Swedish Zombie: What was it that made you start writing about the apocalypse and zombies? What were your first influences?
Tony
Monchinski: I’d had some success—as far
as getting published—with academic books and I’d been writing for a
bodybuilding magazine (MuscleMag International) for years. But I’d always
wanted to be a novelist. I figured let me give a novel a shot. Then I asked
myself what would sell. By chance I was reading a zombie novel someone else had
written and I said to myself, I think I can write a better story than this guy.
So I sat down and wrote Eden, a
zombie-themed apocalyptic novel. As I was writing Eden I discovered Kirkman’s
The Walking Dead and Max Brooks’ World War Z, both of which I tremendously
enjoyed and still do.
Swedish Zombie: How do you look upon the zombies? What do they
mean to you? Are they metaphors, or simply cool monsters?
Tony
Monchinski: Pretty much cool monsters. I have a background in Political Theory
(PhD) so it is easy for me to overthink the symbolism of zombies, especially in
my mindless capitalist culture where the greedy get bailed out by taxpayers,
but I don’t believe there is a direct link. On a very visceral level there is
something truly horrid about zombies: imagine your loved ones suffering, dying
& coming back to try and devour you. It doesn't get much worse than that!
Swedish
Zombie: Zombie enthusiasts are often conservative. How much do you think that
one should experiment with the concept?
Tony
Monchinski: As a reader I don’t
particularly enjoy the experimentation. Fast zombies (a la the Dawn of the Dead
remake or the Rage-virus infected in 28 Days Later) are great and I use them in
my books but that is about as far as I want to go. Maybe it--the
experimentation--just hasn't been done in a way that has endeared itself to me
yet or in a way I am aware of.
Swedish Zombie: It is often hard to pick favorites, perhaps it
is simply foolish to try. But are there two or three books in modern zombie
fiction that you think has meant something extra for the genre?
Tony
Monchinski: Max Brooks’ World War Z;
Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead; Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend (which is a
vampire book and not a zombie book but has left an indelible mark on the
genre). And even though it’s not a zombie book, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road
should be required reading for anyone interested in apocalyptic fiction for the
beauty of the writing and the story itself. Also, for its sheer popularity and
the doors it has opened for the genre’s authors and fans alone, JL Bourne’s Day
by Day Armageddon series.
Swedish Zombie: How do you consider the genre's future?
Zombies seem to be viable. Can this peek last and if so what is then
required by the authors?
Tony
Monchinski: I don’t think zombies are a
fad. I think their popularity will ebb and swell in the next decade but won’t
go away. Vampires haven’t gone anywhere. Now Hollywood and the publishing
industry know they can make money from the cannibalistic undead so they milk
that pony for every penny they can. Authors need to turn out good stories.
We’re seeing a “pulp fiction” moment for zombie-related fiction; unfortunately
a lot of what is being published or self-published is garbage.
Swedish Zombie: A good book is always right. Some writers want
to renew, others strive to convey an already well-known story with his oh hers
unique twist. How do you look upon your own writings?
Tony
Monchinski: What I delivered with my
Eden series is the characterization and a quality of writing that is often
altogether absent from other books in the genre. My strengths are
characterization, dialogue, and penning action scenes. I also think the books
provide food for thought even if I don’t hammer the reader of the head with it.
It’s definitely more than headshots and zombies eating people. I like to think
a good “zombie novel” is a good novel, period. And a good novels says something
about the human condition and makes the reader think.
Swedish Zombie: Through the ages, writers and directors stuck
to various explanations for the end of the world: infections from space,
environmental degradation, military experiments, terrorism etc. Which scenario
behind the zombie apocalypse do you think is most interesting / believable at
the moment?
Tony
Monchinski: I choose not to answer that
question in my Eden series. My characters are thrust into an apocalyptic
situation, the cause of which is beyond them. In the real world, if an
apocalyptic situation occurs, most of us will probably not understand what
caused it. We’ll be too busy dealing with the fall out and trying to survive.
Swedish Zombie: What will you write in the future? What
stories remain in you, do you think? Is there anything in particular you feel
like writing?
Tony
Monchinski: I wrote a 4th book in the
Eden series; I am waiting to hear from Permuted on it. I am self-publishing a
Science Fiction/Action Horror novel titled Dervish (in my new Warlord series).
I am writing the second novel in my horror noir series, I Kill Monsters. I will
self-publish that book as well. Eden, incidentally, was self-published before
Permuted picked it up (and then Random House and Simon & Schuster). I want
to focus on a few works in the ”literary fiction” or ”literary realism” genres
in the next couple of years. At the risk
of sounding delusional, my” magnum opus” will be a book about a young man in
his twenties and his relationship with a woman and himself, which I have titled
Scenes from the French Revolution: A Love Story. One thing I am learning as an
author is that writing a book and being able to get a book published and get an
audience are very different things. But I will continue to plug away, like
Vonnegut’s character Kilgore Trout, to whom Eden is dedicated.
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| The Eden Series - a truly great read! |
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| Tony Monchinski |
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