An Interview with Max Brallier

Max Brallier - author and all round good guy

The following interview with author Max Brallier, who wrote the novel Can You Survive The Zombie Apocalypse? is reprinted in full from an e-mail he sent back to me after I'd posted the questions to him.

The idea to have my blog followers send in questions for you to answer proved to be hugely successful. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that prizes were on offer! Anyway without any further ado here are the questions.

From The Angry Lurker  

Q: Do you like your zombies slow or fast?  Slow!  Though I do think they both sort of have their place.  But I grew up on Romero – Dawn of the Dead was one of my biggest creative influences as a boy – so I gotta go with slow. 
Q: What do you rate your survivability chances out of 10 for a real zombie apocalypse? 11

From Whiteface  

Q: What's more dangerous in a zombie-apocalypse - zombies or other (living) people? If The Walking Dead has taught me anything, then the answer is people.

From Mathyoo 

Q: Where do you get the inspiration for the stories in your book? Really not one place in particular.  Almost the entire book takes place in NYC, where I live, so a lot of it just came from me seeing things and thinking, hmm, what if zombies attacked right now?  Like the subway scenes – those came while I was standing around in the subway.  The wrecking ball scene – I saw a wrecking ball and thought man, that could kill a lot of zombies – then I called up a buddy and was like hmm, how could a wrecking ball best  kill zombies? 

Q: If there would be a zombie outbreak, would you be confident enough to use one of the many survival guide books to help yourself survive? Honestly, yeah – some of them would be pretty helpful I think.  Like the ones on combat.
Q: How long did it take, from idea to publishing a book as complex as Can You Survive The Zombie Apocalypse?  Year and a half or so, I think. 

From Doctor Warlock  

Q: OK, you've been bitten by a Zombie - what would you do in your last minutes? Drink heavily.  Go skydiving?
Q: Now you're Dead, the Zombie Virus has taken you over - but your personality remains (for now - think the Fear Itself Episode "New Years Day") what would be your actions?  So I have to admit I didn’t know Fear Itself until just this moment.  So thank you!  I just googled it, saw it’s on Netflix Instant, and I’m watching it now as I type!  There’s some super cute girl waking up on a bed – good start!  I’m a big Masters of Horror fan, so I’m sort of confused as to how I missed this show!  Anyway, it depends on what sort of motor skills I still have.  I’m going to finish watching this episode then answer this question!  Be back!  OK, UPDATE, back to this question momentarily – this girl looks sort of like Rashida Jones.  This show keeps getting better.  ANOTHER UPDATE – this girl looks and sounds  A LOT like Rashda Jones.  I had to check IMDB and make sure it wasn’t.  This show’s great!  FINAL UPDATE – Wow, awesome show.  Gonna watch some more episodes.  Good little twist at the end there.  Honestly, I think I’d go try to hang out with my buddies and play video games and have a beer.  Is that lame?

From Stefan 

 Q: Will the book be translated into other languages? Preferably German ;)  I hope so!  So far it’s just been English, but I’d of course love it to get to as many fans as possible.

From Dawnofthelead 

Q: Why zombies?  Dawn of the Dead, man. 

From Luckyjoe 

Q: How long would you expect Zombies to last once an outbreak occurs? Personally I'd say they would rot away after a couple of years.  Gotta ask the scientists that one.  You’re probably right – they’d rot away, and then the rebuilding process would start.

From Zombie Ad  

Q: Zombies and gaming go hand in hand like descriptions of the time of day and the phrase 'of the Dead'. What are your guilty gaming pleasures?  Ha.  I like that.  If you’re talking real “guilty pleasures,” mine is Star Wars Masters of Teras Kasi, since everyone seems to think that’s one of the worst games ever, but I think it’s amazing.  In general – hmm, I play a lot of stuff.  Right now really, really loving Twisted Metal – been waiting like 10 years for that game.  Also still playing Elder Scrolls and just Dl’d Angry Birds Space.

From 6milphil  

Q: Should a boy kiss on the first date? If the boy can get up the courage, certainly.

From Zerloon  

Q: How come you decided to write a "game-book"? It originally started as a totally different book – just a straight zombie book set in NYC.  But I had so many different ideas, I decided to do it this way.  It allowed me to get in all the different cool stuff I wanted.
Q: Tell us, were you a Lone Wolf fan?  I was not.  I didn’t know about it until I started writing and researching
Q: Do you plan to write other books based on zombies? Yes!
Q: Zombies seem to get a lot of attention from media, but we are talking about rotten, semi mute, non sentient walking corpses... Why so much talking about them? I wish I knew.  I think because there’s just so many cool ways to kill them.  Plus they’re so awesome looking when the effects are good – they’re like simultaneously gross but still scary and can still provide for great action.  And they’re always associated with the apocalypse, which is a popular subject in it’s own right.

From Lord Siwoc  

Q: If there were an outbreak of zombies, where would you go to and why? My parent’s house.  I’d like my last meal to be mom’s mac and cheese.  For real.
Q: If you were to get to choose a celebrity to tag along with you, who would it be? (This is after the outbreak).  The main dude from The Raid. No idea who he is, but I saw that movie last night, and he pretty much seems like he could asskick his way out of any situation.

From Brummie  

Q: What movies/books inspired you to write this one? Dawn of the Dead, the Walking Dead, all the classics – nothing particularly obscure.

From Patient Zero  

Q: What research did you do for the book, or did do you just watch a lot of zombie movies as research? Watched A LOT of zombie movies.  By the end I was really like, man, I don’t ever wanna hear the word zombie again.  Of course, a few weeks passed, and I was back to devouring The Walking Dead and everything else.  But also reading a lot of zombie books and then research into some NYC geography and stuff.
Q: Even though the 'quality' of youth today might cause us to think the zombie apocalypse is upon us, how prepared are you for a potential zombie apocalypse? (i.e. what is your zombie survival plan?)  Oh totally horribly absolutely unprepared.  I have like a Mr. Goodbar and a half an ice coffee in the fridge and half a box of Cheez-Its in my cabinet.  That’s it.   I only own butters knives.   The only guns I own shoot rubber bands.  I’m slow and I wear slippers most of the time.  I’d be totally screwed.

From Ray Rousell  

Q: If after a Z outbreak, someone close to you, family, girlfriend, lover, best mate, gets infected, what do you do? Put them out of their misery or lock them in the cellar and feed them tit-bits?  So I’ve never heard the phrase tit-bits before and it made me giggle.  That’s how much of a child I am!  Ahh – let’s see – I like to think I’d be the stoic man who, without shedding a tear, ends his best friend’s life because he has too.  In reality – hmm – might end up more like the end of Shaun of the Dead.

 From The Extraordinarii  

Q: If there was a zombie outbreak, what would be the top three things that you would first acquire?   Q: And why? (Don’t answer part B if obvious.) A tank, a manual for how to drive a tank, and, ah, tank gas.

From Ross Rigby 

Q: To have so many endings to your book, where did your inspiration come from?  Just everywhere – day to day stuff, movies, books, anything.

Inside cover of Can You Survive The Zombie Apocalypse?

And finally from me, Vampifan 

 Q: You mentioned to me that you had a lot of freedom in how the cover of the book should look. How did this come about? It wasn’t so much freedom as it was I had a vision, and luckily the fantastic art department at S and S liked it.  If I had some really awful idea for the cover, I would have had zero freedom, I’m sure!  But yeah, when I was writing it, I always pictured a sort of Army of Darkness or National Lampoon’s Vacation style cover.

Q: What’s the reasoning behind going for such a distressed look to the book cover? Funny how that happened.  In general, I love Pulp Fiction and that distressed look.  I even have a Pinterest board for my fav pulp covers!  http://pinterest.com/maxbrallier/my-fav-pulp-book-covers/  So my editor emailed me the cover without the distress and I loved it – I wasn’t even thinking about having it done distressed.  But then the gmail preview thing showed it really tiny, and it made it look distressed – and I was like whoa, I love that!  So that’s how that happened.  Really random.

Q: How often per day would you write? Three hours, maybe.  Really depends.

Q: Is there a time of day that is best for your creativity? Middle of the night, usually (and unfortunately).  Though if I’m able to force myself out of bed early enough, it does feel good to get going and then I’m usually able to get a lot done at a coffee shop or Starbucks.

Q: Do you listen to music when writing, and if so, to what? It depends.  When I do, it has to be blues or jazz – I can’t do anything with lyrics, because I get distracted by the words.  So just instrumental stuff, when I do.  So it’s a lot of Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis – stuff like that.

Q: Which other authors of zombie fiction do you admire? Jonathan Maberry, Max Brooks, David Moody, Robert Kirkman

Q: Do you play any zombie games on your computer/console and if yes, what? Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead II, a lot of the Resident Evil games, Plants vs Zombies, Dead Rising (which I simultaneously loved and hated).  I’m probably leaving some stuff out.  Not Dead Island, actually – just been too busy, but I want to.

Q: What’s your favourite zombie film? Original Dawn of the Dead followed closely by Shaun of the Dead.

Q: What book/project are you working on now?  A series of graphic novels for kids – no zombies.

Q: Have you ever been mistaken for Max Brooks, who wrote “World War Z” and “The Zombie Survival Guide?” I ask this because one of my followers DID mistake you for Max Brooks! He did apologise profusely after I pointed out his error. Yes!  My girlfriend’s friend once thought I wrote World War Z and then they were over for drinks and he was like “Really, this is your apartment?  I thought it’d be bigger.”  There’s also a review on, I think Amazon or GoodReads, not sure, from someone who hated the book and was like “I bet this jerk author even used the name Max Brallier so people would think he was Max Brooks and buy the book by mistake!”  I can assure you, it’s my real name. J  If I had to pick a pseudonym, it’d be Max Hauk or Max Bullet or something awesome.

Many thanks for agreeing to take part in this interview. It’s so heart warming to find an author who is so friendly towards his fans. I’d just like you to choose the people you thought were the worthiest to win one of the signed copies of your book... and can I have a signed copy? Hey, shy boys get nothing so I figure there’s no harm in asking!  Of course you can have one.  Make it out to Bryan?

For the fans, let’s do: 6milphil, Doctor Warlock, Zombie Ad, Lord Siwoc, The Extraordinarii

Max offered five signed copies of his book to those who sent in the most interesting questions. Would the winners please send me their addresses in an e-mail? You can contact me at vampifan at talktalk dot net. I'll send the books out to you as soon as I receive them from Max. Well done, guys and thanks to everyone who took part. My biggest thanks have to go to Max. Thanks, Max, for being such a good sport and an inspiration to us all.