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Blood Crazy

4.08 of 5 stars 4.08 · rating details · 689 ratings · 41 reviews

Saturday is a normal day. People go shopping. To the movies. Everything is just as it should be. But not for long.

By Sunday, civilization is in ruins. Adults have become murderously insane. One by one they become infected with a crazed, uncontrollable urge to slaughter the young—even their own children. Especially their own children.

Will this be the way the world ends, in...more

Mass Market Paperback, 397 pages

Published January 1st 2001 by Leisure Books / Dorchester Publishing (first published January 1st 1997)

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May 27, 2012 mark monday rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: after-the-fall, horrortime, teenworld

it seems as if this quasi-young adult, sorta post-apocalyptic, kinda zombie-horror, new-fangled Lord of the Flies type novel published in 1995 is somewhat of a cult classic. i think it completely deserves that status and wish it were even more well-known. i have rarely seen it referenced, but given how it straddles different sorts of subgenres, i suppose that is understandable. still, it deserves more attention. at the very least, if you are a fan of any of those subgenres i mentioned, this shou...more it seems as if this quasi-young adult, sorta post-apocalyptic, kinda zombie-horror, new-fangled Lord of the Flies type novel published in 1995 is somewhat of a cult classic. i think it completely deserves that status and wish it were even more well-known. i have rarely seen it referenced, but given how it straddles different sorts of subgenres, i suppose that is understandable. still, it deserves more attention. at the very least, if you are a fan of any of those subgenres i mentioned, this should be considered as particularly interesting reading material.

one day in April, 17-year old Nick Aten ("yeah, it rhymes with Satan") learns to his extreme surprise and displeasure that everyone age 20 and over has had their mind switched over to something more sinister, more herd-like. in essence, adults have become bloodthirsty, zombie-like beings with minimal intelligence and whose main priority appears to be to capture and quickly, brutally, horribly kill their own children. lesser priorities for these transformed adults is the killing of any other children that may cross their path and the building of odd geometric patterns that they form out of their children's belongings, their children's bodies, and their own dying bodies as well. but above all, their main mission remains to kill their own kids - to the point of tracking them down and hunting them with some kind of uncanny homing instinct.

Nick starts out in a kind of state of shock (rather understandable) but quickly learns to survive, picking up and protecting a few fellow kids on the way, including the obligatory love interest. he is an amiable and amusingly laddish protagonist: recently graduated, with some skills in the fixing of cars, but whose main priorities in life are hanging out, drinking lots of beer, contemplating girls, and planning further engagements with his ongoing rival Tug Slatter within their suburb of Doncaster. the first quarter of the book details Nick & company's sometimes panicky, sometimes steady-handed attempts to drive around and figure things out. the rest of the novel becomes a study in contrasting ways to build communities, as Nick finds himself an increasingly important part of several different kid communes, each of which has reacted to the global disaster in different ways.

the writing is plain, unadorned, at times crude. Clark's greatest skill may be in simply making this all seem real - i did not have to carefully suspend disbelief to enjoy it. despite the atrocities being committed and the horrible ways that kids die, this is not the kind of novel that goes into graphic detail about those kinds of things - visceral, splattery horror elements are rather slight; brief descriptions are the norm. sadistic and rape-y behavior from some particularly bad kids are noted and reacted against by the young heroes, but they are not dwelt upon by the author in a leering way. mainly Blood Crazy is a fast-paced page-turner, one of those books that you may find yourself skipping ahead a bit to see if any characters die or if anything especially terrible will happen next, if you are the sort of reader who worries about that kind of thing (i certainly am).

the explanation of why this is all happened to the adults is, for me, what lifts this novel into 4-star material. there is a rather mind-blowing rationale for it all, one that includes the idea that God is simply a projection of our unconscious, in some ways a Jungian symbol that we are all genetically predisposed to believe in. i did not expect to read that in this book! the explanation/revelation occurs during an info-dump that is over 25 pages long. from reviews i've read, this sequence is intolerable to many readers. Clark does try to tart up the dryness of this passage by having it delivered during a sexy massage ("Now turn over, I'll do your front"..."You know I'm getting as much pleasure from this as you are") by a sweet young lady who had just spent the previous few days drugging up our hero and pretty much raping him night after night (upon learning this, Nick is at first irritated but then basically shrugs it off - he has bigger things to worry about). to me, this entire sequence was completely absorbing. it reminded me of the themes and interests of criminally-underrated author Colin Wilson, particularly in his novels The Mind Parasites and The Space Vampires (basis of the laughable movie Lifeforce), and his excellent young adult Spider World series. any info dump that reminds me of Colin Wilson is a good thing. and any info dump that actually expands my mind and challenges my preconceptions of evolution is an even better thing. (less)

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Jun 01, 2012 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Ceridwen's Zombie shelf, Walking Dead and Romero fans

Shelves: horror, sci-fi-and-fantasy

This was a pick up at used book Library sale. It has sat down in one of book boxes downstairs for a few years now, but I dug it out after reading Mark Monday's fine GR review on the book. IMHO it's pretty much everything Mark says, so I'm not going to add much as far as commentary goes. One thing I will say is that Stephen King totally ripped this book off when writing his novel, Cell. I don't have a problem with genre writers (especially the Horror and Sci-Fi bunch) borrowing earlier ideas and...more This was a pick up at used book Library sale. It has sat down in one of book boxes downstairs for a few years now, but I dug it out after reading Mark Monday's fine GR review on the book. IMHO it's pretty much everything Mark says, so I'm not going to add much as far as commentary goes. One thing I will say is that Stephen King totally ripped this book off when writing his novel, Cell. I don't have a problem with genre writers (especially the Horror and Sci-Fi bunch) borrowing earlier ideas and story lines, and then updating and morphing those ideas into something new. However, what King did, I think, without some sort of acknowledgement, sort of crossed a line. Hell, King even starts his book out with a quote from Freud. (Clark has Jung being important to understanding Just What Happened). In the past I've defended Cell as some sort of nice and nasty return to the King (or Bachman) of old. There are some out there that even wondered if King wrote the book, due to some changes in style. Well, now that I've read both Cell and Blood Crazy, I can easily say that Clark's book is the better one, and certainly more original. King didn't improve on it, he just linked his "sanity crash" to cell phones. Clark, writing in 1995 or so, used electromagnetic overload (or something like that) to explain why people (anyone over 18) would go bat shit crazy.

Actually, the adults, who are killing anyone under 18, are not crazy, and they're not even zombies (though that term is pretty elastic these days). They are nearly mindless (with one interesting, parental twist) when it comes to being individuals, but they do have direction (weirdly, I was reminded more than a bit of the ending of Arthur Clarke's Childhood's End ). There's one stunning scene in the book that really hangs with me, where the "zombies" form a human bridge to cross a freezing (not frozen) river. Awesome, and horrifying. Clark's got a first rate post-apocalyptic imagination. The star-hero of all of this is Nick Aten, who's the kind of guy who probably listens to the Clash a lot, and enjoys his beer. But he's a good son, and a decent guy with, what will prove to be helpful, some necessary rough edges. His voice dominates the story, and in a way that is much more believable than the hugely annoying chatterbox, Temple Williams, from The Reapers Are the Angels. Mark's comment about this book almost having a YA feel to it, seems right. Almost. There' some seriously horrible things going on, but somehow Clark mutes this, without diminishing the Horror of it all. If you're into zombie lit, Blood Crazy is indeed an overlooked gem that deserves a much wider readership. King just lost a star from my rating of Cell. (less)

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Jan 15, 2008 Mark rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Young Horror Fans

Shelves: horror

Simon Clark writes a tale that could be loosely described as an apocalyptic zombie generation gap philosophical thriller.

That's a lot of genres for one book!

The book itself is written in first person from the protagonist's perspective. The protagonist is a teenaged boy whose name is Nick Aten ("rhymes with Satan"). One day he suddenly finds that all of the adults 20 and older have gone crazy and are killing people 19 and younger. Specifically, parents are killing their own children. Nick meets u...more Simon Clark writes a tale that could be loosely described as an apocalyptic zombie generation gap philosophical thriller.

That's a lot of genres for one book!

The book itself is written in first person from the protagonist's perspective. The protagonist is a teenaged boy whose name is Nick Aten ("rhymes with Satan"). One day he suddenly finds that all of the adults 20 and older have gone crazy and are killing people 19 and younger. Specifically, parents are killing their own children. Nick meets up with Sarah and her two younger sisters and they try to survive in this new and terrifying world.

The action in the book is fantastic. I couldn't put it down. The explanation for why the adults have gone mad is a bit hackneyed but it fits within the context and action of the book. Religion is basically treated as the "opiate of the masses" but that makes sense when reviewing what happens to the protagonists and the overall goals of the protagonists. Hey, if I woke up in a world where all of the adults were trying to kill me, I would probably give up religion too.

The overall message of the book seems to be that the older generation is naturally at odds with the younger generation. The older generation has all of the money and power, therefore they are the more voracious consumers. The younger generation consumes at the behest of the older. Is the older generation killing the younger generation by consuming too many non-renewable resources, by damaging the environment, and by running up bills the younger generation cannot possibly pay? This book takes that sort of idea and makes it direct killing instead of indirect killing. Incidentally, I found it kind of ironic that the protagonist spends a significant amount of time driving around in an SUV he took from an abandoned suburban home.

As far as weaknesses in the book I felt there were a few. The explanation as to why the adults have gone mad seems kind of wrong. It's a scientific biological explanation that, in my opinion, betrays a lack of knowledge about the scientific principle behind it. However, if you're not a biology major, it probably won't matter.

If I read this book when I was 16-18 years old, I would have thought it was awesome! (less)

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Dec 22, 2011 Φλεγύας rated it 5 of 5 stars

(note:it's been more than 10 years since I read this book & it was the translated version that I read. Into Hellenic)
the first review about this book here on GR (by mark)is spot on. A bit on theone side but still.
Simon Clark's Blood Crazy is in one word "unsurpassed". In my opinion, although I have wholeheartedly enjoyed other novels by Clark, this is his masterpiece.
This is a rollercoaster that takes you in with the first couple of paragraphs, yanks you about chapter after chapter, and then...more

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Jan 12, 2011 Sophie rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed, young-adult, fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. To begin with, the good points: the concept is interesting, and the first half of the novel is well-paced, with generally witty dialogue and a genuine sense of tension, that grows as you experience, through the protagonist’s eyes, the horror of the situation in which he has found himself. The descriptions of gore are usually solid, even if the narrative can be awkward at times.

Negatively, there’s a lot to say. The aforementioned awkwardness of the narrative usually springs from when the protagon...more To begin with, the good points: the concept is interesting, and the first half of the novel is well-paced, with generally witty dialogue and a genuine sense of tension, that grows as you experience, through the protagonist’s eyes, the horror of the situation in which he has found himself. The descriptions of gore are usually solid, even if the narrative can be awkward at times.

Negatively, there’s a lot to say. The aforementioned awkwardness of the narrative usually springs from when the protagonist is trying to understand an unfamiliar concept—and, as a result, beats the reader firmly around the head with it. There are editorial issues, such as sentences which have weak grammar, and the protagonist himself reads as something of a self-insert: he ‘progresses’ (or rather, changes) from something of an idiot to a ‘messiah’, to use the word that has cropped up again and again within the novel. But the change is unbelievable, and incredibly awkward, leaving the reader with a reluctance to accept it at all.

That isn’t the worst of the book, though. The protagonist, once he has found himself outside of his community (where he has a girlfriend whom he appears to love), finds himself in another. There, he is treated, yes, as a ‘messiah’, and has sexual offers from one of the girls. He refuses, but barely – and when he is in yet another community of under-twenties, he is drugged and raped each night for almost a week. Not only does he not take offence to this, but he and the young woman in question end up close friends. Strangely, I wouldn’t think that being raped really brings people together. The young woman’s excuse for this is that she needs to give birth… and that the only other young man who lives there is celibate, therefore ruling him out. The narrator accepts this, with little care for his girlfriend who remains waiting for him.

Overall, this is not a book that I would suggest to anyone, for the negative aspects of it greatly outweigh the positives. I believe that even firm horror fans (I, for one, have read and greatly enjoyed the works of Brian Keene, Richard Laymon and Stephen King, amongst others) will have difficulty looking past the glaring faults of the novel to enjoy it.(less)

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Aug 21, 2012 Selena rated it 5 of 5 stars

Blood Crazy was captivating and very intriguing. I read the book within 2-3 days and that's only because I couldn't put it down. If I did put it down, it wouldn't be for long because I'd want to know what happened next, so I'd end up picking it up and reading at least 5 chapters or more. The book had me at the edge of my seat. I think this may have been the first YA novel I've read within such a short amount of time. If I would have known it was from the perspective of a 17 year old, I would hav...more

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Jan 23, 2010 Colleen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: zombies

This book came out over 10 years before Cell and I really wonder if Stephen King read it before writing that one. Very very similar, even down to the basic plot and the major metaphor of the crazies equaling birds, and "flocking." Or maybe King was playing a subtle homage to Simon Clark--would not be surprised if that was the case.

A book I read in one giant session because I could not put it down. I've decided that Clark is one of those writers that spectacularly smashes it out of the park or c...more This book came out over 10 years before Cell and I really wonder if Stephen King read it before writing that one. Very very similar, even down to the basic plot and the major metaphor of the crazies equaling birds, and "flocking." Or maybe King was playing a subtle homage to Simon Clark--would not be surprised if that was the case.

A book I read in one giant session because I could not put it down. I've decided that Clark is one of those writers that spectacularly smashes it out of the park or completely misses (I hated Rage of Echoes--which I read first--and didn't realize that awful awful book was him until I was looking for more of his books to read).

Very good apocalyptic book! One day all the adults across the world snap and are compelled to murder their children, or anyone under the age of 19. Has a lot of what I now see as standard Clark themes (this was his second book)--the reluctant predestined hero; the psychotic thug who isn't quite as bad as he appears; plucky female sidekick; hordes of nigh-unstoppable monsters and insane, evil survivors.

Occasionally Clark overthinks things. I sort of grew tired of the many, many pages of random people's hypotheses of what happened--evolution? consumption? aliens? nerve gas or something in the water? religion? I think vast chunks of that could have been cut out. Also am a little confused on the main character's long journey back home. Still unclear on how he wound up so far away.

Other thing is that for the most part he didn't do a very good job of fleshing out secondary characters. Except for how they die...so reading about the gruesome account of so-and-so's terrible death didn't have much meaning to me because I was never really attached to them. Would have been better if he had cut out like 40 or 50 pages of speculation and replaced all that with paragraphs describing or with more happy interactions of all the doomed kids.

But these are just minor improvements that could be made. Will definitely read again some rainy day and buy copies to gift to people.

(less)

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Apr 19, 2011 Paul rated it 5 of 5 stars

It's Saturday. Going shopping? For a meal? To the movies? Everything nice and normal, right?

By Sunday, civilization is in ruins. Adults have become murderously insane - literally. They're infected with a crazed uncontrollable urge to kill the young. Including their own children.

THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS...

Time again to raid my bookshelves and dig out another classic novel that I haven't touched for many years.

Blood Crazy by Simon Clark was originally published back in 1995 and as soon as I...more

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Jun 30, 2009 Rosemary rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone

Recommended to Rosemary by: i found it

I have a weakness for "end-of-the-world" novels and this one is the absolute best. A young man awakens to find the adults are killing their children...with smiles on their faces. As this is a worldwide plague (not just Britain - where it's set), this means the end of the world as we know it. How do the teenagers and children survive?

Simon Clark is my favorite writer by far. I was literally unable to put this book down each night and ended up spending a week staying up til 5 AM reading. Even bet...more

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Apr 20, 2012 Jason Thompson rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: YA apocalypse fans

This is a disappointing book which starts with a great premise. I have to admit I came to the book with preconceptions, expecting some kind of extreme-horror running-maniacs apocalypse, but Blood Crazy isn't really a horror novel at all: despite the gore and some sex, it's much closer to a YA disaster novel, perhaps in the "British disaster" genre of authors like John Wyndham and John Christopher. (MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD...)

(view spoiler)...more This is a disappointing book which starts with a great premise. I have to admit I came to the book with preconceptions, expecting some kind of extreme-horror running-maniacs apocalypse, but Blood Crazy isn't really a horror novel at all: despite the gore and some sex, it's much closer to a YA disaster novel, perhaps in the "British disaster" genre of authors like John Wyndham and John Christopher. (MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD...)

(view spoiler)[Nick Aten, the first-person narrator, is one of the survivors when adults everywhere, simultaneously, start to quietly massacre young people, especially their own children. He spends some time running for his life from the silent, staring adults (not running too fast, since the adults are more of the 'slowly, creepily watch you and follow you' type of maniacs than the 'charge you on sight' type of maniacs), then hooks up with various other groups of young survivors who have formed communities -- some functional, some very dysfunctional and "Lord of the Flies"-y.

Like many zombie/end-of-the-world novels, there's lots of human-vs-human cruelty, which gets depressing and distracts from the more tangible human-vs-monster horror pleasures. On the other hand, Clark's view of humanity isn't as bleak as that of some zombie novelists/filmmakers, and when the characters aren't fighting one another, there's lots of community-building and resource-management and building-society-back-from-the-ruins stuff... too much, honestly. The human survivors' behavior has logical gaps -- why don't they just head to an island immediately, instead of hiding behind some dumb fences? With killers roaming the countryside, why are they out casually walking in the streets, partying in the woods, etc.? Perhaps because the crazies also behave illogically and spend a lot of time simply spacing out and being inscrutable, in one scene even capturing the characters and then... letting them go?!?!?

In the end, one of the book's many know-it-all author's-mouthpiece characters tells Aten the 'cause' of the craziness, a nonexplanation which just made me more annoyed than before: basically, Clark takes a page from Julian Jaynes' "The Development of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", and declares that the crazies have somehow lost their consciousness and become more controlled by their unconscious group mind, and the survivors, too, will have to evolve and harness the untapped power of the unconscious (it really does sound like a self-help book) to have a chance to defeat them. And BTW, the heroes aren't even going to tell The Truth to most of their fellow survivors: apparently (paraphrased) "Some people aren't going to be mature enough to handle The Truth, so we'll have to invent a new religion to keep them happy." Oh yeah, and there's a heroic messiah subplot too.

Between the patronizing social-planning attitude of the 'good' survivors with their "We, the enlightened few, must be strong leaders to help our dumber comrades survive the apocalypse" and the sadistic cruelty of the 'bad' survivors, I really just wanted the crazies to kill everybody and for the book to end. (More glimpses inside the behavior of the crazies would also have been interesting, and might have answered the question of how they're supposed to inherit the earth when they have zero sense of self-preservation. What do they eat? Can they even reproduce and breed new Crazy Children? Beats me.) The prose style is bland and obvious -- for example, the early descriptions of the pre-apocalyptic town keep emphasizing how "normal" everything seems. There's a few good chilling images, but not enough. If you want a story of people going mad for some unknown reason and massacring everybody, read Garth Ennis' graphic novel "Crossed" instead.

In that spirit of generosity, I give this book one star for the second half, and three stars for the somewhat decent first half, for an average rating of two. Still, my advice is: don't read it. (hide spoiler)](less)

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Nov 06, 2011 Duane Colwell rated it 4 of 5 stars

Terrific writing. I was absolutely mesmerized with Nick's adventures for the first two-thirds of the book. I really liked it, but I didn't love it. After the first two-thirds or so I think the author started to go off on a tangent. Evidently he decided he needed to keep it exciting so he started all kinds of extraneous story lines that did nothing except extend the story. The last quarter or so of the book could have been much better - it was rather disappointing actually.

If you wish to compare...more

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Feb 08, 2013 Robert Brase rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: end-times

A pretty good yarn that follows the survivor of a small English town as he traipses across a landscape of hell. It appears as if all adults have gone crazy and are slaughtering any youngster under the age of 19. Turning into some kind of freakish zombie like monsters the parents of children seem damned to hunt their children, and our main character Nick appears to have this very problem. Clark does a very good job of taking the reader on a journey through hell as we visit various encampments of...more

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Jan 22, 2008 Robert Beveridge rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: finished, cle-pub-lib

Simon Clark, Blood Crazy (Leisure, 1995)

How this book gets characterized as a young adult novel is completely beyond me. Hey, folks: just because a novel's protagonist is under twenty-one years of age does not make a novel aimed at the young adult market.

Nick Aten ("rhymes with Satan") goes to bed one night convinced that all is right with the world. He wakes up the next morning and finds out how terribly wrong he is; something has caused all of the world's adults to go crazy and start killing t...more Simon Clark, Blood Crazy (Leisure, 1995)

How this book gets characterized as a young adult novel is completely beyond me. Hey, folks: just because a novel's protagonist is under twenty-one years of age does not make a novel aimed at the young adult market.

Nick Aten ("rhymes with Satan") goes to bed one night convinced that all is right with the world. He wakes up the next morning and finds out how terribly wrong he is; something has caused all of the world's adults to go crazy and start killing their children. Those who have no children just go after everyone under a certain age (undetermined at the beginning of the book). Needless to say, the children are not altogether happy with this. Nick escapes and heads out of town, banding together with various other survivors against millions of people whose whole goal is their destruction.

In other words, it's your basic post-apocalyptic novel. And from that perspective, it's a good enough read. It's hard to review this objectively, since I had it marketed to me as a young adult novel; it reads like an adult novel, and so I'm concerned my ideas about it are going to cross one line or the other, since the two are often entirely different animals. Thankfully, it's a decent book as both, though a little on the adult side for being a YA read.

Simon Clark has a good sense of the dramatic, and the book is paced and plotted well. Granted, postapocalyptic lit is fast becoming its own subgenre, and it's not too hard to plot these days (a reading of The Stand, a reading of Swan Song, and a screening of The Omega Man, and you're pretty much set; elements of all three show up here, of course). His characters are for the most part solid and well-built, with a few cardboard-esque exceptions. The main reason, I'm guessing, this was thought to be a YA novel is the Nick Aten's narrative voice, which is naïve; too much so at times. (One wonders why that's still considered a YA trait, given the popularity of the romance genre.)

Readable, fast-paced, and worthwhile for horror fans. *** ½ (less)

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Aug 02, 2008 Trevor rated it 5 of 5 stars

I paid a pretty penny for a somewhat beat-up copy of this book and I'll tell you...I'd have paid three times as much knowing what I know now about Blood Crazy. It's 28 Days Later, Lord of the Flies, Jung's The Undiscovered Self, Origin of the Species, and Braveheart expertly collided with the force of a ten megaton bomb.

The novel begins with confusion and plenty of gory action, as 17-year-old Nick Aten (rhymes with Satan) begins to notice strange goings on. The adult population has become mur...more

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Feb 15, 2013 Celena rated it 4 of 5 stars

I picked this long forgotten book up from a shelf at my in-law's house. Jack and I like to read thrillers and horror sometimes but it definitely starts to all blend together. This one, however, stood out from the pack in a few ways. It's written by a British author, so the different slang and such kept it fresher for me as well as it's just better written than a lot of American horror authors I've been reading. I found it surprising, fast paced, thought provoking and creepy. I'll be checking out...more

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May 22, 2010 Adam Wilson rated it 3 of 5 stars

Blood Crazy by Simon Clark is a simple novel that has a simple description. It is about all of the adults in the world suddenly going mad and killing their children, or anyone who is younger than 19. This book came before Cell by Stephen King, but there are some similarities here, such as the "Creosotes" (what the kids call the insane parents) flocking like birds and the children's atempts to masacre large numbers of them. It was a fun book to read but it was very childish. I don't think it was...more

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Dec 22, 2009 Pam rated it 4 of 5 stars

Adults go nuts and kill their children, and everyone under the age of 19. The young survivors must rebuild civilization while attempting to stay alive. One of Clark's characters explains the change as an evolutionary step. Not too believable, but I guess he needed SOME kind of theory. Good story, characters with shades of gray, and an acceptable ending.

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Dec 12, 2007 Thee_ron_clark rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of post-apocalyptic, zombie, and horror genres.

Shelves: zombies

Much like 28 Days Later and other films, zombie fans argue whether some antagonists are zombies are not. I've found it to be the same in literature and this is one of the novels that people can certainly argue about because the antagonists are certainly not the living dead, but the book has an outbreak that is quite similar to that of a zombie epidemic. In Blood Crazy, all the adults in the world turn into murderous lunatics set on a path to first murder their own children and then to aid other...more

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Aug 07, 2012 Jared Sandman rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed

I think this one's Clark's best, a post-apocalyptic kinda-zombie novel told from the point of view of child survivors. After the world's adults go crazy and start slaughtering their kids en masse, the children are forced to band together and start their own society while fighting against hordes of murderous grown-ups.

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Jul 15, 2011 Lisa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: apocalypse, horror

I picked up this book at the dollar store around Halloween. And I have to say it was well worth the dollar. I think the best part of this book was the explaination about the zombie adults. It was awesome to combine the science of evolution with the supernatural of horror.

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Mar 23, 2013 Nihilio rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror

What happens the day all adults go blood crazy and start killing off their children. This book is Nick Atan's narrative of that day and the months after.
True to its genre (survival horror) the book focuses more on the people trying to survive and rebuild their society and less on the blood-crazy adults, who are nothing more than mindless zombies. And the survivors are much more dangerous than the freaks.
The book is somewhat slow to start, the violence is there but it is discreet and there is a l...more

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Jun 28, 2010 Carrie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Kind of an interesting read. Some polite, British, gore; some polite, non-graphic, sex; and an interesting take on the origins of religion. The ending felt a bit trite, but didn't detract from the story too much. This is more bubble-gum than meat, so more of a beach or bus read.

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Jan 08, 2013 M.k. Yost rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites, armageddon

Not an easy book to find at times, but once you have a copy, you'll never want to let it go. A truly original, terrifying glimpse at the end of the world, as evolution one day turns parents again their children.

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Oct 20, 2011 11811 (Eleven) rated it 3 of 5 stars

Every adult suddenly goes nuts and starts killing their kids in what reads like a post-apocalyptic zombie novel minus the zombies. Good stuff, right? I thought so until around page 300 where we are introduced to a ludicrous theory on why this madness is occurring. I would have preferred no explanation to the one that was given. That killed the book for me. 2o pages of idiocy tanked this from four stars to two and I couldn't enjoy the rest after that. Bummer.

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Oct 01, 2009 Brandon rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of my all time favorite horror books. Its like watching a heavy metal video. The thing is fast and it jumps right in and cruises to the finish like a drag race.

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Oct 14, 2009 Amanda added it

Entertaining! Doesn't require all that much thought, but still a good read. It's a twist on the classic zombie horror novel so I was sucked in off the bat.

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Oct 02, 2009 Maureen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror

Truly loved this book. Read it in less than 24 hours and was so sad to have it end. I am now going to read all of Clark's work. Highly recommended...

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Sep 17, 2012 George Kant. rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of the best thriller / horror books I have ever read. In greek it is called "Δίψα για Αίμα" for anyone interested.

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May 24, 2012 Brian Sammons rated it 5 of 5 stars

The first Simon Clark book I read and I loved it. One of the very few books where I was honestly sad to see it end.

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May 01, 2012 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

Blood Crazy is the first Simon Clark book that I've had a chance to check out and found it to be thoroughly enjoyable. The story, which relvolves around a teen named Nick Aten, grabs you from the opening chapter. Something has happened to all the adults in the world whick will prove deadly to anyone under 19. Nick and the teens he meets up with must find a way to survive in this new and frightening new world. This book has elements of Lord of the Flies, The Stand, and a little Night of the Livin...more

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Horror

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Horror > Zombies

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Apocalyptic > Post Apocalyptic

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Science Fiction > Apocalyptic

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Science Fiction

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Adult Fiction

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Young Adult

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About Simon Clark

Born, 20th April, 1958, Simon Clark is the author of such highly regarded horror novels as Nailed By The Heart, Blood Crazy, Darker, Vampyrrhic and The Fall, while his short stories have been collected in Blood & Grit and Salt Snake & Other Bloody Cuts. He has also written prose material for the internationally famous rock band U2.

Raised in a family of storytellers – family legend told of...more

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