The Scattered and The Dead Books In Order

Publication Order of The Scattered and the Dead Books

The Scattered and the Dead is a series of horror novels written by Tim McBain and L.T. Vargus. The books take readers to the end of the world after a zombie virus spreads.

+The Story

The Scattered and the Dead series hit the bookshelves in 2016. And the books had no real reason to succeed. Zombie stories have been all the rage since the 1980s, 1990s and even the early 2000s.

In fact, once upon a time, one couldn’t go more than a step or two in a bookstore without coming across a zombie novel. However, by the time these particular books were published in 2016, the zombie craze has passed.

Most sane professionals in the publishing arena would have told L.T. Vargus and Tim McBain that they were simply insane to try and publish a zombie novel, let alone a series.

Yet the pair went ahead with their concept and actually succeeded, attracting a sizable following of readers who have praised the authors for breathing new life into the zombie genre.

The Scattered and the Dead 0.5 initially introduced readers to Decker, a lonely introvert looking for human contact. Decker’s attempts at talking to the girl next door are halted when a plague infects his community, initially leading to riots and then unleashing a full-blown zombie plague.

The Scattered and the Dead 0.5 was more of a novella, though, and despite exploring Decker as a character, it did little to shed light on the world of the Scattered and the Dead.

It wasn’t until book one of the Scattered and the Dead was published that the scope of these novels was finally brought to light. The book takes readers to a world where 99.7 percent of the world’s population has died, either transformed by the plague into zombies or killed off by the zombie horde.

The earth is empty and hollow, practically devoid of life. The few souls still struggling to survive are living on borrowed time.

While the first novella in this series focused on the character of Decker, its sequel, the first full-length novel in the series, introduces a much larger cast of characters.

You have Mitch, a largely absent father who is trying to make up for lost time. Mitch needs to get his kids ready to face the world. He must instill in them all the tools they need to survive whilst also getting them to the safest place he can find. And Mitch cannot afford to half-ass it this time because he has been infected by the zombie virus. With mere hours left before he turns into a flesh-eating creature, Mitch is determined to make sure that his kids survive the end of the world.

Then you have Travis, a young man in his 20s who saw his parents die. Travis is wracked with guilt, anxiety and emotional pain. He spends his days accumulating alcohol and prescription pills. If he must live in such a horrible world, then he will do whatever he can to numb the pain. Travis’ life is given some meaning when he comes across the men who killed his family.

Erin is only a teenager. At 16 years of age, not only must she worry about staying alive but she must also care for the eight-year-old orphan with whom she has been stranded. Erin doesn’t know how to fight zombies on her own, let alone feed herself and her young companion. But that doesn’t stop her from trying.

There’s also baghead, Delfino, Teddy and Ray to mention but a few. Each new book introduces new characters to the story, and the authors do what they can to keep readers abreast of each character’s trials and struggles as the series progresses.

Some of these characters meet up down the line. Others live such disparate lives even in a zombie-infested world that they have no chance of ever meeting. Rather, they are designed primarily to give readers insight into the zombie apocalypse in their particular section of the world.

What sets the Scattered and the Dead series apart is its structure. These books are not told in chronological order. There are characters whose stories take place several days and even weeks before the apocalypse.

In their time, the zombie plague has begun to spread but the full-blown apocalypse hasn’t yet struck.
There are also characters whose stories take place during the apocalypse, this on top of characters struggling to survive several years later, after the zombie plague has done its work.

L.T. Vargus and Tim McBain give readers as deep an exploration of the zombie apocalypse as they possibly can. It is worth noting that the zombies are only marginally important. In fact, the whole zombie apocalypse is merely an impressive backdrop that the authors use to tackle significant human issues.

+The Author
Before Tim McBain was revealed to the world, there was just L.T. Vargus, a female author from Hell, Michigan who supposedly wrote a lot, read a lot and watched a lot of television. It was later revealed that L.T Vargus was a writing team and that Tim McBain had chosen to remain in the shadows.

By the time the Scattered and the Dead series hit the shelves, L.T. Vargus and Tim McBain had started to write openly as a team. The two live together and they are constantly fielding questions from people who cannot believe that they have succeeded as a couple that writes together despite all the warnings against such collaborations.

+The Scattered and the Dead 1
The world has come to an end. A zombie plague has killed more than 99 percent of the human population. The few remnants are doing what they can to survive. They include a horrible father that is trying to make up for lost time, a wimpy young adult looking to get vengeance on the men that killed his parents and a young girl that doesn’t know how to care for an orphan.

+The Scattered and the Dead 2
The apocalypse came and went. Life is trying to continue. The survivors thought the zombie hordes were their biggest enemy. But now that winter has come and gone, supplies have grown scarce and humankind is slowly turning against itself.