guest blog

I’m hosting a guest post today by AJ Aalto, the talented tour for urban fantasy / paranormal “Touched (The Marnie Baranuik Files #1)”. Enjoy the post! I’ll leave the word to the author now.

Living After the Dead Rise

So, I watch the Walking Dead, and as a fan of zombies and horror, I quite enjoy it. I’d lost faith in it lately, (let’s face it, 80% of the farm season was so damn boring) but finally, FINALLY, they’ve reached Stage C: Cannibalism. Really? It took them 5 seasons to start eating humans? I’d have been chowing down on people the first damn week. The military would show up at my house and be like, “Hey, lady! It’s not even the apocalypse, for fuck’s sake! Put the butcher knife down!” And I’d be all, “*mur-mumble-frgggh!*” with my mouth full of man flesh.

I recently became a vegetarian. Granted, I’m the worst vegetarian ever. I keep forgetting that meat isn’t a vegetable. At a craft festival, I ordered a hot dog meal from a chip truck by habit, and I was half way through the wiener before I remembered that I don’t eat that anymore. I literally had half a pork tube hanging out of my mouth and a stricken look on my face when my cousin pointed at me and accused, “hey, you’re eating meat!”

Being a vegetarian is going to make most post-apocalyptic scenarios difficult for me. To eat fruits, grains, and vegetables, you really have to stay in one place long enough to grow them, and you can’t have an ice age or nuclear waste getting in your way, either. My ideal apocalyptic scenarios have been whittled down now: it’s got to be a pandemic plague, or floods that recede, or aliens who eat everyone and then leave me behind, or stay but don’t mind me gardening. Let’s face it, though; a zombie apocalypse is going to put meat back on the dinner table pretty quick for me.

Why are apocalypse scenarios such rich and fertile grounds for the imagination? There’s the what-would-I-do factor? That’s very human, to prepare for disasters that one can dream up. Oh, you better believe our ancestors prepared for catastrophes, although theirs looked much different than ours do. There’s also the how-bad-could-it-get factor that’s fodder for the muse. What are people capable of when they’re desperate? What am I capable of?

In the second book of the Marnie Baranuik Files, a plague threatens to explode and Marnie has to face the possibilities of zombies. I did not get to explore a worldwide apocalyptic scenario, but I’m sure Marnie wouldn’t be chowing down on human flesh. It might be one of the few ways we’re different.

If you were faced with a doomsday scenario or post-apocalyptic world, how do you think you’d fare?

About The Book

Title: Touched (The Marnie Baranuik Files #1)

Author: AJ Aalto

Genre: Paranormal, Urban Fantasy

The media has a nickname for Marnie Baranuik, though she’d rather they didn’t; they call her the Great White Shark, a rare dual-talented forensic psychic. Twice-Touched by the Blue Sense–which gives her the ability to feel the emotions of others, and read impressions left behind on objects–Marnie also has a doctorate in preternatural biology and a working knowledge of the dark arts. She is considered without peer in the psychic community.

Then her first big FBI case ended with a bullet in one shoulder and a chip on the other, a queasy heart and a serial killer in the wind, leaving her a public flop and a private wreck. When the FBI’s preternatural crimes unit tracks her down at a remote mountain lodge for her insight on a local case, her quiet retirement is promptly besieged by a stab-happy starlet, a rampaging ghoul, and a vampire-hunting jackass in tight Wranglers. Marnie figures the only real mystery is which one will kill her first.

Too mean to die young, backed up by friends in cold places, and running with a mouth as demure as a cannon’s blast, Marnie Baranuik is about to discover that there’s no such thing as quitting time when you’re Touched.

Author Bio

AJ Aalto is the author of the paranormal mystery series The Marnie Baranuik Files. Aalto is an unrepentant liar and a writer of blathering nonsense offset by factual gore. When not working on her novels, you can find her singing Monty Python songs in the shower, eavesdropping on perfect strangers, stalking her eye doctor, or failing at one of her fruitless hobbies. Generally a fan of anyone with a passion for the ridiculous, she has a weak spot for smug pseudo-intellectuals and narcissistic jerks; readers will find her work littered with flawed monsters and oodles of snark.

AJ cannot say no to a Snickers bar and has been known to swallow her gum.