Teel McClanahan's Blog

I've just added my new book, Cheating, Death to Goodreads and added a book giveaway for it as well. I wrote this book as a direct response to feedback on my last book, Forget What You Can't Remember, which was a book that had zombies in it but which is not a zombie book - people wanted it to be a zombie book. So: I wrote a zombie book.

In fact, this book details the zombie outbreak that Forget What You Can't Remember only walked by/through & reacted to. From the start of the outbreak, with the Sergeant's cross-country shipment of zombies getting in a traffic accident, to people gathering at Invesco Field at Mile High (as though getting a lot of people in a small space was a good idea for avoiding zombies!), and ending with a glimpse of the Sergeant's people setting up camp at Denver's Civic Center Park - instead of just hearing people talk about the zombie outbreak in Denver, you get to read about someone actually going through it all, in gruesome detail.

Centered around the experiences of Melvin Spall (who you probably didn't even notice in Forget What You Can't Remember) as he goes from one horrible encounter to another (and not all of them involving zombies; the living are just as dangerous as the undead), Cheating, Death is also filled with vignettes that give glimpses into all the different ways things went wrong in Denver for other people. I tried to have zombies/mayhem in every chapter of the book, and to put plenty of gruesome images in your mind without having to spell out every gory detail.

Cheating, Death is available immediately as an eBook via Smashwords.com, and will be available October 31st in paperback. (Pre-order through modernevil.com and get a signed copy directly from me - the author.)

"What's the book about?" - It's the question everyone asks, and they want a quick and easy answer. People who think like marketers want it in the form of an "elevator pitch" and people who browse in book stores want my book covers to fit neatly into the patterns they expect - but everyone wants a fast, easy way to make a snap decision about the book.

The problem I have with this is that if I could have expressed what I wanted to express in a hundred words or less, it wouldn't have been a book, it would have been a business card!

So, I'm having a contest:
Tell me what my book is about, and you could win a prize. As Forget What You Can't Remember draws near to its final podcast episode and people all over the world hear its convoluted conclusion, I thought the time was right to ask readers and listeners this oft-repeated and oh-so-important question. But what are the prizes?

One (1) First Prize: I'll name a character after you in my next novel & let you decide whether that character lives or dies, plus send you a signed paperback copy of one of my books (your choice).

Two (2) Second Prizes: I'll send you a signed paperback copy of one of my books (your choice).

How to enter:
Email your answer to the question "What is Forget What You Can't Remember about?" to teel@modernevil.com. The deadline for entry is May 1st, 2009, two weeks after the final chapter goes live at Podiobooks.com.

Fine Print:
Void where prohibited. No purchase necessary: You can read the eBook or listen to the podcast for free. Officially open to US Residents only - but only because I don't want to deal with shipping books internationally. You can still enter from anywhere & if you win I'll still name a character after you... and... I don't know, maybe look up international shipping rates & customs paperwork? Winners will be selected by whatever method I want - probably I'll just pick the answers I think are best, but I'm not ruling out asking people on Twitter or some such. By submitting an entry you are granting me an unlimited, nonexclusive right to use your entry and any derivations thereof for any purpose, including commercial - ie: the point of having a better answer to this question is to be able to get more people to read and/or buy my book, so I need the right to use the best answers to that end. I will be running a very similar contest for both Lost and Not Found and Dragons' Truth in May, in case you want to go read and/or listen to those books & prepare your answer in advance.

I will readily admit that I do not read horror books or thrillers, and that I have no intention at this time to write such a book. I have never read a 'zombie book' and I'm not 100% certain what it is about this recent rash of zombie books that its devout readers are after. I have seen perhaps hundreds of zombie movies, and am well aware of the cultural, historical, and philosophical ideas that zombies have traditionally been used to address. Ideas that seem to be increasingly distant in modern zombie movies -and from what I've heard- in zombie books, as well. So, when I noted in large letters on the back cover of Forget What You Can't Remember that it contained 'Zombies!' -which, in fact, it does- I thought I was merely stating a single element, and continued to put a description of the book after that word.

As more and more reviews come in for this book, here, on Amazon, and via Twitter and email, I am discovering that this book is apparently not for people who like 'zombie books'. They don't understand it. They don't like that it isn't horror. They don't like that it requires thought to understand. They're upset that the rest of what was described on the back of the book is actually contained within, and that it can't really be summed up in the single word 'Zombies!'...

And generally, I'm okay with that. I didn't write the book to appeal to the readers of 'zombie fiction'. I didn't write the book to fit into the horror genre (or any other, for that matter). Perhaps I need to re-write the copy, so it can find the right readers. But the book is what I wanted it to be.

Which just happens not to be what 'zombie lovers' are looking for, apparently...

For anyone who either a) can't afford, or b) want to give my books a try without risking anything but their time - you can read eBook versions of any of my novels for free! Simply visit modernevil.com, select a book, and click 'eBook'.

If you've never tried any of my books before, there are plenty to choose from. My current favorite is -as you might expect- my latest novel, Forget What You Can't Remember. It has zombies, doomsday, a flying city, and a unique storytelling style. It's a stand-alone novel, but it also takes place in the same universe as two of my other books, Lost and Not Found and More Lost Memories, so if you like it, you should try them, too.

For young readers, I recommend Dragons' Truth, which is the story of a boy who meets a dragon and through a series of events that spiral out of control, ends up saving the world.

For more mature readers, I recommend a series I've started called Untrue Tales From Beyond Fiction - Recollections of an Alternate Past. There are three books available in this series, so far, with several more planned for the future. The series covers so many subjects that you're better off reading the full description, here. The books in this series are intended to be quick reads, and regular readers should be able to get through each one in a matter of hours or days.