Zombies invade Central Florida in UCF grad Zachary Linville's new novel, 'Welcome to Deadland'

"The world ended while we were playing cards." Zachary Linville's first novel, Welcome to Deadland, hews faithfully to the established zombie-pocalypse tropes, which may have something to do with how it beat out all others to win Nerdist's first publishing contest and got itself a hardcover release on Inkshares. Nerdist, the fanboy empire headed by Chris Hardwick (tiny, excitable host of AMC's Talking Dead), officially premiered the novel at San Diego Comic-Con this month, but this local pre-pub appearance is in honor of the fact that the author is a UCF grad and the book is set in Orlando. A ragtag group of college-age zombie fighters hacks their way through the infected city in this first of the Deadland series, from the university, through the housing developments and even up from Miami, and they're all heading toward ... well, you'll get no spoilers from us, but only a non-Orlandoan couldn't guess the magical place they're all going to meet up.

7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 6 | Barnes & Noble, 2418 E. Colonial Drive | 407-894-6024 | inkshares.com | free