As some of you know, I have been away for a while. I've been working on the novel, Zombie Pied Piper. It's been a ton of work, but the end result is pretty cool.
A brief description is below:
Marion
County, Florida. There are bad days…and there are really bad days.
Some
may not consider it good luck when a passenger jet filled with infected people explodes
over the property occupied by Gladstone Specialists, raining zombies and zombie
parts.
But
it was a very lucky day for the men that work for John Gladstone, and their
families, as well. They learn rather quickly that John is a Weapon of Mass
Destruction on zombie asshats, whose sole intention is to protect his thirteen-year-old
daughter, Hannah.
John
Gladstone and his crew become trapped at John’s business when the world falls
to the mysterious Outbreak two days after the Fourth of July – and they get
some excellent hands-on training on how to put the infected into the ground
where they belong.
John
and his crew are military historians, working primarily for the film industry,
so when the infected pouring in from the freeway begin to pile onto their
fence, John’s crew fight back with flamethrowers and home-built flail tanks. And
to John’s great surprise, Hannah teaches him how to make napalm. She also
convinces him to use her teen friends as his flame crew…all of those years
playing video games will finally be put to good use.
John
also discovers a weakness in the infected – they are extremely sensitive to
ground vibrations, and he proves this theory using a geological survey vehicle –
also known as a thumper truck. John and his crew join forces with what’s left
of the military, putting OPERATION PIED PIPER
into motion.
The
purpose of OPERATION PIED PIPER?
Seal
off the state of Florida and take it back from the infected. They simply need
to build forty Abrams flail tanks, and a two-hundred mile long barrier at the
north end of the state. All while millions of infected people are homing in on
the living like heat-seeking missiles.
What
could possibly go wrong?
I figured I'd upload an article about the book, because on the day of its release - last Monday - it started selling immediately on Amazon. And I also figured some people would be interested to see some of the equipment used in the course of the novel is absolutely real.
The first thing I heard is: what the hell is a flail tank?
Above is a Sherman-based flail tank, below is the Churchill. Flail tanks were invented by the British to slap the ground and explode landmines.
The main character in Zombie Pied Piper builds three flail tanks, but he ain't slapping the ground with them. He uses his flail tanks to take heads off the infected at high speed, like mowing the grass.
Churchill in action
I actually own the Kaiser - seen below - that the main character drives. The book was a lot of hard work...not to mention a lot of heartache.
Here is a shot of the Gama Goat tactical truck that the main character uses to retrieve a stuck ambulance after a friend is mortally wounded.
If you haven't read the book and you are in the dark, allow me to explain that the main character - John Gladstone - has a business that restores military vehicles for the film industry. The Gama Goat above is very rare, and John would lease it to a production company.
Like the RAM Scout Car seen below.
The RAM is used in a rather dramatic rescue of two small children. But the bread-and-butter of John's business is buying old Humvees and jeeps, then refurbishing them to be used on movie sets.
When I said I went through a difficult time writing this novel, I meant it. Last Easter, I was at the 50,000 word mark when my laptop was stolen - so I had to start over. I made it to the 65,000 word mark when my hard-drive crashed and I lost everything again.
On my third attempt, at 100,000 words, I lost the entire novel again when Microsoft installed Word 2013 on my new laptop online. But this time, by damn, I had the novel backed up on a thumb drive.
Whew.
Tomorrow, I'll talk about flamethrowers.
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