David Moody's Blog, page 25

AUTUMN: DAWN – out today

Today sees the release of the first new AUTUMN novel since 2012. AUTUMN: DAWN – book one of the London trilogy – is available from all the usual locations (links below). I’m thrilled with how the book turned out, but don’t take my word for it. Here’s a great blurb from the brilliant CRAIG DILOUIE:

“David Moody’s AUTUMN: DAWN breathes new life into my favourite undead series. Moody brings his trademark approach to a zombie world: interesting and realistic characters, organic conflict, and always, always, the dramatic and horrifying struggle to survive in a world overrun by the dead.” –Craig DiLouie, author of THE CHILDREN OF RED PEAK

I wanted to thank everyone who ordered the limited edition of the book. All orders have now been despatched around the world. I’d hoped to have got them out sooner, but last minute delays with the printers scuppered that. Hopefully they should start being received in the next couple of days.

If you missed out, there are a handful of copies remaining, as well as signed paperbacks. Order them from www.infectedbooks.co.uk.

AUTUMN: DAWN is available in print (Amazon, Book Depository, Book Shop, Indiebound), and as an ebook (Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Google, B&N). An audiobook version and German translation will be released shortly.

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Army of the Dead

I feel kind of obliged to say something about ARMY OF THE DEAD which arrived on Netflix this week. I can definitely say something, but it won’t be positive. I despised pretty much every second of it.

Following a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, a group of mercenaries take the ultimate gamble, venturing into the quarantine zone to pull off the greatest heist ever attempted.

Maybe I’m just too fussy? Maybe I demand too much from my zombie movies? My basic requirements are a) a story that goes somewhere, b) characters that I give a shit about, and c) a film that moves at a decent pace and doesn’t have me checking my watch every few minutes. If it’s a large-scale action zombie movie, I want big set-pieces with plenty of undead. If it’s a comedy, I want jokes I can laugh at. If it’s a thriller, I want to feel the tension.

I don’t know what ARMY OF THE DEAD was originally pitched as, but it gave me absolutely nothing in return for the 2 hours and 28 minutes I invested in it.

Worst of it is, the film had ridiculous amounts of money behind it and arrived with extraordinary amounts of hype. A huge audience streamed it in the first week, and so to the people behind the scenes who are crunching the numbers, I expect they’ve classed it as a runaway success. The inevitable upshot of this will no doubt be more of the same.

I don’t know about you, but I find that pretty depressing.

Again, I’m an old-school, living dead purist who happens to have a new zombie novel out tomorrow, so I might well be in the minority. I’d be interested in hearing other people’s thoughts. The film is streaming now on Netflix.

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My approach to ebooks

A very boring title for a post, I’m sure you’ll agree, but this is something I think is worth repeating ahead of the release of AUTUMN: DAWN next week.

My approach with books I’ve released through Infected Books is this – if you buy the paperback or hardcover, you should be able to access an eBook version for free. On the rare occasion I buy a CD, the first thing I’ll typically do is rip it to my computer so I can listen to it however/whenever I like. To my mind, it should be no different when you buy a book. You’ve paid for the story and should be able to access it where you want.

Turn to the back of most Infected Books print releases and you’ll see a page like this:

Go to the page, fill in the form, and an ePub or Kindle version of the book will be sent to you. If you buy an Infected Books title directly from www.infectedbooks.co.uk, you’ll get a download code automatically sent to you as soon as your order is placed.

I just think it’s the right thing to do. Also, so that folks have access to Infected Books titles regardless of the eBook provider they prefer, most of my independently published books are now available from Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play, B&N and Amazon.

I know you’ve probably heard all this before, but AUTUMN: DAWN is the biggest IB release for a number of years so I wanted to share again.

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’71

I recorded an episode of a podcast this week with my pal MARK GODDARD of Snakebite Horror and Bloody Good Reads. This time we were talking about movies, and CHILDREN OF MEN came up. I’ve written about CHILDREN OF MEN on this site before. I think it’s a spectacular film for a number of reasons, not least because of the way it’s filmed. Fluid camera work, subtle editing, and seamlessly integrated visual effects combine to bring an involving, almost documentary-like feel to scenes. I had that same feeling recently when I discovered another movie, ’71.

A young British soldier is accidentally abandoned by his unit following a terrifying riot on the streets of Belfast in 1971. Unable to tell friend from foe, the raw recruit must survive the night alone and find his way to safety through a disorienting, alien and deadly landscape.

Almost all of the films and books I recommend here can be broadly labelled science-fiction, fantasy, or (most usually) horror, but I try not to be restricted by genre labels, because I don’t actually think they count for much. What’s a horror story, for example? Is the story of a kid gone off the rails who’s responsible for something awful (WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN), any less horrible than THE EXORCIST? I just picked those two at random, but I hope you can see what I’m saying. Sure, one’s more implausible and much, much, much bloodier than the other, but they’re both horrific to watch.

Ultimately, what really matters is the characters and what they’re going through. I mentioned how similar ’71 felt in tone to CHILDREN OF MEN, and that’s one of the reasons why. In CHILDREN OF MEN, Theo Faron is ripped out of his world and thrust, ill-prepared, into the middle of a conflict. In ’71, young soldier Gary Hook finds himself stranded alone behind enemy lines in Belfast in the midst of the troubles. Replace the dystopian themes of the former film with the historic conflict of the latter, and in some ways you’re left with a similar dynamic.

And the comparison goes further, because ’71 has a similar visual style. From the moment Hook is deployed onto the streets of Belfast, right through to the climactic, rain-drenched confrontation, the film moves along effortlessly. It’s fluid in the same way as CHILDREN OF MEN, the camera giving you an unblinking view of everything that’s happening and not allowing you to look away. ’71 sucks you in and doesn’t let go for the duration of its reasonably short running time.

Directed by YANN DEMANGE (who previously helmed episodes of DEAD SET), and starring JACK O’CONNELL, I definitely recommend hunting out ’71 and giving it a watch. I found it thoroughly absorbing, and genuinely shocking at times. The film can currently be streamed on Amazon Prime.

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Look what I’ve got!

A week and a half until release, and print copies of AUTUMN: DAWN have started to arrive for signing. They’ll start shipping around the world shortly. Huge thanks to all those who’ve pre-ordered. If you’re interested, there are still a few limited edition hardcovers left, and signed paperbacks are also now available from Infected Books.

You can also pre-order print copies from Amazon, Book Depository, Book Shop, Indiebound and other retailers. eBooks can be pre-ordered from Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Google and B&N. An audiobook version is currently in production, as is a German translation – I’ll share more news about release dates as soon as I can.

Thrilled to see reviews appearing too. BookNest said: “AUTUMN: DAWN is an unabated, unforgiving onslaught of intensity that takes aim at both the light and dark side of humanity. Like a punch to the gut, it knocks the wind out of you on the opening page and keeps you gasping for air until the very end.”

Very happy with that! I can’t wait for AUTUMN: DAWN – and the rest of the LONDON TRILOGY – to stagger and lurch out into the open soon.

 

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Recommended reading – WE

I pride myself on having a pretty good knowledge of dystopian film and fiction. Sometimes, though, you discover a gap in your knowledge that leaves you scratching your head and thinking, ‘how did I not know about this?’ I made such a discovery earlier this year when I found out about WE, a Russian novel from the 1920s, written by Yevgeny Zamyatin. I’d been intending to post about it, but was prompted to do so now when I heard that a new Russian film version is due to be released shortly. You can see the trailer at the end of this.

The reason I was so surprised not to have come across WE before, is because the book was clearly so influential. George Orwell accused Aldous Huxley’s BRAVE NEW WORLD of taking cues from WE (though Huxley denied this). Later, prior to writing 1984, Orwell stated that he intended to use WE as his ‘model’ for his next novel. Whatever each writer’s influences were, there’s no doubt that, collectively, these novels form the foundation of the modern dystopian genre.

In a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, ruled over by the all-powerful “Benefactor,” the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState live out lives devoid of passion and creativity—until D-503, a mathematician who dreams in numbers, makes a discovery: He has an individual soul. Set in the twenty-sixth century AD, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We is the archetype of the modern dystopia and the forerunner of works such as George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Suppressed for many years in Russia, it details the fate that might befall us all if we surrender to some collective dream of technology, and remains a resounding cry for individual freedom.

I’ll be honest, I read WE after reading an article about the influence of the novel on 1984. At the time I thought it was just an attention grabbing headline, because to my mind, 1984 holds an unassailable position as the pinnacle of 20th century dystopian literature. And yet, that headline was bang on. In D-503 we have a character as worn down and beaten as Winston Smith, who is undone in the end by sex and the promise of love and for daring to think that there’s an opinion other than the will of ‘the party’. Similar to 1984, D-503’s nagging doubts are amplified by a woman who takes him beyond the facade. Smith finds a world beyond the view of Big Brother’s telescreens in the top floor of a prole antique store, while D-503 is taken to an ancient house from before the war, far removed from the featureless glass boxes in which he and the rest of the residents of One State live out their pre-programmed lives. Big Brother himself has a rival in WE’s Great Benefactor – an unchallenged leader who is afforded almost god-like status.

WE initially feels closer to an HG Wells utopia (think THINGS TO COME), than the grubby world of Airstrip One in 1984. Whilst the horror of the world portrayed by Orwell is clear, there’s something insidious and unsettling about Zamyatin’s dystopia presented as utopia (also the case with BRAVE NEW WORLD). Perhaps it’s because the characters here are so deeply entrenched in the lie, and therefore have more to lose and further to fall?

I’m not going to say anything more. It’s been a while since I’ve recommended a book on this site, and that’s all this post is intended to be – a recommendation. To give more away about WE, or to further compare it with other novels, would lessen the impact of the book for any new reader, and that’s absolutely the last thing I want to do. Whilst it didn’t have anywhere near the impact on me that 1984 had, I wish I’d found WE much earlier. It’s an important, thought-provoking novel that deals with themes which remain frightningly relevant today (though not, perhaps, in the way Zamyatin, Orwell and Huxley might have expected).

The book is widely available. As with many other books of that age, there’s a proliferation of eBook versions available, no doubt of varying quality. Alternatively, I’ve discovered a 1982 German TV adaptation of the novel that happens to available on YouTube in its entirety. And as I mentioned earlier, there’s a considerably bigger budget Russian movie version on the way. Here’s the CGI heavy trailer.

If you’ve even a passing interest in dystopian fiction (and I’m pretty sure you must have if you read my stuff!), then I highly recommend picking up a copy of WE. More than anything, it’s fascinating to consider its influence on some of the other well-known classics of the genre.

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A peek into the Dawn…

The release of AUTUMN: DAWN is just over two weeks away. There are about 20 copies of the limited edition hardcover available for sale. eBook pre-order links are live for Kindle, Apple Books, Nook, Kobo and Google Play. Paperback pre-order links will start to appear next week. The audiobook is in production. It’s getting very close now! Close enough, I thought, to give you a sneak peak. Here’s an excerpt from chapter one of the book.

DAY THIRTY-SIX

There must have been several hundred corpses on the other side of the window, and it felt like every last one of them was staring right at Vicky. It had been over a month since they’d died. She’d been terrified non-stop from the outset, but in the last hour things had become immeasurably worse. Until now the dead had been meandering, appearing vacant and directionless, reacting to occasional movements and noise. Inexplicably, today they had begun herding purposefully together in unprecedented numbers along The Strand. It felt like they were hunting, seeking out the last of the living, and, in the absence of anything else capable of conscious control in this decaying shell of a city, Vicky, Kath and Selena felt like easy targets. Vicky couldn’t think of a worse place to be trapped at the end of the world than this sprawling, chaotic, overcrowded metropolis.

Kath hauled her rucksack onto her aching shoulders. ‘What could have caused this?’

‘Us,’ Selena said. ‘You’ve not worked that out yet, Kath? It’s always us. I wish they’d just fuck off and leave us alone.’

‘Language,’ Vicky said.

‘Whatever.’

‘We’ve talked about this. It’s not necessarily us, per se, it’s more the fact there’s nothing else left. This is different, though. There’s something new going on out there. We haven’t seen them acting like this before.’

‘Different? How?’ The teenager’s voice was edgy, her panic barely contained.

‘They’re mostly heading in the same direction, for a start. We’ve never seen them do that. Before now they’ve always just drifted along. It’s like we’ve walked into the middle of a migration. There could be tens of thousands of them heading this way. There probably are.’

Kath moved a little closer, out of Selena’s ear range. ‘Careful what you tell her,’ she whispered.

‘She needs to hear this.’

‘I know, but she’s not in a good way this morning.’

‘None of us are in a good way, Kath. Being in a good way went out the window when the rest of the world dropped dead then decided to get up again.’

‘I know, love, but she’s just a kid. Imagine everything we’re both having to deal with – the loss, the fear, the disorientation – then chuck in a load of hormones and angst as well. She can’t help it.’

Vicky sighed and leant her forehead against the cold glass. Outside, a woman, who might have been a similar age when she’d died, clattered into the front of the store. Vicky caught a glimpse of her own reflection, mapped almost perfectly onto the face of the corpse by chance. Where Vicky’s complexion was relatively clear, the dead woman’s skin sagged like an ill-fitting mask, slipping down and leaving drooping bags under her eyes. Her mouth was pulled out of shape like she’d had a stroke, and she ground her jaw continually, making her look like she was alternately chewing then groaning. A string of drool the colour of mud oozed down her chin. Her clothes were tattered and soiled, her decayed body misshapen, swollen in some places, hollowed out in others.

You look as bad as I feel, Vicky thought. She’d known nothing but loss and disorientation for more than a month now. Five weeks of running on adrenalin, scavenging for food, and snatching fractured moments of sleep. It was thirty-six days since the world she’d known had been stolen from her and replaced by this utter hell and right now, other than a heartbeat, Vicky could see little difference between the living and the dead. Like the millions of impossibly reanimated corpses roaming the streets without purpose, she too was barely even existing.

‘We should make a move,’ Kath said. ‘There are more and more of them. The longer we leave it, the worse it’s going to get.’

‘I’m not going back out there,’ Selena said, nervous.

‘Kath’s right. We can’t stay here,’ Vicky told her.

‘Why not? There’s food and space and—’

‘And judging from the numbers out there today, if we wait much longer we won’t have any choice. Lovely as it is, this place will be our tomb. Is that how you want to end your days, hiding in the corner of a bloody Tesco Metro store?’

‘Go easy on her,’ Kath hissed, trying not to let Selena hear.

‘I’ll go easy on her when we’re safe,’ Vicky replied, at full volume. ‘We don’t just need to get out of this bloody supermarket, we need to get out of London altogether.’

Selena edged closer to the front of the store. The sheer number of corpses outside was now blocking much of the available light. ‘Why are they all coming this way?’

‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Kath said. ‘They’re heading out of the city. Why would they be doing that?’

‘They must be reacting to something,’ Vicky said.

‘Us?’ Selena asked, panicked.

‘I don’t think they know we’re here.’

‘Good.’

‘Not yet anyway. It’s only a matter of time, though.’

 

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Last of the Living

Another area of work I’m able to catch up with now is book availability. For a frustratingly long time I’ve had gaps where there shouldn’t be, and I’m steadily putting that right. Case in point – LAST OF THE LIVING. Until now this collection has been available everywhere in print, but not as an ebook. Sorted! You can now download it from Apple Books, Kobo, B&N and Google Play.

LAST OF THE LIVING is a collection of novellas and short stories focusing on those who’ve survived the unthinkable. Some thrive while others disintegrate; some fight while others capitulate. But no matter how each individual survivor reacts, one thing is certain: nothing will ever be the same again.

Includes the novellas THE COST OF LIVING and ISOLATION. Signed copies available from Infected Books.

“British horror at its absolute best” —Starburst Magazine

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V for Vendetta

Now that I’m sitting back behind this desk full-time again, I hope to catch up on the backlog of stuff I’ve built up to share. I have a whole heap of book and film recommendations that I want to add to the already substantial page of book and film recommendations that you can find here.

This week, a post that’s been sitting on my desktop unfinished for 6 months and 1 week. How can I be so precise about the date? Because I watched the 4k restoration of the movie on the day UK cinemas closed back in November last year – masked up for literally the final showing before the multiplexes shut their doors. Roll on next week when, hopefully, they’ll be opening up again.

If you’ve read any of my recent posts about AUTUMN: DAWN (and if you read the bonus material that’ll accompany the limited-edition hardcover), then you’ll know that I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how our appreciation of things we’ve watched and read can change according to our current circumstances. I seem to be making a lot of STAR WARS comparisons at the moment, and this reminds me of my reaction to THE PHANTOM MENACE. Back on opening night in 1999, I was blown away. A new STAR WARS movie! It didn’t seem real, and I loved every second of it. But as time went by and I watched the film a few more times, I started to think that, actually, it wasn’t that good. Fast-forward to 2015 when I did a complete re-watch of the films in anticipation of THE FORCE AWAKENS, and I absolutely HATED the prequels. And now here we are, post-Disney, and yet again they’re being reappraised.

I guess my point is this: your engagement with a film or book is inevitably shaped by your life at that moment in time. Case in point, V FOR VENDETTA. I enjoyed the film a lot when I first saw it in 2005. Fifteen years later, it blew me away.

In a future British tyranny, a shadowy freedom fighter, known only by the alias of “V”, plots to overthrow it with the help of a young woman.

“People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.”

Based on the acclaimed graphic novel by Alan Moore, V FOR VENDETTA has a phenomenal cast and a wealth of talent behind the cameras. Natalie Portman, John Hurt, Stephen Rea and Hugo Weaving (who delivers a superb performance despite the fact we never see his face) are consistently strong throughout, working from a script by the Wachowskis (the MATRIX trilogy). The film looks great, adapting David Lloyd’s graphic novel artwork sensitively. It doesn’t feel like your typical comic book movie (because it isn’t) – the film feels remarkably British, like a big budget TV crime show at times, crossed with Michael Radford’s adaptation of 1984. It’s a credit to the adaptation that even the more fantastical elements of the story feel grounded and plausible.

I make a point of not discussing politics in public. I use social media to tell people about my books, and I use my books to tell stories – my political views have little bearing on either of these things. The levels of intolerance on display right now make it particularly difficult to have sensible conversations about your political views with people who oppose them – it’s becoming as impossible to discuss objectively as religion. Everybody seems to think they’re right and many take it as a personal affront if you dare suggest there might be another point of view. Society feels increasingly polarised, to the point where I wonder if the divisions can actually be healed, or whether these splits are only going to deepen. Hey… that would make an epic six book horror series, don’t you think?!

Regardless of where your loyalties lie, I think the current political environment contributed enormously to the impact V FOR VENDETTA had on me this time around. That, coupled with the fact the film includes references to an avian flu pandemic and I was watching on the eve of the second UK coronavirus lockdown made the story feel uncomfortably close to home. This is a story about the power of the state and the struggle for freedom, and it takes many cues from Guy Fawkes’s attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. V’s mask, styled on Fawkes and adopted by Anonymous and other groups, has become something of a resistance brand since the film’s release, and I guess that, more than a decade later, has added another layer to the relevance of the story.

At its heart, V FOR VENDETTA is a superb film with themes which resonate louder today than ever. If you’ve not seen it, I recommend you put that right. If you have seen it, I recommend you watch it again and see if it has the same impact on you as it did on me.

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What makes the new AUTUMN trilogy different?

In the weeks leading up to the release of AUTUMN: DAWN on 31 May, I’ll be sharing more details about the new books. Today I wanted to whet your appetite by talking about two of the major differences between THE LONDON TRILOGY and the original series. The new books are still unequivocally AUTUMN, but I don’t want you to think this is just a ‘money for old rope’ rehash of the same things I was writing a decade ago, or a trendy new reboot/reimagining. Sure, there are plenty of similarities, but there are some major shifts too.

Before I go on, I need to plug the limited-edition hardcover again because it’s selling fast. Three-quarters of the print run have sold already, so if you’re thinking about ordering, please get in quick. As a reminder, if you pre-order the hardcover you also get:

Access to the eBook version of AUTUMN: DAWN TODAY!A bonus essay about AUTUMN – 25 YEARS SINCE THE END OF THE WORLDPriority access to pre-orders for the limited editions which will accompany AUTUMN: INFERNO (later this year), and AUTUMN: EXODUS (early 2022).

The limited-edition pre-order link is here.

So, what’s changed since the original novels?

Well, we have. That might sound like an empty comment, but in the decades since I began writing the AUTUMN books, society has changed dramatically. Don’t worry – the new novels aren’t a heavy-going sociological deconstruction of the last twenty-or-so years, they’re a dystopian adventure with a cast of typical Moody characters: ordinary folks like us, who just happen to find themselves in godawful situations. But there are a couple of differences the books touch on.

First, in the original novels, I could get away with the premise that nobody knew what a zombie was. These days, with the non-stop avalanche of living/walking dead related books, films and TV series, I know that writing characters who hadn’t ever encountered zombies would be less believable than the walking corpses themselves.

On another level, we’re more connected now, and despite the immeasurable benefits of the internet and other technological advances, I think that connection has also come at a cost. How many kids these days have been taught to read a map? How many of us could survive without our phones? I’ve been rethinking how people would cope (or not cope) in a world where everything has been reset back to basics.

By the way, you’ll be pleased to hear that these books have absolutely nothing to do with the current pandemic. The novels were planned before 2020, and I’ve no intention of crowbarring in coronazombies or anything like that. The events of the last year or so are mentioned by characters – how could they not be when the pandemic has indelibly altered all our lives in one way or another? – but that’s all. Again, my intention is that THE LONDON TRILOGY is an entertaining zombie story that you’ll enjoy if you’ve liked my other books, nothing more and nothing less. If anything, my worry has been that people won’t want to read the series because of the pandemic. After what we’ve all been through, I could understand that!

But by far the biggest difference between the new books and the original series is the sheer scale. AUTUMN was deliberately small and low-fi with fictitious locations, but there’s none of that this time around. I deliberately picked London because it’s such a densely populated city full of iconic landmarks and buildings – an incredible sandbox to play in. More than that, though, larger numbers of people means there will inevitably be more survivors and many, many, many, many more zombies. I promise, you’ve never seen undead hordes like this before!

I cannot wait for you to read AUTUMN: DAWN. The book is released on 31 May. If you’ve ordered the hardcover and have already downloaded and read it, please let me know what you thought.

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