David Moody's Blog, page 100

5 reasons why zombies (still) scare the heck out of me

I've just posted my first entry over at Babel Clash – the Borders Scifi blog. It's about zombies (wouldn't you know) and why they scare me as much today as they did 25+ years ago when I first watched Night of the Living Dead. Please click here to check it out, and feel free to add to the conversation – it would be great to hear what you think it is about zombies that scares the heck out of so many of us. While you're there, check out Jonathan Maberry's post from yesterday about the horror books and movies which have inspired him.

It's been a busy day today. I'm working flat out on AUTUMN: AFTERMATH right now, but I took time out this afternoon to speak to Ian Berriman from SFX magazine. Ian interviewed me for their forthcoming zombie special (on sale in September). I'll tell you more about that nearer the time. I think you'll like what they've got planned…

And in other news, the postman delivered issue #5 of SCREAM magazine (with some great features including interviews with Doug Bradley – Pin Head from Hellraiser, and Frank Henenlotter – director of Basket Case, Frankenhooker and various other cult movies I loved watching on VHS back in the day).

And finally, this morning I was asked to blurb the final volume in a hugely popular trilogy of zombie novels. It's a book many of us thought might never see the light of day, and one I know many of you are looking forward to. Can't wait to get into that!

Please check out the Babel Clash blog, and come back here tomorrow when another free AUTUMN novella will be going online.

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5 reasons why zombies (still) scare the heck out of me

Blogging at Babel Clash – the Borders Sci-fi Blog

Just a quick post to let you know that Jonathan Maberry and I will be blogging over at Babel Clash – the Borders Sci-fi Blog – for two weeks from 21 June. I'm sure we'll both find plenty to talk about – zombies, classic horror, our past and upcoming books… it should be a blast.

You can find the blog at bordersblog.com/scifi/ and you can follow Babel Clash on Twitter here. Please come and join us!

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Blogging at Babel Clash – the Borders Sci-fi Blog

An AUTUMN update and even more stories added to www.lastoftheliving.net

Two more brief stories have just been added to www.lastoftheliving.net. That brings the current total to 24 shorts, and there's still much more to come. More about that in a minute.

Today's first story concerns Robert Woolgrave – a young man who makes a few rash decisions in his fight to survive. Read his story first, because Robert also makes an uncredited appearance in today's second short, the fifth part of the tale of Amy Steadman. She's been dead for 17 days now, and as you can see from Craig Paton's excellent illustration, she's not looking too good! Robert's story, by the way, is illustrated by a beautiful photograph by Antony White. You'll see more of Antony's pictures in the coming weeks, and later in the year I'll be featuring interviews with all the artists involved with the project on this site.

I thought it would be good to give you a little more detail about what's planned for www.lastoftheliving.net and the AUTUMN series in general…

So far, much of the free fiction posted to the site has consisted of brief character sketches designed to introduce you to characters you'll meet in upcoming books. After the US release of PURIFICATION in August, however, this will change slightly.

Between August and November you'll hopefully (providing I get it finished in time!) be able to read BEGINNING TO DISINTEGRATE – a brand new, multi-part novella which will introduce the main characters from AUTUMN: DISINTEGRATION, and will explain how they get into the state they're in at the beginning of the book.

March 2012 should see the release of the final AUTUMN novel, AFTERMATH, which I'm currently writing. In the run up to the final book you'll see some more brief character introductions. Between now and the release of AFTERMATH you'll also get a number of standalone novellas, including THE GARDEN SHED (in which a retired accountant does all he can to defend his home from the oncoming zombie hordes), THE HUMAN CONDITION (a group of survivors trapped on the top floor of a high rise), SKIN (teenage angst at the end of the world), and UNDERGROUND (the final days of the bunker from AUTUMN: THE CITY and PURIFICATION). Some of you will inevitably have read these before, but I'll also have BREAKING POINT for you –  a previously unpublished piece (ever wondered what happened to Michael and Emma between the first two books?).

So there we go. Don't say I never give you anything. There will be another novella appearing next week. It's my personal favourite – OFFICE POLITICS.

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An AUTUMN update and even more stories added to www.lastoftheliving.net

Whatever happened to Jacob Flynn?

Remember Jacob Flynn – the bitter, unrepentant bugger doing time for manslaughter? We last saw him trapped on the wrong side of his prison cell bars as the rest of the world dropped dead around him. He's now been stuck in his cell without food for over two days. That's bad enough, but now one of his dead cell-mates has just got up and started to move. Head over to www.lastoftheliving.net for more…

Coming next week – another day in the life (death) of Amy Steadman.

 

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Whatever happened to Jacob Flynn?

Recommended reading #3 – ONE by Conrad Williams

I spent much of last week sitting around a swimming pool in the sun (wish I was back there now…). As well as making me realise I'm writing for the wrong market if I ever want to make serious money from books (I was the only one reading horror while a huge volume of chick-lit and formulaic pulp fiction was being continually consumed all around me), it was a great opportunity to read a few books because I wanted to, not because I'd been asked to or I'd promised to. Don't get me wrong, I'm always happy to blurb whenever I can, but there's something supremely satisfying about choosing a book from your shelf and reading it because you're in the mood to read it, no other reason.

The book at the top of my pile last week was ONE by Conrad Williams.

"This is the United Kingdom, but it's no country you know. No place you ever want to see, even in the shuttered madness of your worst dreams. But you survived. One man."

ONE blew me away. Beautifully written (I am supremely jealous of Williams' descriptive skills), it's the story of Richard Jane, a diver working on a rig in the North Sea. As Jane and his colleagues rise to the surface, dead fish and bodies sink the other way – the first indication that something terrible has happened. By the time he makes it back to dry land several days later, it's clear that the world he remembers is gone forever. The land around him is scarred beyond recognition, every living person dead. The rain burns like acid, and the sky is a constantly swirling mass of browns and reds. Bewildered and terrified, Jane has no option but to walk virtually the entire length of the devastated country back to London, back to his son.

Jane's journey is vividly described, and although the world through which he travels is filled with the dead and unending destruction, it's all conveyed in such a way as to never feel gratuitous. His quest to find his son – convinced that he's somehow survived when many millions of others have died – reaches its conclusion at the end of the first part of the novel. We then jump forward in time ten years and follow Jane through the ruins of London as he and several hundred others attempt to evade capture by the Skinners – grotesque creatures which arrived with 'the event' and which inhabit the bodies of the living and the dead. When word reaches the survivors of a huge raft being constructed off the coast of Kent, a desperate last exodus from London begins.

I don't want to say too much more about the book, other than if you have even a passing interest in post-apocalyptic fiction (and as you're on my website, that's probably a safe bet), you should read it. It ticked all my boxes, and far surpassed my expectations. Superb.

Oh, and if you're in the UK and you're interested in visiting locations which inspire people to write apocalyptic fiction, you should go to Dungeness. It's a remarkable place which totally captivated me when I visited last summer – truly like nowhere else in England. The perfect setting for the final scenes in Williams' excellent book.

 

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Recommended reading #3 – ONE by Conrad Williams

HATER published in Japan

Well I'm back at my desk after a week away, and there should be plenty of updates over the coming days to make up for last week's silence.

First off, here's news of another edition of HATER. The book is out in Japan this week (published by Random House Japan), and here's the cover.

I've said before how interesting it's been to see how the different publishers of the book around the world have approached the cover art over the last couple of years. Some have stuck with variations on my original bloody scrawl, whilst others have taken a completely different direction (such as the phenomenal Taiwanese edition). You can see all the covers at www.infectedbooks.co.uk.

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HATER published in Japan

More free fiction at www.lastoftheliving.net

If you haven't already gathered from my other posts this week, I'm off on holiday tomorrow. I've added next week's free Last of the Living story to the website early, and I hope you enjoy it. It's a brief introduction to Peter Guest – a character who sits in pretty much a catatonic daze throughout Autumn: The City, but who finally comes around from the shock of the apocalypse to play a important role in Autumn: Purification.

There's loads more to come next month… new short stories (and at least one novella in amongst them) every week in the run-up to the US release of Purification, a very cool AUTUMN competition, and plenty more besides.

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More free fiction at www.lastoftheliving.net

Recommended reading #2 – Night of the Living Trekkies

Another book from the catch-up pile… This should have been posted before Christmas(!) so apologies to Mat from Quirk.

What's the definition of good summer holiday reading? Escapism? Humour? A collision of two disparate but well loved genres in a story about a convention full of science-fiction geeks being devoured by bloodthirsty zombies controlled by an alien intelligence?

I'd heard about Night of the Living Trekkies (by Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall) at a convention, strangely enough, and I was intrigued. I'm not a huge fan of the idea of mash-up books – it often seems like a lazy way of making a quick buck (although there are exceptions, of course). Even though this book is an original story rather than a mangled classic, I approached it with trepidation. Could zombies and Star Trek be successfully combined? The answer… just about.

I think I pretty much summed up the plot in my first paragraph. It's simple and uncomplicated, and that's okay. The by-the-numbers zombie action at the heart of the book is really secondary to the characters and setting. To get the most out of NOTLT, you need at least a working knowledge of Star Trek because it's crammed with references and in-jokes. Characters, locations, and dialogue are filled with nods to Trek with even the chapters being named after episodes. It's actually done extremely well, as is Anderson and Stall's handling of that most deep-rooted of science-fiction rivalries – the conflict between Star Trek and Star Wars fans.

This is a very short recommendation, but there's not a lot more I can say about the book. It does what it sets out to do, and it does it well. If your definition of good summer holiday reading is like mine, and you're a fan of zombies, Star Trek, Star Wars or all three, then you'll undoubtably get a kick out of Night of the Living Trekkies. Oh, and it also has one of the best book trailers I've ever seen…

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

 

 

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Recommended reading #2 – Night of the Living Trekkies

Summer holiday reading #2 – Night of the Living Trekkies

Another book from the catch-up pile… This should have been posted before Christmas(!) so apologies to Mat from Quirk.

What's the definition of good summer holiday reading? Escapism? Humour? A collision of two disparate but well loved genres in a story about a convention full of science-fiction geeks being devoured by bloodthirsty zombies controlled by an alien intelligence?

I'd heard about Night of the Living Trekkies (by Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall) at a convention, strangely enough, and I was intrigued. I'm not a huge fan of the idea of mash-up books – it often seems like a lazy way of making a quick buck (although there are exceptions, of course). Even though this book is an original story rather than a mangled classic, I approached it with trepidation. Could zombies and Star Trek be successfully combined? The answer… just about.

I think I pretty much summed up the plot in my first paragraph. It's simple and uncomplicated, and that's okay. The by-the-numbers zombie action at the heart of the book is really secondary to the characters and setting. To get the most out of NOTLT, you need at least a working knowledge of Star Trek because it's crammed with references and in-jokes. Characters, locations, and dialogue are filled with nods to Trek with even the chapters being named after episodes. It's actually done extremely well, as is Anderson and Stall's handling of that most deep-rooted of science-fiction rivalries – the conflict between Star Trek and Star Wars fans.

This is a very short recommendation, but there's not a lot more I can say about the book. It does what it sets out to do, and it does it well. If your definition of good summer holiday reading is like mine, and you're a fan of zombies, Star Trek, Star Wars or all three, then you'll undoubtably get a kick out of Night of the Living Trekkies. Oh, and it also has one of the best book trailers I've ever seen…

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

 

 

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Summer holiday reading #2 – Night of the Living Trekkies

Recommended reading – The Ritual by Adam Nevill

I'm off on holiday next week (providing the volcanic ash blows the other way), and I'll be taking a stack of books to catch up with while I'm away. I've actually managed to get through a few books recently (unusual for me) and I thought it would be good idea to share some of them here over the coming weeks. First off, Adam Nevill's The Ritual.

Four old university friends take a short holiday to escape from the pressures of their lives and rekindle fading friendships. As you'd expect, things don't go to plan. A short cut proves to be anything but, with the men soon heading deep into inhospitable, uncharted territory. Tensions rise, but the group's internal conflicts prove to be the very least of their concerns.

"And on the third day things did not get better. The rain fell hard and cold, the white sun never broke through the low grey cloud, and they were lost. But it was the dead thing they found hanging from a tree that changed the trip beyond recognition."

I really enjoyed The Ritual. It's a beautifully written book which has a deeply ominous and foreboding atmosphere from the outset. The initial premise may sound like by-the-numbers stalk and slash horror, but that's far from the case. The story takes a few wild and unexpected turns. It's a book of two halves, but both halves are wonderfully gruesome and unpredictable. Awesome.

The Ritual is out now in the UK, with a US release to follow in 2012. Moderately interesting fact of the day: Adam and I actually grew up within a couple of miles of each other, but it took our mutual US publisher in New York to get us talking. There must have been something unpleasant in the water in Birmingham forty years ago…

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Recommended reading – The Ritual by Adam Nevill