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Zombies plus Trekkies. What could go wrong?

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Has the zombiepocalypse ended its undead run on bookstores yet? Not if Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall can help it. They’re the authors of ‘Night of the Living Trekkies,’ in which zombies infect a Star Trek convention. The book comes from Quirk, the same publishing house behind ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.’

Not surprisingly, the good guys are from Starfleet, battling zombie hordes that have taken over fans outfitted as Klingons and Ferengi. But co-author Anderson tells our sibling blog Hero Complex that he came from the zombie side, not the Trekkie side:

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In the right situation, that being a zombie apocalypse, these people could be the heroes, and that’s where the idea came from -- melding the [Gene] Roddenberry world and the [George] Romero world. I developed the idea for about a year, really, really writing scenarios and developing characters and trying to work as much ‘Star Trek’-ness into it as I could possibly get. I knew a lot about the zombie genre, and I knew a lot about science fiction as far as pop culture, but as far as the real niche stuff, the real ‘Trek’ geek stuff, I was a little lacking. Anyway, at the end of last year, I pitched it to Jason Rekulak at Quirk Books. I guess it kind of landed on his desk at the right time. He was kind of looking for something different, for something that would take Quirk in a different direction. I was shocked beyond belief when he e-mailed me the next morning, and we got the ball rolling from there.

Sam Stall explains why he thinks zombies’ popularity continues:

The reason I think zombie apocalypse literature is so popular is the same reason that a lot of people like baseball. It’s very hard for the average Joe to imagine himself ever playing professional football or even professional soccer. But for some reason, every slob sitting in a La-Z-Boy watching baseball thinks, “I could do that.” And it’s the same way with the zombie apocalypse. You wouldn’t stand a chance against a vampire or a werewolf, but zombies? Anybody could be the hero.

Read the complete interview with the authors of ‘Night of the Living Trekkies’ at our sibling blog Hero Complex.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Image credit: Quirk Books

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