With the planned publication date for The Island At The End Of The World (the third book in my For Those In Peril series of inter-connected post-apocalyptic survival novels) rapidly approaching, I’ve been turning my attention to where the characters (and indeed other as yet unmet characters) in these books will go next.
To help me get an overview of the whole world that I’ve created so far, and that I’ll add to in the future, I’ve put together a schematic that shows all the different elements which I’ve created so far, and those that are still in the planning stages, fit into the overall timeline for the world, and indeed how they are all connected to each other, both directly, through the main storyline, and indirectly through shared minor characters, incidents and concepts.
So far, there are three books in the series itself (with the third one due out later this month), and two more planned: The Rise Of The Infected – a prequel to the whole series set around the original drug trial gone wrong that creates the infected in the first place – and The Voyage Of Salvation – which will be set across a time span reaching from the end of The Rise Of The Infected until a few years after The Island At The End Of The World).
In addition, there are a number of short stories, such as The Wall and The Girl At Little Harbour, which provide additional detail and exploration of elements in the world, some of which are included in my short story anthology, Zombies Can’t Swim And Other Tales Of The Undead.
I’m also intending to write a few more of these to flesh out a few plot points which, while tangential to the main story line of the series, I think are work exploring. This will include one titled The Last Log Of The Mingulay Seabird Research Station, and once you read the upcoming The Island At The End Of The World, you’ll quickly see both where it would fit in, and why it would be so interesting to write.
There are also a few additional short stories which, while set in the same world of the series, are not directly connected with any individual book. These include the connected pair of stories Rendezvous and The Need To Know, which along with The Girl At Little Harbour, are amongst my favourites of all the zombie-based short stories I’ve written.
Finally, there are other little spin-off projects which are connected to this world in a number of different ways. These include my Maths With Zombies blog, and the accompanying book, which should be out by Christmas, called The Little Book Of Zombie Mathematics, and the Moral Dilemmas In A Zombie Apocalypse series of posts from this blog, which I’ll wrap up into a book at some point next year. In addition, I’ve managed to slip the basic zombie disease scenario from the world of the For Those In Peril series into an academic textbook I’m working, but I’m not quite to sure that really counts as part of the world itself.
How do all these different elements fit together? Well, here’s the schematic that will hopefully help explain it all (although I haven’t included the textbook in it as that’s not written under the same name):
As you can see it’s quite a world that is gradually building up, especially when you consider that it all started out with what was meant to be a single stand-alone book (the titular For Those In Peril On The Sea).
What’s more it might not even stop with this schematic. I’m tempted with the idea of writing a Young Adult book which would view much of the story lines of The Outbreak and The Island At The End Of The World from the point of view of the fourteen year old Sophie, and similarly put together a graphic novel which would tell the same events from the point of view of the seventeen year old Daz (one of my favourite characters from the whole series). In addition, it is very likely that more short stories will be added in due course as story ideas occur to me. However, whether I’ll actually get to complete all these projects, only time will tell!
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From the author of For Those In Peril On The Sea, a tale of post-apocalyptic survival in a world where zombie-like infected rule the land and all the last few human survivors can do is stay on their boats and try to survive. Now available in print and as a Kindle ebook. Click here or visit www.forthoseinperil.net to find out more. To download a preview of the first three chapters, click here.
To read the Foreword Clarion Review of For Those In Peril On The Sea (where it scored five stars out of five) click here.
Colin M. Drysdale 