Father John VS the Zombies

[kelkoura]

Today marks the official launch of my debut novel, Father John VS the Zombies. It's a story of the zombie apocalypse told from a Christian perspective. Here's the blurb from the back cover:

Civilization has collapsed. The world is dying.

It happened very fast. Within weeks, isolated news reports of people acting in strange and often violent ways became frequent and widespread. Terrifying videos were uploaded to the internet in shocking numbers from across the globe. Chaotic images of societies in rapid decline.

Then—everything went dark. No electricity, no internet, no broadcasts on the emergency radio station.

Now—howling, angry, bloodied creatures claw to get into Johnny Salibi's house, where he lives with his wife and young daughter.

But Johnny and his family are safe. He's boarded up the windows. The door is locked and secure. They will ride things out until the government can get things under control again. They're safe. . .

. . . except that they're not.

Johnny must try to protect his wife and daughter in a world suddenly turned apocalyptic. But things will not go according to plan. Johnny will learn that the zombie plague is not what he or anyone else thought it was. He will learn that the government is not in any position to rescue them. And he will also learn that an unlikely group of survivors might hold the key not only to survival, but to salvation.

I suspect some Christians may find the topic or theme off-putting, but hopefully not a group of Christians interested in speculative fiction!

You can read more about the book (including the first chapter) on my website at ootersplace.com/FatherJohn/.

And if you're interested in buying a copy, you can do so from the various Amazon sites or from Smashwords.com (with more retailers to come in the next few days). The paperback version is coming in the next few weeks, if all goes according to plan.

To get the word out about the book, I'd be happy to provide people on this board with free review copies of the ebook (I'll limit the free copies to the first 5 people who contact me, though, in case someone ten years from now tries to make good on this deal - haha). Anyone interested?

Either way, thanks for letting me share!

Karl

[Divides the Waters]

Creative concept!

[Kessie]

Hey, zombies are really big right now. Once I've whittled my to-read list down a little, I'll volunteer.

I've been tinkering with a story about a boy and girl in a zombie apocalypse. He has a pet griffin, and the girl is a necromancer. Together they befriend a (really violent) unicorn and try to persuade her to help break the zombie curse. But the unicorn won't help them until they can learn her name.

Zombies are really easy to write, but I've never read any books with them. Half-life and Halo are the extent of my zombie knowledge, and Flood and headcrabs are alien parasites, not zombies.

[kelkoura]

I'm glad you think so. I fear that many reactions will be the opposite - those who like zombie fiction don't want Christianity mixed in, while those who like theological fiction don't want any nasty zombies ambling around. But I wrote the book I wanted, and I'll let it find its own market (if one exists).

Kessie, your book sounds like a similar kind of mash-up of different genres. Is it YA?

I've read a bit of zombie fiction and watched a lot of zombie movies, but after a while it all starts to kind of blend together. So my zombies are quite a bit different than the kind I found in some of the other entries in the genre. Hopefully in a good/fresh way.

[Divides the Waters]

Well, if you think about it, Christianity really is about the walking dead in the first place. The tagline for my wife's literary apologetics novel, Prophecy of the Heir, is "Where the dead breathe and the immortal die."