Zombie Blues: Racist Zombie

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

‘Perhaps the whole world should be colourblind,” he remarked. ‘Life would be so much simpler.’

Every zombie was somebody in human form. They are not all good neighbours or citizen Joe doing his civic duty. We are surrounded by bad people all over the world and in our daily lives. One of the most prevalent in recent years has been the surge of racism during the Trump era. It has just gone to show us that we can never be complacent and that the battle for equality continues. Just in the last few days of writing this article I have seen posts on Instagram from people condemning attacks on the Asian community and a video from Hawaii 50 actor Daniel Dae Kim bringing awareness to the masses. As a race we have a long way to go in accepting each other so the sole purpose of this story was to highlight just how dumb racism is. But as always I try to be different and wanted to show that not all racists come from a racist background. Sometimes they simply are. I never really liked the saying that it is the parent’s fault because quite simply I abhor tarring people with on brush. The message is touched upon in The Zombie that Left the Building in Zombie Blues 3. Racism comes from all angles and directions but we as a species must stand together and fight it.

To see does becoming a zombie change Racist Zombie’s mind get your copy today here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zombie-Blues-2-Owen-Quinn/dp/B084DGVGVG/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=zombie+blues+owen+quinn&qid=1613905321&sr=8-2

Zombie Blues: Bigfoot Hunter Zombie

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Copyright Owen Quinn

My inner self was highly sceptical that zombies would find and kill Bigfoot. Sasquatch and zombies were polar opposites: one was a fast mover, the other not so much but as I said Mother Nature had great patience.

I love the idea of Bigfoot and Sasquatch or whatever you want to call the big hairy giants that inhabit deep forests and deserted mountains and jungles in certain parts of the world. There is more than enough evidence now to prove they do exist and they are a part of the Time Warriors universe in the Time Warriors Book 3 Red Water. So there was no way I could resist adding them to the universe of Zombie Blues. The challenge was how to do that in a believable manner and tying it into a very real human trait.

I think I’ve probably watched every documentary there is on the subject over the years (this obsession grabbed me at a very early age) and the common thread for those who have had an experience with Bigfoot is that it changed their lives forever. In that moment I had my hook into the story.

I chose a female lead for this one because I had done a similar story for a Time Warriors book where the lead was male. She had an encounter as a child and it sent her on a path to discover what she had really seen. But it became an obsession leading her to miss out on the other things in life so the story is a look at how focusing on one thing to the exclusion of everything else is not healthy and can be soul destroying. It’s a look at blind faith and ho far that faith can take us down a path that may never be answered. Knowing what you witnessed is one thing and gives you a strong stance but what does that make you when the rest of world laughs at you like some sort of freak? Are you a fool or an example of someone resolute in their beliefs? A hero or a zero? Is that journey worthwhile if you do achieve your goal?

It also opens up that Mother Nature knows Bigfoot exists and they too are on her hit list. As her twisted sense of humour shows what better person to hunt down Bigfoot than someone absolutely devoted to proving their existence. Again she takes someone’s passion and twists it to suit her own needs.

Will our Bigfoot hunter achieve in her undead state what she couldn’t in life? Find out today.

To meet Bigfoot Hunter Zombie and others get your copy todsy here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zombie-Blues-2-Owen-Quinn/dp/B084DGVGVG/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=zombie+blues+owen+quinn&qid=1613905321&sr=8-2

Marvel Alien comic:New trailer released

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

42 years later and still no one can hear you scream

I love Aliens and cannot wait to see what Marvel has in store to renew the franchise given their great crossover covers in January. When the threat returns who are they going to call? Watch the brilliant trailer below.

All copyright Marvel

Zombie Blues: Diabetic Zombie

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Copyright Owen Quinn

Just like diabetes Mother Nature struck hard leaving an indelible impact on all our lives. At least I don’t have to prick myself every day to check my blood sugars.

Writers should use what they know in their stories either by way of getting the message out there to other about their experiences good and bad and/or as a kind of therapy to deal with conscious or subconscious feelings about whatever it is.

In life many people think things are hat happen to other people and until it comes knocking on their door, it is only then you have to learn and be forced to deal with something you always thought would happen to somebody else. As a diabetic I wanted to somehow share what I feel about this condition and fit it into the zombie universe. I denied for a long time that even though I had diabetes that anything would happen to me because I never felt sick, never felt different. I went to the gym but got caught up in work life that my eating habits were not great and I never really took care of it until it all hit in one shitstorm. With this story I wanted to warn others not to take it for granted because diabetes is a sneaky bastard. Its effects often aren’t felt for years. Like a zombie it rots you from the inside and affects you in ways you only hear as words from a doctor when you are first diagnosed.

As a writer you often hope that something in your stories will reach someone and help them with their struggles so Diabetic Zombie is really a warning to anyone like me who dismissed how deadly this disease really is. While becoming a zombie is a cure, let’s hope a real one os found in real life.

To read the Diabetic Zombie’s story and meet other zombies get your copy today here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zombie-Blues-2-Owen-Quinn/dp/B084DGVGVG/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=zombie+blues+owen+quinn&qid=1613905321&sr=8-2

Zombie Blues: Wannabe Zombie

By Owen Quinn Copyright Owen Quinn

Copyright Owen Quinn designed by Conaire McMullan

What if your dream was to be a zombie on your favourite undead show and Mother Nature turned that dream into a nightmare?

If you watch the documentaries about the making George Romero’s zombie movies you will hear the tale of how ordinary townsfolk heard he needed zombies for this movie. At that, everybody came to be in the movie for free just for the chance to be a member of the undead for the day. With the onslaught that is the Walking Dead, every one and his brother would give anything just to be a zombie on the show. Yep, that includes me too. I wouldn’t care what sort of zombie I was but I’d love to say I was a zombie on the show preferably one of the strange ones like moss coered zombie or underwater zombie.

Copyright Owen Quinn

So meeting a character that would suffer the old adage to be careful what you wish was just too compelling to ignore. So we meet Miles Milligan, a lifelong fan of horror who inherited his passion from his parents. While I couldn’t use the name Walking Dead in case they sued me I created the Shambling Death show where everyone wants to be a Shambler. Some want it to make money off the convention circuit while Miles only wants it for self fulfillment. Although I have to say Walking Dead creators I really love the show. I have been to two Walker Stalkers and broke my shoulder the night before I was to meet Michonne and Carl actors, Danai Gurira and Chandler Riggs. I made it too despite the pain and have the photos to prove it. Even when the world was dissing it I kept the faith and praised the show. The Whisperers were the scariest thing in forever on the show. Before the show ends let me be a zombie please!!!

Anyway Miles gets to go to a Shambling Death convention to meet their version of the classic character Daryl Dixon. Miles goes overboard to be the best cosplay zombie ever in the hope he gets noticed and invited to appear as an extra on the show. But things don’t go to plan as the convention is attacked and Miles becomes a real zombie trapped on the set of the show he desperately wanted to appear in. Wannabe Zombie explores themes of tempting fate and sometimes focusing on the right things in life at the wrong time. It also breaks the fourth wall where a fantasy show becomes real life.

To get your copy and see Miles’ journey click here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zombie-Blues-Owen-Quinn/dp/1717802257/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=zombie+blues+owen+quinn&qid=1613853275&sr=8-1

Zombie Blues: No Dentures Zombie

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Copyright Owen Quinn designed by Conaire McMullan

Jesus, the indignity of it all. Mother Nature destroyed the Belfast bingo halls! Life’s tough enough without having no bingo to go even if it does smell of piss and death. If I had thon bitch Mother Nature by the throat right now I’d slap the mouth clean off her.

Zombie stuff in general isn’t much fun with the death and destruction so I thought it was time to have a bit of fun. Hence bingo hall haunting Belfast pensioner Nelly Waters was born. I love gregarious, straight to the point tell it as it is but love a bit of gossip Belfast elderly ladies. They are great raic and a rare breed. I could listen to them all day so I just had to have one in the books.

No Dentures Zombie extract: ‘My mouth is much bigger than my 5’ 1 frame let me tell ya. Maggie Moore was winning too many times at bingo to be luck. Not even a leprechaun with a pot of gold and a field of four leaved clovers has that kind of luck unless of course she knew a certain bingo caller so well that she was pulling a few balls of her own. Not that I’m one to gossip you understand. I simply comment on the facts as I see them.’

However so far it seems that Mother Nature’s plan to wipe out humanity was fool proof but what if a fiery old pensioner from Belfast could be the loophole any resistance fighter needed to win?

You see Nelly is unique among zombies.

What use is a zombie with no teeth? My dentures fell out when I turned and it’s not as if I could put them back in. I’m as much use as tits on a bull. What does Mother Nature want me to do now? Suck people to death?

So how did Mother Nature make such a mistake? Maybe as referenced in Zombie Blues 3: The Zombie With All the Answers, neither God nor Father Time agreed with Mother Nature’s plan and Nelly may be an indication that God managed at the last minute to put a dent in the apocalypse. With no teeth there can be no eating of anything else. Nelly’s story is a bit of fun to lighten the mood after the Kid and Ice Queen zombies. Hopefully I’ve been able to conjure not only a convincing fun character to make you smile but one that accurately captures that fun bit of Belfast culture I’ve loved for a long time. It’s the sort of humour Belfast comedians like James Young and May McFettridge that have kept us entertained all these yeaars.

To read Nelly’s story get your copy of Zombie Blues 2 here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zombie-Blues-2-Owen-Quinn/dp/B084DGVGVG/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=zombie+blues+owen+quinn&qid=1613905321&sr=8-2

Zombie Blues: Vegetarian Zombie

By Owen Quinn Copyright Owen Quinn

Copyright Owen Quinn

Doing a Vegetarian Zombie is one of the most obvious choices to be included in the first batch of zombies in Zombie Blues volume one.

Part of Mother Nature’s insidious plan is to take that which is most precious to us moral wise and twist it to something to se4ve her purposes like Dog Lover Zombie that now eats canines instead of rescuing and nurturing them. Making a vegetarian now eat the flesh of anything that moved is cruel enough as part of her vengeance on humanity so I thought it would interesting to see exactly what becoming a zombie would be on someone like this. It would be an obvious move to make the character the usual stereotypical image.

Given I wanted to give the book a global flavour to show this was happening all over the planet, I went for a different direction. Setting Vegetarian Zombie in Japan and making it a chef named Lee Quan. Lee learned everything he knew about safe healthy food from his late grandmother and opened his own restaurant to continue her traditions. However as I wrote it I realised I wanted to make this something special rather than eat your vegetables kids message. I elevated Lee’s healthy eating lifestyle as an examination of his relationship with his grandmother. The food reflects their deep love for each other and her trust in Lee to continue the traditions the family had carried all these years.

Vegetarian Zombie quote extract: ‘Anyone can cook food but how many truly understood the nature and flow of it all? Do you think the people serving MacDonald’s really thought about the food or the impact on you? A meal should be part of your life experience, not fast or junk as is the norm these days. It should enrich you, inspire you just as she inspired me.’

The Japanese are very spiritual where they believe the dead never leave us and continue to exist watching over us. It was a thematic flavour I wanted to capture with Lee and bring an optimistic viewpoint in the battle with Mother Nature. His restaurant was a representation of his grandmother where he felt her spirit every day urging him on. Lee believes that his life as a zombie will ultimately help humanity and his decaying body will help bring forth a new generation of good food from the ground. No matter what happens, Mother Nature hasn’t won yet.

To read Vegetarian Zombie get your copy here today https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zombie-Blues-Owen-Quinn/dp/1717802257/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=zombie+blues+owen+quinn&qid=1613853275&sr=8-1