Thursday, June 13, 2013

Summer of Zombie Blog Tour - Kirk Allmond

Your're reading Books, Beer and Blogshit! It's the only blog that hasn't covered the topic of beer even though beer is in the title. We are your misguided bloggers, Mr. Frank and Mr. Jeff.

The Summer of Zombie Blog Tour mayhem continues. This time we talk to Kirk Allmond, who has what maybe the most unique take on the zombie angle of any of the blog tour authors. Kirk Allmond is not only a zombie fiction writer but he is also a survivalist. That is what he brings to the show.

Let's learn about what a man who is first and foremost a prepper does to prepare for the zombie apocalypse, because it IS coming people, it is coming...


The Blogshit: Which of your books do we need to be talking about now and what is inside the pages to get excited about it?

Kirk Allmond:  I just released Declaration of War, the 5th book in the What Zombies Fear series. I’m excited about it because it let me write something I've been looking forward to for several years, Max fighting zombies! Max Tookes is 3.5 years old in the first book. In Declaration of War, we skip forward 12 years, to Max being almost 16, and getting to exercise his lust for zombie slaying.



The Blogshit: What is it about zombies that keep you writing in this genre?
Kirk Allmond: Zombies will continue to evolve. The original zombies were reanimated corpses, brought back to serve a voodoo priestess. Then along came Romero, with the supernatural “Hell has filled up, and the dead walk the earth” zombies, evolving them from singles to groups and hordes.

A few years later, we get Resident Evil style mutation zombies, and “28 Days Later” style rage-zombies.

Next we have World War Z (The movie, not the book) style hordes that are somewhat cooperative and ant-like in their behavior and are fast and agile.
There are a couple of things that make something a “zombie” to me. The first thing that all zombies have in common is that absolutely relentless assault. Zombies have no fear. They don’t pause or hesitate, they always drive forward. Second is hunger for flesh. Zombies may or may not eat brains, but the relentless assault is always fueled by an insatiable hunger for human flesh. The final thing that makes a zombie to me is the necessity to destroy the brain in order to kill them.

You may be able to injure a zombie, you may be able to slow them down by taking their legs off, but you cannot kill them without destroying the brain. As long as those three things are there, it’s a zombie. The shape, and specific characteristics can change and evolve, and that’s what I love about zombies.



The Blogshit: With the saturation of zombie fiction in the current market, what do you do to keep your writing fresh and relevant?

Kirk Allmond: I think about zombies all the time. I maintain the world’s largest zombie preparedness website, Zombiepreparedness.org. I often add pop culture references, current events, and modern storylines in to my stories to keep things different.



The Blogshit: What makes your zombies stand apart from all the others?

Kirk Allmond:  In What Zombies Fear, the zombies are caused by a brain parasite. The more parasites the host is infected with, the more areas of the brain the zombie can control. In a strong infection, the zombie can regulate cellular regeneration (They don’t rot) and even speech. In the most severe infections, the parasite can control areas of the brain that humans don’t use. (Because we only use 10% of our brain.) In those “super zombies,” they can run at extreme speed, regenerate in seconds, and sometimes it’s even worse.

The Blogshit: Do you write (or plan to write) outside the zombie genre?

Kirk Allmond: I do. I have a WIP in progress called “The Colcoa Tailings” that is still post-apocalyptic, but much more sci-fi.


The Blogshit: Do you think the mega hype around the movie adaptation of World War Z will have a positive or negative effect on the zombie fiction scene?

Kirk Allmond: I’m not really sure. I have a fear that World War Z is going to be Brad Pitt’s Ishtar. There are so many parallels between the two movies. At $400 million (And Counting) it’s going to have to be a HUGE movie to return the investment. I’m worried that if the first mega zombie movie flops, Hollywood will say “Zombies are dead,” and blame the genre rather than poor film making.



The Blogshit: Is there a need for attrition in the zombie fiction market?

Kirk Allmond: I think that everything zombie helps. Every zombie story is a little bit different, appealing to different people, not every zombie story is for everyone. I think there is plenty of room in the genre.



The Blogshit::  What do you see in the future of zombies, both on the page and off?

Kirk Allmond: Zombies will always endure. Even if the hero’s beat all the undead, all it takes is one zombie to start the apocalypse over. The same is true of zombie fiction. They may die off a bit in a few years, but all it takes is one great zombie story to bring the entire genre back.



The Blogshit: We are building a menu for a fictional sandwich shop. Typically we ask what to put on the namesake of you sandwich. For the Summer of Zombie Blog Tour we are going to set aside a special menu sub-section so: What do we put on your zombiefied sandwich?

Kirk Allmond: Post apocalypse, bread will mostly be crusty sourdough style bread. It’s easier to make, my grandmother had a jar of sourdough starter that was her grandmothers, it was almost 100 years old, and still made delicious bread. There will have to be smoked meat on it, because we’ll have to worry about preserving meat without refrigeration. We’ll have to grow as many of our own vegetables as possible, and tomatoes are one of the easiest, most versatile, and most nutritious vegetables to grow. Lastly, it’ll have to be spicy, because heavy spice hides the taste of meat that is a few days past its prime. So I’d say my zombiefied sandwich is a bacon, lettuce, and tomato on sourdough with spicy mayonnaise.




Kirk Allmond maintains a plethora of web sites dedicated to his writing and preparedness awareness interests. They can all be found and navigated to easily enough by visiting KirkAllmond.com

Be sure to check him out. In these bloggers opinion, he is the most interesting author on the tour. Take that for what its worth.

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