Wrapping up the month with me is dark fiction author Chad R. Hunter to chat about his new sci-fi horror novel DedKode: Connected.
During his virtual book tour, Chad will be giving away a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit his other tour stops and enter there, too!
Bio:
Chad Hunter was born in East Chicago, Indiana. Raised by a single mother in the city’s Harbor section, he is the youngest of four. Growing up in the Midwest and a proudly self-proclaimed “Region Rat,” Hunter has written and published several books and novels. He has written for magazines and newspapers throughout North America and has been published in several languages. His writings have been called sophisticated yet humorous, sharp witted and unrelenting.
Most often, Hunter’s writings have been considered so wide and diverse that they span a scale that would include multiple writers with multiple forms. If anything binds his varied styles, it is Hunter’s theme of the human condition, humor and family closeness – all to the backdrop of romantic love, vibrant remembrance and even monsters themselves.
Welcome, Chat. Please tell us about your current release.
DedKode: Connected synopsis – In FIVE years, humanity falls. Not to war. Not to shadow governments or digital currency. It falls in blood and bone. It falls to claws, jaws and hunger – an endless hunger. The last few cities are torn, bitten and ripped apart by hordes of the undead known as the Connected. Present day, DedKode and his team must face a future that not only appears to be horrifically inevitable but also directly related to Collier himself. When an impossible stranger arrives from the future, everything Devon believes to be true is turned upside down. He will have to ask himself terrifying questions that lead to not only a nightmarish future but reach back to a horrific past. DedKode – CONNECTED.
Excerpt from DedKode: Connected:
Wriggling, hungry and insatiable pupa squirmed, crawling, pushing over and between one another. All countless white and wet creatures with their single dark dot eye and mouth were finding homes inside Devon Collier.
Worse yet, they were finding a meal inside the man.
He continued his pained walk to the tube, the chamber which he routinely rested within. It was only a few moments but, as in moments of heated conflict or in times when his body was battered and broken, Collier could feel the internal battle slip between the man and the monster.
His head would haze.
His mind would fog over.
The man would be lost and the zombie that he was, the undead creature that he was, would rise up and take control.
It was then that DedKode would be the ultimate threat to his friends—a brain-craving, flesh-hungering thing hellbent on feeding on the living. It had happened before—several times during his time with King James and twice since the Kanapilly sisters joined up. Three times, it had been because of massive injuries to his body. One time it was due to a long battle against a digitized dark entity made flesh. A final time, the worst in DedKode had appeared due to failure to reach the man-sized steel and glass tube.
This was the purpose of the restoration chamber. With its large piping and ventilation system, the creation would fill the space with a thick fog that carried adenosine triphosphate, taurine and finally, vaporized brains. Several hours in the chamber and Devon Collier would be restored to the best of his current state.
However, he would never be restored to his previous nature amongst the living.
DedKode reached the controls to the chamber and tapped the lock. The clear door hissed and opened quickly.
In his darkest moments, the zombie would weep. It had been too long since he had been alive. Nearly two years had passed since Collier could feel like the living, crave food and drink like the living, love like the living.
The skeletal faced man finally slid into position. It was to his design comfortable at least.
The door hissed again and the chamber closed.
Another sound of air exchange and the seal within the tube was completed.
The large tubes began to vibrate and wiggle as they pumped in the special fog that Collier had come to depend on.
DedKode could feel the biting within begin to subside. As he allowed the chamber to perform its task, he looked through the glass at his workstation.
His monitor read back input from Our Lady of Grace cemetery. It was focused on a specific gravestone.
What exciting project are you working on next?
Everything DedKode! LOL! Promoting the book and building the community of DedKode lovers around the world. My next writing project will be a science-fiction adventure with gray aliens, government conspiracies and the works.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I wrote my first story when I was six and it consisted of six panels on a piece of paper (which I folded really badly) and filled with stick people and thought bubbles. It made perfect sense to me and to my mother who kindly nodded as I prattled on about God knows what. I didn’t really consider myself a fiction writer though until I got my first rejection which told me I should quit altogether. I became hellbent to make it no matter what. I had thought of myself as a writer before then but it was in that moment of opposition that I knew I wanted this more than anything. I think that for writers or anyone to really know what they want is when you have to defend it inside, the moment when something external tells you to “give up” and “get out of the way” of your dreams and you internally say “no, you move.”
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your workday like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
I am a network administrator and college instructor. And I have a family and friends and tons of responsibilities. I find the time to write by totally skipping out on sleep! LOL. I’ve always struggled with sleeping which came in handy when my son was a baby that loved late night feedings. I do most of my writing either early in the morning or late at night. I do schedule it and that structure, that discipline lets me create without conflicting with my daily life.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I use muses for everything I write. Some object that gets me in the mindset. For DedKode – Connected, I had toy zombies next to me all the time. I wrote a pirate novel and you would have thought I was fighting privateers every day!
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
LOL a superhero, a fire fighter and an astronaut. And a writer.
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
Thank you all for your time! Enjoy the book!
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Thank you so much for hosting today.
The excerpt sounds really interesting.
Looks like a good read.
Good excerpt and interview