While nobody will deny zombie fiction’s huge surge in popularity, both readers and critics alike are currently crying out for wholly unique, mould-breaking narratives that don’t succumb to the recycling of the same old ideas. Thankfully, Scott Shoyer has stepped up to the plate with gusto.
Volume one of Shoyer’s Outbreak trilogy has already injected literally new blood into the market. In The Hunger, readers were captivated as a seemingly innocent day at the zoo led to a violent and world-threatening zombie apocalypse. In volume two, The Mutation, Shoyer further explores the world that he created in volume one and details how two groups of survivors are coping with their fight for survival. In true Shoyer style, he now explores new territory by taking the reader on a horrifying trip inside the minds of the deadly zombies themselves.
Synopsis:
Zombies have overrun the world making human beings an endangered species. The zombies are getting stronger, smarter, and deadlier. The remaining human survivors are finding it more and more difficult to fight them off. Amidst this apocalyptic war, two separate groups of survivors are drawn to the small, seemingly dead town of Spicewood, Texas—but for very different reasons. There is Walt and his group of ex-addicts, and Wilder and Butsko, two of the only characters who made it out of The Hunger alive. Each group believes that what lies in Spicewood, Texas could alter the course of the war with the dead. But what they couldn’t know is that what also lies in Spicewood, Texas might be the source of the outbreak itself and the very end to all life on earth.
“The Mutation continues to explore the world I created in The Hunger,” explains the author, founder of the popular AnythingHorror.com website and community. “In the first volume I traced the origin of the outbreak back to those lovable creatures that live all around us—animals. Readers loved the source of the outbreak. But now the virus has mutated, and The Mutation will take readers into the same world, but with seemingly unstoppable zombies who have gotten stronger, smarter, and deadlier.”
Continuing, “The Outbreak trilogy was designed from the ground up to give the zombie genre something new. As strange as it sounds, zombie fiction can often have a distinct lack of zombies, with the human drama taking center stage and dragging readers away from what they really want—zombie action. I promise my readers that the violence, gore, and horror will keep coming at them hard and fast, while also having interesting, strong characters that drive the narrative forward.”
It is a creative cocktail that appears to be working; readers have come out in force with rave reviews for volume one, Outbreak: The Hunger. For example, one Amazon customer comments, “This was an exhilarating read. The author brings a new and terrifying twist to the zombie horror genre. I read this book in one nail-biting sitting. The unimaginable horrors of this story will keep me up for many nights and will have me looking at my beloved pets with a wary eye. Great read.”
Early praise for Outbreak: The Mutation suggests Shoyer has successfully continued what he started in The Hunger. David Bernstein, author of Toxic Behemoth, writes, “Shoyer raises the stakes with his second book in the Outbreak series, giving us an even smarter, deadlier and harder to kill enemy. Loaded with brutal violence and military action and an ending that took me by total surprise, Outbreak: The Mutation is a must read!”
Joe McKinney, award-winning author of Dead City and The Dead Won’t Die writes, “Scott Shoyer steps into the ring swinging as he continues with the next harrowing volume in the Outbreak series. As I’ve come to expect from him, he handles his action with a sure hand, both violent and furious, and his characters with unrelenting viciousness.”
Outbreak: The Hunger and Outbreak: The Mutation are both published by Severed Press. Outbreak: The Mutation is available on amazon.com in both eBook and paperback.
For more information about the author and his other published works, visit his Author Page on Amazon.
About the author, in his own words:
I’m a horror writer who is also a life long fan. I draw inspiration from everyday situations and then put them through my twisted filter to hopefully shock, disgust, and entertain you.
I find my heaviest influences from the writings of H.P. Lovecraft and Clive Barker. With my Outbreak trilogy I get to write about the sub-genre I grew up on—zombies—and while doing so I get to add my unique twist to it. In addition to zombies, I also love writing about more human monsters and I have many more ideas for novels, short stories, novellas, and scripts. I recently wrote a short script for a brutal, violent Joker-Batman confrontation, and I am currently writing a series of novellas that are heavily influenced by Lovecraft. I’ve created my own Lovecraftian world full of nightmarish creatures and madness—including horrible things that live in the darkness.
In addition to my two Outbreak novels, I currently have four short stories published in four different horror anthologies. You can check out all my writings on my Amazon Author Page.
