Twisted Book Junkie: Book Tour & Giveaway! The Zombie Axiom by David Monette

A handful of survivors claw out a life amid the ruins of the world, all the while fighting the zombie hordes.

In Northern New York State, three uncommon allies lead one of these bands in this epic struggle as they learn both the strengths and weaknesses of their enemies… and of themselves.

Pushed to their limits and holed up on a remote lake island, life has taken on a new normality. That is until winter arrives and all hell will freeze over. For it is then that the open waters of the lake, the only barrier against the unrelenting dead, will freeze. And the monsters will come. By the thousands…

Title: The Zombie Axiom (In the Time of the Dead Book 1)

Author: David Monette

Genres: Horror, Urban Fantasy, Zombies

Publisher: Severed Press

Publication Date: April 11, 2014

Available on Amazon in

Paperback | eBook

    The sudden blare of the digital clock shocked Virgil awake like a stinging slap. Eyes wild with fear, his right hand shot under his pillow and emerged gripping a loaded 9MM pistol. Sitting, gasping, the giant of a man cast about, searching for the ghosts that haunted his sleeping mind. But the weapon withheld its promise of violence when all that he could detect were motes of dust drifting in lazy swirls through the morning light of his bedroom. The gun slipped from his hand.
   “Nothing, nothing… nothing. Nothing’s there. Nothing,” he whispered to himself as his chin sank to his chest and his long brown hair slopped down to hide the blunt contours of his face. With his eyes squeezed shut he vigorously rubbed his temples and, like a man freshly pulled from the sea, deeply inhaled the stale air of his trailer.
   At length he pulled his heavily muscled frame upright and shut off the clock alarm. He threw on a pair of shorts and a folded T-shirt from the chair where he had set them aside the night before and wandered from his room and down a narrow hallway to the living room. Stifling a yawn, he maneuvered through an impressive collection of weightlifting equipment until he arrived in the kitchen, where he listlessly consumed a bowl of cold cereal while gazing at the pathetic patch of grass that comprised the front yard outside his home.
   And he tried not to think.
   It didn’t work. Never did. His thoughts kept drifting back to the dark corners where the foul things lay... things he’d done, things he’d seen, things he had…
   He flipped the now empty plastic bowl into the sink with a snort of frustration and turned on his television for the noise, something to drive away the images, the memories.
   Didn’t work. Never did. So he did the one thing that always seemed to work. Walking over to his gym equipment, he hefted a forty-five pound weight and slammed it onto an Olympic weight bar that was perched on the uprights of a flat bench. Exhaustion would do the trick. Always did.
   Two hours later, sweating in the heat of his home, Virgil stepped into the bright morning and squinted at the glare of a day that was promising only heat. Slipping on his dark sunglasses, he surveyed the scene around his house. It was a depressing sight for the most part. His dilapidated trailer was one among many such residences that were crammed on a strip of land that no one else would choose to inhabit other than those desperate enough for a home that was cheap. Situated as it was down a steep hill at the end of a dead-end street and with the river only two feet from flooding the entire area, which it regularly did, it was a wonder that the city hadn’t yet closed the place down.
   Noticing nothing out of place, no one watching, no one waiting for him to offer them a target when he turned his back, he locked both doors to his home and crunched across the gravel yard to his dust-colored Range Rover, which was already running, having been remotely started several minutes before. After one more surreptitious check of his surroundings, he unlocked the door to the vehicle and slipped into the air-conditioned interior. The cool air washed over him, drying the sweat from his skin. He closed his eyes, breathed deep. In this cocoon of processed air, of quietly murmuring vibration, he opened his eyes to see a fly making its ponderous way across the field of glass that was his windshield. It was of the large, hairy, slow variety...near the end of its life, but still crawling along like a ball at the end of its push. He sat transfixed, puzzled by its relentless march, its progression toward...something only it knew...or nothing at all.

First, tell the readers a little bit about your book, and what makes it different from other zombie apocalypse books.
Hey Becky, that sounds like a good place to start. The Zombie Axiom focuses on three individuals out of a group of people in Northern New York State who are survivors of a worldwide zombie apocalypse. The story opens in the summer and follows the band into the winter. Along the way, they learn more about their situation, and wind up moving to what they think is a safe location - an island on a nearby lake. Unfortunately, as the days grow colder, they also determine that the creatures will probably not drop over dead from the cold. This presents problems, for the winters in that location are brutal and the lake typically freezes tight, creating a most unwelcome bridge from the mainland to their island refuge. Things get really interesting at that point.

What inspired you to write The Zombie Axiom?

What inspired me to write The Zombie Axiom was a general dissatisfaction I had with the idea of a toxin or virus-caused zombie apocalypse. In my mind, it always seemed sort of physiologically impossible for a virulent pathogen or a mystery toxin to effectively reanimate dead flesh and make it walk around with any sense of purpose. At best, it could create sick people like in the movie, 28 Days Later, not truly undead humans. In order for that to happen, there would have to be a powerful force present that was capable of turning dead people into animated corpses and providing them with a sense of motivation. The Zombie Axiom follows that course.

Would Virgin, Derek, or Sasha make it on your hand-picked zombie apocalypse team?
Yup. All of them. They are fundamentally good people, each with their own philosophy of what it takes to make a life a good life, even amidst such unimaginable adversity.

As an artist and illustrator, do you ever find it difficult to find the right words to convey a character or scene that's alive in your head?

Yes, I would say that sometimes it is hard to find the right words to capture a scene the way I imagine it. The funny thing is, I’m not sure if it would be any easier if I wasn’t an artist. Sometimes it’s a matter of organizing the words the right way to make a sentence resonate properly.

Because you design and paint the covers of your own books, not to mention the interior illustrations as well, which do you start with? Do you have a wonderful image in your head that begs for a story to be written, or does the story come first?

I think that because I was trained as an illustrator, the words are there first. See, as an illustrator, you are usually given a written description of a scene, whether that is a short description written by an art director or an entire book, and then you make a bunch of little drawings or thumbnail sketches of the scene. Once you’ve found the right balance for the composition, you go on to the rough stage, which is simply a much more refined version of the thumbnail. This is what is sent to the art director for approval, and what the final image is based on. That’s pretty much the method I follow with my own writing - minus the art director.

Any idea when The Warring Dead, the second book in this three-part series, will be released?

I’d like it to be released in October because when I released the self-published version of the book, I linked the opening to the local zombie walk and had an amazing turnout. But we’ll see if that can happen this year or not. Right now, it’s in the hands of my agent for a read. If he thinks it needs no revisions, it’ll go to the publisher. If they think it needs no revisions, it’s up to them when it gets published, I guess.

David Monette functions as an author and illustrator from his home in Northern New York State. His highly detailed fantasy and science fiction artwork has appeared on many books, magazines, board games, and collectible cards. While receiving his MFA in illustration, his instructors reviewed his written work and strongly suggested that he combine his writing ability with his talent as an illustrator to chart his own path. Hence, “The Zombie Axiom” was born, a compelling, terrifying story sprinkled with amazing black and white illustrations from start to finish.