The AS THE WORLD DIES zombie trilogy (THE FIRST DAYS, FIGHTING TO SURVIVE, and SIEGE) was originally born online in 2005. I had started the story on a lark, but it soon grew to be much more than I ever anticipated. What I thought was a short story grew into a zombie epic. It garnered a massive following during its time as an online serial.

One of the challenges of writing on a nearly daily basis on my zombie series was content. Writing a serial is not the same as a novel. It’s one long continuous story and the writer can take many detours along the way. The readers of the story were heavily invested in the characters and plot, often reviewing each entry in the series. Honestly, there were many times when I was stumped for content, or just didn’t want to write an upcoming emotionally wrenching scene. Writing about zombies, death, violence, and the emotional toll of the zombocalypse could be draining. So, I’d take fan requests to give both me and the reader a little respite from the main storyline.

When I finally self-published the massive story in dead tree format, I found two spots where I could divide the content into three books. I had no idea I had so much story until I downloaded it and realized I had over 1, 600 pages of manuscript. I wrote new content for each novel and published the AS THE WORLD DIES trilogy to brisk sales, accolades, and awards. I would later sell the trilogy to the genre powerhouse publishing house, Tor, and revise all three tomes.

As stated before, writing an online serial is a much different task than writing a novel or a trilogy. With the help of my Tor editor, Melissa Singer, I fashioned each book into a novel that could stand alone. The side trips with characters and flashbacks and the such that were okay in an online serial were trimmed to make the plot meaner, leaner, and a whole lot better. By the time I was done with the revised versions, I felt an enormous amount of accomplishment and pride. I can say with the utmost confidence that the Tor versions of my trilogy are the ultimate versions.

Yet, I had bits and pieces of the side trips in the plotline that shed light on the minor characters and their history. What was I to do with these snippets of stories?

I had already written one untold tale for the fans that was called The Vacation of the Undead: Eric’s Story. The novella was very popular with the fans and highlighted one of the minor characters in the AS THE WORLD DIES trilogy that never takes center stage. Fans of the series requested more of these untold tales, naming off favorite characters they’d like to see more of. The Vacation of the Undead: Eric’s Story became the lynchpin for the first book in the AS THE WORLD DIES UNTOLD TALES series. I wrote two additional stories for the book based on popular requests. Volume 1 was published in August of 2011 and became very popular with the fans.

Now, Volume 2 will be released on March 19, 2012. Again, it has a novella length story called Friendship In the Time of Zombies: Ken & Lenore’s Story. Ken and Lenore were two of the most popular supporting cast characters in the trilogy. Demand for their untold tale has been very high. Though I had written part of the story online, my contractual obligations to Tor kept me busy. In Volume 2 their story is published in its entirety. Two other short stories complete the book. Katarina, the protégée sniper to Nerit, and some of the background characters that never had a name get their own stories.

My primary goal in writing the untold tales is to give the fans yet another exciting look into the AS THE WORLD DIES universe. Most fans of the series want to know the “first days” stories of the characters, so it has been fun going back to the outbreak of the zombie apocalypse and reveal how the characters survived long enough to make it to the fort. The stories are rich with zombie goodness and there are plenty of gory action sequences to go around, but they also provide a backdrop to the characters that populated the background of the main storyline.

AS THE WORLD DIES VOLUME 2 is a great bridge between FIGHTING TO SURVIVE and SIEGE (due April 24, 2012 in bookstores). It allows you a greater understanding of the friendship of Ken and Lenore and gives you a terrifying look into how Katarina became the cold-blooded killing machine she is in the trilogy.

And yes, there will be a Volume 3 sometime after the release of SIEGE. But for now, those stories are a secret, but will be well worth the wait.