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• Welcome to Deadland Inkshares (San Francisco, CA), 2016

• Roll Out Reviews - http://rolloutreviews.com/a-motivating-conversation-with-zachary-tyler-linville/

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  A fascinating fictional face-off between two well-known monsters
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  Order and chaos collide in sequel for bibliophiles and fantasy lovers alike
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  A motivating conversation with Zachary Tyler Linville
  Interviews
  A motivating conversation with Zachary Tyler Linville
  08/22/2016 Alicia Smock 132 Views 0 Comment Alicia Smock, Roll Out Reviews, Zachary Tyler Linville
  Writing a first novel is a long and difficult road, but it is a road that can be so rewarding to new writers in the end. Upcoming writer Zachary Tyler Linville is embarking on his first novel road and what a journey it has been so far.

  Growing up, Linville has always been a fan of books and movies. As he neared his college years, friends and family suggested that he write the stories he was telling or coming up with from all the books he read. Linville, however, thought of himself as more of a reader than a writer and wanted to work in movies as a director and that is when he found the University of Central Florida and the film degree they offered there. And yet, even working through his film degree, he could not avoid writing for one of the requirements for the major was a short script class. “I would tell people that I wanted to direct or produce so I’ll hire a screenwriter and say, ‘This is the story I want, you write it’,” Linville said. In the class, students were required to bring in three to five page screenplays on a weekly basis (three pages would equal three minutes on the screen) and the more pages Linville wrote, the more he began to really enjoy writing them. It came very easily to him and the Professor of the class encouraged him to take more classes in screenwriting. After taking an adaptation writing class in the summer, he was invited to take a two semester feature writing class, which only ten students were able to take, and, by the end of the year, he would have a 90 to 120 page complete screenplay. “Just spending a year in that classroom was where I one hundred percent fell in love with screenwriting and I was, like, I don’t even want to direct anymore. Someone else can direct, but I want to write the story,” Linville said. By the end of that course, Linville had completed a 117 page screenplay.

  After college, Linville came across a screenwriting contest where the winner would sit down with producers and production companies to have his or her screenplay turned into a film. A previous winner was the screenwriter for Snow White and the Huntsman. Believing it was worth a shot, Linville submitted the 117 page screenplay he had completed in college to the contest. He admitted he had forgotten all about it until he received an email saying he was a semi-finalist. This was mindboggling and extremely encouraging, for he was one the 100 semi-finalists out of 11,000 applicants. He unfortunately did not make it to the final three, but the fact that he made it so far in the contest was a great way of letting him know that he could tell a story that was interesting. There are many other screenwriting contests he could have entered, but to enter is not cheap. “With a screenplay, you’re looking for someone who’s willing to invest millions of dollars to make your story come to life that could potentially go to the box office and bomb. With someone unknown, they’re much more leery about shelling out millions of dollars,” Linville said. “With a book, it’s significantly cheaper to print a book and to place an initial small order and, if it takes off, you can print more and if it doesn’t take off, you’re out a couple thousand dollars compared to 20 million dollars.” Due to the expense, Linville decided to take a break from screenwriting and try his hand on a book. He thought it would be tricky, seeing books like Harry Potter at 800 to 900 pages per book and wondered, how can someone write that much? And yet, he decided to at least try, for he believed to write a book was his best bet in starting a writing career for himself.

  The idea for the book was not difficult, for he had already begun to formulate the story while he was still in college. He had worked for an amusement park and there was a very large attraction opening. No one was prepared for how well the attraction would do and Linville, along with his coworkers, wound up working from opening to closing every day. With only about three to four hours of sleep a night, he and his coworkers would joke about being zombies for it made the situation of 300,000 people per day crammed in the park more entertaining. He began to think, “I can get through this 14 hour day, which is my sixth day in a row working, if I just, not mentally tuned out of my job, but mentally tuned out of the situation and turn it into something new, make it more entertaining for myself,” Linville said. “So I thought: if there was a zombie outbreak and I was stuck here and there were 300,000 people that were suddenly zombies, what would my survival plan be?” The idea for Welcome to Deadland was born.

  Linville wrote the prologue in 2012 more as an exercise while working on a screenplay and looking for a job. The first two chapters soon followed. Afterwards, life became busy and he forgot about it until 2014. He came back to the story, sat down, and really focused on writing it, completely cutting out the first two chapters and starting fresh. After a year of writing, researching, and editing, Welcome to Deadland was complete. This draft was complete earlier this year, finishing at 140,000 words. “For me, it was a huge accomplishment just to finish it,” Linville said. While researching, he read that many upcoming writers check out at 90,000 words, so he made it his goal to reach past that. “I remember looking down at my work one time and seeing 60,000 words and I wasn’t even halfway through the story I had outlined,” Linville said.

  What is Welcome to Deadland about? Linville described it as Lost meets The Walking Dead; however, it is not about zombies, per say. The story is formatted like Lost, for it is told in flashbacks and then the present time and the story itself is like The Walking Dead, for the characters are just trying to survive an infectious outbreak. “I don’t ever use the word ‘zombie’ in the book,” Linville said. “It’s more along the lines of a disease that takes over the body and all emotions other than rage and hunger check out, but they’re not necessarily zombies. Their bodies are just shutting down and decaying.” Linville refers to his creations as “infected.” From the title and how the infected act, a reader could easily be mistaken and call them zombies, but subtle hints and clues scattered throughout the beginning chapters of the book tell otherwise. “You don’t want to go into a book with a list of explanations,” Linville said. He wants the readers to keep reading until they reach that “ah-ha” moment and everything begins to make sense.

  There are three protagonists in the story: two college students, Asher and Wendy, and teenager Rico. Asher plays a large role in Welcome to Deadland and was one of the easiest characters for Linville to write, for he used a lot of elements of his own personality and college experiences for Asher’s past. Rico, however, was difficult for he is a Hispanic high school student living in Miami, Florida. Linville did not want to cross any lines that may offend readers while still making sure to add diversity to the book. “I wanted to make sure that other audiences had characters to relate to,” Linville said. An inspiration for Linville while writing his characters was when one of his friends was reading The Hunger Games. His friend was enjoying the book, but he knew that Katniss was going to win for there were still two other books. For Linville, the format of doing three alternating character’s points of view was to not have a single main character. “I want the reader to know that nobody is safe. You don’t have to guarantee one character’s safety because there are other narrators to carry the story along,” Linville said.

  What is fascinating about Linville’s book is that is has not even been published yet, but interested readers can go to Inkshares.com and read a few chapters from Welcome to Deadland. Inkshares is currently running a contest where writers can post their books and the top five writers will have their stories published by Nerdist.com. To make their way up the leaderboard, writers need to have their books preordered by readers and the more preorders a writer has, the higher up on the board they ascend. The contest itself is not based on preorder numbers, but on reader numbers because that shows what the public wants to read. Linville found out about the contest from a link a friend of his tagged him in on Facebook. The contest started on August 15th, Linville uploaded Welcome to Deadland on the 18th, and he took first place on the 19th. The contest goes until September 30th and Linville has not lost his lead. “I have not gone to bed in any position but number one,” Linville said. “I wake up several times throughout the night to check my email and check the leaderboard and think, ‘What can I do to keep reaching out to people? How do I make sure I’m reaching new audiences?’” What is nice about Inkshares is that it gives the writers freedom to upload however much of their stories they wish for their readers to see. Linville said that some writers have eight or nine chapters up, some have half of the story up, and one even posted his entire book up for 48 hours. “We are given a lot of control, which is great, because I generally don’t let anyone read anything I’ve written until it’s complete,” Linville said. “I had to strategically think, what should I upload and when should I upload?”

  The competition has been very friendly between Linville and the other writers. They have preordered each other’s books and they stay in touch through social media to encourage one another. “Everyone wants to win, but everyone knows that, one way or another, we’re contributing to the literary world,” Linville said. In just a couple of short weeks, the contest will be over and the pressure is on now more than ever. Linville hopes to have Welcome to Deadland published, for it is the first in a trilogy, and he is eager to share more of his stories with audiences everywhere.

• The Geekiary - http://thegeekiary.com/welcome-to-deadland-review-interview/36515

  Welcome to Deadland: A Refreshing Take on the Zombie Apocalypse Genre
  Posted by Tara Lynne On July 28, 2016 1 Comment
  Welcome to Deadland

  Last month I was lucky enough to receive an Advanced Reader’s Copy of Zachary Tyler Linville’s debut novel, Welcome to Deadland. Now, while I’ve read all of the Walking Dead comics, I’ve only read a few zombie apocalypse novels, and this one is definitely near the top of that list in terms of being both interesting and featuring good storytelling overall.

  Welcome to Deadland is described as “a coming-of-age, coming out tale set against the backdrop of the desolate land that was once Florida, now devastated by a widespread disease threatening the mass extinction of humanity”, and I definitely couldn’t have said it better myself. There’s a lot of humanity in this novel, including so many characters who are easy to identify with. The zombies are there and there are a couple great “fight” scenes, but really, the story is about the characters’ journeys, which is the type of book I can really get behind.

  And it seems that a lot of other people felt the same way, considering that Welcome to Deadland won Nerdist’s first ever “Collection Contest“, which is for sci-fi and fantasy writers. The novel premiered at Comic-Con this past weekend, where Zac was interviewed by Nerdist News…and by yours truly! Check out the interview below!

  WARNING: Please note that this interview contains *very minor* spoilers for Welcome to Deadland.

  Tara: Welcome to Deadland was published by Nerdist…I also noticed [the Inkshares information] too – which came first?
  Zac: Actually, they came together. Inkshares is hosting a series of publishing contests with Nerdist and Geek & Sundry. They’re doing six total, and the very first one was last August… [Inkshares] is a crowd-funding platform…they had a contest [for] books with the most amount of unique readers pre-ordering copies to fund the publication. The top five were published and then Nerdist actually chose two to publish under their own label from the five… My book actually became the number one book. The second day of the contest, I took the number one spot, and ran with it for the entire 45 days…The day after the contest Nerdist announced that they were going to choose my book as one of their personal publications.

  T: When did it all end?
  Z: September 30th, 2015.

  T: And when does the book come out [again]?
  Z: The official publication date is August 9th. Actually today I’ve had three different pictures [from people who had] been at Barnes & Noble and it is out on display in Barnes & Noble already.

  T: Awesome. You said you were doing a launch party at a Barnes & Noble?
  Z: Yeah. Sand Lake Road in Orlando on August 6th, 7 o’clock at night.

  T: Where are you from originally?
  Z: Actually from all over. I grew up as a military child so I moved around a lot. I graduated high school from Beaufort, South Carolina. And then I went to college at University of Central Florida in Orlando. And while I was living in Orlando and going to school I worked at a major theme park. That’s where I started to get the inspiration for the book. So I moved to New York City after that and while I was in New York City I first started piecing together some of the early chapters. And now I’m in Atlanta and I finished writing it in Atlanta.

  T: What brought you to Atlanta?
  Z: The film industry there. My degree is in screenwriting and that’s a huge focus for me, but it’s really hard to break into screenwriting without some sort of a writing background that will make people take note of you. So I switched over to writing a book. I figured if I could launch off of that I can build from there.

  Welcome to Deadland Zachary Tyler Linville Comic-Con 2016

  T: To be honest, I think that after reading the novel, which I really enjoyed by the way…I can say that I see the screenwriter in you…it’s something I can see being easily put on television or [in] a movie. What was your inspiration other than working at a theme park and living in Orlando? Did you have other inspirations for this particular story, the characters especially?
  Z: [It did] start with a theme park and being surrounded by so many guests, and hot and sweaty…it is like zombies. Everyone has this blank stare on their face as they shove through the crowd. I describe the book as not a book about zombies. It’s a book with zombies. I wanted to tell character stories. If some major devastating event happens, what effect does that have on people? I really wanted to draw inspiration from more diverse backgrounds and tell a story that hasn’t been told yet. I didn’t want to do the ‘Chosen One’. There are so many series right now…I’m a huge Harry Potter fan but it is about the Chosen One, The Boy Who Lived. Hunger Games…I love The Hunger Games, but everything is about The Mockingjay. If you don’t have her you don’t have anyone.

  So, I wanted to do this kind of different thing where I took three different perspectives and three completely different characters, [to] see if they could meld together and kind of build off of each other. They came from different backgrounds, and…this world-ending event kind of forces them into working together, to their own detriment or to move forward. I don’t like how with The Hunger Games, you read the first book and [you] know nothing is going happen to [the main characters] because there are three books…That kind of removes the danger element from the story, when you know that the protagonist is going to be fine. At least until the third one.

  And having three characters, that gave me more wiggle room, where if something happens to one of them the story doesn’t have to end. So, I wanted to take the Chosen One story and blow it out of the water by saying it is not going to be one person that saves the world – it has to be everyone working together. And right now, where our country is going, everyone is not working together. It’s very divided, and there is so much of ‘my people’ and ‘your people’. I didn’t want to do an ‘us against them’ [story], I wanted to show that you kind of have to mesh to move forward.

  T: Which one of the three characters was your favorite to write?
  Z: Rico. He is my favorite character out of the three. I have to say that there’s a lot of Asher that comes from personal experience. And I enjoyed writing his story. And I enjoyed writing Wendy’s story. I love all three characters. Especially some of the background characters too. Todd and Tanya, I love them and I can’t wait to explore more of their stories as well. But with Rico, I just loved the idea of taking this seventeen-year-old boy…when you’re seventeen you think you’ve got it all figured out. You think you don’t need your parents’ help. You think you can do it all on your own…I don’t need to rely on my parents and I don’t need to listen to them…but you kind of do. Looking back, when I was seventeen I was like ‘I don’t need to listen to my Mom’ and especially with this book coming out my Mom has told me at least 30 times ‘See! I told you to write a book. I told you to write a book. Can you just tell me I was right?’ And you hate that feeling of having to say ‘Yes, Mom. You were correct’. But looking back at it? ‘Yes, Mom. You were correct’. And I wanted, with Rico, to show that [whether his parents were] doing things right or wrong…now that he’s forced into this parental position with Jayden he kind of sees, ‘Wait a minute! I should’ve listened! Because it’s not about me and what I think, it’s about the duties that come with protecting someone else and having someone else rely on you for everything.’

  T: You left the ending open enough. Are you writing more?
  Z: Yes! It is planned as trilogy. I have about 35,000 words of the second book written and the second book does have four character perspectives instead of the three of the first book. Two of the characters are characters from the first book, and two of the characters are the characters that were in the first book but finally delving into their backstories and their perspectives.

  T: So [fans will] have to read it to figure out who those two characters are…I’m going to be doing that as well. [Zach,] Was there anything else you want to talk about or say?
  Z: …for the most part I want people to understand that…what I really set out to do was tell character stories, and I feel that…if you don’t care about the characters, you don’t care about what’s going to happen to them. This is really what this book is about. I wanted people to be challenged to look at other perspectives that they don’t usually see…see the Hispanic boy, see the foreign Japanese girl who’s stuck in a land where she doesn’t understand the language…people that are faced with hardships…and with this book you see them going ‘Wait a minute! I haven’t necessarily thought of it from their point of view!’

  T: I think that’s a complaint that a lot of post-apocalyptic zombie stories are getting lately. Even with The Walking Dead…there are times where it’s like ‘Isn’t this show about zombies? Where are the zombies?’…and…the zombies are just the driving force of the background. It is supposed to be about the characters. And you’ve definitely built a lot of that through your book… Do you think there are going to be more zombies in the future or are you going to keep it [going the same way]?
  Z: There are going to be more. I mean, they don’t suddenly disappear – they are still a threat. But to me, zombies…aren’t that interesting because they’re not processing how to react and thoughts and all of that. They’re just driven by hunger. They’re the incident that kind of created a world where anything goes, there’s no one policing it. They are there. They are a threat. People talk about how they’re slow and how their strength diminishes…but when you’re fully surrounded by them, one wrong move and you get bit and that’s kind of just that.

  They are still there. They are going to grow in numbers. They are going to pose another threat. But the real threat is what humanity is going to do when no one is watching. The question is ‘If you’re invisible for a day, what would you do?’ and [people say] ‘I will sneak in here, I will steal this, and I will go through this’…it’s like if Big Brother’s not watching then all bets are off. And I just wanted to show that some people are going to go out of their way to help those they can because you have to rely on each other. But the zombies are still going to be there as another threat, and other people are going to take advantage of it…like, ‘how can I benefit from this?’ Which is an issue we have today. Everyone wants to benefit from everything…[they’re] kind of…working against it.

Welcome to Deadland
Publishers Weekly.
263.27 (July 4, 2016): p46.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text: 
* Welcome to Deadland
Zachary Tyler Linville. Nerdist, $24.99 (424p) ISBN 978-1-941758-85-4
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Debut author Linville, whose manuscript for this novel won a publishing contest jointly sponsored by crowdfunded publishing platform Inkshares
and all-things-nerd media company Nerdist, embraces the tropes of the undead apocalypse while exploring a new storytelling format for the
genre. Asher is a college student on the run from the undead, heading to an unlikely refuge with a woman he barely knows. Rico is a high school
dropout making a desperate escape from Miami while trying to protect his little brother as the world burns. The events of the story deliver all the
action expected for this genre, and it cleverly alternates between postapocalyptic survival and events pre-plague. Linville twists the timeline so
that the ending is the beginning. By unraveling parallel stories that threaten to destroy his protagonists by methods both mundane and zombie,
Linville creates a horrifying tale of human inhumanity. The bravery of his characters becomes more admirable as their separate stories become
intertwined. Though the writing has some beginner notes, it is engaging, heartbreaking, and thrilling, with an expert pace that never touches the
brakes. (Aug.)
Source Citation   (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Welcome to Deadland." Publishers Weekly, 4 July 2016, p. 46. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA457302887&it=r&asid=2acee1c9ec68a06d7db86d2ac18d8ac9. Accessed 20 Mar.
2017.
3/19/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1489985032629 2/2
Gale Document Number: GALE|A457302887

• Criminal Element
  http://www.criminalelement.com/blogs/2016/08/review-welcome-to-deadland-by-zachary-tyler-linville
  Word count: 1424

  FRESH MEAT
  Review: Welcome to Deadland by Zachary Tyler Linville
  AMBER KELLER
  Welcome to Deadland by Zachary Tyler Linville is a debut novel and zombie apocalypse thriller (Available August 9, 2016).

  I was intrigued by the title, and once I read the blurb, I knew I had to read this one. I admit, I was expecting something along the lines of the popular 2009 movie, Zombieland. I think it was a mixture of the title font, the blurb, and the title itself. My brain forged a connection somehow. But this book was different. It was something more than your run-of-the-mill, garden-variety zombie tale—and I liked it.

  First, let me give you an interesting factoid about how the book came to be. Nerdist, the uber popular machine that serves as both an empire and a nucleus for anything pop culture, put out a call on their website—a contest that would see one lucky person having their sci-fi/fantasy novel published in connection with both Inkshares and Nerdist. Zachary Tyler Linville was the winner, and Welcome to Deadland is that novel.

  I am mostly a consumer of the zombie culture. I watch movies, tv shows, and have participated in a zombie run. I’ve even published a short or two in the genre. Despite all of this, I seem to be picky about the zombie stories I read. There’s no real reason—I just am. But, there was something about this book that made me sit up and take notice.

  The story is written in a unique format, alternating between the present dystopia and a time before the zombie apocalypse. Linville does this seamlessly and utilizes shorter, fast-paced chapters to move the reader along. Once I started reading, I didn’t put the book down until I was three quarters of the way in, and that was only because I needed a bathroom break. I finished it in one afternoon. That’s not my usual.

  We follow the lives of main characters, Wendy, Rico, and Asher, as they make their way through a world devastated. A virus has been unleashed and it spreads fast, leaving behind reanimated beings with a vicious anger and need to consume flesh. Not much is known about their origins except hints and cryptic assumptions that are steered toward a shady corporation and possible continuation in another installment.

  The thing Linville really shines at is character development. These characters are written so that I could feel like I was there with them. I cared for them; I wanted them to survive. Much of the time is spent getting to know them in this book. For instance, Asher became my favorite, as we see him work through a pretty detailed sexual awakening and his struggles to come to terms with his own truth and revealing this to those close to him. Rico is a drug addict that has to overcome his cravings, as he is put in charge of his younger brother in this new, unforgiving world. There wasn’t as much time spent on Wendy, but I suspect her story will be eventually explored further.

  And, yes, being a zombie tale, there is plenty of action and zombie kills to sate the thirst. One such scene that stuck out for its tension and slow build is when Rico and his brother, Jayden, are searching for gasoline:

  “There’s gas, just not here – “ Rico stops midsentence. A skeletal hand materializes from under the station wagon, quickly followed by another hand with bloody fingertips where nails once were. The first hand reaches out farther, landing inches from Jayden. Jayden follows Rico’s gaze downward, spotting the hand. He jumps up with a scream, backing away from the gas pump and the woman emerging from under the car, dragging herself inch by inch. “Jayden, shut up!”

  Rico picks up the shotgun, aims it at the woman, and pulls the trigger. A loud shot rips through the air and the woman’s face explodes. Her head drops down to the cement but her hand twitches and moves forward. Rico fires off a second shot into the top of her head and the hand stops. He drops the shotgun and grabs his chest, trying to steady his breathing. He turns to check on Jayden, but the boy is gone.

  Another tense moment that really shows the danger of this new world, and that the zombies are not the only threat, is felt Wendy and Asher try to find shelter amidst the abandoned cars on an interstate:

  A squeak, like rubber twisting on the floor, carries out from under a seat in the middle of the bus. The hairs on Asher’s arm rise and he is swept with the sensation of being watched. The sound seems to come from almost directly behind him, and he lowers his body to check under the seats once more. On his hands and knees, ducking his head down, he comes face-to-face with a black woman. Before Asher can register what is happening, his eyes are flooded with a burning liquid, and he shoves himself up and backward, crashing into a seat frame, hitting his head on the support. He falls to the ground between two seats. He wipes and claws at his eyes.

  “What the hell?!” Asher screams, kicking his legs out to ward off his attacker. Snot pours from his nose as the feeling of flames licking at his face intensifies. The bus shakes and groans and he hears stomping coming up the stairs.

  Even though Rico, Asher, and Wendy are the main characters, there were quite a few other characters whose stories were also intriguing. One in particular, Yuki, quickly became another favorite of mine. We meet her when everyone finds themselves in a popular, abandoned theme park in Florida—you know the one. She was a badass, and I’ve got to know more about her. Let me give you this awesome scene with Yuki so you can see what I’m talking about:

  “Behind you!” Rico yells.

  Yuki jerks the ax free and spins. The blade slices cleanly through the neck of an attacking woman, decapitating her and sending her head rolling through the shattered glass, landing a foot away from Rico and staring up at him with her teeth bared. The tiara sits, askew, on top of Yuki’s dark hair, her bangs hanging in her eyes, with blood splattered across her face, arms, and chest, but she otherwise appears unharmed.

  “Here, you don’t want any blood getting in your eyes or your mouth, just in case.” Rico steps up to her with a bottle of water. Yuki closes her eyes and leans back, allowing Rico to pour the water over her face and wash away the blood. “All done.”

  Not wanting to wipe her eyes with her blood-covered hands, she shakes her head and blinks until she can see again. “Where did they come from?”

  “I don’t know,” Rico answers. “But the warning gunshots weren’t from anywhere near here so there has to be more of them.”

  While walking back to the spooky-themed land, Rico wonders why none of the watchmen caught the infected earlier and signaled to Daniel or Aubrey that they were in the park. They round the corner and Rico’s heart drops. There are at least twelve to fifteen infected roaming between the haunted house and the pumpkin ride, their attention focused in the direction of the shots, and another two are crouched on the ground feasting on one of the women from the camp.

  Yuki drops her bag to the ground and charges forward with her ax before Rico can stop her. She chops into the back of one of the infected eating the woman, and when the other infected drops the arm he was taking a bite of, she expertly kicks him in the head with an audible snap. Yanking the ax free, she buries it into the neck of the one she kicked.

  This is a fun and fast read. The story ends a bit abruptly, but I’ve heard there might be a second book coming, so I look forward to finding out more about the suspicious corporation, the characters, and what happens next. Well done, Linville.

• Bibliosanctum
  https://bibliosanctum.com/2016/08/09/book-review-welcome-to-deadland-by-zachary-tyler-linville/
  Word count: 1111

  Book Review: Welcome to Deadland by Zachary Tyler Linville
  A review copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
  Welcome to DeadlandWelcome to Deadland by Zachary Tyler Linville
  Mogsy’s Rating: 3 of 5 stars
  Genre: Horror
  Series: Book 1
  Publisher: Nerdist/Inkshares (August 9, 2016)
  Length: 350 pages
  Author Information: Website | Twitter
  Welcome to Deadland is a zombie book, but it’s also kind of…not. The end of the world seems almost incidental in this novel pitched as Lost meets The Walking Dead, but in my opinion, its unique perspective also makes it a deeper, much stronger experience. Rest assured, readers will still get a good dose of the zombocalypse, but the predominant themes about growing up, coming out, and finding strength within yourself are what makes this one shine. If you’re in the mood to try a different sort of zombie story, you’ll definitely want to seek this one out.
  The narrative focuses mainly on two major POVs: Asher, a college student from North Carolina, who with his friend Wendy have ended up in a post-apocalyptic Orlando theme park; and Rico, a drug-addicted teenager determined to see himself and his six-year-old brother Jayden to safety through a world strewn with death and destruction. In the “After”, all that matters is survival. But at least half—if not more—of the book also takes place “Before”, in the months leading up to the devastating effects of the zombie plague. With chapters alternating between the past and present, the story provides readers with plenty of backstory allowing us to follow the changes in the characters’ lives.
  In the pre-apocalypse, everything changes for Asher on the night he meets Ellis at a house party. A spark immediately forms between the two of them, but there’s only one problem: Ellis already has a boyfriend. Add to that, Asher hasn’t actually told anyone he’s gay, but with the support of Ellis and his friends, he’s finally realizing he can let his secret go and be himself. For the first time in his life, Asher feels free and happy, but there’s also no denying the connection he feels with Ellis, who is already involved with someone else.
  Meanwhile in another part of the state, a high school student named Rico is being arrested for drugs and disorderly conduct. As punishment, Rico’s father takes away his car privileges, but this simply becomes an invitation for the teenager to act out even further by skipping classes, dealing drugs, and going to all-night parties. Despite being a juvenile delinquent though, Rico is the hero of his younger stepbrother Jayden, and Rico loves the little boy in turn with all his heart.
  Without a doubt, it’s the “Before” sections that constitute the meat of the story, which is why I described this book the way I did in my introduction. Zombie horror takes a secondary role to the trials and tribulations of real life, and just because the world has ended doesn’t mean that the past is erased. If you’re solely looking for the action and thrills of a pure zombie survival story, then this probably won’t be the book for you. There are scenes of blood, violence, gore and tension scattered here and there, but for the most part this one is a heavily character-oriented drama with the most interesting plot developments happening in the chapters before the zombie outbreak.
  To keep things moving along though, Zachary Tyler Linville weaves together past and present, jumping back and forth between events that happened when the world was still fine and those that happened afterwards when everything has gone to hell. Still, while it was interesting and ambitious, I wasn’t entirely convinced this was the best structure for the novel because of the overall disruptive effect it had on the flow of the story. “Before” and “After” had a way of stepping on each other’s toes, and the plotting wasn’t quite tight enough to make me feel engaged with essentially four different storylines (pre- and post-apocalypse for both Asher and Rico). The POV switches were also distracting because I had to really make a conscious effort to remember what happened with each character when we last saw them.
  Something had to give, and it was the “zombie chapters” that suffered, simply because I preferred the stronger, more compelling character development in the “Before” chapters. Framing it that way, Welcome to Deadland isn’t even a zombie book at all, but rather a narrative about human drama: family life, personal relationships, romance and sex, emotional conflicts, etc. Asher’s story almost had a “New Adult” feel to them, featuring themes like sexuality, leaving home, and college life. In the middle of it all is his relationship with Ellis, which is both a source of comfort and frustration to Asher. Much of his plotline involves Asher trying to sort out where he stands while Ellis carries on an emotional affair with him and then later becomes manipulative, playing with Asher’s feelings. Next, we flip over to Rico, whose story reads like a cautionary tale reminding us of the dangers of drug abuse among teens. The end of the world comes just as Rico hits rock bottom, and puts a whole new perspective on his life. With a young child in his care, Rico re-examines his habits and knows he has to be a better person for his little brother, so at least for him, the zombie apocalypse has a silver lining.
  All told, I found Welcome to Deadland to be a welcome change from the typical run-of-the-mill zombie novel, though ironically, it was the non-zombie sections that really stood out for me. Despite the pacing problems and other minor issues like choppy writing and awkward dialogue, I really enjoyed the story overall and was amazed at huge amount of effort put into character development. That’s pretty unusual for a zombie story, and I found it very refreshing. It’ll be interesting to see what else this series has in store for our characters, because yes, Welcome to Deadland has all the trappings of a “book one”. Hopefully we’ll also learn more about how the infection started in the first place, since this was only mildly hinted at in the story. Ultimately, I rate this one 3 stars for being a solid debut effort with room to grow, and I genuinely believe Zachary Tyler Linville has a bright career in writing ahead of him.

• Stewartry
  https://agoldoffish.wordpress.com/2016/07/30/welcome-to-deadland-zachary-tyler-linville/
  Word count: 1268

  Welcome to Deadland – Zachary Tyler Linville
  Posted on July 30, 2016 by stewartry
  Yep. Zombies. I might as well go ahead and face it: I’m an addict.

  I used to think I hated post-apocalyptic stories. I’m not sure why. I have since come to realize that the concept is one of my favorites. I love the start, when a writer has to address the reactions of ordinary people to extraordinary circumstances – what I described in another review as the period when people are still standing there watching creatures who used to be friends and family shambling closer and closer, wondering why cousin Jimmy is so pale, and why is he growling; when the media is still active and the authorities are still trying to get a handle on things – and then they’re not anymore. I love all the machinations of survival in a depopulated world, in the beginning clearing out stores and abandoned homes and finding shelter and weapons in previously impossible places (like, why don’t more people claim swords or medieval weaponry from local museums and collections in The Walking Dead?), while assessing and either assimilating or fighting off other survivors. I love the later stage, when supplies are scarce to nonexistent and new ways of feeding survivors have to be found. I love the forced rediscovery of forgotten skills, and the double threat of “kill the dead (or whatever the menace is), fear the living”. Oh, and then there’s the whole cause of the end of the world: the how, and the why, and maybe the who, and what do the heroes of the book do about it, if anything? Therefore – yep, zombies.

  I also used to hate present-tense narrative… It’s still not my favorite, but I get it. Immediacy, urgency, action, You Are There… I don’t know that it really has that effect on my reading experience, but I understand the concept.

  The third thing I still don’t care for is gory violence. I’m just not interested in fight scenes. To be honest, during these detailed bits of books where the author is painstakingly describing how A struck at B and B hit A and A ducked and swiped and B dodged and rolled … I’m usually skimming, wondering how writers choreograph this stuff in their heads – do some people just pick a fight from a film and crib off it? Do people have martial arts experts read the scenes to make sure they’re practical and possible? – and pondering the fact that if I ever pick up my writing again there probably won’t be any detailed fights in any book I ever write because they bore me silly …

  This is all those things I used to hate, or actually do hate – post-apocalyptic, present tense, violence. And it’s all in there – friends and family fall, and heroes flee, new alliances form, and talk about taking shelter somewhere which would have been impossible: the little group of survivors finds a larger group – – in Disneyworld. Which is actually a great idea: the park was evacuated as the strange illness began to take hold, and obviously is going to be pretty thoroughly fenced in (in halcyon days, to keep out those who haven’t bought tickets; in the post-apoc, to keep out zombies and bad guys), and there will be food for thousands onsite. The odd thing is that I don’t believe the word “Disney” was ever used. Legal matters, I assume, but I still find it odd; it’s obvious what is meant.

  Back there when I said I enjoyed the beginnings of apocalypses? That is very much what you get here. The book begins well before Patient Zero pops up, and explores the personal lives and personalities of the people who will become the survivors we follow through the story:

  There’s Asher, who has a rocky romantic life in the months before The End, what with recognizing his own homosexuality and working through that revelation with his family and friends, and the ups and downs with his first boyfriend – looking back on which makes me wonder why on earth I gave this four stars. I was ready to throw said first boyfriend to the zombies long before it was even possible in the story, because his treatment of … everybody was unconscionable, glossed over with a very cute and charming surface.

  And then there’s Rico, a drug-addicted teenager who (like, I feel compelled to say, Nick of “Fear the Walking Dead”) is pretty much saved by the end of the world: he finds himself guardian of his very young half brother, whom he loves. To keep him safe, he holds it together and straightens out. His back story was interesting – very rich father whom he loathes, hard-working mother, intelligent but destroying himself with all sorts of drugs, learning the hard way that dealing drugs is not something to be engaged in casually… I liked him, despite all of his self-destructive tendencies.

  The beginning of the end was nicely done, if slow in coming. I think others were frustrated by what was, in a way, a long prologue, in which Asher engages in his m/m romance novel and Rico spirals downward, but I kind of liked the slow burn of the long fuse of the oncoming apocalypse: there’s a news story here, and a “did you hear?” there, and then a couple more – and then it basically explodes. I was surprised at some of the characters who died on that first day – those story lines that the author took so long to build just get snipped like Atropos went on a bender, and that resulted in a feeling of disorientation which wasn’t much fun, but which I suppose worked in context.

  And, yes, the book is told in the first person, which I don’t think has the impact it’s supposed to, but I’m reconciled to it.

  The writing is serviceable, and of course suffers from all the usual maladies of not-the-right-word and all that. There are times when the tone comes off a bit juvenile (“a scuzzy film”?); there is perhaps more vomiting than is strictly called for… and for the love of God if you’re going to write a zombie novel make sure the word “horde” is spelled correctly throughout – that it’s not “hoard” sometimes and not others. Please.

  There is a sort of a cliffhanger at the end of the book – actually, no, an almost literal cliffhanger, in which something happens to a main character and the reader is left uncertain as to whether this person might have survived – and I hated that. Is there going to be a second book? If so, when? It’s a bit iffy for a brand-new author to leave a character almost literally up in the air. But, except for that and the sadly inevitable writing hiccups, the book was enjoyable.

  The main selling point for the book is, I have to say, that it comes from the (I think) brand spankin’ new Nerdist publishing enterprise. Not that that guarantees awesomeness, but it does lead to high expectations. I find it utterly extraordinary that a book from possibly the geekiest place on earth (see what I did there?) is available right now for preorder in hardcover only… So odd.

  The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.

• Metaphors and Moonlight
  http://blog.kristenburns.com/book-review-welcome-to-deadland-by-zachary-tyler-linville/
  Word count: 785

  BOOK REVIEW: WELCOME TO DEADLAND BY ZACHARY TYLER LINVILLE
  08/09/2016 | BOOK REVIEWS, BOOKS, READING | 8 COMMENTS
  Book Review: Welcome to Deadland by Zachary Tyler Linville | reading, books, book reviews, science fiction, post-apocalyptic, lgbt, young adult, zombies

  The infected have taken over, and there don't seem to be very many humans left. Asher and Wendy, students at the same university, have teamed up and are heading to a theme park, but Asher is still overcoming heartbreak, and Wendy is harboring a secret that's tearing her apart. Meanwhile, Rico, a teenager battling drug addiction, and Jayden, a child, are heading up to Orlando to look for the last bit of family they might have left.

  Book Review: Welcome to Deadland by Zachary Tyler Linville | reading, books, book reviews, science fiction, post-apocalyptic, lgbt, young adult, zombies
  Title: Welcome to Deadland
  Author: Zachary Tyler Linville
  Publisher: Nerdist
  Series: TBA
  Book Number: Book 1 of TBA
  Genre: LGBT, Post-Apocalyptic, Science Fiction, Young Adult
  Pages: 350
  My Book Rating: 4 Stars
  More Info: Goodreads, Amazon, Publisher

  Review:
  *I received a free ecopy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*

  I’ve continued to read the post-apocalyptic zombie genre, despite never being a big zombie apocalypse fan, because I’ve been determined to find some books that are really deeply character-focused rather than zombie-killing-focused, and this was definitely one of those books.

  The absolute best thing about this book was how so very real the characters were. I honestly felt like I was reading about real people. Main characters, side characters—they all came across as three-dimensional. And even though I hadn’t been in the specific situations any of them were in, I still found myself relating because the emotions and relationships and actions and reactions were so realistic and subtle rather than forced or dramatically exaggerated. The characters weren’t all likeable, and they didn’t always do good things, but that was part of what made them so real.

  There was also some focus on important topics, like drug use and LGBT struggles. There was a lot of relationship stuff, but it’s not a book I’d classify as romance, and even though these heavy topics were addressed, there were still light, funny, and sweet moments too.

  The way this book was written was kind of unusual though. First of all, there were multiple POV characters, which is something I like, so no complaints there. But the whole book also jumped back and forth between the present, showing the characters surviving the zombie apocalypse, and the past, showing their lives leading up to the end of the world as they knew it, for both Asher and Rico’s POVs (Wendy’s was only in the present). And while I thoroughly enjoyed both the past and the present scenes, I’m not sure how I feel about having two storylines going on at the same time for each main character (though Asher and Rico did eventually end up in the same present storyline).

  I also felt like the plot in the “after” meandered a bit, but that seems to be common with zombie books since the goal usually seems to just be “don’t die.” The plot still kept my attention, and it did at least have a pretty action-packed climax.

  The only thing that actually disappointed me was the ending. I don’t mind cliffhangers that lead you into the next book after the events of the current book have all been wrapped up, but this one left questions hanging from this book’s events that I feel should have been addressed. And even though there was a climax and a wrap-up to the present in Wendy and Rico’s POVs, I felt that the past storylines and Asher’s POV in the present ended in abrupt spots. I decided not to knock off any stars since I still enjoyed the book, but you might want to wait for the next one to be out first if waiting for answers is going to bother you.

  Overall though, despite the issues I had with this book, the things I liked (i.e. the realistic characters and situations) made up for everything else and made the book really gripping and enjoyable for me. This was a book I didn’t want to put down, and I look forward to the next!

  Recommended For:
  Anyone looking for a very realistic, character-focused, YA zombie book that also addresses the topics of LGBT struggles and drug abuse.