Peter Welmerink
Featured Book Release:
Transport
June 23 to June 29 , 2014
About the author:
Peter Welmerink was born and raised on the west side of pre-apocalyptic Grand Rapids, Michigan. He writes Fantasy, Military SciFi, and other wanderings into action-adventure. His work has been published in ye olde wood pulp print and electronic-online publications. He is the co-author of the Viking berserker novel, BEDLAM UNLEASHED, written with Steven Shrewsbury. TRANSPORT is his first solo novel venture. He is married with a small barbarian tribe of three boys. Find out more about his works and upcoming projects at: www.peterwelmerink.com
The HURON, a 72-ton heavy transport vehicle and an army of four; tracked, racked and ready to roll, to serve and protect the walled metropolis of Grand Rapids—both her living and her undead. Captain Jacob Billet and his crew patrol the byways, ready for trouble.
William Lettner, the North Shore Coalition High Commissioner, has enemies from the mainland to the lakeshore and needs to be covertly transported home after his helicopter is shot down en route to Grand Rapids. He has no love for a city that give unliving civilians the right to survive. Lettner’s venomous outbursts assaults Billet and his crew along every mile traveled as they are assigned to safely bring him through the treacherous landscape outside the city back to his hometown.
The HURON and her crew will have to face domesticated zombies and the feral undead; marauders holding strategic chokepoints hostage; barricaded villages fighting for survival, and a group of geneticists who've lost control of one of their monstrous experiments if they want to complete their mission.
The crew will need to stay strong and trust one another in order to finish the mission and bring their “precious” cargo home, even knowing, all the while, the terrible deeds Lettner has done.
Traveling through West Michigan was never so dangerous.
Author Links:
Website: http://www.peterwelmerink.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/author.peterwelmerink
Twitter: @pwelmerink
Tour Schedule and Activities
6/23 The Rage Circus Vs. The Soulless Void- Review
6/23 The Tiffany Apan Blog- Interview
6/23 Beauty in Ruins-Guest Post
6/24 Come Selahway With Me- Character Post
6/25 Deal Sharing Aunt- Excerpt
6/25 Sheila Deeth Post- on Art of Transport
6/27 Bookishly Me- Review
6/27 fuonlyknew ~ Laura's ramblins and reviews -Top Ten’s List
6/28 Bee's Knees Reviews- Review
6/28 Alexx Momcat's Gateway Book Blog- Top Ten’s Llist
6/29 L. Andrew Cooper's Horrific Scribblings- Review
Tour Page URL: http://www.tomorrowcomesmedia.com/peter-welmerink-transport-tour/
Tour Badge URL: http://www.tomorrowcomesmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Transport_Welmerink_TourBadge.jpg
Amazon Links for Transport
Print Version
http://www.amazon.com/Transport-Peter-Welmerink/dp/1941706037
Kindle Version
http://www.amazon.com/Transport-Peter-Welmerink-ebook/dp/B00K6KCDK4
INTERVIEW
PW: Hello all. My name is Peter Welmerink. I write for fun, and, on occasion, am lucky enough to find some of my material accepted and printed for the masses. I grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, pre-apocalypse, with mainly the Cold War and worry that the U.S. and Russia were going to nuke the hell out of each other, and I’d be living in a fallout shelter or a pile of ashes.
My childhood was filled perhaps 2% with that dread, glum thought; the rest, typical middle class child happiness, living in the “big city” with the wooded and river-cut boondocks a few miles away. That latter area equated to wanderings and adventure, both real and imagined. From a reading and/or interest standpoint, I grew up with Science Fiction and Fantasy both on television, big screen and book form, with occasional Horror/Thriller type stuff sprinkled in.
Military-wise, with the Vietnam War, Korean War and World War II still fresh in everyone’s memory (heck, it had been only 20 years between the end of WWII and when I was hatched), all that good heavy metal and bullet brutality, heroes and Zeroes, swirled in my mind. I enjoyed building military models, and then putting them outside, taking pictures of them rolling through a dense jungle (tall grass and weeds) and what adventures the accompanying little plastic army men would have.
When I am not writing, I am hanging with my family, or playing Minecraft, Skyrim, Call of Duty, WarThunder, and listening to rock-n-roll, until the crazies grab me again and I need to sit back down at the keyboard.
TA: Do you have a specific writing "ritual" or process?
PW: I do have a “ritual” of sorts when it comes to the writing process. I get up early in the morning during the work week, and about the same time on weekends, which is 530ish. I sit down at the keyboard with a steaming cup of coffee, and try to keep my butt down in that seat. Also if there is a little time at night, after the kids go to bed and the wife is watching one of her police shows, then I try to bang out some words. (No pun intended.)
I will admit, I am my own worst enemy when it comes to sitting down, and staying down, and keeping my fingers tapping the keyboard. It’s like my muse wants out but the rest of me is looking for an excuse to stifle the word-bleed. It is usually the worst after I haven’t written in a few days, and have a whole bunch of exciting ideas to get down on paper, in the story. The best thing to do, I find, is to JUST DO IT. The more you stay put and GET THOSE WORDS DOWN, on a consistent basis, the more apt (at least I am) to stay and maintain the course...which is a great feeling.
TA: What are your influences for your stories?
PW: When I am writing Fantasy, my biggest influences come from those days of yore when I was deep into reading authors like Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Michael Moorcock. Current Fantasy author inspirons are folks like Steven Shrewsbury, C.L. Werner, Nathan Long, and RA Salvatore.
The Military action-adventure yarns: lots of influences. Growing up post-WWII, Korean and Vietnam Wars, fearing US-Russian nuclear annihilation during the Cold War years, too many military actions movies and books, a fascination with big ass military vehicles and weaponry, and friends and family who have shared military experiences with me. I am currently reading a lot David Drake and Warhammer 40K stories. They are more Military Sci-Fi, but still, things usually go big and go boom. Why Zombie or Post-Apoc tales? I honestly haven’t read a ton of tales like these. I do like the whole WHAT IF element they present, probably more than anything. And I suppose with REVOLUTION and THE WALKING DEAD series permeating the television cable waves, those might leak into the cracks in my skull and influence things a bit.
TA: Tell us a little about your newest work, TRANSPORT.
PW: TRANSPORT is a Military action-adventure series...with a dash of the dead to add some additional bite. (Sorry. I can’t help myself sometimes.)
It’s been called a “militarized” form of THE WALKING DEAD, however, characters and location are different, the unliving are different, the living populace are different. It is a post-post-zombie, post-world collapse apocalypse. The Human Race is now used to playing with the hand it’s been dealt. Don’t have to like it, still have to deal with it.TRANSPORT is mainly centered round a fictional character, Captain Jake Billet, his crew and their massive armored HTV (Heavy Transport Vehicle), the HURON, in the year 2025. It's a 3-part series, or story, about a combat soldier and the chaotic world he must work, endure and survive.
It’s been roughly 10 years since a viral pandemic afflicted the world of the living, and caused a rise in the shambling undead. The larger cities are huge fortified bastions of living humanity, while the outskirts, boonies, small towns and villages, woodlands...not so much.
The Military gets the shit job of having to not only protect the big cities, but, as an example, in Grand Rapids, they also get the responsibility of making runs in, around and outside the walled metropolis, doing the odd (shit) jobs and missions no one else can do. Well, no one else can do because they don’t have the vehicles or the fire power. Captain Billet is a fairly cheery guy because of this. NOT. Luckily he has a slightly quirky crew and other “interesting” events and individuals to grind his emotional buttons.
I have seen and read related (and not necessarily Military-centered) zombie apocalypse stories which take place down South, the East Coast, the West Coast, but nothing much in the Midwest.
The TRANSPORT storyline takes place in the Midwest, in Michigan to be exact, in and around the large city of Grand Rapids to be pinpoint precise. If you want to feel trapped during the big ZA what better place to be (sarcasm) than a landmass surrounded west, east and north by the Great Lakes and other waterways, with a big 170-mile "open door" at the southern end. Come to Michigan in 2025: Meat in the Mitten State.
According to ESTATELY, an online real estate search site, Michigan ranks the 27th worst state to be in when the undead come to town.
http://blog.estately.com/2014/03/u-s-states-ranked-from-most-to-least-prepared-for-the-zombie-apocalypse/
But I digress.
I can say that I have poured (purposely) everything, but the kitchen sink, into the TRANSPORT storyline with the hope it will stand out from the rest of the Z-Craze. Though military men, women and their vehicles take center stage in 2025 Grand Rapids, there is a plethora of other people, creatures and situations the main cast must roll through. Radio-controlled planes. A giant genetically-altered farm animal. Floods. 6-foot-4 battle-hardened nuns. Crates of drugged meat. A neighborhood of drugged zombies. Train wrecks. Exploding propane tanks. Exploding porta-johns. An Undead assassin. An undead 1950’s zombie gas station attendant... who “talks.” Living people FOR the big city. Living people AGAINST the big city. A beach house with rotgut bourbon. An Abrams tank vs. a pistol-toting woman... and the woman wins. A good city mayor. A bad city treasurer. Mercenaries from Chicago. Zombie soldiers fresh from a test facility.To name but a few things in the series.
And Captain Billet and the HURON are plunked down in the midst of it.
TA: What challenges do you face as a writer?
PW: Time. Between family, work and breathing, which I need all three to survive (and bourbon), finding enough time to get ALL my stories ideas down on paper... Just not enough time.
Well, okay, there is time, but one has to make it. As I said earlier, I can be a great procrastinator when it comes to sitting down and getting the job done. Still, there seems like new stories crop up all the time. Some are worth pursuing, especially if they are in line with published or publishable projects I am working on. Others, take some notes and file them away for perhaps some other time.
If I am not writing for publication pursuits, I am writing for fun, for myself, just to hear the story and get the words out. There is often not time to do both, or perhaps I need to employ some strict time management. Work on publishable projects: Monday, Wednesday, Friday. For shits and giggles projects: Tuesday and Thursday. Weekends can be free time, to write or not to write. Dabble at my leisure.
Biggest challenge. Yes. Time.
TA: What's coming up and where can we find you?
PW: TRANSPORT Book One is already available. You can get it through any online book seller, and can also walk into your nearest bookstore and order it right through them.
TRANSPORT Book Two is in my editor's hands, being red-penned, hacked and slashed, looked at to see how that chunk of coal can be squeezed into a diamond. I did go through it several times to make it POP more, so, we’ll see. Book Two entitled TRANSPORT: HUNT FOR THE FALLEN (with more cool artwork by Jason Conley and Tim Holtrop) should be available Fall 2014.
TRANSPORT Book Three, or TRANSPORT: UNCIVIL WAR, is still being worked on. Halfway there, and it is going to be the whopper of all three books as I tie up Captain Billet’s main storyline and all the little strands around him. I am expecting it will be out sometime early 2015.
I am working with Seventh Star Press and author Steven L Shrewsbury in resurrecting Steven and my BEDLAM UNLEASHED novel. A rip-roaring Dark Fantasy epic featuring the brain-
addled behemoth Erik Bedlam, a Viking berserker, and his traveling companion, Alanis Johansson. The book starts at the real deal Battle of Clontarf, and weaves then through Scotland and England, where our two stalwart companions run into everything from dwarven vampires to the truth on how the Lochness monster came to be, and thensome.
I also have a Fantasy series I will be pitching to Seventh Star Press regarding an executioner-
turned-tormented-unwilling-adventurer, Braccus Straun, and his sentient whip, Clawgibber. After running afoul of a dark sorcerer, Brac is poisoned and has 48 hours to acquire a number of ensorcelled items. If he succeeds gathering all the items, his wife and child will live. If he fails, falls short, or is killed in the process, he dooms his family also. Each hour or two of Braccus’s time spent is a new adventure in a different strange and dangerous place.
I do have some 99 cent e-short stories at Amazon.com: a dark future, Military thriller featuring a young sniper and a gigantic bear; a 1950’s Military Cthulhu tale; a Sword & Sorcery tale featuring a blind Viking mercenary, and another Fantasy piece telling the tale of a warrior who is being nudged towards his final sunset.
For updates on any and all of this, one can visit my website at: www.peterwelmerink.com.
TRANSPORT and other military-related ramblings can be found at: www.grandrapidsaltered.blogspot.com
All items Fantasy related, including other author interviews (me interviewing them) can be found at: www.darkheroicfantasy.blogspot.com
Is that enough? Okay, I’ll shut up now.
Thanks for having me at your blog, Tiffany.
TA: Not a problem. :)
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My
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Thanks for having me as a guest. Best wishes on all your endeavors also. :)
ReplyDeleteNot a problem and I was glad to have you on. :) Thanks!
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