Tag Archives: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

This Plague of Days: Writer’s Digest Ebook Awards and what’s next!

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This series presents a fascinating and original take on the zombie apocalypse story. I was drawn in from the opening scene…and I found myself instantly connecting with the fate of the Spencer family. The writer did an excellent job interspersing the family’s story with details about the broader world. Every time it seemed that something was understood or under control in that sphere, the story would shift to reveal a new wrinkle in the plot.

~ Judge, 2nd Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published eBook Awards

The TPOD Omnibus won honorable mention in Genre for these awards in 2014.

This Plague of Days OMNIBUS (Large)Next month, the second book in the Ghosts & Demons Series will launch. In the meantime, get in on the ground floor of this really cool series with The Haunting Lessons. It’s a little bit Buffy and a whole lot of fun.

NEW THL COVER JAN 2015 COMPLETE

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#NaNoWriMo Sneak Peek at the latest WIP

In the book I’m working on now, Tamara Smythe suffers a tragedy and a paranormal world, once hidden, opens up to her. Now she’s in New York, touring a secret society’s fortress in the middle of Brooklyn: 

The top of the wall was just wide enough for two people to stroll abreast. Shards of broken glass and crosses lined the top of the stone parapet.

“This is our bailey,” Victor said. “It’s the outer wall of our little castle. One of New York’s first Roman Catholic churches once stood here and this rampart kept men out of the nunnery. That’s the legend. I think it’s true. This is our sanctuary from the war.”

“No sentries on your castle wall?”

Victor looked pleased. “Observant. Good. Most unusual. People rarely see what’s in front of them. Fewer still think to ask what is missing.”

“I watch a lot of Game of Thrones.”

“What’s that?”

I thought of the armoury and the Blade Room, stocked with so many swords. “It’s kind of like your life, Victor. You’re just short one handsome little person and a lot of gratuitous nudity.”

I think this new book will be a nice follow-up to TPOD. It has fun supernatural elements plus funny pop culture references readers have come to expect from the crime novels. Some of it reminds me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, except Tamara doesn’t really have superpowers. She’s smart and strong, but other than that she has the same experience of anyone who can see dead people walk the earth. Oh, and there’s a war coming and she’s out to save humanity, between working shifts at a funeral home, picking up and dropping off corpses.

This one is going to be a lot of fun.

~ Check out the podcasts and books by Robert Chazz Chute at AllThatChazz.com.


My zombies aren’t dead. They’re sick, angry and hungry.

An autistic boy and his family versus The Running Dead

An autistic boy and his family versus The Running Dead

When I worked in traditional publishing, author Anne Rice made vampires huge in popular culture. It seemed everyone was reading Interview with the Vampire (and then all her other books). Soon after, many agents and editors burned out on vampires. Vampires were done to death. The professionals were ready to put a stake through the heart of the phenomenon, so it must be so, right?

Foolish humans.

After the pros declared vampires were finished, the next wave came: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Twilight series, endless graphic novels, fan fic and True Blood.

If you live long enough, you begin to see patterns repeat. It happens in products and news cycles and franchises. Interesting things don’t go away. They get made anew.

The challenge in resurrecting any subject is to make it fresh: Cheerleader versus vampires in a world secretly packed with demons; vampires that sparkle in sunlight, more sex and whatever else it takes to make the old seem new.

Today I ran across an interesting blog entry. The author is tired of zombies. Good news! Zombies are still undead, too. Whether it’s new fans discovering old material in new forms (e.g. the World War Z movie), zombies as love interests, or my new serial (This Plague of Days), fresh takes abound for new fans and for those who think they’ve seen it all.

Innovation doesn’t stop with George Romero, or any other artist no matter how gifted.

If we’d stopped because the genre seemed to be running on fumes, we wouldn’t have 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead or The Walking Dead!

My zombie serial features a hero on the autism spectrum, eco-terrorists and more Latin phrases than Harry Potter has spells.  It starts with one terrible virus (as if that wasn’t bad enough) that mutates into something more deadly.

What interests me most about dangerous situations is how they bring out truth.

The bad brings out both the Evil and the Good to shed light on the human condition. In This Plague of Days, you’ll often find you have more to fear from the  uninfected than the zombies. Check out my take on zombies. If you like it, please don’t forget to review it. Thanks!

~ Robert Chazz Chute is an award winning writer and the author of nine books. 


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