Tuesday 3 July 2012

Guest Post: Sue Edge talks Zombie books!


I'd like to welcome Sue Edge who is the author of Dead Tropics for an interview on her book tour presented by the fantastic Innovative Online Book Tours.  I'll introduce Sue then let you hear what she has t say about writing Zombie books and finally take a sneaky peak at Dead Tropics.

Sue was born in Malaysia to French and British colonialists, had a very exciting childhood in the jungles of Borneo, the Australian outback and tropical Queensland, and is the proud mother of three children.
She manages to steal the time to write by ignoring the state of her house and pretending that the kids can look after themselves.




Sue Edge talks... 

Other people discuss the weather, politics and movies.  My girlfriends and I talk about urban fantasy books – the heroines, the gorgeous heroes, what actors would play them best, the chemistry between the characters, and the best quotes.  If it’s a half decent book, there’ll be a quote worth quoting.  “I’d said it before and meant it: Alive or undead, the love of my life was a badass” (Blood Promise by Richelle Mead) or Must be a rule in the ghost handbook—if in danger of evaporating, make sure you’re in the middle of a dire pronouncement.” (The Reckoning, Kelley Armstrong)
My mum just doesn’t get it.  “Zombies, vampires, werewolves?  What is it with you girls today?  What’s wrong with a normal man?”
It’s hard for a mortal man to compare with the sexy bad boys from True Blood  (source:  http://orderofsmutvixens.blogspot.com/2010/11/book-boyfriends-of-2010-honorary-men-of.html)
I’d shrug.  “Oh, you know, there’s no bad boy like a dead bad boy” I’d say or “It’s the great hair and perfect white teeth”.  The trouble was that I couldn’t really articulate the reasons for my fascination with the genre.   I knew that it went deeper than a man with broad shoulders and uncannily sharp teeth (not that there’s anything wrong with that…) but I wasn’t really sure what the ingredients were that made paranormal books so endlessly intriguing.

So I put the question to my friends, which led to much discussion – and arguing.  In the end, we agreed it boiled down to a few essential elements.  Firstly, the worlds are similar to our own.  This is what separates urban fantasy from plain fantasy.  There are a few significant differences – usually to do with magic – but it a world we can recognize as our own and imagine ourselves in.   Why is this important?  Because urban fantasy readers are romantic.  While we love the lives we lead and the partners we have chosen, we also dream of living life on the bigger stage, of the road less travelled, of our untapped potential and who we could have been under different circumstances.  Paranormal books give us that outlet.  “Oh sure, I’m a teacher but, hey, in another life, I might have been an awesome kickass vampire hunter!” 

Secondly, but related to the first point, readers can relate to the kickass kind of woman one usually finds in these books.  In a world where we hold our tongues politely, follow rules, get our hearts broken, do chores when we’re tired and just want a long bath, it is refreshing to lose ourselves in a heroine who has great lines, courageously faces her enemies and still has time for passion with a great hero – or two.

And that leads us to the third point, the heroes.  The quirky browed, smouldering eyed heroes who are helpless to resist the heroines (read: us).  In urban fantasies, the powerful, ultra-masculine heroes are protective, humorous, intelligent, articulate men of action.  But most of all, they worship the heroine.  They see her faults and yet they adore and desire her above all else.  Gee, we could all do with a bit of that in our lives!

My decision to write a zombie book raised a few eyebrows amongst my family and friends but, to my mind, it is just an extension of the urban fantasy world.  It is still a world that is recognisably our own, with a heroine who faces her adversaries with courage and the occasional smart- ass quip, and there is even a hero who worships her.  Lori doesn’t have magic powers but I think she has something even stronger – the parent’s fierce instinct to protect their children.
  
Let’s face it, we only get to live one life, and while it’s a good life most of the time, it’s also fairly mundane.  So as long as authors create worlds in which we, the reader, can immerse ourselves and emerge satiated, the urban fantasy genre is here to stay.

Dead Tropics
"In the midst of a catastrophe the world has never seen before, one woman will stop at nothing to protect her family...

When miners release an ancient and deadly virus, Lori, a nurse, finds herself at ground zero of a deadly battle for survival.  With time running out, can she find the strength to fight an ever-increasing enemy and save her family?"






You can find out more about Sue and here books around the web :-)


2 comments:

  1. Great post. You do an excellent job defining urban fantasy vs. just fantasy, which is hard to do! Kudos to you! :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love a (don't mess with my family) type of female character.

    ReplyDelete

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