David Moody's Blog, page 106

SCREAM Magazine – issue 2 now out

The second issue of UK horror magazine SCREAM has just been released, and it's well worth your time. Click here to order a copy. As with issue one, it's a great read which focuses more on in-depth interviews and articles than most similar mags. This month, there are features on the Zombie Flesh Eaters films, the classic 1931 Frankenstein movie, the new Video Nasties documentary from Jake West and Marc Morris, and Fulci's The Beyond to name but a few. There's also a comprehensive round up of October's Grimm Up North festival.

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SCREAM Magazine – issue 2 now out

Name the Domain – a Christmas competition!

I've been promising it for a while now, but the new AUTUMN website is finally almost here. Some great artwork has already been submitted with more on the way (click here for a reminder of how to get infected involved).

As well as providing masses of information about the books, the characters, the film, the audio adaptation, etc. etc., the site will also be home to a huge amount of free zombie fiction – over 120,000 words at the last count. Much of it will have been available previously as part of Autumn: The Human Condition, but there will also be plenty of brand new material to keep you going between releases next year.

There's just one thing missing from the site right now, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to run a final competition for 2010. I want you to suggest a domain name. The previous AUTUMN site was www.theinfected.co.uk, but I've got plans to use that for something else now (more about that later). I'm looking for a catchy domain name which encapsulates the themes of the books: think of phrases like 'spread the infection', 'slow decay', 'the end of everything'… you get the idea.

Use the form below or email your suggestion to (either before the end of the year or when the site goes live – whichever happens sooner). The person who comes up with the best idea (in my opinion), will win a rare copy of the US advance readers edition of AUTUMN, and a copy of the UK DVD of the movie, both signed. The DVD is region free, so you can watch it anywhere in the world.

Good luck! Enter as many times as you like from wherever you are in the world. As always with my competitions, my decision is final.

 

cforms contact form by delicious:days

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Ducked and Covered

Thanks to www.quietearth.us (an invaluable site for post-apocalyptic news and reviews) for drawing attention to this incredible public information movie from Nathaniel Lindsay. I've spent years trying to imagine what I'd need to do to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. This video sums it all up in less than 9 minutes. Genius.

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

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Ducked and Covered

2011 Appearances

I've already said that I'm planning to get out and about a lot more in 2011, so this will hopefully be the first of many announcements.

I'll be at the SFX Weekender 2 event in Camber Sands on 4th and 5th of February, and then in March (the 5th – 7th to be precise) I'll be making my first trip to Dublin for Phoenix Convention VIII. Both should be great events and, as always, I hope to see some of you there.

Want me to come to your Con or do a signing in your bookstore? Please drop me a line and I'll see what I can do.

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2011 Appearances

Suspense Magazine lists AUTUMN as one of their best of 2010!

Suspense Magazine today announced their Best of 2010 list, and I'm really pleased that they've chosen AUTUMN as one of the best horror books of 2010.

I recently appeared on the Suspense Magazine radio show, and you can listen to the broadcast here. Unfortunately technical issues prevented me from getting on until 40 minutes into the hour long show (it was 2:40am by then, so forgive me if I sound like a tired and frustrated Brummie!).

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Suspense Magazine lists AUTUMN as one of their best of 2010!

Autumn article in new issue of SciFiNow

Thanks to the team at SciFiNow for including 'Self-Made Man' – a piece I put together for them about the re-publication of AUTUMN – in issue 48 of the magazine which has just hit the shelves.

As well as the AUTUMN article, the mag also includes features on Tron Legacy, Rise of the Apes, 25 movies that changed SciFi, a visit to Skywalker ranch… It's a cracking issue this month. Just go and get it!

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Autumn article in new issue of SciFiNow

You know you've made it when…

…your two young nephews buy you an inflatable zombie (yes, this really happened!)…

…and you open up the accompanying book and find your zombie novel listed in there!

Whack-A-Zombie – the ideal present for the discerning zombie-lover this Christmas or Thanksgiving! Unless, of course, you'd rather get them a signed copy of AUTUMN…

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You know you've made it when…

2010 Signed Book Sale

It's that time of year again… I've just updated the INFECTED BOOKS website with details of this year's signed book sale. Please head on over for a chance to pick up some signed editions. There are copies of the new UK hardcover edition of AUTUMN, and some great discounts on US and UK editions of HATER.

This year I'm also pleased to announce that I'll be donating to charity for each book sold. The charity is SMIRA (Selective Mutism Information & Research Association), and here's a reminder of why I'm supporting them.

Click here or on the Infected Books logo to head over to the sale!

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2010 Signed Book Sale

Signings round up

I've had a blast over the last couple of weeks getting out and about. I usually spend too much time sat in front of this computer, so it's been great actually getting out and meeting people again! With three more AUTUMN novels and the final book in the HATER series out in 2011, I'm planning to arrange many more events like these. If you want me to come visit your neck of the woods, drop me a line and I'll see what I can do!

There's a slideshow below (if you really want to see a series of photos of an angry looking bald man and some books), but I wanted to share some of the best bits with you. Firstly, it was brilliant to finally meet some of the folks I'd only ever spoken to by email before: Dawn, Peter, Ryan, Will, Scott, Clym (one of the stars of the Darker Projects adaptation of Autumn no less!), Richard from Scream Magazine and many others.

Grimm up North was a success again this year in its new venue (The Dancehouse theatre, Manchester). The Adaptations panel was particularly good fun when I shared the stage with Conrad Williams (author of the superb One), and genre favourites Christopher Priest and Ramsey Campbell. But for me, my evening with Wayne Simmons at No Alibis in Belfast was the undoubted highlight of the week.

No Alibis is a fantastic little independent bookstore in the Botanic area of Belfast. They specialise in Crime and our event was their first (but hopefully not the last) foray into horror. It was an exceptionally cool evening as Wayne and I read from our books then discussed our writing and the differences and similarities between our approaches to the living dead in front of a really appreciative audience. A wonderful night.

Every stop on my brief mini-tour of the UK was fantastic, and I want to thank everyone who helped put the events together: Emily at Waterstone's Oxford Street, Sim, Steve and the team from Grimm Up North, Steven at Waterstone's Leicester (bookseller extraordinaire and part time zombie construction worker), Adele from Un:Bound (read Un:Bound's coverage of the Leicester signing here), Wayne and Rebecca, Dave at No Alibis, and Mark and Adam at Waterstone's Colchester. And thanks too to everyone who came out to say hello.

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Signings round up

Tooth and Nail by Craig DiLouie

As a writer, I'm regularly approached by people who want to tell me about the incredible new book they've just written. I try to be accommodating and look at as many manuscripts as I can, and I'm always happy to share my experiences of publishing with anyone who asks. You'll probably appreciate though, it takes time to read a book properly and provide the author with constructive, useful feedback, and that's part of the reason a). why I've got a backlog of such books right now (apologies to all who've sent books to me in 2010 – I will get back to you), and b). why I've had to start saying no to new approaches. Please don't contact me for blurbs etc. until I post something to the contrary here: it's not that I don't want to help, I just can't right now…

Another problem with agreeing to read books like this, is that you never know what you're going to get. I've had long and involved conversations with writers about their fantastic sounding ideas, only to eventually receive an incoherent, uncorrected mess of a manuscript. However, that's the exception, and I've read some truly great books from people who've started out as either readers, friends or both.

Today – very belatedly (sincere apologies, Craig) – I want to tell you about one of the best books I've read in a long time. If you're a lover of zombie fiction in any way, shape or form, I urge you to pick up Tooth and Nail by Craig DiLouie.

On the face of it, Tooth and Nail looks like any one of a hundred other zombie stories. The plot sounds standard, almost clichéd: a mutated form of the rabies virus is causing chaos around the world, and a battle-hardened Lieutenant must lead his men (recently back from Iraq) across New York to protect a research facility which may just hold the cure…

Right; forget all your preconceptions. Tooth and Nail is about all of that, but it's so much more too.

I'm not a fan of overly-militarized stories, and I had reservations when I started the book, but DiLouie delves far deeper into his characters than just beginning and ending with their uniforms. These people are flawed, frightened individuals who are fighting their hardest battles – their final battles – in a landscape which used to be familiar and safe, but which is now anything but. They're glad to be home from their tour of duty in war-torn Iraq, but this place is no longer the place they remember. DiLouie presents his weary soldiers as ordinary people who want answers just as much as the ever-dwindling number of civilians they're charged with protecting. He digs into their psyches and makes the reader aware of the soldiers' constant conflict between trying to carry out their orders whilst asking unanswerable questions about the fates of their friends, families and loved ones.

To an extent, Tooth and Nail doesn't deviate hugely from the tried and trusted zombie story formula, but it's the way DiLouie presents his book and the unique narrative voice he employs that lifts the novel head and shoulders above the competition.

I'd been speaking to Craig for a couple of years by the time he sent me Tooth and Nail as he'd already written a number of other novels. Once I'd read it, I took the opportunity to ask him a little more about the genesis of the book which, he revealed, was inspired in part by a novel entitled Eagle in the Snow by Wallace Breem. The last Roman legion on the Rhine make an incredible last stand in defence of an empire which is already beginning to fall. He told me this story planted the seed for Tooth and Nail… the military in the book fight with their dying breath to save a country that's probably already lost. It's a great background which helps generate a grim atmosphere of doom and impending loss throughout.

As an author, I like to write about the ordinary becoming extraordinary and I like to focus on what happens to the familiar when everything you know and rely on starts falling apart. To a large extent Tooth and Nail does this also, but the fact the book's written almost exclusively from the perspective of the military gives everything a very different slant. "I wanted to write a book that presents realistic conditions, realistic things happening," Craig told me. "In Tooth and Nail, large cities quickly become open toxic sewers without electricity and running water. Rifles jam, people crack up, soldiers refuse orders, smoke obscures visibility, guns run out of bullets, people vomit at the sight of so much gore… I never served in the military and I had to research everything from scratch. In some cases, that required me to change the direction of scenes from what I'd originally imagined. As much as it was confining, it was also interesting as a writer to see the book get pulled in different directions, taking on a life of its own."

I can't recommend Tooth and Nail highly enough. It's a truly unique and refreshingly different approach to a familiar story which works on many levels. I'm thrilled that Craig has found such success in the genre, and I'm equally thrilled to be able to say that he's also signed a deal with my good friends at Permuted Press to release a new post-apocalyptic novel, THE INFECTION, in February 2011. He describes it as 28 Days Later meets The Road… sounds good to me!

Tooth and Nail is available now from Amazon, Book Depository and Barnes & Noble etc., and you can find out much more at the official website: www.infectedwar.com.

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Tooth and Nail by Craig DiLouie