McKinney, Joe
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1968-2021) US police sergeant (with the police department of San Antonio, Texas) and author who began to publish work of genre interest with Dead City (2006), in which the Disaster scenario of multiple hurricanes afflicting Houston, Texas, is followed by a Zombie apocalypse caused by the Ebola-like "necrosis filovirus". This opens the Dead World sequence of standalone novels, plus some short stories, that share the same background setting. Of greater direct sf interest are Quarantined (2009), where a flu Pandemic rages in San Antonio and the city is blockaded by the military; The Red Empire (2011; exp as coll 2012), in which a colony of oversized fire ants developed as a secret biological Weapon gets loose on the Texas/Mexico border; and the tetralogy The Retreat opening with The Retreat 1: Pandemic (2013) with Craig DiLouie (billed as the principal author) and Stephen Knight, in which the response to another Near Future pandemic is tinged with elements of Military SF. Zombies recur in the standalone The Savage Dead (2013), and in the Deadlands duo comprising Plague of the Undead (2014) and The Dead Won't Die (2014).
Most of McKinney's work inclines toward Horror and features police-procedural elements reflecting his experience in the US police. He also wrote at least one non-genre thriller [not listed below]. [DRL]
Joe Clayton McKinney Jr
born Cambridge, Massachusetts: 22 September 1968 [San Antonio, Texas, has also been given]
died San Antonio, Texas: 13 July 2021
works (selected)
Dead World
- Dead City (New York: Pinnacle Books, 2006) [Dead World: pb/]
- Apocalypse of the Dead (New York: Pinnacle Books, 2010) [Dead World: pb/]
- Flesh Eaters (New York: Pinnacle Books, 2011) [Dead World: pb/]
- Mutated (New York: Pinnacle Books, 2012) [Dead World: pb/]
The Retreat
- The Retreat 1: Pandemic (no place given: The Retreat Series, 2013) with Craig DiLouie and Stephen Knight [ebook: The Retreat: na/]
- The Retreat 2: Slaughterhouse (no place given: The Retreat Series, 2014) with Craig DiLouie and Stephen Knight [ebook: The Retreat: na/]
- The Retreat 3: Die Laughing (no place given: The Retreat Series, 2015) with Craig DiLouie and Stephen Knight [ebook: The Retreat: na/]
- The Retreat 4: Pandemic (no place given: The Retreat Series, 2016) with Craig DiLouie and Stephen Knight [ebook: The Retreat: na/Joachim Luetke]
Deadlands
- Plague of the Undead (New York: Pinnacle Books, 2014) [Deadlands: pb/]
- The Dead Won't Die (New York: Pinnacle Books, 2014) [Deadlands: pb/]
individual titles
- Quarantined (Kingston, Nova Scotia: Lachesis Publishing, 2009) [pb/]
- The Red Empire (Anaheim, California: Bad Moon Books, 2011) [pb/Alan M Clark]
- The Red Empire and Other Stories (no place given: Redrum Horror, 2012) [exp of the above as coll: pb/Joshua Hansen]
- Crooked House (Concord, California: Dark Regions Press, 2012) [pb/M Wayne Miller]
- Inheritance (New York: Evil Jester Press, 2012) [pb/]
- Lost Girl of the Lake (Anaheim, California: Bad Moon Books, 2012) with Michael McCarty [pb/Sandy DeLuca]
collections and stories
- The Crossing (place not known: Print Is Dead, 2012) [story: chap: pb/Julia Sevin]
- Dog Days (San Francisco, California: JournalStone, 2014) [coll: title novella plus short story: hb/M Wayne Miller]
- Speculations (San Antonio, Texas: Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing, 2018) [coll: hb/George Cotronis]
works as editor
- Dead Set: A Zombie Anthology (place not known: 23 House, 2010) with Michelle McCrary [anth: pb/Carlo Cotronis]
- The Forsaken: Stories of Abandoned Places (Baltimore, Maryland: Cemetery Dance Publications, 2017) with Mark Onspaugh [anth: ebook: na/]
links
previous versions of this entry