Happy Booker

I can’t even tell you how thrilled I am to be part of Xpresso's blog tour for Rhiannon Frater’s As the World Dies, Untold Tales. I absolutely love these books so to have the author of one of my favorite zombie series write a guest post for The Happy Booker the week before Halloween has me over the top excited. If you are already familiar with this series, you’ll know that Frater wrote one of the most horrific scenes in the history of zombiedom at the beginning of The First Days. More of the same imagery and twisted zombie mayhem continues in the Untold Tales. She’s written a guest post about why she writes zombies instead of bright, happy stories. Enjoy!

Guest Post: 

Zombie Fairies Riding Undead Unicorns

By

Rhiannon Frater

So how did that title grab ya?

Disturbing, yet funny, right?

Also, it’s a great opener on a guest post about why I write horror and not nice sparkly pretty stories. For most of my life I have been asked one particular question by friends, family, and complete strangers.

“Why can’t you write something nice?”

The answer is fairly simple.

The imagination dial in my brain is broken and stuck on HORROR.

When I tell this to people, they don’t often believe me. Looking a bit concerned for my mental well-being and maybe my very soul, they usually ask something along the lines of:

“Why don’t you write a nice love story?”

“With monsters?” I ask hopefully.

“Well, with vampires. They’re romantic.”

Instantly, I’m thinking of blood-drenched scenes and brutal fangs.

“Or werewolves. Werewolves are sexy,” is the next suggestion.

My brain instantly conjures up a fearsome man-wolf ripping off the head of some poor victim.

“Nope, not happening,” I say sadly.

“How about just regular humans?” the questioner asks, taking a fearful step backward.

“Is one of them a serial killer?” I ask, eyes lighting up.

I just can’t get away from the horror element. My brain goes to dark scary places. I long ago realized I experienced life in a very different way from most people. My imagination was always ON and story scenarios were always catching my attention. To make matters even weirder, most of those stories were on the scary end of the scale.

For example:

Walking down a long, seemingly never-ending hallway in the Denver airport just a few weeks ago, I started thinking about zombies and how much it would suck to run down the corridor I was trudging through to escape.

A few hours later stepping into an elevator with two sets of doors that opened either on one side or the other depending on the floor, I thought how much it would suck if the wrong set opened and you found yourself on a mysterious hidden floor filled with monstrous creatures.

The reality of the situation is that my muse has fangs. I’ve accepted that and I enjoy the stories I write. Certain members of my family and society may always regard me with great suspicion because of this fact, but at least I’ll be ready when the zombie fairies ride into town on undead, fire-breathing unicorns.

AUTHOR BIO

Rhiannon Frater is the award-winning author of over a dozen books, including the As the World Dies zombie trilogy (Tor) , as well as independent works such as The Last Bastion of the Living (declared the #1 Zombie Release of 2012 by Explorations Fantasy Blog and the #1 Zombie Novel of the Decade by B&N Book Blog),and other horror novels. Her next novel for Tor, Dead Spots, will be published in 2014. She was born and raised a Texan and presently lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and furry children (a.k.a pets).  She loves scary movies, sci-fi and horror shows, playing video games, cooking, dying her hair weird colors, and shopping for Betsey Johnson purses and shoes. 

You can find her online at: 
Website: rhiannonfrater.com & astheworlddies.com 
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/astheworlddies 
Twitter:  twitter.com/rhiannonfrater 
Blog:  rhianonfrater.blogspot.com 
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/rhiannonfrater/ 
Email: rhiannonfrater at gmail.com