Eric S. Brown
D. Harlan Wilson

Eric S. Brown is a self-proclaimed American zombie author based in North Carolina. His books include Zombies II: Inhuman (2007), The Queen (2005), Cobble (2005; co-written with Susanne Brydenbaugh), Dying Days (2003), and a handful of chapbooks. Often combining the aesthetics of science fiction, horror and comics, Brown is part of a growing community of multigeneric authors.

DHW: First and foremost: Why zombies?

ESB: I enjoy zombies because they represent the end of the world, a struggle against overwhelming odds, and often are based on disease. I like the idea of a plague or virus that could spread across the globe with a 100% mortality rate or at least close to it. They are the ultimate monster not so much because they are near unstoppable or that often there's usually billions of them against a handful of humans but because they are literally us. They are what we are sometimes — simple beasts driven only by desires, or worse, what we could be if we stop thinking for ourselves. The fight to be and stay who you are as well as the struggle to uphold one's beliefs against the masses are indeed part of the appeal of zombie horror. I also enjoy zombies because they really mesh well with the military genre. I love a good war story and zombie tales can be outright war whether it's one lone human in a farmhouse with a shotgun or a squad of soldiers trying to hold the creatures inside of New York to prevent the spread of a virus. The genre lends itself as much to action and fun as it does gore, fear, and metaphor.

Are zombies politically charged figures in your fiction? Is it even possible to write a zombie narrative in which they are not politically charged?

To be honest, I have never really thought of my zombies as being politically charged. I am not a writer who goes out of his way to work politics into his stories. I just write for fun and the enjoyment of a good tale. However, I am a Christian and my zombie stories do paint a picture of what could happen (not in literal terms of course) of the end we face if we don't change our culture and society back to more of what our forefathers intended when our nation was formed. So my zombie tales are more religion-based than political as there are a lot of things wrong with our world today and many of them could lead us to disaster. I am not preaching in my stories. At the same time, if you look deep enough, you can see a recurring message.

What is your take on Romero? Badass? Or does he simply regurgitate the same old song?

Romero, these days, doesn't impress me. Land of the Dead let me down a lot. Compared to 28 Days Later or even the remake of Dawn of the Dead, it was a poor take on the genre in general and had weak characters which weren't really developed. I often joke that the only thing cool about the film was the movie's tank, Dead Reckoning. However, when he was younger, I don't think anyone can say that Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead didn't shake the whole world of film and the zombie genre. Dawn of the Dead made me a zombie fan for life. I fell madly in love with the dying world it created. To this day, what I write is some sort of homage to that film. Personally I would like to see Romero do another DEAD film that isn't part of the world he created in Night.

Alongside zombies, vampires are prominent figures in horror literature and film. Why do you think these figures have become so popular, if not ubiquitous?

Vampires often have a romantic or a sexual element to the fiction created about them now. To me, they are the romance genre of the horror world. I am not a big fan of vampires even when they are done well, like in McCammon's Under the Fang anthology, much less in stuff like Anne Rice's books. Zombies, on the other hand, represent a struggle against overwhelming odds. They push people to ask themselves what they would give up to survive in every sense. Zombies are THE END. They are a pandemic with no romance, no hope, and bringers of death equally to all. Most people are intrigued by death and apocalypse, at least to some degree. Zombies are popular because they are a unique form of escapism in which the reader gets to witness the end of life as we know it.

What do you think about the quality of contemporary horror writing?

There are a lot of great writers out there, from Brian Keene and David Moody, who are redefining zombies as pop culture knows them, to writers like Jason Brannon and Scott Nicholson, who seem to be bringing back the “literary” style to a genre known these days mostly for gore and shock value. The genre is far from dead and I hope making a comeback. With zombies, though, it's pretty much like always. There are a few great, fantastic books and a bunch of trash just because they're in style again for the moment.

Like many horror authors, you are inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. What is it about Lovecraft’s work that resonates with you?

This will sound strange, but I feel a true connection to Lovecraft. I have read most of the biographies about him and there are a lot of things we had in common as people not just writers. I love cats and so did Lovecraft. We were both outcasts growing up. He had trouble finishing projects, wrote mostly short stuff, and constantly wanted to give up only to jump right back in the game. We also both had troubled family lives and wrote nonfiction for newspapers as well. He is one of my idols. I named my cat after him. I love his work dearly and have been a fan since I read my first tale of his in high school. As for his work, just like with the zombie genre, a lot of it seems to be filled with hopelessness. I guess that's what I love about it. The feeling that humanity is a passing thing in cosmos; an end will come eventually to our race as it does to all things. I just prefer that end to be a little more rotting and a little less in the tentacles department.

Who are some of your other favorite authors, horror or otherwise?

In my personal reading, I enjoy David Drake and John Ringo's military SF. Drake was in Vietnam and that brings a whole deeper dimension to his military work. Dan Simmons has done some amazing books. Hyperion remains in my top 30 books of all time. The story of the daughter trapped in a temporal disturbance can make any parent cry. Mark Waid is a comic book god. His work on the Legion of Super-Heroes blows me away. The guy can write space opera and humor into the superhero genre amazingly well. And who doesn't love Robert Heinlein? Like Lovecraft, Heinlein is an author I have been reading since I was a teenager or younger. The Puppet Masters is a suspenseful and frightening book that's highly underrated.

Do movies inspire your writing at all?

Certainly. A lot of fans tell me my work is very movie-like in terms of the action and pacing. That's because my tales are movies in my head. When Battlestar Galactica started on the Sci-Fi Channel, episode 33 set me into a zombie writing frenzy because that episode was just filled with loss and despair and looming death. And when I get writer's block, my cure is usually pulling out Dawn of the Dead (the remake) and watching it a few times. Dawn of the Dead (the original) made me into a writer as much as worshipping Lovecraft in my youth did. It just captured my imagination and made me want to revisit a world of the dead of my own.

Reviewers of your writing have said that you employ a comic book sensibility, a technique used more and more frequently in many genres. Is this the case? In what way(s) are your zombies cartoons, per se? To what end?

I bought my first comic when I was barely four years old. I've been an avid collector and reader ever since. I have boxes upon boxes of comics from a near complete run of the Fantastic Four and Legion of Super-Heroes to stuff like Jonah Hex and Weird War Tales. I think that just bleeds over into my own fiction without me even thinking about it so I can't say it's intentional. As I said above, I often “see” my tales in my brain as I am writing them and perhaps that makes me give them a more visual feel.

Tell us about your upcoming writing projects.

I have a new book out now called Zombies II: Inhuman, a cross-genre zombie narrative featuring superheros. It's a combination of my love of zombies and superhumans. Both are a large part of who I am as a person. Zombie II is an attempt on my part to give something back to both genres while attempting to do something fairly new. I am currently at work on turning its title story into a novel or at least a stand alone novella like my book The Queen. I also have a new book titled The Season of Rot due out in the near future. It's a very old school Night of the Living Dead type novella in many ways that focuses on being trapped in a city with nowhere to run, but it also has some modern surprises in it. I can't say much more than that or I will spoil it.

Lastly, who do you think was Jack the Ripper?

I was always fond of the “alien” theory. We humans do make good hunting.