Fighting to Survive by Rhiannon Frater – Zombies on TV and a Giveaway

Rhiannon Frater’s hugely popular series, As The World Dies, just had it’s second book in the trilogy released in paperback by Tor on Tuesday, January 29th.  To celebrate, around 60 blogs are promoting Fighting to Survive this week.  That’s a lot blogs showing her love; that should say something about her books, huh?  Yup, they’re that good!

Fighting to Survive (As the World Dies #2)
By Rhiannon Frater
Published January 29th, 2013 (first published February 17th, 2009)
Tor
448 pages
Horror

About the book:

 

It’s time to clear the hotel.

 

The fort has grown crowded as survivors of the zombie apocalypse have found safety between its walls.  Winter is coming; soon it will be too cold to live in tents and other makeshift shelters.  The leaders of the survivors—Katie, Jenni, Juan, Travis, and Nerit—decide it’s time for an assault on the zombie-occupied hotel that looms over the town square.

 

A pitched battle in the banquet room is the start of a harrowing, room-by-room struggle from Reception to roof.  As the sun sets, the people of Ashley Oaks gather in the hotel’s rooftop ballroom and gazebo to celebrate their survival.  Gazing out over the beauty of the surrounding Texas countryside, it’s hard to believe that death and danger lurk around every corner.

 

The fort’s search and rescue teams have attracted unwanted attention from bandits who see the fort as competition for food . . . and as a ready source of women.  The first attacks are minor, but everyone knows there is worse to come.

 

And beyond the fort’s walls, the zombies shamble, moaning, eyes fastened hungrily upon the living.

Guest Post by Rhiannon Frater

The AS THE WORLD DIES trilogy was optioned for TV in 2009.  Yes, that long ago.  At the time many people hoped that the option meant that we would get to see a zombie TV show in the very near future.

To some degree they were right.  Soon after the AS THE WORLD DIES trilogy was picked up by Tor, AMC announced THE WALKING DEAD TV show.  The producer who had optioned my books had hoped ATWD would be the first zombie TV show, but we were beaten to the punch by Frank Darabont.  It was soon apparent that Hollywood was going to sit back and wait to see how THE WALKING DEAD TV show performed before greenlighting anymore zombie TV shows.

The last few years have been an tremendous learning experience for me about how Hollywood works. Every book I have written thus far has been optioned for a possible film or TV project.  I have seen the various projects moving through the process at different speeds.  I have read three scripts based on my work and have enjoyed having some input.  I have spoken to the director attached to one of the projects, which was very exciting.

Will there be an AS THE WORLD DIES TV show? I really have no idea.  I’m an optimist by nature, but a realist by life lessons.  If it happens, I will be ecstatic.  If not, I will still have learned a lot about the process of bringing a project to the small (and big) screen and how to write a script! I have been very lucky in that everyone I have worked with so far has been a really great person.

A lot of my fans ask me who I would like to see in the roles of my characters.  I don’t cast actors in the roles of my characters when I write. My characters just tend to look like themselves. But I have given some thought to who I would like to see bring Jenni and Katie and the others to life.

Jenni and Katie

Kristanna Loken is a fan favorite for Katie and I have to agree.  She also shares Katie’s Nordic heritage and bisexuality.

Oddette Annable strongly resembles my vision of Jenni and is half-Latina.

Juan and Travis

Mexican actor Kuno Becker just looks so much like the Juan in my imagination it’s kind of creepy.  Toss on a cowboy hat and he’s perfect.

Actor Greg Vaughan is a Texan!  He also looks very similar to the Travis of my imagination.  He gets my vote.

Nerit

British Actress Geraldine James is not only a great on the silver screen, she strongly resembles the Nerit of my imagination.

Those are my picks for the five primary characters in the AS THE WORLD DIES universe.  Here are a few random supporting cast member ideas.

Peggy

Actress Shaela Cook would rock it as Peggy. She has that tiny, but fierce thing going on.  I could easily see her giving everyone the hell they deserve while trying to keep the fort running.

Lenore

Gabourey Sidibe just has this coy little look that I love that reminds me of Lenore.

Lydia

Morena Baccarin is not only beautiful, I think she’d do a killer job portraying Lydia, Katie’s ghostly dead wife.

Yolanda

Jasmine Guy would make a wonderful Yolanda. I could easily see her playing the role of Peggy’s foil.

Those are some of my ideas.

What do YOU think?

-Rhiannon

About the Author:

Rhiannon Frater is the award-winning author of the As the World Dies trilogy (The First Days, Fighting to Survive, Siege,) and the author of three other books: the vampire novels Pretty When She Dies and The Tale of the Vampire Bride and the young-adult zombie novel The Living Dead Boy and the Zombie Hunters. Inspired to independently produce her work from the urging of her fans, she published The First Days in late 2008 and quickly gathered a cult following. She won the Dead Letter Award back-to-back for both The First Days and Fighting to Survive, the former of which the Harrisburg Book Examiner called ‘one of the best zombie books of the decade.’ Rhiannon is currently represented by Hannah Gordon of the Foundry + Literary Media agency. You may contact her by sending an email to rhiannonfrater@gmail.com.

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