Zombie Q&A: Dana Fredsti (Ashley Parker Series)

October 18, 2020 Chris Well

“There are ways to include details that show you’ve done your research without being tedious.”

The author talks about what inspired her love of zombie stories, explains the innovation she brought to the party, and reveals why she prefers slow zombies.

An ex B-movie actress with a background in theatrical sword-fighting, author Dana Fredsti is addicted to bad movies and any book or film, good or bad, which include zombies. Her zombiefic includes the Ashley Parker series (Plague Town, Plague Nation, Plague World), described by some as “Buffy meets the Walking Dead,” as well as what might be the first example of zombie noir, A Man’s Gotta Eat What a Man’s Gotta Eat, first published in Mondo Zombie edited by John Skipp, and more recently published as an eBook by Titan books. Her other fiction includes the Spawn of Lilith series, starring a Hollywood stuntwoman who hunts demons, and the TimeShards trilogy.

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What’s your unique spin on zombie fiction?

Probably wild cards. In the Ashley Parker universe, this is the term for people are immune to the zombie virus. If they get bitten—and survive the initial attack and the subsequent fever— they develop enhanced physical abilities and can take risks normal people can’t.

Back in the mists of time when I wrote Plague Town, the first Ashley Parker novel, this was—to the best of my knowledge—an original concept. I also have “half- deaders” in the series, which are people who are somewhere in between human and zombie. They’ll turn into full-on zombies if they don’t eat human flesh to keep the virus at bay, but for most people, eating human flesh means a loss of humanity so there’s a definite Catch-22 here.

What inspired you to go in this direction?

I was first approached by Lori Perkins, an editor at Ravenous Romance, to develop a series that was basically “Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but with zombies.” Her words. So I had to figure out a way to have your basic tortured hero a la Angel—vampire with a soul. And since no one really wants a romantic hero who’s rotting, I came up with the half-deaders.

As for the wild cards, I needed something that would give Ashley a physical edge and enable her to take on zombies without getting infected. Instead of making her the one and only Chosen One (“in every generation there is a slayer,” etcetera), I decided to go with a very small subset of humanity that would not only be immune to the zombie virus but also get ginchy new abilities if bitten.

Shortly after the first version of Plague Town—then called Ashley Drake, Zombie Hunter—was published by Ravenous Romance, the series was bought by Titan Books and I got to develop the characters and story arc outside of the “Buffy but with zombies” concept.

When and how did you first become interested in zombie stories? (Childhood reading, movies, what?)

When I was a kid, I loved all things horror, but there were not a lot of zombie movies or books out there, at least not of the flesh- eating variety. It was pretty much all zombies created by voodoo (White Zombie, I Walked with a Zombie, like that). Lots of vampires, werewolves, witches, and satanic cults (oh, Hammer Films, how I loved you).

At any rate, When Night of the Living Dead came out in 1968, I was way too young to be aware of it or go see it in the theater, so I didn’t see it until I was in high school. It scared the bejeesus out of me, and also made me want to see more movies with zombies who snacked on the living.

Luckily, I didn’t have too long to wait as George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead was released in the States a year later and I was asked to go see it on what was my very first date. I’m not sure if it’s the association with being bought popcorn and candy that made me love them so, but that was pretty much the start of a long and happy relationship with flesh-eating zombies.

What are your “zombie story” pet peeves?

When the main character is some dude who couldn’t get a date before the zombocalypse, and he holes up with a gun (lovingly described), finds the sole surviving female (who is usually hot, stacked, and helpless), saves her, has sex with her, then she dies but it’s okay ‘cause he still has his gun.

That and gun porn, when it’s all about the weapons and half of the story consists of descriptions of the weapons and vehicles, including military specs that slow the pace of the story to a lazy glacial crawl. There are ways to include details that show you’ve done your research without being tedious.

What do YOU look for in a good zombie story?

Well, back before zombies started giving vampires a run for their money as the most popular monster in pop-culture, I just looked for any story that had zombies in it. There weren’t very many—I was so happy when the first Book of the Dead, edited by John Skipp and Craig Spector, came out. Then I discovered Homepage of the Dead, an awesome U.K. website that had, amongst other things, a section devoted to zombie fan fiction.

I read so many stories while at various temp jobs… Some of them were the kind of zombocalypse wet dreams described in my answer to zombie story pet peeves. Some were really good. But bottom line, there wasn’t much else to choose from until the remake of Dawn of the Dead and then Shaun of the Dead were released. After that a trickle of decent zombie novels came out, and then that trickle became a torrent, and now there are hundreds of books, stories, movies, TV shows, video games, and comic books to choose from. Which doesn’t really answer the question, does it?

Anyway, I really love it when an author or filmmaker brings humor to the table without sacrificing the scares/tension. I love characters that aren’t walking clichés. I’ve even learned to embrace fast zombies (oh, how I hated them when they first became a thing) when they’re done well. I’ll always prefer slow zombies in movies, though–The Dead is one of my favorite zombie movies of all times and probably the best example of why slow zombies who just never stop are frickin’ scary.