Walked, the first in an all new trilogy, is available now at an incredibly low price.

Some said it was viral.
Others claimed it was an act of God.
Either way the result was the same and the dead walked.
September was her favourite time of the year, and late September, when the autumn was just preparing to hand over to winter, when there was still a residue of the late summer warmth in the air, as well as the crisp promise of the iciness to come, had always been, as far as Missy was concerned, the finest chunk of that particular month.
Not for her was the spectacle of high summer, nor the morose beauty of mid winter. Of course they both had their fineries but these paled next to the season when the leaves glittered with reflected sunlight. It was the autumn, with September being the highlight of that season, which she loved – a time when nature put on its finest display as the lush summer growth was magically transformed.
The sky itself seemed to glow at this time of year.
September was a time of promise.
A time of rebirth.
Not this September, though.
This September, Missy would remember as, the time the dead walked.
Download a free sample before you decide – HERE

VIDEO NASTY

Available now - HERE

HERE'S VINNIE....

Introducing Vincent Stark

Vincent Stark is a reclusive writer, who shuns all contact with the outside world. He has not been seen in public since 1979. Although, from time to time, there have been rumours of sightings of the author lurking in the shadows of the cemetery behind his dilapidated mansion house deep in the Rhondda Valley countryside.
It is said that he is suffering from a skin condition which is aggravated by sunlight and is thus forced into his twilight existence. There is much debate over his well known skill with, the Stylophone and his penchant for playing jazz phrases on his own podcast, Scary Motherfucker. Indeed Stark seems to have picked up this skill overnight and there is one urban legend of him visiting the crossroads one evening and selling his soul to the devil in exchange for his ability on the stylophone.

The devil has all the best tunes

 

This week saw  the publication of a new novel, The Dead Walked and the author, showing the first signs of clawing his way back into the public consciousness now has a Facebook page – please support the ageing author by clicking like on his page, HERE

However for now Vincent Stark remains hidden away, his groceries delivered by a string of crucifix wearing delivery men and his bills paid by automatic withdrawal from the blood bank.

The Dead Walked by Vincent Stark
  AVAILABLE NOW

Can we have your attention please....

AVAILABLE NOW: Book one in The Dead Walked trilogy
Written by Vincent Stark – check out Vinnie’s Amazon page HERE
The Dead Walked – a new kind of zombie thriller

 

 

Click on image

 And coming March 2012

Drum roll please...the dead are now walking

AVAILABLE NOW

My novella, The Dead Walked: Outbreak is NOW available for purchase from Amazon  as a KDP exclusive before becoming available on all other eFormats early next year. The Amazon deal means that the eBook is also available to prime customers for loan from Amazon's lending library.

The novella is my debut in the horror genre, following on from a string of bestselling westerns written under the name, Jack Martin and published by Robert Hale's Black Horse Westerns line.

For my work in the horror genre I adopted the name Vincent Stark as a nod to that flamboyant horror star, Vincent Price and the surname came from the fact that I'd been reading a lot of Richard Stark. The Dead Walked though is not the first sale for the Vincent Stark name - an upcoming issue of the iconic, Weird Tales will feature the short story, Back then our Monsters were Real which was also comes from Vincent's pen, .

Vincent Stark's sibling, Jack Martin

The Dead Walked: Outbreak

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 168 KB
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: Gary Dobbs; 1 edition (18 Dec 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
• Language English
• ASIN: B006O0T89Y

US READERS FIND IT HERE
UK READERS FIND IT HERE

Some said it was viral.
Others claimed it was an act of God.
Either way the result was the same and the dead walked.

September was her favourite time of the year, and late September, when the autumn was just preparing to hand over to winter, when there was still a residue of the late summer warmth in the air, as well as the crisp promise of the iciness to come, had always been, as far as Missy was concerned, the finest chunk of that particular month.
Not for her was the spectacle of high summer, nor the morose beauty of mid winter. Of course they both had their fineries but these paled next to the season when the leaves glittered with reflected sunlight. It was the autumn, with September being the highlight of that season, which she loved – a time when nature put on its finest display as the lush summer growth was magically transformed.
The sky itself seemed to glow at this time of year.
September was a time of promise.
A time of rebirth.
Not this September, though.
This September, Missy would remember as, the time the dead walked.

The second eBook, Dead Days will be published March 2012 and I'm pleased to be able to give you a look at the cover art for the second volume. The man responsible for the cover is once again Tony Masero, and he's managed to fully capture the mayhem and er, boobs of the zombie apocalypse.

And so take a look at the stunning artwork for the forthcoming second volume and go out and buy THE DEAD WALKED BY VINCENT STARK

.

Visceral Images

The Dead Walked Book One: Outbreak will be available exclusively from Amazon for 90 days and should be on sale from Amazon’s Kindle store tomorrow, and will also be available from the Kindle lending library.

Early next year the book will also be available in all other eFormats.

The novella is the first in The Dead Walked Trilogy.
The cover art was done by Tony Masero, an artist whose works has graced the covers of many a book – I came to know Tony from his work on the Edge western series but he has over the years done many horror novels including books by James Herbert and Dean Koontz.

Check out Tony’s work HERE



And below is look at what went into the creation of the cover art for The Dead Walked, and what’s more later this week I will reveal Tony’s cover art for The Dead Walked Book Two which will see print next March.

The Digital Dead

I’m not really any good at  video games, never have been and couldn’t get around more than a couple of levels of Pacman and at Space Invaders  I was terrible – those alien gits always managed to destroy my houses and reach the bottom of the screen – GAME OVER. However from time to time I do like to pick up the X-Box  for a little slice of zombie splattering. And the range of zombie themed games is immense, for just as the walking dead have occupied our movie theaters for decades then so too have the digital dead claimed their place in the video gaming world. They’ve been here for a long time and have developed since the first zombie video game, Zombie Zombie which was released for the ZX Spectrum back in 1984.

The Wiki lists many dozens of zombie themed video games and I’ve never even seen most of them, let alone played them,  but below are just a few of the zombie games I have played  and would recommend to anyone who is in the mood for some not so gentle zombie bashing.

Resident Evil – Racoon City, population 100,000, was  a small mid-western town that thanks to the Umbrella Corporation has become overrun by the walking dead. This was, and still is, a great shoot em up game with just the right amount of puzzled. Progress is relatively easy and it always seems as if you are moving forward and of course there are hordes of undead to shoot, bash and splatter.
Red Dead Redemption, Undead Nightmare – this game takes two cool genres – the western and the zombie blaster – and sticks them in a pot, gives them a good stir and sets them free. An excellent game but the  original Red Dead Redemption was addictive enough, and now with zombies on the horizon the game is even more compelling.
Dead Rising is another addictive zombie game with some great gory sequences. The action takes place in Romero style in a shopping mall and for that fact alone I like it. There’s a lot of humour in this one and the range of objects you can use as weapons is bizarre - fancy bashing a zombie with a frying pan!

Call of Duty World at War: Nazi zombies – you can’t really escape the Call of Duty series at the moment and the zombie nazi mode in Call of Duty is great fun, particularly in multi-player. It’s basically a frantic shoot em up as you hide in a bunker and face off against wave after wave of nazi zombies.

Ghosts and Goblins – OK now this is one game that I did master and that was way back in the days of the Commodore 64. It’s a sideways scrolling shoot em up, jump over em. It may look old fashioned these days but it’s still compelling and it was great fun back in the day. Those zombies at the start of the game looked cute rather than scary but man this was fun and still provides retro gaming thrills.

My novella , The Dead Walked Book One: Outbreak is officially published early next year, but in an exclusive deal with Amazon will be available as a Kindle only title for 90 days.
The book will be available to purchase later this week.

Some said it was viral.
Others claimed it was an act of God
Either way, it mattered not, for the dead shall walk.

September was her favourite time of the year, and late September, when the autumn was just preparing to hand over to winter, when there was still a residue of the late summer warmth in the air, as well as the crisp promise of the iciness to come, had always been, as far as Missy was concerned, the finest chunk of that particular month.
Not for her was the spectacle of high summer, nor the morose beauty of mid winter. Of course they both had their fineries but these paled next to the season when the leaves glittered with reflected sunlight. It was the autumn, with September being the highlight of that season, which she loved – a time when nature put on its finest display as the lush summer growth was magically transformed.
The sky itself seemed to glow at this time of year.
September was a time of promise.
A time of rebirth.
Not this September, though.
This September, Missy would remember as, the time the dead walked.

Walkers, Walkers everywhere 3 - I Walked with a Zombie (1943)

Released during the very real horrors of World War II this was the second horror film from producer, Val Lewton, the first being the iconic Cat People, and if you think Seth Graham Smith was the first to mix zombies and the classics with Pride and Prejudice with Zombies then think again. Lewton adjusted the original script to be a loose adaptation of Jane Eyre. Lewton borrowed the story, which is set in a plantation, from Charlotte Bronte’s novel, Jane Eyre, but set in it on the island of St. Sebastian. Betsy Connell (Frances Dee), an innocent and pure Canadian nurse, accepts a position on the troubled Holland family plantation and in the best creaky old horror film fashion all is not what it seems.


Ignore the cheesey title which makes it sound like a film along the lines of, I was a Teenage Werewolf because I Walked is, like Cat People before it, a cut above most of RKO’s horror content. It went unappreciated by the critics of the day with the New York Times calling it dull and disgusting, but over the years it has rightly attained classic status and is these days regarded as one of Lewton’s best films, if not superior to The Cat People it is at least its equal. The voodoo element of the film is cleverly understated and it is not clear to the viewer if Jessica Holland, wife of the plantation owner, is actually under a supernatural spell or the victim of some strange tropical illness. Modern viewers may find it slow but it is one of the best pre-Romero zombie movies. There’s also a great joke when the disclaimer in the opening credits about the characters and events presented in the film denies any similarity to “actual persons, living, dead or possessed”.

Well worth seeking out.

Want an all new zombie fix -


The Dead Walked by Vincent Stark

Some said it was a virus
Others called it an act of God
Either way the result was the same when the dead walked

Walkers, walkers everywhere 2 - Essential Tales of the Zombie

I picked up this graphic novel in my local Borders during it’s closing down sale a few years back – man, I miss my Borders but now it’s gone forever, the chain deader than the undead.  So sad, but there were some bargains to be had during those last few weeks and I spent a couple of hundred pounds in the space of a fortnight but must have come away with more than a grands worth of books and DVD’s. Tales of the Zombie was one of those bargains.

Bound in an attractive softback the book collects together zombie strips from issues 1 – 10 of Tales of the Zombie and Dracula Lives issues 1 and 2. The creative team  consists of Roy Thomas, Steve Gerber, Doug Moench and Gene Colan, as well as several others. The original Tales of the Zombie comic ran from 1973-1975 and told of Simon Garth, a man who was reanimated by mystical means and now find himself under the control of whoever holds the fabled amulet.

The WIKI tell us -
Simon William Garth ,  became a work-obsessed executive of Garth Manor, based in New Orleans. Ambushed and kidnapped by his former gardener, whom he had fired, Garth is to be a cult’s human sacrifice. However, the cult’s priestess, Layla, recognizes Garth as her own everyday-life employer, with whom she is in love. Though her attempt to let him escape is thwarted, and though she is forced to mystically transform his corpse into a zombie with a clouded mind whom holders of the matching amulet could control, Layla, with her grandfather, Papa Doc Kabel, continue to try to help the uncomprehending Zombie reach his final rest.Despite his zombie state, he retains some vestige of his soul: for instance, when under the control of the amulet he has been forced to hurt or even kill people he has come to care about (such as Philip Bliss and Layla), the moment he is free from control his vengeance is terrible. Because of these remnants of soul, Layla and Papa Doc perform a ritual that allows Garth 24 hours in his restored human self in order that he might attend the wedding of his daughter Donna and set what was left of his previous life in order.

The graphic novel is a great collection and as well as the stories there are several text based articles – The Sensuous Zombie looks at the way the undead have been presented over the years,  there’s a look at Voodoo in all its forms, and a great article on George Romero’s Living Dead. The graphic novel retails at £10.99 and is well worth seeking out for some great vintage zombie adventure.

RELATED:The first volume in The Dead Walked trilogy was delayed due to a massive rewrite being required when the third book took on a turn unexpected during the initial plotting – still there’s a lot of swill out there and I wanted the Dead Walked books to be as good as I could make them before making them available to you, the reader. I plan to develop the Vincent Stark name and the only way to do that is to ensure the work produced is of the highest quality and will grab readers by the throat, not letting up until the story ends.

And so January 5th 2011 the dead will finally walk.

The Dead Walked: Outbreak

By Gary Dobbs, author of a string of bestselling westerns as well as the historical crime thriller A Policeman’s Lot, writing under the name of Vincent Stark
Available in all eFormats and from Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble  and anywhere else eBooks are sold.

The Dead Walked - publication date set for eBook original

The first volume in The Dead Walked trilogy was delayed due to a massive rewrite being required when the third book took on a turn unexpected during the initial plotting – still there’s a lot of swill out there and I wanted the Dead Walked books to be as good as I could make them before making them available to you, the reader. I plan to develop the Vincent Stark name and the only way to do that is to ensure the work produced is of the highest quality and will grab readers by the throat, not letting up until the story ends.

And so January 5th 2011 the dead will finally walk.

The Dead Walked: Outbreak

By Gary Dobbs, author of a string of bestselling westerns as well as the historical crime thriller A Policeman’s Lot, writing under the name of Vincent Stark


Available in all eFormats and from Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble  and anywhere else eBooks are sold.

January 5th 2012
The dead shall finally walk......

The eGolden age and the Flesh Eating Bastards

These days they would be called novellas but back in the day they were most certainly novels …and you know what, I miss them!
What am I talking about? Well the genre paperbacks that used to line shelves in bookshops everywhere. Most of these books were around 125 – 175 pages and offered quick but satisfying reads, works from authors such as Guy N. Smith, James Herbert, Gary Brander and others of that ilk. Now these days these slim volumes would be categorized as novellas but even although the page count was low, the stories were most certainly big. The plots were perfectly contained with no wasted words, and no skippages  padding. I know a lot of novels that could do with that treatment – in my opinion the novella is the perfect form for a horror story and far too many otherwise good books have been padded out to the point of skippages in  order to confirm to an industry need for 500 page plus tomes.

I’ve got news  for you folks – these days Stephen King’s Carrie would be considered a novella, as would James Herbert’s Rats and I could go on and on and…

It’s not only me who misses the golden days of paperback fiction – there’s even a magazine devoted to the subject that I would recommend to anyone. Paperback Fanatic is an excellent publication that features intelligently, well researched articles on the subject of genre paperbacks.

But I’m going off the point here.

And this brings us to my trilogy of novels that go under the collective title of, The Dead Walked – as soon as I had the idea for the series I knew the novella was the perfect format even if the story itself is huge in scope – over the three books we will travel from the everyday to Necropolis itself. The first volume was originally due this October but the first volume had to be called back at the eleventh hour for a major re-write since it contradicted events when the third book in the trilogy went off in a different direction than I had initially envisioned.  Characters can be rowdy and stubborn and sometimes the author has no choice but to let them go their own way.

The manuscript is going through the editing process now and I should have a firm publication date very soon – better delay than error I say. And of course there is the point that after three bestselling traditionally published westerns and a historical crime novel,  I wanted my self published debut to be up to standards – there’s a lot of swill out there in self publishing land, and I don’t want my readers to wade through any from  my pen. Kitchensinkpublications is the name of the company I have set up to publish my Vincent Stark books and if they are a success then I plan to publish other authors and built up a vibrant list of titles.


So I hope you’ll all come along for the ride when volume one – Outbreak is published later this month. If you do I know you’ll enjoy it enough to be waiting eagerly for the second and third volumes. It’s the story of a zombie apocalypse like no other, for when the necromancer sings the dead shall walk. I’ve not skimped on the covers either and have hired legendary artist, Tony Masero to provide the artwork for each volume. You can see the stunning painting for volume one and I’ve already seen a rough sketch of the artwork for the second volume and it’s one sexy mother. I hope the storytelling within do justice to the stunning cover art – HOPE…scrub that, I know it will.
So get ready for an announcement soon – the eBook will be available in all formats and on sale everywhere and although I don’t have the confirmed price yet, I can say that it will be comparable to the paperbacks of years gone by.

September was her favourite time of the year, and late September, when the autumn was just preparing to hand over to winter, when there was still a residue of the late summer warmth in the air, as well as the crisp promise of the iciness to come, had always been, as far as Missy was concerned, the finest chunk of that particular month.
Not for her was the spectacle of high summer, nor the morose beauty of mid winter. Of course they both had their fineries but these paled next to the season when the leaves glittered with reflected sunlight. It was the autumn, with September being the highlight of that season, which she loved – a time when nature put on its finest display as the lush summer growth was magically transformed as if by a sepia wand spewing gold dust into the air.
The sky itself seemed to glow at this time of year.
            September was a time of promise.
            A time of rebirth.
            Not this September, though.
            This September, Missy would remember as, the time the dead walked.

Walking Dead - Mid season climax

If you’re not up to speed with AMC’s Walking Dead then you’d best not read this review as it contains big SPOILERS.

Well the mid season climax turned out be one of the best episodes this season’s yet offered  and  although the big secret was given away by an AMC employee who has since been sacked, it was still a brilliant reveal to see Sophia, now a walker, emerge from Hershel’s barn. And the entire episode that carried us towards this climax was expertly paced and allowed us to see just how fragmented our group of survivors have become. Shane continued to dominate proceedings as one by one all of the major characters came to realise that whilst Rik may be the better man, it is Shane who is better equipped to help them survive in this brutal new world. We got the inevitable soap operatics with Shane confronting Lori, now that Rik has told him she is pregnant, and telling her that the baby is his. When Lori dismisses him and tells him that even if he is the father, the baby will be Rik’s he goes off in a black mood. He goes for the guns, intending on destroying the walkers in Hershal’s barn but finds that Dale expected this move and has gone off to hide the guns,so that Shane can not act before Rik returns from wherever he’s gone. This seems an odd move for Dale, he did after all try to make Hershel realize that the walkers are dangerous and can no longer be considered people,  to make which is perhaps the only weak point in this otherwise excellent episode.

And where is Rik? Out in the swamps that’s where aiding Hershal to capture two walkers who have been trapped in the swam. The plan is to take the walkers back to the farm  for storage in the barn, but by the time he and the old man, not the mention the two new walkers return, Shane has already found Dale, retrieved the guns and is preparing to destroy every single walker in the barn. Cue an action scene that really delivered – it becomes a turkey shoot as Shane and several of the survivors stand there and put each and every walker down while Hershal looks on horrified, but just as the dust settles Sophia shambles out of the barn and it is left to Rik, rather than a stunned Shane, to put her down. Perhaps it is Rik after all, who is the best man for this brutal new world.


A great episode then that displayed much of the action that has thus far been  missing from this season. There were some great character moments but it wasn’t at the expense of the all important zombie apocalyspe elements that have been missing from this season. It certainly did it’s job and it’s going to be a long wait until the season resumes in January.

The second season has been disappointing thus far and has constantly failed to live up to the excellence of the first season – the search for Sophia has gone on too long and has tended to make things a little too draggy, but now that this plot line has been played out  maybe the next section of this season will see some all out zombie action, and that the sense of doom so prevalent in the first season will return. AMC have already announced that there will be a third season, and if the remainder of this second season lives up to the brilliance of this episode then I, for one, will be glad to see it.

It's coming - the eBook sensation that'll rattle yer' bones

VERY SOON - THE DEAD SHALL WALK






Stephen King, not the writer but the plumber from Gateshead, said that, 'the walking dead was - 'er, dead shitty! Most terrifying.'




Very soon from Amazon, Smashwords, W H Smith and anywhere else eBooks are sold.

September was her favourite time of the year, and late September, when the autumn was just preparing to hand over to winter, when there was still a residue of the late summer warmth in the air, as well as the crisp promise of the iciness to come, had always been, as far as Missy was concerned, the finest chunk of that particular month.

Not for her was the spectacle of high summer, nor the morose beauty of mid winter. Of course they both had their fineries but these paled next to the season when the leaves glittered with reflected sunlight. It was the autumn, with September being the highlight of that season, which she loved – a time when nature put on its finest display as the lush summer growth was magically transformed as if by a sepia wand spewing gold dust into the air.

The sky itself seemed to glow at this time of year.

            September was a time of promise.

            A time of rebirth.

            Not this September, though.

            This September, Missy would remember as, the time the dead walked.

Walkers, Walkers everywhere and many a book to read

While we wait for the publication of my trilogy, The Dead Walked ( and there’ll be news of the first volume this weekend), I thought it might to a good moment to point readers to some of the other zombie novels mouldering in bookshops at the moment.  It would seem that everyone is aware of World War Z and so I will completely ignore that (admittedly excellent) title for the purpose of this article and direct readers elsewhere.


George Romero is usually credited with creating the modern zombie with his classic 1968 shocker, Night of the Living Dead but if any man also deserves this credit it is screenwriter and novelist John Russo who wrote the script of the original movie.  Undead, published by Titan  Books, collects together the novels Night of the Living Dead and Return of the Living Dead. Night almost follows the film script to the letter, though we do get to know the characters a bit better in John Russo’s novelization, but the real meat here is the all original sequel, Return of the Living Dead which revisits the same location ten years after the events depicted in the movie. The book is on sale now priced £8.99 which offers good value considering there are two full length novels within its covers. Zombie Apocalypse which was edited by Stephen Jones is another cracker. This book shares many traits with the aforementioned, World War Z but it is far from a carbon copy and is a great addition to the genre. Personally I actually prefer this one to World War Z since the story is more contained but WWZ came first and this title owes it a massive debt.
Dead Ways by Christopher Edge is a zombie tale aimed at the YA audience and although the book is light on the gore and mayhem which are so essential to the genre it does it’s job well and provides a riveting read. The book uses tension more than gross out and is all the better for it. The zombies here are genuinely scary and the book deserves to be a big hit. TV’s Walking Dead provides the inspiration for the first in a series of tie-in novels – Rise of the Governor by Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga. The two writers are the idea choice to expand the Walking Dead universe since Kirkman is the original creator of the graphic novels while Bonansinga is a respected novelist. Though the choice of plot and characters seem a bit odd since much of this will mean nothing to the TV audience and only ring a bell with fans of the original comics. The Governor  doesn’t break any new ground  and is reliant on action set pieces which makes the book feel like a novelization.
Of course the zombie novel I want you all to run out and buy is The Dead Walked: Origin by Vincent Stark but then I’m biased since this marks my horror debut after a string of successful westerns written under the name Jack Martin and published by Robert Hale LTD. Origin is the first in a trilogy and you can read an extract below. Shuffle back later this weekend when we will announce the publication date for the first volume in the zombie event of the year.


The Dead Walked: Origin by Vincent Stark

The necromancer shall sing.
And the dead shall walk.
***


September was her favourite time of the year, and late September, when the autumn was just preparing to hand over to winter, when there was still a residue of the late summer warmth in the air, as well as the crisp promise of the iciness to come, had always been, as far as Missy was concerned, the finest chunk of that particular month.
Not for her was the spectacle of high summer, nor the morose beauty of mid winter. Of course they both had their fineries but these paled next to the season when the leaves glittered with reflected sunlight. It was the autumn, with September being the highlight of that season, which she loved – a time when nature put on its finest display as the lush summer growth was magically transformed as if by a sepia wand spewing gold dust into the air.

The sky itself seemed to glow at this time of year.

September was a time of promise.

A time of rebirth.

Not this September, though.

This September, Missy would remember as, the time the dead walked.

The Walking Dead - season 2, episode 2

Take last week’s cliffhanger and run with it, leaving us with an even bigger cliffhanger and that’s what this second episode does.


There’s an odd moment in this episode that worries me – it’ s as if the writers have lost track of Rick’s character and there is an entire subplot involving Rick that makes no sense. Rick’s son is lying shot in bed at a secluded farmhouse – he is being treated by a vet (well as Rick points out we can’t shop around for a surgeon) and Rick has to be on hand to provide regular blood transfusions if the boy if to live. What does Rick do? Well he wants to leave the boy and go off in search of his wife, knowing that the boy could die at any moment.  Rick has to be talked out of leaving several times and at one point even restrained by Shane. Why such a pragmatic man doesn’t send Shane or his newfound friends off to find his wife and the other survivors while he remains with his son, seems odd.

This episode is light on the walkers, at least until the excellent climax, and concentrates on character moments. Andrew Lincoln is excellent again, as are the rest of the superb cast. The writers seem to be using Daryl’s character for comic relief in this episode and whilst it works well here, one gets the feeling that too much of this could detract from the excellent character development we’ve seen thus far.

Overall another excellent episode with a nail-biting ending.

The Walking Dead - season two, episode one

Contains Spoilers - It is difficult to think of another show in recent years which has been so eagerly awaited. Ever since the original six episode first season, viewers have been left eagerly waiting for t his full length season. The behind the scenes conflict that went on between seasons that saw the show's guiding hand, Frank Darabont sacked from the production didn't bode well. Would this groundbreaking series lose its edge? Well after this first episode it is too early to tell. Though Darabont's influence is all over this first episode - he did shoot most of this one before he was ejected from the show over an argument over the  budget.

When we left off last time our ragged band of survivors were back out on the road after escaping the inferno that was the center for disease control, and after a quick recap, we take up the story only moments after the first season ended. The set piece is an incredibly cinematic sequence set on a gridlocked highway. At first the place seems deserted and the survivors stop to mend a busted radiator, but then the walkers show up - at first one or two and then more and more and... Soon Sophia becomes separated from her mother and runs off into the woods, two walkers on her tail. Rik's off to save her but after managing to lead the walkers away from the little girl he returns to find she has vanished without a trace.

The show may have had its budget cut but that isn't apparent here and there are many gore filled gross out scenes in this sequence - for instance a zombie autopsy reveals that zombies eat woodchucks.

From there on in the story takes a relentless pace and end with another cliffhanger in which we may, or may not have, lost another major character or two.

An excellent start to the new season, but let's hope the quality of storytelling and visuals is kept up over the remaining episodes.