Five star reviews for the Apocalypse Weird and the Editor Speaks: Ellen Campbell talks about the greatest thing about being an editor

It's Friday again and as you know I talk about Apocalypse Weird on Fridays, just because it's huge and it's awesome and it just started! Next week we will be celebrating yet another launch so until then make sure you've read all of these awesome books. Here's what you'd be missing otherwise:

"I loved the Dark Night. The progression of the plot was totally unexpected.[…] Nick Cole really know how to write about people with a lot of heart and emotion." David, 5-star review

"Chris Pourteau does it again. Engaging story telling, believable characters, and the end of the world meet head on in The Serenity Strain." Hank Garner, 5-star review

"Texocalypse Now stands perfectly on its own and is an exciting, powerful book. But, when you look at it as part of the AW series, it works
tremendously well and will be an important book to read for anyone interested in the Apocalypse Weird novels." W. Swardstrom, 5-star review

"Reversal has a story concept that I have never seen before AND I LOVED IT." David W., 5-star review 

"I'm loving Apocalypse Weird. Perhaps most of all because it is introducing me to authors like Giorgi, who I might not ever have read otherwise -- and that would have been my loss." Jason, 5-star review

Today my fabulous guest is another behind-the-scene player, and one of the most important, in fact: please welcome our talented editor Ellen Campbell, whose infallible red pen made all of our books shine. Ellen has edited some of the best indie authors out there, from Peter Cawdron to Michael Bunker, from Nick Cole to the fabulous Future Chronicles produced by Samuel Peralta.

Welcome to CHIMERAS, Ellen!

EEG: What do you enjoy the most about being an editor?

EC: Oh, hands down the greatest thing about being an editor is getting my hands on new books first. It's always a thrill to have a new manuscript in my inbox, and it's also cool to have inside knowledge—to see how the stories evolve, to see endings changed. It's like having a director's cut/alternate ending to stories that you love. And I do love them!

EEG: How did you get involved with the Apocalypse Weird project?

EC: Well, it's kind of funny. Michael Bunker contacted me back in September and said he had something big in the works and he wanted to talk to me about it at a later date. I thought, "Huh. Okay..." and promptly went on vacation and forgot all about it. Michael has a very talented editor already and it never occurred to me that he might need another one. Then he contacted me again in October, briefly outlined the idea to me, and asked if I'd be interested...oh, and by the way, you'll be starting with Nick Cole's book. After I regained consciousness I couldn't agree fast enough! My only question was which limb did I need to cut off to seal the deal? Two weeks later I had The Red King in my possession and I haven't looked back. I can't look back, I'm running for my life!

EEG: Name the most fun project you've worked on and the weirdest.

EC: For me, always and forever, the most fun project will be my very first—Peter Cawdron's Silo novel Shadows. I will admit that editing for Nick is blast, too. I was so intimidated when I started TRK, but I settled down and whipped out the red pencil. I also recently had the opportunity to edit The AI Chronicles, the next anthology in the vaunted Future Chronicles series, and got to edit a lot of very talented people that I otherwise wouldn't have had the opportunity to work on.

Oh, the weirdest? Right. Gay alien caterpillar porn. That's all I have to say about that.

EEG: Who are your favorite authors?

EC: First and forever favorite, the immortal Robert A Heinlein. I reread most of his catalogue on a regular basis. Two of his (The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers) are in my all time top five favorite books. I also love Jean Slaughter Doty--she's my comfort read, Dick Francis, and a rather obscure writer of children's apocalyptic fiction, John Christopher.

EEG:  What are your pet peeves, i.e. stuff that when you see it in a manuscripts makes you pull your hair?

EC: Far and away the thing that annoys me the MOST is when an author uses the wrong homophone. If I could give one piece of advice to even very good writers it's find a website and review your homophones! If I read about a light poll you've lost me forever! Your (not you're) character is not over their! A distant second to that is misplaced apostrophes. Really, though, just sloppy writing in general is frustrating to me. Anyone can make mistakes (including me) and that's why you need an editor. Fresh eyes and mad skills--haha!

EEG: We certainly do, Ellen! Thank you for all your hard work! And if you're a writer and you are interested in hiring Ellen.... first, you've got to share her with us, hehe, then go check her website on Third Scribe.

Apocalypse Weird Books:

The Dark Knight by Nick Cole continues the story begun in The Red King as survivors band together to build a modern-day castle against a tide of dark forces overrunning Southern California. While Frank and Holiday struggle for power, Ash ventures into the night to rescue a lost special needs adult who has unknowingly glimpsed a horrifying future: a future where man is on the verge of extinction and a new predator rules the planet. The Apocalypse Weird is beginning, and it might just be something bigger than anyone ever imagined ... or feared.

Scorched by fire and the longest drought in recorded history, survivors flee the Land of Enchantment to escape a mutated flu virus that turns ordinary people into mass-murderers. In E. E. Giorgi’s Immunity, few resilient scientists remain, gathered in one of the last national laboratories still working on a vaccine. Then the disease starts spreading within the soldiers guarding the laboratory, bloody carnage reigns. Immunologist Anu Sharma pairs up with computer geek David Ashberg to find a cure and escape the massacre. Outbreak meets World War Z in the deserts of Apocalypse Weird.

The Thing meets The Core in Jennifer Ellis’s Reversal, where the isolated International Polar Research Station on Ellesmere Island becomes an incredibly dangerous assignment for Sasha Wood. Stalked by killer polar bears, Sasha and her partner, Soren, search for their missing colleagues in the frozen tundra as their compass reveals an incredible truth: a magnetic pole reversal—fabled and feared in the scientific community for years—has occurred. The North Pole is now the South and vice versa. Psychotic scientists and giant methane-venting craters are just the beginning of a terrible and strange new reality.

Chris Pourteau’s The Serenity Strain finds Houston, Texas, at the epicenter of an apocalypse both natural and unnatural. Three hurricanes wreak unprecedented devastation on the Texas Gulf Coast. Amidst the anarchy left in the wake of the storms, six prisoners—the genetically altered test subjects for a viral strain known as Serenity—escape the state prison in Huntsville. Their hunger for murder and destruction gorges itself on society's survivors. One being of immense power and wanton appetites, a member of the demonic 88 named Id, arrives to oversee the destruction of mankind and morality. The Stand meets 28 Days Later in this epic tale of genetic manipulation gone awry.

Lord of the Flies meets Mad Max in Texocalypse Now by Michael Bunker and Nick Cole. It’s a gritty tale of survival set in the post-Apocalyptic West Texas Badlands. Packs of feral, cannibalistic humans called “hordes” and other psychotic groups threaten a band of children led by Ellis, a boy barely a man. Ellis and the children make a home for themselves in a hidden valley atop a mysterious mesa. But when a member of the 88, a Man in Black simply known as Mayhem, arrives in the Badlands, Ellis and his small “family” of orphans are forced underground to survive.