You Have Found Sanctuary

Or you will, when you click this link.

Dead Earth: Sanctuary is the third book in the series written by David T. Wilbanks and me. The first was the introductory novella Dead Earth: The Green Dawn. The second was Dead Earth: The Vengeance Road. Both are available by clicking on the titles.

For those who don't relish scrolling down a few entries, here's the book's description:

After stopping a madman who controlled an undead army and barely surviving the destruction of the aliens responsible for the plague that decimated humanity, Jubal Slate leads a small band of humans across the shattered landscape of America, fighting off the forces of the living and the dead. The group races north pursuing a legend, a post-apocalyptic fairy tale: a town protected from the walking dead. Tired of the war and his nomadic life, Slate follows the path to Sanctuary, even while doubting its existence. Along a journey filled with hordes of zombies, Slate and his companions face new enemies and find themselves pursued by the final weapon of the vanquished necros. Is sanctuary even possible on a dead Earth? And if so, is the cost more than Jubal Slate is willing to pay?
Even after alien invasion and zombie armies, Slate will discover that the worst horrors are home grown.

Here are some other Dead Earth: Sanctuary links to make it convenient for you to purchase the book in whatever format you prefer:

Paperback

Kindle 

Nook

Audiobook

Kobo

I hope you enjoy the novel, which is chock full of action, blood and guts and zombies, and maybe--just maybe--some nice character moments. As always feedback is appreciated.

Shop For Holiday Chills

At the request of a few people I’ve put together an easy to access index of some of my books for your online Christmas purchasing pleasure. These would be for the horror lover on your list, although the Dead Earth books certainly have a lot of science fiction elements, too.

Just click the highlighted text to browse or order.

Let’s start with my latest, The Dead Sheriff: Zombie Damnation.

Here’s my collection of stories and novellas (including the long-out-of-print Deadneck Hootenanny), Looking at the World with Broken Glass in My Eye. And the Kindle version is still 99¢. Zoinks!

Dead Earth: The Vengeance Road in print.

And the audio version.

If that person on your list is a reader of ebooks, Dead Earth: The Green Dawn is till free.

Finally, to give you a reason to stay up on a cold winter night, here’s a book of scary holiday stories I edited called Appalachian Winter Hauntings.

Obviously, it’s too close to the holidays to sign books but if you buy one and want it personalized after the Christmas rush, drop me a line.

As always, your support means the world to me. Thanks!

Free!

Here’s a cool bit of news.

As a holiday gift to you, Permuted Press is offering the e-book of Dead Earth: The Green Dawn for free. You can download it for Kindle, Nook, iPad and iPhone and ePub. Here’s the link. Scroll to the bottom of the page to find our little book.

I had a great time writing this with Dave Wilbanks, and I’m happy it’s now available again to anyone who would like to read it.

By the way, look for the third book in the series, Dead Earth: Sanctuary, sometime in 2012 from Permuted Press. The manuscript has gone through the stringent Mark & Dave revision process and is in the hands of the editor.



Thanks to everyone who has picked up a copy of my collection Looking at the World With Broken Glass in My Eye. I appreciate the feedback.

Speaking of feedback, if you would leave a brief review at Amazon, I'd be grateful.


I still don’t have a firm release date for The Dead Sheriff, but Evileye Books assures me it will be sometime in Spring of 2012. Work proceeds on the sequel.

The Social Podcast

Pod of Horror, the Internet radio show I do with Nanci Kalanta and Jason L. Keene, finally got a Facebook page.

This is where all PoH-related announcements will be made first. If you're on Facebook, I hope you'll give us a "Like".

The next episode of PoH should go live next weekend.

***

It's been a productive writing week.

We made great progress on Dead Earth 3 (more on that on the next Pod of Horror).

Both Dead Earth books are selling well. Dead Earth: The Green Dawn is an especially good deal for your e-reader--zombies, aliens and much ass-kicking, all for 3 bucks.

In an Amazon oddity, the e-book versions of the two Dead Earth books appear in two different fiction categories. Dave Wilbanks discusses that here.

I also finished my revisions and edits on my supernatural western series The Dead Sheriff. I'll have a lot more on this as it gets closer to publication.

Now I'm working on an untitled novella set in West Virgina. There are no zombies or aliens in this one; just ghosts, grief and a Drive-In theater. Giddyup!

Sunday, Sunday

Here’s a quick note to catch you up on what’s happening. That’s right, both of you.

The new writing schedule continues to pay dividends. I’ll hopefully be finished with the first draft in early March. My plan is to then let it age a couple of weeks while I get to work on the next novel, Reaper Road. I’ll edit Novel #1 in the evenings. I’m not being coy about Novel #1's tile; I just haven’t settled on one I like yet.

Also in March, Dave Wilbanks and I plan to start Book 3 in the Dead Earth series. What’s that, you say? Where is DE #2? We’re shopping it around at this very moment. We hope to have something to report soon.

That humor writing I referred to the other day is turning out to be a lot of fun. I wrote the first column today and had Norma proof it. Since she laughed in all the right places, I sent it off to my editor. If it gets approved, I’ll let you know where to find it.

This weekend I talked to a publisher about a cool new idea for a novella series. This will be something I’ll write later in the year. I also had a conversation with a comic book publisher. I’ll be sending out a proposal for that tomorrow.

Finally, it looks like a project of mine that I tried to get off the ground a few years ago still has some life left in it, thanks to the interest of a friend of mine.

All in all, 2009 is looking to be the busiest year yet for my writing. Now if the Bengals learn to play football before this fall, it will be a fantastic year.

Does Not Compute

I haven’t been around much lately. I’ve been immersed in radio.

See, our main computer blew up at the station. It was kind of like the way those computers would self destruct in the old Star Trek series, where Kirk would ask them questions that would get the machines so angry and knotted up in logic cramps that they would explode (which always begged the question of why you would load a computer with explosives, but some things are better left unexplained. Don’t get me started on why the chairs on the Enterprise didn’t have seat belts).

Anyway, much time was spent on getting a new system built, having it installed and trying to make my old, tired and, frankly, undersized brain to understand it.

Still working on that last part.

So the last couple of weeks have involved 99 % work and 1% sleep. Hopefully that ratio is slowly swinging back to my normal 80/20 work/sleep ratio.

Hey, I did manage to write a short story this week. I received an invite to an anthology revolving around a character I dearly love. I finished it a few minutes ago and sent it off. I’ll let you know what the deal is when I hear if I made the cut. Meanwhile, I’m celebrating with a Rising Moon Spring Ale from the makers of my current favorite beer, Blue Moon Pale Ale.

The new issue of Horror Fiction Review praises Dead Earth: The Green Dawn, stating in part: “While Dead Earth isn’t the most original idea for a story, Justice and Wilbanks have a knack for doing this the right way. Sure, it’s end-of-the-world-zombie time again, but it’s done very well, and protagonist Jubal Slate is one of those characters you care for and can’t wait to see how he reacts to situations.”

That’s good, right?

(Full disclosure: Nick Cato, publisher of HFR, also published Deadneck Hootenanny. That doesn't mean he automatically likes my writing. Ask him some time about the prolonged negotiations that went on about the language in DH, especially about whether a male organ was more offensive if you called it a "dick" or a "pecker".)

I’m also catching up on TV and movies. Two brief notes: LOST is having it’s best season since the first. And Justice league: The New Frontier is an excellent adaptation of the graphic novel, and an obvious labor of love for all involved.