Alice in Zombieland

Special Q & A with Gena Showalter

Q: Zombies appear in several of your books. What inspires you to write about zombies?

A: What’s not to love about rotting flesh and the scent of putrid…I kid, I kid! First, I love the battle of good against evil, in all its varying forms. (Go, Team Good!) And second, math. Yep, I said math. If slayers = good and zombies = bad, then slayers + zombies = bloody good time!

Q: What is different about the zombies in Alice in Zombieland? How did you create the mythology around them?

A: Rather than decaying corpses, the zombies in Alice are actually infected spirits that have risen from human bodies. Only a certain group of people can see them but they can’t fight them unless they, too, are in spirit form. Of course, that meant figuring out who can see them, why they can see them, how the infection occurs, how the infection first began, how humans can fight in the spirit and a thousand other questions. You know, easy things like that.

Q: How did you get the idea to write a zombie story inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland?

A: The first thing that came to me was actually the title. I told one of my dearest writer friends (Kresley Cole) and she said, “You have to write that story.” So, I sat down and for only the second time in my life wrote a synopsis for an entire novel. (I’ve always been a figure-it-out-later kind of girl.) Scenes and dialogue began to flow, and the characters began to come to life. Of course, when I sat down to write the actual book soooo much of that changed, but my love for the story and the situation did not. I never wanted to leave the pages!

Q: If you ever met a zombie in real life, you would…?

A: Kick him in the teeth then high-five my mother for teaching me how to kick zombies in the teeth. Then, of course, Mom would do a little kicking of her own. We’d tag team!

Q: Okay, let’s talk about Cole, who, let’s face it, is hot and skilled. Can you tell us anything about his first time fighting a zombie?

A: Cole…my darling Cole…I have such a cougar crush on him! (Sorry, Ali, but it’s true—and you’re lucky I allowed you to survive that car crash. Just sayin’.) As for Cole’s first zombie fight, let’s just say he had his butt handed to him and leave it at that. Or, better yet, let’s just say you’ll actually get to see this scene in book two.... Oh, the joy of YouTube. You can’t hide from it, Cole Holland. You can’t hide!

Q: What’s next for Alice and her friends?

A: Well, the hazmats are ticked, so you just know they’ll be up to no good. Ali and her grams are now living with Reeve, even though Ankh wants Reeve kept out of the war. Kat’s kidney-clock is ticking. A new slayer returns to town, and oh, is he hot. Cole and Ali are gonna have to face something terrible…something— Wait, wait, wait. I’m giving away all the secrets! I’ll end it here before I start writing a synopsis I’ll never follow. What? It’s true.

Thanks so much, Gena!