If you don’t want to click over to Goodreads, then just read here:
This is the second book in this alternate history series, where a large ocean liner and its refueling tender have both gone back in time to 320 BCE. They arrive in the middle of Alexander the Great’s generals fighting over his empire.
The ship goes from port to port, officially neutral and promoting peace. However, they have aligned themselves with Alexander’s heir Philip and his mother Eurydice.
Naturally, aside from advancing technology to the industrial revolution, the modern ship is smack in the middle of Grecian politics. There are murders and battles, as the iron age civilization modernizes to the steam age within years.
Eric Flint and his co-authors, Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett keep the plot moving and the reader engaged with colorful characters from the 21st century and the 4th BCE.
Andy Zach continues his unrelenting attack on the horror/zombie genre with outlandish humor. What will society do with the new human zombies after the havoc caused by The Turkey Zombies?!? That was a rhetorical question…so just laugh! ;-
Finally, My Top Secret Book Plans, Revealed for You Right Here
My Life After Life Chronicles gets a new volume, Zombie Detective. Here’s a secret blog postgiving you the first page.
I plan to publish Zombie Detectives in May 2021 in both paperback and ebook. If you want to be the first to know, subscribe to my newsletter here. You’ll also get all my free audiobooks.
What’s next in 2021? I plan to make Zombie Detectives an audiobook. That’ll start in June and finish by September.
Also coming along is my audiobook version ofVillain’s Vacation, the second of my Secret Supersseries. The audiobook may not be done, but the cover is:
You’d think after three oddball novels, Zombie Turkeys (How an Unknown Blogger Fought Unkillable Turkeys), My Undead Mother-In-Law (The Family Zombie with Anger Management Issues), and Paranormal Privateers, that Andy Zach would have exhausted all the comic possibilities in his world of killer zombie turkeys and superhero zombie human.
You’d be wrong. How about flying zombie pickles? Zombie zucchini? Zombie caterpillars? (How can you tell a zombie caterpillar from a normal one? Andy Zach can tell you.)
How about being injected with zombie blood which can cure any ill, regrow any lost limb, and be quickly cured with a widely available antidote? Who needs insurance with that sort of help? How about organizing a zombie worker union at Amazon when zombies can outperform robots? And suggest the story is based on two real people, Anthony and Ravan Jones who contribute the foreword to the book? Or zombie residents of a nursing home taking over the place?
But all this silliness is just part of what Andy Zach has collected in Oops. He has included other short stories by other authors like “The Story of Sound” by Olivia Smith and his own “A Phoenix Tale” before diving into his zombie world. Then he offers a batch of stories based on his other book series featuring disabled middle-schoolers who become superheroes, the Secret Supers. Oh yea, there are the aliens who first appeared in Paranormal Privateers who are defeated by zombies working for the U.S. Government. The aliens can provide you legal assistance in the form of a sexy avatar who looks exactly like Marilyn Monroe.
But all this silliness is just part of what Andy Zach has collected in Oops. He has included other short stories by other authors like “The Story of Sound” by Olivia Smith and his own “A Phoenix Tale” before diving into his zombie world. Then he offers a batch of stories based on his other book series featuring disabled middle-schoolers who become superheroes, the Secret Supers. Oh yea, there are the aliens who first appeared in Paranormal Privateers who are defeated by zombies working for the U.S. Government. The aliens can provide you legal assistance in the form of a sexy avatar who looks exactly like Marilyn Monroe.
If you’re getting the impression that one Mr. Andy Zach has a wide and wild imagination, you are on the right track. One obvious audience for his quirky tales is the YA readership, especially for all the contemporary references like video gaming and computer lingo. But even grumpy old sixty-somethings like me can have a lot of fun with Andy’s characters, scenarios, and plots. I’m still laughing at the image of migrating flying zombie pickles. Hard to get more original, unique, or surprising than Zach’s “Life After Life” series. Have some fun with Andy Zach in 2020!
Be prepared for a fantasy experience like no other. Sybil, a child and grandchild of wizards, has a magical menagerie under her control. She has a giant black swan, a death-dealing hawk, a golden lion, a talking boar, a magical cat, and, of course, a dragon. She calls them to her and controls them with her thoughts.
Then a man brings her the baby of a king, Tamlorn, or Tam. He would be killed to preserve the king’s rule.
Sybil learns to love through the child and a strange witch on her mountain of Eld. Sybil tries to stay aloof from politics, but cannot, because of her love for Tam. But she is now enmeshed in politics of Eld and the king and his enemies both come to her, wanting to use her, and Tamlorn.
Then a mightier wizard calls her, just as she called her animals. And she is powerless to resist.
That is the merest sketch of the beginning a complex and utterly delightful tale.
“Sam, you’re fired.” Lisa’s green eyes met his brown ones.
“What? Lisa, you and I have worked together at the Midley Beacon for ten years! And we’ve known each other for fifteen! And we’ve been married almost two months!”
“Sorry Sam. Romance has to take a back seat to finances. Ever since the bottom dropped out of the zombie turkey news market since the first of the year, the Midley Beacon hasn’t made enough to pay your salary.”
“But that’s our salary. We share and share alike.”
“We can still live on my salary. And you can apply for unemployment, now that you’re fired.”
“But what’ll I do all day? I can only play Fortnight for so long.”
“What did you do before I hired you, ten years ago? What did you do while I was in college?”
“Uh, mow lawns. Handyman repair. Stuff like that. But I’m a grown man now. I want more.”
“Hmm, you are a decent reporter.”
“Thanks Lisa. That’s high praise from you.”
“Well it’s the truth. You’ve grown from a crappy reporter, like 99% of all reporters, to well above average. I did lay off everyone else on the staff before you, you know.”
From unpublished novel Zombie Detective, by Andy Zach
Secret Blog Post – Excerpt Part 2
“Aw, you’re making me feel warm and mushy.”
“That’s part of good management, emotional manipulation.”
“Uh, you mean you don’t mean it?”
“Nah, I mean it. Emotional manipulation is much more effective if you’re sincere. Say, why don’t you call Andy Zach and see if he has some royalties to share. We signed a contract with him to get half the royalties from his book Zombie Turkeys. We supplied more than half his source material right from the pages of the Midley Beacon.”
“I just called him yesterday. His sales haven’t paid for the cover yet, let alone the editing.”
“I told him to go with traditional publishing!”
“He’d still be trying to get an agent, let alone publishing his book. Who wants to represent a zombie turkey author?”
“So think of something to do with your reporting and investigative skills. That’s your first job. Get out of here and work on it at home. When I come home tonight, I want a decision from you. That’s a deadline.”
“Ok, Lisa. And thanks. You know I work best under a deadline.”
“Sure dear. We’ll go out for dinner tonight to celebrate your new career, whatever it will be.”
“I’m kind of tired of McDonalds.”
“We’ll spurge. We’ll go to the big city of Peoria. Maybe to the Country Time Buffet.”
“Wow. Thanks, Lisa.”
“Now, shoo! Don’t forget to clear out your desk.”
From unpublished novel Zombie Detective, by Andy Zach
