Jett is a girl disguised as a boy, living as a gambler in the old West as she searches for her long-lost brother. Honoria Gibbons is a smart, self-sufficient young woman who also happens to be a fabulous inventor. Both young women travel the prairie alone – until they are brought together by a zombie invasion! As Jett and Honoria investigate, they soon learn that these zombies aren’t rising from the dead of their own accord … but who would want an undead army? And why? This gunslinging, hair-raising, zombie western mashup is perfect for fans of Cowboys vs. Aliens and Pride & Prejudice & Zombies.
Goodreads
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This book is perfect for anyone who loves zombies and westerns. An original take on a genre that has had many great authors, this book has adventure and some nice zombie hordes running amok.
Now for an interview with these two amazing authors!
Rosemary Edghill: Hi, Dana, and thanks for having me (and my
lovely and talented co-author) as your guests.
Q: How did you decide to combine zombies and a
western?
Rosemary Edghill: It was totally a case of
"what's the most improbable thing that can go here?" DEAD
RECKONING is completely about improbability: the gunslinger is really a
Southern Belle, the prim bluestocking is really a mad scientist….
Mercedes Lackey: Well, we wanted to do something
different. There's plenty of contemporary YA horror/monster/occult
fiction out there, but not too much that's set in a historical period (though A
Great and Terrible Beauty does spring to mind. Rosemary and I both
like westerns, and it's an interesting period, a time and place where things
were unsettled in every sense of the word, so almost anything could happen, and
a time when there just isn't the sort of fast information transfer and
communications we are so used to, so it's absolutely right for something nasty
to come out of the woodwork that the reader will recognize but the characters
won't. As for zombies, well, we wanted to focus on Jett, Gibbons and
White Fox, so we picked antagonists who are quite literally mindless. And
yet, at the end, you can feel sorry for them.
Q: What are some of your favorite zombie
books and films?
RE: I like the classic Romero stuff; in books, I
like the nonfiction things like ZOMBIE:CSU
ML: Oddly I am not a big zombie fan. I do
like the very cheesy Bela Lugosi White Zombie, and I'm a fan of Sean
of the Dead.
Q: The main character has tried to maintain
that she is a boy at the beginning of the book. What inspired your story line?
ML: History. There was a lot of that
going around in the mid-late 1800s, far more than most people realize. If
you weren't lucky enough to be in a family that was in a position to protect
you, it was dangerous to be a girl, and triply dangerous to be alone and a
girl. And if you were in a family that was in a position to protect you,
there were so many restrictions on your behavior that sometimes running off in
boy-drag was the only way to keep your sanity.
RE: The whole idea of someone dressing as a member
of the opposite sex is one of my big favorites, and it was more common in real
life history than you'd think. Basically, I wanted Jett to have all the
cool fun of being a gunslinger, and I wanted her to be a girl, too.
Presto!
Q:When you are not behind the keyboard, what
are some of your favorite things to do?
RE: ::laughs:: Sleep! Also, one of my
furkids is a licensed Therapy Dog, meaning I can take him into hospitals and
nursing homes and schools and so on, so when I'm AFK, you'll find me on the end
of a leash…
ML: Play my favorite MMORPG, City of Heroes,
and work on outfits and painting my collection of resin Asian Ball Jointed
Dolls. I actually have two collections, my Secret World Chronicles
superheroes (who get to wear contemporary clothing as well as spandex and
armor) and my Elven Court, which has some adorable little anthros in it as well
as elves.
Q: If the world were to suddenly go into a
zombie apocalypse, what three things could you not live without?
RE: Well, one of them is the internet, so I see a
big problem already. But aside from the stuff needed to survive the
zombie apocalypse and fight zombies (a long list right there!), I'd want my
computer, my dogs, and a lifetime supply of Mtn Dew…
ML: A way of generating electricity, a clean water
source, and a reliable food supply. Terribly practical, I know.
Actually rather than taking over a mall, in the event of a zombie apocalypse,
our plan is to take over the local WalMart warehouse. It's actually got
its own power supply, there are no windows, there are few doors and those are
easily barricaded, and it has virtually everything you would need to survive,
right there. While everyone else will be looting the malls and
stand-alone stores, we'll have more than enough to supply us. Can you
tell we've actually thought about this?
Q: What are some of your stranger writing
habits?
RE: I, um, may have a special writing hat that I
can't write unless I'm wearing…
ML: There's generally a parrot on the back of my
chair or on my arm. Or, occasionally, trying to cuddle into my
neck. And I can't write without my Ganesh doll, my gryphon
"sea-opal" carving, my Companion Cube, my beckoning cat, and my
Commie Unicorn on the desk.
ML: Don't talk about it, do it. Write at least an hour a day, every day, no matter what. Turn it into an addiction, one you feel bad about when you don't do it.
Q: Do you have a playlist for the book?
RE: Usually, I just take one song and put it on
endless repeat (see: "strange writing habits") while I write. I
once wrote three books to Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear The Reaper",
and since this was pre iTunes in my world, I actually wore out four CDs.
For DEAD RECKONING, I actually rotated through several songs: Loreena
McKennitt's "Night Ride Across The Caucasus", "Run Through The
Jungle" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, and a number of classic Western
movie themes: How The West Was Won, The Good The Bad And The Ugly, Hang 'Em
High… and the theme from the original Wild Wild West, of course!
ML: Some classic western soundtracks. The
Cowboys, How The West Was Won, Dances With Wolves, that sort of thing.
Q: Do you outline or are you a panster?
RE: Outline all the way! It's the only way to
really make a collaboration work, if you ask me…
ML: The only way to do a collaboration like this is to
outline, but I am an outliner all the way. That said, if the book wants
to deviate from the outline, I rewrite the outline.
ML: The next Valdemar book, the next Secret World Chronicles book, the last Shadow Grail book, the last Elvenbane book. I generally work on several projects at once, it keeps me from ever suffering from writer's block.
Thanks ladies for the excellent interview!
Check out more titles from Bloomsbury.
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