Айзек Марион - The Living

Outside, the glossy wet runway glows gold in the sunset, but this is not the Last Sunset. There is no such final dusk. No death. No ending. No ceiling to stop our ascent. The ladder goes up forever, and we have just begun to climb.

After thanking the same people for three books in a row, this one will be a little different. This book was a wild leap. No publisher, no editor, no agent, just a ragged team of rogue professionals and brilliant volunteers. Top of the list has to be Joe Regal, who believed in my future enough to stick with me through my industry exile and bend Zola Books into something vaguely publisher-shaped. This series wouldn’t be what it is without his deep editorial work, and this book might not be in your hands without his byzantine efforts behind the scenes. Thanks, J.

A broader thanks to my family for supporting me during these recent hard years, particularly my brother Nathan for all the late-night strategy talks and tireless attempts to convince me I’m not a failure. Thanks, N.

And when I thank you, the readers, it means a lot more now than before. When the casual movie audience sloughed away, you held on until the end of the story. Some of you even became my publishing team. Mike Batie volunteered massive amounts of time and artistry to create an amazing ad campaign. Helgi Valur translated some crucial text. Carrie O’Brien jumped in for an eleventh-hour copyedit and caught a lot of my stupid mistakes so the rest of you don’t have to. And throughout it all, the fans—“R’s Rmy”—kept fighting. They kept spreading the word at home and abroad, and most importantly, they kept encouraging me not to quit. When I lost my publisher, my house, and even my cat, you guys kept propping me up and defibrillating my heart. You have no idea how much it’s meant to me to see that there are still people out there who care about what I’m doing and want me to keep doing it. If you will, I will!

Warm Bodies

The New Hunger

The Burning World

The Living

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, Living or Dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2018 by Isaac Marion

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, contact the author at: isaac@isaacmarion.com

ISBN: 978-1-939126-38-2

Published by Zola Books

Zola Books, Inc.

143 West 29th Street

New York, NY 10001

Info@zolabooks.com

Excerpt from Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative by Herbert Mason, copyright © 1998, Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Lyrics quoted from “Livin’ Man” by Henri Lanoë, from the Twilight Zone episode “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”

Interior illustrations adapted by Isaac Marion from sources in the public domain.

Jacket design by Jeff Miller at Faceout Studios

Author photograph by Juliann Itter