Name This Book

I need your help to name my next book! It’s a zombie adventure with an ensemble cast that takes place around the world (no, not like World War Z. okay, maybe a little). The project is currently called “Dust Eaters”, but maybe something else is better.

Vote for your favorite on Twitter by typing in “ @ronancray #title “ or comment here or on my Facebook page. Thanks for your help!
(Is that right? I’m not too good at Twitter)

Here are the titles I’m considering, and why.

Dust Eaters
The Waiting Dead
Kings of the Apocalypse

Pros/Cons:

Dust Eaters
Pros: No known titles similarly named. Refers to, “Eat my dust”, cause they’re slow, and the characters refer to zombies as Eaters.
Cons: Evocative? Makes you want to read it? Meh.

The Waiting Dead
Pros: Has the word “Dead”. Sounds like “The Walking Dead”. A new way to describe being a zombie
Cons: Has the word “Dead”. Sounds like “The Walking Dead”. “Waiting” isn’t a compelling word for an action book.

Kings of the Apocalypse
Pros: Sounds kick-ass.
Cons: Hard to spell when searching for the book. Long. Sexist, considering the main character is a woman.

No Mulligans in Life

My Grandfather on the Ranch

We live and learn. We die and forget. Such a shame that all that accumulated knowledge and experience should disappear. In everything we do, we make mistakes, learn from them, and (hopefully) do better next time, but in life there is no next time. Or is there?

What if some medical breakthrough allows us a do-over, maybe places our brain inside a cultivated young body or rejuvenates the cells to youth or allows us to live forever (which, even at 100, would make us remarkably young)? What would you do differently?

Life is a Circus

What are you looking at?

Life is a one-ring circus.

When you were young, the circus brought joy and wonder and amazement. You marveled at animals right out of storybooks. You gasped when beautiful women defied death through the air. You cried with laughter at colorful clowns. Invincible strongmen gave you hope. Magicians made you believe.

Then you aged. Every night, from the same uncomfortable seat, through the same tired acts, you see a different show.

You don't laugh at the clown after you learned he's suicidal.
The trapeze artist slept with you, and everyone else.
One drunken night, the magician betrayed his tricks.
The elephants don't remember the veldt.
The fire breather spits mineral oil.
The strong man cries at night.
The tigers have no claws.
The ringleader is a brutal jerk.

Worst of all, they've learned your faults as well. Even in the dark, you feel them watching you.

You pity the people around you, so easily amused. You recall older acts, better acts, but no one listens.

You want to leave, find a new circus, start over, but you know, you know, every circus, in every town, will, over time, mirror this one.

Every night you buy a paper ticket and take your seat.
Every morning you worry they won't give you one this time.
You go. You go.
It's the only show on earth.

Judge a Book by its Cover

Go ahead. Judge a book by its cover. Distill years of work into three seconds. If the name on the spine didn’t sell you, why spend more time on it? You still have to READ the book, so the less time spent in the store, the better. Ever your humble servant, I spent thirty seconds of my own to recommend ten books, in descending order, based on my own assumptions of the title, none of which I have read. It begins with a question…Click Here to read it on The Scrib.