Heide: Just on?

Iain: On and in use. Two hours of that was Netflix. I do love rewatching Community. It’s my current go-to sitcom.

Heide: Oh, Iain likes the geeky sitcom with all meta stuff and self-referential humour.

Iain: Yeah, I know. It’s not a surprise. A further hour was using the satnav. Another hour was Facebook.

Heide: You live on Facebook.

Iain: I'm using it to store my memories of everything for when my own memory goes.

Heide: Tell yourself that. Why are you interested in how much we use our phones?

Iain: Because of zombies.

Heide: Right…?

Iain: Zombies crop up a lot in film and television now. They’re a thing.

Heide: People love horror and scary monsters.

Iain: But that’s the interesting thing. Zombies, as in the shuffling undead things that try to eat your brain or whatever, have only really been with us for the last half century. Vampires and werewolves and such things have been around for centuries.

Heide: Not literally been around. I mean, you know they’re pretend, right?

Iain: Yeah, yeah. Maybe. But zombies seem to have kind of risen up alongside modern technology. And in fact several people have pointed out that zombies are basically mindless consumers. Zombies are us.

Heide: Oh, that seventies zombie film. The good one. It was set in an American shopping mall.

Iain: Dawn of the Dead. Yes. And you know you hear people say that people staring at their phones are like brain dead or in a trance?

Heide: Like people used to tell you that watching TV would give you square eyes. People are always keen to warn people about too much screen time.

Iain: I just think all of that must have been in the back of our minds when we started writing “Tech it to Heart”.

Heide: A book about zombie people literally being turned into consumer electronic goods. I think that’s part of it. I think I was just attracted to the chance to do some silly zombie humour. Like Shaun of the Dead.

Iain: Or Zombieland.

Heide: Or Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Iain: Or Cockneys Versus Zombies.

Heide: Really? That’s a thing? There’s a lot of zombie stories out there then. What makes ours different?

Iain: Apart from people being turned into kettles and microwaves by evil nanotechnology? I think our readers will, as usual, like our silly humour. And a happy ending (of sorts) is guaranteed.

Heide: That’s nice.

Iain: Also, it’s a book, not a film or a TV show so people can engage with it without being hooked to their screens, like a zombie.

Heide: Unless they're reading it on their Kindle or their phone, staring like mindless zombies.

Iain: Still... our readers would make a better class of zombie.