Better Hero Army's Blog: Better Hero Army Talk, page 2

The Inspiration for Biter's Bend

I had been driving to work for over a year looking at the same, incomplete shell of a corporate office and every time I did I wished I produced movies, because that thing was IT. Biter's Bend to a T. The Elevated Platform Station, or EPS - an abandoned, partially constructed high-rise office complex taken over by Breckenrock Corporation when they registered a land-lease to operate a sanctioned safe zone inside the quarantine zone. The starting location of book 3, and the only remaining safe haven in the Plagued States of America.

In the original incarnation of Biter's Bend (back when I was writing book 1 and I only really knew for sure what Biter's Hill and Biter's Island looked like and where they were located), I imagined a lot of stone and steel, but most of it underground. Inspiration for the EPS came from this building I watched rise every day for months...then it just languished with its empty guts exposed for everyone to see, as permits were slow and nothing happened for days. That's when I knew I needed an incomplete building as the anchor location at Biter's Bend.

The train came to me when I went to a family reunion next to a railroad museum. My son and I climbed all over the trains after nightfall using just smartphones as flashlights, and (of course) my wife was pretty upset with us about it, but we got to climb through a bunch of engines and that's when I knew I needed to have a train...with a snow blower.

Oh, and if you haven't read book 3, sorry for the spoiler, but at least you know there's a train and an unfinished corporate office building in it now.

I know my inspiration story doesn't sound cool like "I was working on a ship in the Antarctic protecting baby seals from Russian poachers when..." but the life of a writer isn't all glamor and spotlights.

Is Midamerica Real?

You bet your sweet bippy it's real! It's so very real that it's scary. It's a nearly all-glass monstrosity in the middle of nowhere - specifically, outside of Belleville, Illinois. Some say it is outside of O'Fallon, others say it is outside of Mascoutah. It doesn't really matter because it is outside of everything and when I discovered it, I knew it was the perfect setting for the zombie apocalypse.

I decided to write about it today in my Good Reads blog because book 3 of the Plagued States of America series was just added to the Good Reads library! Check it out...Plagued: The Ironville Zombie Quarantine Retraction Experiment

Part of book 3 takes place inside the Midamerica terminal building. The terminal is part of Scott Air Force Base and is a completely modern facility with absolutely no customers. The terminal building is 7,000 feet long, but only 250 feet wide. Some people call it Mid-America, others Midamerica - I prefer without the dash.

Midamerica has 2 jet bridges accessible from its second floor, but in my books I limited it to one. The reasons for this are simply out of convenience. Having two terminal concourse jetways makes it harder to limit coming and going in and out of the building, which is an important factor in my series. Likewise, the real building has three front-facing entrances, but in my books I only ever talk about two.

The building has an actual claim to fame beyond its appearance in my books. It was featured in NBC's "Fleecing of America" segment of the NBC Nightly News. With its enormous price tag totaling over $300 million in costs to build and operate, a lot of Illinoisians are rightfully pissed off about their tax dollars going to waste, but I have an excellent idea to help repay it all. If everyone buys a copy of my books and it gets popular enough to make a major motion picture out of it, then the airport can charge a few million for the film crew to be on location! But honestly, given that it is nearly abandoned, the film crew could probably just show up any day, do the movie, and no one would be the wiser.

What Year Is It In Plagued?

I get asked pretty consistently what year it is in the Plagued States of America series of books. The best answer is that it is "modern day." This doesn't mean it is 2013 (the year it was first published), or this year, or next. It means think of any time around the turn of the century and stop everything right there.

Modern day comes with all the basic amenities of today, minus about ten years of rigorous technological breakthroughs. Also present are all the setbacks the loss of a major waterway, plus enormous rail systems, and centralized communications centers, would bring. In essence, the US as we know it now, but in a third-world setting.

It is safe to think that the iPhone is around, but "plants vs. zombies" isn't (I don't think it would have the same appeal in a post-apocalyptic setting). Getting directions on Google maps would have you avoiding roads through the Plagued States. There's no Chicago Board of Trade, or any of their professional sports teams - although the Blackhawks did relocate to Seattle during the chaos of the initial outbreak and won eight straight Stanley Cups. There are over two hundred million very poor people and a government that is strapped for cash. Americans don't consume nearly as much as our economy relied upon, so we are in a deep recession. We stopped outsourcing jobs altogether because local labor became cheaper. And America doesn't have a problem with immigration because no one wants to come here anymore, thanks to an ever present fear of zombies. The world is filled with American expatriates and America-haters.

But all of that really doesn't matter. The Plagued States of America series of books aren't supposed to be about the post-apocalyptic world. They are about the small group of characters who occupy the pages, and the action-packed adventures that they endure as a matter of life or death.

What's In Store for the Plagued Series

I've been getting asked about how long the Plagued States of America series will go, what direction it's taking, and all that. Because I really haven't said much about it anywhere, and I wanted to start blogging exclusively to the Good Reads community, I figured it would make a great first topic.

When I originally set out to write the Plagued series, I had four books in mind. Almost 2 years later, two books are already published (Plagued: The Midamerica Zombie Half-Breed Experiment and Plagued: The Rock Island Zombie Counteractant Experiment), with the third book, Plagued: The Ironville Zombie Quarantine Retraction Experiment, on its way later this year.

In this upcoming, third installment of the Plagued States of America series, we get a chance to return to Tom and Penelope's story (this time told from her point of view), and the Jefferson family's ongoing quest to find their lost Larissa. Tom finds himself in several uncomfortable situations, the first hiding the whereabouts of his sister from his father, and the second, hiding wanted criminals like Hank and Lieutenant Mason Jones when they arrive at Biter's Bend the same day his father does. After days of harassment by his father, Tom finally breaks, letting it slip that he knows where Larissa is. That's when all hell breaks loose, as usual. And, yes, the duck is back.

For the fourth book in the series, things are currently a little out of hand in the "stick to the original storyline" department. I want to change the direction of book 4 by introducing another book ahead of it. That might pan out to five in all, but until I've had some time to flesh it out, keep that on the down low.

Of course, you can check out everything about book 3 at the BHA website, including a sneak peek at the first chapter, cover, and the blurb. One thing that must be clarified before everyone starts wild rumors: the girl on the cover of book 3 is Larissa, Tom's long lost sister.

And, finally, if a finite number of Plagued States of America series books seems a bit discouraging, just remember that I have a Starved series waiting to be written.