Michael Pugh's Blog - Posts Tagged "zombies"
The books I have written
Note: Goodreads keeps on assigning to me (or allowing the books to be assigned to me through a lack of unique identifiers in their database) the works of another author also called Michael Pugh. You can read my blog where I write more frequently at http://theprojectsofmichaelpugh.wordp... but below I'll tell you about my books and the writing of them.
The writing goes like this: I have thoughts about things and then I write a book about the thoughts, which seems like I’m being facetious but that's how it is. I have thoughts, usually for many years, and they come together over time to form a book in my head, and then, after I’ve thought about it long enough and made it make sense and tried to make it entertaining for somebody else to read, I write the story down. I write about only what I’m passionate about and only then if I feel I’ve got something to add to the discussion. If I was incandescent with passion on a topic but had nothing to add, I wouldn’t write about it. Once I’m done saying my piece, I move on to the next thing that has a fire under me.
I try to write everything in an unvarnished way, even where what I’m writing about is fantastical. I don’t think that people experience their lives in a heightened state of fear or paranoia or arousal for the most part, and so I don’t try to inspire those feelings in people. If I’m going to put something that’s funny, I’ll let the reader decide if it’s funny. If something is going to be sad, I’ll let it starkly be sad on its own, and try not to load the thing with extra weight. Some authors signpost things for you, as in, this will make you sad now or, you’ll find this next bit funny, but I don’t think you need to, so, as much as possible, I don’t.
I’ll tell you about my books so far now :)
The odd one out in my books is "The Box of Mirrors", as it took four years to write (so an average ten thousand words per year!) and it was written before my brain injury, so it’s not written in the style of writing that I have now. The entire book is written in a purple-prose (totally overly-flowery, delusions of eloquence) style and the reason for that, is that it’s meant to reflect the mental strain that the protagonist, Sebastian, is suffering with, even before the start of the story. The book is my earliest work that makes sense and is worth reading. I wrote my first novel when I was eighteen but wow, it makes no sense even from a grammatical, never mind dramatic point of view! Even though Jenny personally doesn’t feel much love for "The Box of Mirrors" because it’s not the sort of thing that I write now, it is one of mine and it’s out there for people to read and (hopefully!) enjoy. The story is supposed to be very wordy, even though the book is only just longer than "Animal Farm". If you had to explain what the storyline was, you could sum it up in a sentence: Man gets knocked out, man is trapped in his own head, man wakes up. But the journey itself is less important than the state of Sebastian’s mind. It’s a story concerned with mental illness and ideas of self-worth and grief, and how eventually, you have to come to terms with things or they will force themselves upon you. "The Box Of Mirrors" is now available on Kindle again.
"Admin Is Hell" is the first of a two part series about right and wrong, and ultimately about how we all bend the rules a little for an easier life, which leads to most of the absurdity that we encounter in our lives. The protagonist is Charles, a hapless tool of a man whose crime is sticking his sexual organ where it does not belong and so, when he dies, he awakes to find that he has been sent to Hell. That’s not a spoiler or anything, this all happens in the first page or so. Charles then encounters many of the unspeakable injustices that we all must endure in our working lives as he’s sent to work under a team leader who doesn’t care what problems he has, doesn’t care that her inaction is contributing to the misery of the office and who is so far removed from the reality of the work of the place, that it doesn’t impact on her. Why is the system this way? It is because people agree to it. "Admin Is Hell" then is concerned with conformity, greed, selfishness and the perils of being a yes-man. The follow up book is in the works and should be out in 2015.
"The Undead: Book One, Overview" is the first of my five part series on zombies. To start with, I wasn’t ever going to do a zombie book and the reasons for that were largely to do with market saturation and that I had nothing really to say on the subject. Then I read a few more zombie books and I realised that I did have something to say. The films that I had seen and the books that I had read all entertained me greatly, although some more than others. What I found though as I watched them, or read them, was that none of them were realistic enough for me, none of them were comprehensive enough for me. None of them answered every question that I had and all of them left me wondering on even basic plot points such as ‘but how does the zombie virus actually work?’ Every film and book that I had experienced suffered from a missing middle effect. Zombie fans are intelligent people but we’re always asked to forgive howling plot holes or else the books don’t work. So, I set out to write my zombie story and make it as comprehensive as could be and once I’d started, I realised that I would need a bit more room than on my usual projects. I split the story up into five, with book one of "The Undead" series both serving as my introduction and telling the story of how Britain was affected by the pandemic.
"The Undead: Book Two, North America" is the second book in my zombie series and covers the zombie outbreak and the ongoing situation of the survivor community across the new nation, United America, which is made of the Canadian, American and Mexican Safe Zones. This book explains why even the most powerful country on the planet is in the same terrible daily struggle for survival as every other nation, and goes into much more detail than book one on how the zombie Crisis affects survivors emotionally. Topics covered include the formation and composition of the United American Safe Zones, piracy, survivor communities in the Badlands, the loss of mood stabilising pharmaceuticals, crime, the death penalty and just why doesn't the UA Army just 'retake the land'? Book Three is currently in the planning stages and work should start on it in 2015.
"The Liverpool Vampire" and "Judgement of the Vampire" together are my vampire story. I had a big problem with films and books selling vampires as erotic fantasies or romantic characters who were basically good. I also had a problem with the lone human vampire hunter idea. Every time I saw a vampire hunter character I’d just think, ‘no, he'd be killed in a trice, unless the vampire had a death wish.’ What I set out to do was to sort of reclaim vampires for horror lovers out there by presenting a more realistic study of the vampire character, the way that I’m trying to present a more realistic zombie story with my Undead series. My vampires would be flawed, evil, narcissistic, self-serving monsters who get away with being serial killers for centuries, leaving a trail of devastation in their wake that is literally incalculable. One of my main characters, Dafydd the vampire, has absolutely no redeeming features to him whatsoever. He’s an evil, sadistic person who loves his 'work' and revels in what he is, no apologies, no mitigation. If he ever did anything nice, it was either by accident or people simply misconstrued his actions. I love the vampire character idea, but the vampires I saw were never dark enough for me, they never had a proper origin and they spent far too much time seducing leggy, busty women for my liking. My vampire story across the two books is my attempt to give horror lovers their evil vampires back, with no flicker of humanity left behind their ageless eyes. Books three and four of the series are in the planning stages and writing should start on them in 2015.
"How Long Have You Really Got?" is my comedy romance novella. The story surrounds Jay, a chubby loser who has no luck with women and less luck in life generally, and Em, a happy, vibrant woman who knows her own mind and isn't willing to settle. Set in a call centre, this office romance is about stereotypes and not having to live up to them; not being what everybody expects you to be but being what makes you happy. As with all of my books, I've tried to be as realistic and as unvarnished as possible, and so the book isn't suitable for any readers under the age of eighteen.
"Wife Maintenance Quarterly" is a little comedy book about misogyny and looks at the sort of relationship that might exist between a man who puts himself first and believes that women are there to serve him and be seen and not heard, and the poor woman he marries. Illustrated with fine (er, well, with pictures I drew) black and white drawings, "Wife Maintenance Quarterly" touches on the big topics in every married man's life, including The Wife and: Driving, Infants, Employment, Clothes, DIY and, my own wife's favourite, Wife Points. The two sequels will be released in Autumn 2014.
I’ve got lots more books in me yet, so expect more from me soon! :)
The writing goes like this: I have thoughts about things and then I write a book about the thoughts, which seems like I’m being facetious but that's how it is. I have thoughts, usually for many years, and they come together over time to form a book in my head, and then, after I’ve thought about it long enough and made it make sense and tried to make it entertaining for somebody else to read, I write the story down. I write about only what I’m passionate about and only then if I feel I’ve got something to add to the discussion. If I was incandescent with passion on a topic but had nothing to add, I wouldn’t write about it. Once I’m done saying my piece, I move on to the next thing that has a fire under me.
I try to write everything in an unvarnished way, even where what I’m writing about is fantastical. I don’t think that people experience their lives in a heightened state of fear or paranoia or arousal for the most part, and so I don’t try to inspire those feelings in people. If I’m going to put something that’s funny, I’ll let the reader decide if it’s funny. If something is going to be sad, I’ll let it starkly be sad on its own, and try not to load the thing with extra weight. Some authors signpost things for you, as in, this will make you sad now or, you’ll find this next bit funny, but I don’t think you need to, so, as much as possible, I don’t.
I’ll tell you about my books so far now :)
The odd one out in my books is "The Box of Mirrors", as it took four years to write (so an average ten thousand words per year!) and it was written before my brain injury, so it’s not written in the style of writing that I have now. The entire book is written in a purple-prose (totally overly-flowery, delusions of eloquence) style and the reason for that, is that it’s meant to reflect the mental strain that the protagonist, Sebastian, is suffering with, even before the start of the story. The book is my earliest work that makes sense and is worth reading. I wrote my first novel when I was eighteen but wow, it makes no sense even from a grammatical, never mind dramatic point of view! Even though Jenny personally doesn’t feel much love for "The Box of Mirrors" because it’s not the sort of thing that I write now, it is one of mine and it’s out there for people to read and (hopefully!) enjoy. The story is supposed to be very wordy, even though the book is only just longer than "Animal Farm". If you had to explain what the storyline was, you could sum it up in a sentence: Man gets knocked out, man is trapped in his own head, man wakes up. But the journey itself is less important than the state of Sebastian’s mind. It’s a story concerned with mental illness and ideas of self-worth and grief, and how eventually, you have to come to terms with things or they will force themselves upon you. "The Box Of Mirrors" is now available on Kindle again.
"Admin Is Hell" is the first of a two part series about right and wrong, and ultimately about how we all bend the rules a little for an easier life, which leads to most of the absurdity that we encounter in our lives. The protagonist is Charles, a hapless tool of a man whose crime is sticking his sexual organ where it does not belong and so, when he dies, he awakes to find that he has been sent to Hell. That’s not a spoiler or anything, this all happens in the first page or so. Charles then encounters many of the unspeakable injustices that we all must endure in our working lives as he’s sent to work under a team leader who doesn’t care what problems he has, doesn’t care that her inaction is contributing to the misery of the office and who is so far removed from the reality of the work of the place, that it doesn’t impact on her. Why is the system this way? It is because people agree to it. "Admin Is Hell" then is concerned with conformity, greed, selfishness and the perils of being a yes-man. The follow up book is in the works and should be out in 2015.
"The Undead: Book One, Overview" is the first of my five part series on zombies. To start with, I wasn’t ever going to do a zombie book and the reasons for that were largely to do with market saturation and that I had nothing really to say on the subject. Then I read a few more zombie books and I realised that I did have something to say. The films that I had seen and the books that I had read all entertained me greatly, although some more than others. What I found though as I watched them, or read them, was that none of them were realistic enough for me, none of them were comprehensive enough for me. None of them answered every question that I had and all of them left me wondering on even basic plot points such as ‘but how does the zombie virus actually work?’ Every film and book that I had experienced suffered from a missing middle effect. Zombie fans are intelligent people but we’re always asked to forgive howling plot holes or else the books don’t work. So, I set out to write my zombie story and make it as comprehensive as could be and once I’d started, I realised that I would need a bit more room than on my usual projects. I split the story up into five, with book one of "The Undead" series both serving as my introduction and telling the story of how Britain was affected by the pandemic.
"The Undead: Book Two, North America" is the second book in my zombie series and covers the zombie outbreak and the ongoing situation of the survivor community across the new nation, United America, which is made of the Canadian, American and Mexican Safe Zones. This book explains why even the most powerful country on the planet is in the same terrible daily struggle for survival as every other nation, and goes into much more detail than book one on how the zombie Crisis affects survivors emotionally. Topics covered include the formation and composition of the United American Safe Zones, piracy, survivor communities in the Badlands, the loss of mood stabilising pharmaceuticals, crime, the death penalty and just why doesn't the UA Army just 'retake the land'? Book Three is currently in the planning stages and work should start on it in 2015.
"The Liverpool Vampire" and "Judgement of the Vampire" together are my vampire story. I had a big problem with films and books selling vampires as erotic fantasies or romantic characters who were basically good. I also had a problem with the lone human vampire hunter idea. Every time I saw a vampire hunter character I’d just think, ‘no, he'd be killed in a trice, unless the vampire had a death wish.’ What I set out to do was to sort of reclaim vampires for horror lovers out there by presenting a more realistic study of the vampire character, the way that I’m trying to present a more realistic zombie story with my Undead series. My vampires would be flawed, evil, narcissistic, self-serving monsters who get away with being serial killers for centuries, leaving a trail of devastation in their wake that is literally incalculable. One of my main characters, Dafydd the vampire, has absolutely no redeeming features to him whatsoever. He’s an evil, sadistic person who loves his 'work' and revels in what he is, no apologies, no mitigation. If he ever did anything nice, it was either by accident or people simply misconstrued his actions. I love the vampire character idea, but the vampires I saw were never dark enough for me, they never had a proper origin and they spent far too much time seducing leggy, busty women for my liking. My vampire story across the two books is my attempt to give horror lovers their evil vampires back, with no flicker of humanity left behind their ageless eyes. Books three and four of the series are in the planning stages and writing should start on them in 2015.
"How Long Have You Really Got?" is my comedy romance novella. The story surrounds Jay, a chubby loser who has no luck with women and less luck in life generally, and Em, a happy, vibrant woman who knows her own mind and isn't willing to settle. Set in a call centre, this office romance is about stereotypes and not having to live up to them; not being what everybody expects you to be but being what makes you happy. As with all of my books, I've tried to be as realistic and as unvarnished as possible, and so the book isn't suitable for any readers under the age of eighteen.
"Wife Maintenance Quarterly" is a little comedy book about misogyny and looks at the sort of relationship that might exist between a man who puts himself first and believes that women are there to serve him and be seen and not heard, and the poor woman he marries. Illustrated with fine (er, well, with pictures I drew) black and white drawings, "Wife Maintenance Quarterly" touches on the big topics in every married man's life, including The Wife and: Driving, Infants, Employment, Clothes, DIY and, my own wife's favourite, Wife Points. The two sequels will be released in Autumn 2014.
I’ve got lots more books in me yet, so expect more from me soon! :)
My next project will be…. The Undead: Book Three, Asia!
So, exciting news from me with regards to my next project. Research for the next book in the zombie series will start in the new year. Again it will tell the story of what happened after the zombie outbreak happened and will cover Asia.
You can buy the first two books in paperback or as a Kindle e-book:
The Undead: Book One, Overview
What might life be like in a world beset by billions of human zombies? The Undead: Book One, Overview is an introduction to a nightmarish world in which the last few million humans are living in the shadow of a terrible and incurable virus that is drowning the species under a wave of billions of zombies. Book one focuses on how a British government would react to the crisis of suddenly finding that more than 58 million of its people had become highly infectious zombies and that the survivors are all infected with an incurable condition that will turn them into zombies upon death. The worldwide Infection Event occurred in 2020 and the dwindling human race has been struggling to survive in a poisoned world ever since.
The Undead: Book Two, North America
The sequel to The Undead: Book One, Overview looks at the worldwide RVS2 zombie pandemic as it happened in continental North America. Focusing on the emotional reality of life in the Crisis and the conditions on the ground of the new nation, United America, Book Two details the continuing survival of the Western superpower, even as it stares slow, inexorable oblivion in the face.
Find out how to buy these books at my webshop
You can buy the first two books in paperback or as a Kindle e-book:
The Undead: Book One, Overview
What might life be like in a world beset by billions of human zombies? The Undead: Book One, Overview is an introduction to a nightmarish world in which the last few million humans are living in the shadow of a terrible and incurable virus that is drowning the species under a wave of billions of zombies. Book one focuses on how a British government would react to the crisis of suddenly finding that more than 58 million of its people had become highly infectious zombies and that the survivors are all infected with an incurable condition that will turn them into zombies upon death. The worldwide Infection Event occurred in 2020 and the dwindling human race has been struggling to survive in a poisoned world ever since.
The Undead: Book Two, North America
The sequel to The Undead: Book One, Overview looks at the worldwide RVS2 zombie pandemic as it happened in continental North America. Focusing on the emotional reality of life in the Crisis and the conditions on the ground of the new nation, United America, Book Two details the continuing survival of the Western superpower, even as it stares slow, inexorable oblivion in the face.
Find out how to buy these books at my webshop
