The Undead Rain series by Shaun Harbinger continues with the third book, Lightning, and the fourth book, Wildfire, is slated for a November release. Four friends are hiking in Wales, when news of a zombie outbreak finally reaches them, but they are somewhat in denial until a couple of soldiers from the SAS confirm their worst fears, so the group finds their way onto a boat.
Unfortunately, in Storm (Book 2), Alex gets the bright idea to go ashore to look for his family, even though he doesn't have a clue where they might be. Naturally, everything goes wrong for him as soon as his feet hit the ground, and he is separated from his boat. Luckily, he meets another group: Sam, Tanya and Jax.
The third book, Lightning, picks up immediately where Storm leaves off. Alex, the narrator of the series, is still searching for his brother Joe and their parents, but he finds himself on a mission to raid a government research lab for a vaccine that can reverse the hybrid mutation.
The author, Shaun Harbinger, gets it. You can't just throw in undead and gore and expect to call it a zombie story. Harbinger includes all the elements of classic horror: suspense, mystery and one horrifying surprise after another. Using this traditional formula, Harbinger provides thrilling terror without the need for graphic violence on every page.
As a result, I decided to invite Harbinger to the Lair...
Q. Why a series about zombies? Did you feel you had
something original to expand the genre?
A. I’ve been a zombie fan for as long as I can remember. I
can’t remember exactly when I first saw Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” but
I must have been at an impressionable age because its influence has stuck with
me all this time. The story of a group of people thrown together and forced to
survive has always appealed to me.
I didn’t set out to expand the genre. I just wanted to write
an entertaining series in a genre I loved. I hopefully threw in a few original
ideas, though. There’s a documentary that Alex, the main character, mentions
about how viruses control their hosts. That’s an actual documentary that I saw
a long time ago. I wondered how that virus behavior might translate to a zombie
apocalypse. So I have the rain thing, where the virus makes the zombies seeks
shelter from the rain in an attempt to slow the rotting process.
Another thing I do differently from a lot of works in the
genre is to have a hero who is the antithesis of a prepper. Alex is an out of
shape geek whose life before the apocalypse consisted of working in a crappy
job and spending his weekends gaming. That was good for me because it meant I
could use him to reference the pop culture. A lot of zombie stories seem to
take place in an alternate universe where nobody has ever heard of zombies
before. For example, in The Walking Dead, there’s a big reveal that everyone is
infected and becomes a zombie after they die. In the real world, that wouldn’t surprise
anyone. They’d just say, “Yeah, that’s what happens in every Romero movie.”
I wanted my series to take place in this reality, where
everyone has seen zombie movies, read zombie books, and heard of zombies. And
then the zombie apocalypse happens.
Q. Who or what has influenced your writing, and what do you
hope to accomplish with this series?
A. I’ve always been an avid reader. I was reading horror
books at an early age, particularly the works of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, James
Herbert, and Graham Masterton. I remember reading Ramsey Campbell’s “Dark
Companions” short story collection as a kid and being scared witless by it.
I also used to read a lot of sci fi and fantasy and the
men’s adventure series that were popular at the time. I was kind of nerdy as a
kid and I read a lot. Nothing much has changed there.
But I think I’m mostly influenced by the horror writers. For
me, their books were always the most interesting. Their stories stuck in my
mind in a way that the others didn’t. And the movie “Night of the Living Dead’
is a big influence, as well as some others like the old Hammer films.
My goal with the Undead Rain series is simply to entertain
readers. When I get a review that says, “I really enjoyed this book” or someone
emails me to tell me they can’t wait for the next book in the series, then I’m
happy.
The books are in the Top 100 horror and post-apocalyptic
charts on Amazon and I’m currently in the Top 100 horror authors, which is
amazing. It has far surpassed my hopes with regards to reaching a large number
of readers.
Q. Is there anything you find particularly challenging with
the undead genre?
A. I think the genre has an inherent problem for writers in
that there is no specific villain. The bad guys are a mass of rotting dead
people. There’s no specificity there. There’s no, “We must foil Doctor X’s plan
for world domination” type thing. When the bad guys are thousands of monsters
roaming the country, and not a specific person in a specific place, the focus
of the story can be hazy.
A lot of writers have come up with ingenious ways to combat
that problem.
In the case of the Undead Rain series, everything starts out
vague. Because it’s written in first person, we only know what Alex knows about
the zombie apocalypse. At first, it’s all about survival. By the time we get to
“Lightning”, a specific villain rears his ugly head. So as well as the hordes
of zombies, we have a bad guy that we can visualize. Then, as the book
develops, that concept goes even further and something happens that has a
terrible effect on Alex and his friends in “Wildfire”.
Another challenge with the undead genre is that you have to
come up with a believable reason for characters to do the things that drive the
story. In reality, most people in a zombie apocalypse would find a safe place
and stay there, avoiding trouble as much as possible. That doesn’t work for an
action story, so there has to be something that pushes the characters outside
their safety zone in a believable manner.
In “Storm”, Alex has to travel inland on a dangerous mission
to a radio station with Sam, Tanya, and Jax. In reality, that would be a crazy
thing to do, but in the story, Alex has to do it because it’s his only chance
of getting back to Lucy and the boat.
It’s a case of having to motivate the characters but also
keeping that motivation believable.
Q. Can we expect to see more of Alex?
A. This series is a quadrilogy. The first three books
(“Rain”, “Storm”, and “Lightning”) are available right now. The fourth book
(“Wildfire”) will be released on November 23rd.
After that, there might be more of Alex in the future. I
like him as a character. He’s grown a lot during this series and I may take
that further.
Q. Are you working on any other projects? What else can fans
of this series look forward to?
A. I’ve planned a spin-off series. I can’t say too much
about it at the moment but one of the main characters is someone who has
already been mentioned in the Undead Rain series.
As well as the spin-off series, I have ideas for other
horror novels that I’d like to explore. There’s a “family moves from the city
to a house in the country and all is not as it seems” idea that I’ve planned out
in my notebook. That description sounds generic but hopefully I can make the
story fresh and entertaining.
I’ve also been thinking about writing an occult detective
series. I’ve sketched out a few characters for that.
There’s definitely more to come in the future!
If you haven't begun this series, now is the perfect time. Each book picks up immediately after the previous one, so the storyline is seamless. Start now, and you should be ready for the fourth book!
As always,
AstraDaemon
This collection has more humor than horror - a dry, dark humor that doesn't appeal to me. By the time the stories become interesting, they're over, so that didn't help. There are a few stories that I really enjoyed: THE DEATH TRAP BUS, A GOOD WAY TO DIE, MURPHY'S INSURANCE LAW, A CHARITABLE DEATH, THE WAR ON HALLOWEEN and TIL DEATH DO YOU PART. If it had been just those stories, I would have given at least four stars, but I felt like I had to trek through a lot of muck to get to the must-reads.
Until You're Mine by Samantha Hayes introduces a theme that some may remember in the headlines: women so desperate for a baby that they attack pregnant women. The prologue is a great hook which introduces readers to a desperation some women feel when they are unable to conceive. however, until the end of the book, it is not clear who the childhood flashback belongs to, and the mystery creates a suspenseful atmosphere for the story to develop within.