Interview: Kevin Anderson

We recently had a chance to interview Kevin David Anderson, the author of Night of the Living Trekkies. It’s a novel that’s an absolute blast to have read and the humor found within shows through on the interview as well! This is one author that’s not only fun to read his work BUT also to talk to!

What inspired you to mix a little of space the final frontier with the living dead?

I am a huge Trekkie, and a zombie freak, so I’m very surprised, looking back, that the concept didn’t occur to me sooner, but the idea didn’t come to me until late in 2008 when I was watching, for the 10th time, one of my favorite documentaries, Trekkies. Directed by Roger Nygard and staring Denise Crosby, it’s an in-depth and entertaining exploration of the devoted fans of Star Trek and their world, from home life to conventions.

I was not even halfway through the film when it hit me. I kept thinking in the right situation, under the right dire circumstances, these guys can become the heroes. And of course the right situation was the zombie apocalypse.

Who is your favorite captain?

Captain James Tiberius Kirk!

Kirk is Han Solo, Buck Rogers, Starbuck, Flash Gordon and Commander Adama all rolled into one. Males of all species want to be him, intergalactic women want to love him, and Klingons fear him. Captain James Tiberius Kirk is and has always been my favorite Star Trek Captain.

I’m a huge fan of science fiction and horror being mixed together. Any plans on a horror theme in the future with a larger direct science fiction theme?

I love Science Fiction and Fantasy, but horror is where I eat, breathe, and live. If I revisit Sci-fi again it will most likely revolve around horror themes. Horror will always be the canvases, science fiction the paint. And if the sequel to Night of the Living Trekkies gets picked up, I’ll be proud to hang another piece in the sci-fi/horror gallery of pulpy literature.

When you are sitting down to write, what is your favorite writing environment to get in the mood?

I don’t have a permanent place to work at the moment. I’m sort of a gypsy or nomadic writer. Not really by choice. My home has two beautiful children living in it and when I need to think about mayhem, murder, and apocalyptic chaos, I can’t look into their big blue eyes. The distraction is worse than a zombie horde breaching the barricades. So I’m out and about. Sixty to seventy percent of all my writing is done at one of three Starbucks in the Inland Empire (Southern California) with the balance being completed in my local public library. The quiet room.

What is your favorite zombie novel?

Wow, that is like asking what’s my favorite flavored of ice cream. Rocky road by the way. With so many great reads coming out in the last few years it’s hard to choose. I just finished Ryan Brown’s Play Dead and really loved this original zombie, sports mash up. Roger Ma’s Zombie Combat Manual was a fantastic read, and so is Max Brook’s Zombie Survival Guide. J.L. Bourne’s Day by Day Armageddon had an interesting point of view on the apocalypse, and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies made me imagine the walking dead in another era. But if I have to pick one, I’m gonna go back a little further and say Brian Keene’s The Rising. It really moves, the zombies get a nice upgrade, and although the ending is a downer, it’s a fantastically scary read.

What is your opinion about the ongoing debate between what is scarier: shambling zombies or their running counterparts?

Well obviously a carnivorous mob that can match you in agility and speed is scarier, but that’s not really the point. I like reality in my horror and fast running zombies are like Bigfoot, flying saucers, and the Metric System – just make believe!

Do you plan on returning to the undead in future novels?

Yes, yes, and yes! I have fiction and creative nonfiction book proposals coming down the undead pike and I hope to bask in the walking dead’s undying light very soon.

We have a lot of new authors that follow Buy Zombie. What advise to you have for authors who are just starting out?

Don’t die, stay animated, try to shamble forward everyday. Meaning, don’t let your aspiration to write wither, be out there in writing group, networks, join a writing association (HWA, SFFW) and create writing goals and make progress toward meeting them everyday.

Also – rejection is a big part of writing. If it’s something that you will take personally every time (and its hard not to) the process will eat away at your resolve and belief in yourself. Try not to look at rejection in that dire light. Instead try to think of each rejection as an opportunity to learn. What you learn may not be about writing specifically, it may be about the market, the process, how to present your material. Every rejection has something to teach you, something that might not be glaringly obvious at first. But if you look long enough, you will find it, and each find brings you one step closer to your goal.

Wow that sounded very know-it-allish and preachy. To put it a better way, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche

Who are 5 people, besides friends and family that you would want to be stuck with during the zombie apocalypse?

Well if you are talking real people I’d have to say:

  • Max Brooks – The man wrote the book on surviving the Zombie Apocalypse
  • The Rock (Dwayne Johnson)– mainly so he could teach me how to do that cool eyebrow thing
  • Paula Dean – I don’t care if I have to piggy-back her big round butt around, after a hard day of killing zombies, I want some good southern food. I’d love to see what she could do with apocalypse rations
  • Dr. Oz – I’m a bit clumsy, so I’m gonna need a medic
  • Octomom – when it comes time to repopulate the planet, we’re gonna need a woman that can deliver in litters

But if I could select from the universe of fictional characters:

  • The Fantastic Four’s The Thing – impervious to bites
  • Superman – impervious to everything
  • MacGyver – can make everything, out of anything
  • Batgirl – my reasons are personal (It’s not what you’re thinking…well, it probably is)
  • Jar Jar Binks – so I can throw his annoying, CG ass into the middle of a bloodthirsty undead mob

What first drew you to zombies? What are your main sources of inspiration when it comes to the undead?

Like most zombie fans, Night of the Living Dead (and its sequels), is the film that seized my attention. But it was The Return of the Living Dead (1985) that really grabbed me by the throat. The Zombie apocalypse was beginning to move away from the rules set down in the Romero films. Zombies needed brains, and Zombies could be funny. Something that Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edger Wright knew better than any of us, and proved it with Shaun of the Dead (2004) the film that made me want to include humor in my writing. Since then I’ve found more undead inspiration from films as most zombie literature seems to take its zombie apocalypse very seriously, with some exceptions like Breathers by S.G. Browne, and the Jane Austin mash-ups from Quirk Books. The ZomCom (Zombedy) films are what I love the most at the moment and draw my current zombie inspiration from. Some of my favorites in recent years are, Dead and Breakfast, Undead or Alive, Zombies of Mass Destruction, Dance of the Dead, Boy Eats Girl, The Stink of Flesh, Fido, Hide and Creep, Doghouse, and of course Zombieland.

Night of the Living Trekkies is available at Amazon!