David Moody's Blog, page 38
November 29, 2018
Home – an AUTUMN story – in Russian
The AUTUMN short story HOME has been translated into Russian and appears in this month’s issue of DARKER (Russia’s number 1 horror webzine). I also did an interview with the mag which you can find here.
I’m looking forward to returning to the world of AUTUMN in the near future. It’s been five years since the release of AUTUMN: THE HUMAN CONDITION and in those years the zombie sub-genre has changed completely. No one was talking about zombies when the first book hit the shelves in 2001, but now they’re everywhere!
Not read the AUTUMN series? This gives me a great opportunity to point you in the direction of www.lastoftheliving.net which will give you all the information you need, along with more than 40 short stories, including HOME. Many of the stories were illustrated by some very talented folks. A gentleman by the name of Michael Dick provided several sketches for HOME, such as this:
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November 26, 2018
The Cost of Living audiobook
My ongoing mission to make my entire back catalogue available as audiobooks continues with the release of THE COST OF LIVING. This is an absolutely phenomenal production by Brian Portsmouth, and even if you’ve read the book I’d recommend giving it a listen. Written in first person, Brian’s added a whole new layer of characterisation to the story with his narration, and that makes that bittersweet ending so much harder to swallow. I’m really pleased with how this one’s turned out, and I hope you enjoy it. THE COST OF LIVING is available now from Amazon, Audible and iTunes.
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November 20, 2018
ALL ROADS END HERE
The other day a reader sent me a volley of abuse and called me a wanker because they didn’t like the end of TRUST. Oh well, you can’t please everyone! I was a lot happier with PUBLISHERS WEEKLY’s review of ALL ROADS END HERE. Warning – slight spoilers for ONE OF US WILL BE DEAD BY MORNING and the new book follow…
Moody’s suspenseful second Final War horror novel (after One of Us Will Be Dead by Morning), continuing the second series set in the bleak and anger-filled Hater world, is a gripping take on the zombie apocalypse. Many humans have inexplicably turned into Haters, creatures fueled by an unrelenting need to kill. Matthew Dunne has been away from home for three months, battling Haters to get back to his unnamed British city. His girlfriend is understandably surprised when he shows up at the door to their house, and as he learns the new rules of his tightly controlled city, the safer and happier life he had hoped for falls apart. Matt is a typical action hero, trying to protect his woman and prove he is smarter than everyone around him. As more information about the Haters is revealed, Matt’s need to learn more drives the plot forward. Some scenes feel rushed, especially after long sections of Matt surviving by waiting and staying still. Fans of zombie thrillers will not be disappointed.
New to the HATER series? Need to catch up with ONE OF US WILL BE DEAD BY MORNING? You can get hold of massively discounted signed copies of the previous books from Infected Books for a VERY limited time.
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November 6, 2018
Coming soon – THE LAST BIG THING
Heads up: pre-orders will shortly be opening for THE LAST BIG THING – a collection of my favourite (generally non-zombie) short stories from the last 10 years. This is something I’ve wanted to do for quite a while, but the timing has never been right. In the next couple of weeks I’ll tell you more about the contents. There are eight reprints, many of which are from old and/or hard to find collections, and three new stories. The new tales are shorts I’ve had planned or half-written for a while but which have, until now, never found the right home.
One particular story I’m pleased will finally be in print is EVERYTHING AND NOTHING, a HATER short story which takes place immediately before DOG BLOOD. Next February sees the release of ALL ROADS END HERE, which is a sequel to both ONE OF US WILL BE DEAD BY MORNING and HATER, so it’s perfect timing to be sending EVERYTHING AND NOTHING back out into the wild.
THE LAST BIG THING will be released through Infected Books in early December. It’ll be a hardback and ebook release, with a multi-narrator audiobook version to follow in 2019. And the cover art? Christ, it’s beautiful. Longtime collaborator CRAIG PATON has produced something special, and I’ll be revealing it in the coming weeks.
To make sure you don’t miss any updates, check back here regularly or follow me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Please also sign up to my junk-free mailing list here (and help yourself to a free ebook in the process).
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October 30, 2018
Little Monster
Cast your mind back to 2016 when Wayne Simmons and I curated the YEAR OF THE ZOMBIE – 12 authors, 12 original zombie novellas. It was a huge success, with stories that took the living dead from Somalia to Wales, and from the post-apocalypse to the office Christmas party. The entire collection is now available as a very reasonably priced ebook and a beautiful door stop-sized paperback.
One of my favourite stories is LITTLE MONSTER by James Plumb. James, as you may recall, is a film-maker, and what happens when a film-maker writes a story? The answer’s pretty obvious – they inevitably go on to film it. That’s exactly what James has done, and the movie adaptation of his novella is now ready for public consumption.
Your six-year-old daughter has been bitten by a zombie and now hungers for human flesh.
What do you do?
Do you double tap her in the brain?
Or do you become the ultimate enabler and feed her human flesh?
And where do you get human flesh from?
This is the dilemma that Gareth and Jen face with their beautiful daughter Ana.
What will they do?
And how far will it go?
On 11 November I’ll be travelling to Cardiff to sit in the audience for the LITTLE MONSTER world premier, and I cannot wait. Tickets are available here.
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October 28, 2018
Aftermath
Today’s film recommendation comes from Ryan Fleming (again), who watches (and makes) more post-apocalyptic movies than I do. AFTERMATH is something of an oddity. It has all the trappings of your typical low-budget, end of the world movie, yet there’s something about its approach, its nihilistic outlook, that sucks you in and drags you along. As usual, here’s a synopsis, a trailer, and some thoughts.
In a post-World War III nuclear apocalypse, nine strangers must band together to try to defend themselves against massive radiation, attacking refugees, and each other.
You know what? This is actually pretty good. It’s not a classic by any stretch of the imagination, but AFTERMATH does an excellent job of conveying the hopelessness of survival after a nuclear attack, particularly given the obvious constraints of being a low-budget indie movie.
The film certainly looks the part. It’s well filmed, with a suitably washed-out colour palette. The pacing is also good and it doesn’t outstay its welcome: the thirty or so days covered by the story progresses quickly and evenly. That’s a real positive, as often in movies like this there’s an uneven focus on the immediate after-effects of the attack and the inevitable end of the story (or, more accurately, the characters). A decent cast give strong performances across the board including, surprisingly, Edward Furlong.
There are a couple of aspects of AFTERMATH which really struck me, and which are why I’m keen to recommend the movie to you.
Without ever feeling forced or contrived, this film has something of the air of a classic zombie movie about it, and I mean that in a good way. In his original recommendation to me, Ryan mentioned that something about AFTERMATH (other than the title!) reminded him of AUTUMN, and I get that. There’s the same isolated farmhouse location, only with radiation-scarred neighbours instead of reanimated corpses. In AUTUMN, the dead are attracted to the living simply because they’re the only things left in the desolate, post-infection world which are visible and which make any noise, and that’s an idea which is used to great effect in AFTERMATH. The survivors’ stronghold in the basement of a house – which, in reality, is little better than being out in the open – and yet they find themselves repeatedly under attack. Unfortunately, this results in a fairly uninspired climax to the film (the tension of which is dissipated by some strange editing choices), but that’s okay because AFTERMATH is about the journey, not the destination (please pardon the cliché).
But for me, what sets this film apart is its tone of grim hopelessness. It’s not quite up there on the THREADS scale, but it certainly pulls no punches. From the moment the bombs explode you know the characters are doomed. There’s no sugar coating. There’s no respite. There’s no last-minute reprise. And for that reason, I whole-heartedly recommend you give AFTERMATH a watch. You can get it from all the usual outlets or stream it on Amazon Prime if you’re a member.
And on the subject of THREADS… If you’re in the UK on 2 December and are in or around Halifax, you may be interested to know there’s a screening of the film at Square Chapel Arts, followed by a Q&A with one of the actors, Reece Dinsdale. Tickets are a very reasonable £8 and are available here. I’ve been talking with friends about the film a lot recently, and from their reactions on their first viewing, I know it’s lost none of its power over the years. I’ll be making the trip to Halifax in December, and I’m already bracing myself for the impact of watching it again…
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October 17, 2018
STRANGERS audiobook now available
I mentioned recently that audiobook versions of the Infected Books catalogue will be appearing over the coming months. The first release, STRANGERS, is available now. Brilliantly narrated by Ian Fisher, you can get it from Amazon, Audible (UK), Audible (US), and Apple Books.
A dark and dirty horror novel from David Moody, author of Hater and Autumn.
A spate of brutal murders occur in and around the small town of Thussock. The bodies of the dead – savagely mutilated, unspeakably defiled – are piling up with terrifying speed. There are no apparent motives and no obvious connections between the victims, but the killings only began when Scott Griffiths and his family arrived in Thussock…
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September 27, 2018
For the Love of Horror
Very excited to announce I’ll be a guest at FOR THE LOVE OF HORROR, a brand new event taking place on October 20 and 21 in Manchester. For more information and ticket details, click here. There’s a stunning guest list, including the inimitable DANNY TREJO, stars from HALLOWEEN, CHILD’S PLAY, NIGHTBREED and much more.
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September 23, 2018
I don’t care How It Ends, as long as it ends
I’m very proud of the Recommendations page on this site. It’s built up over the years to be a fairly substantial list of movies I’ve watched and books I’ve read that I’ve enjoyed enough to want to publicly recommend. Of course, not every book or film fits into that category.
I’ve long been a fan of bad movies. I think if you’re even remotely interested in the art of storytelling, you can learn as much from a bad film as you can a good one. So I’ve rejigged the recommendations page to include movies which I’m happy to recommend, and those I’m not. Which brings me onto today’s film…
You might recall the time when a production company were planning to option STRAIGHT TO YOU but changed their minds at the last minute, only to release a movie a couple of years later which shared a suspiciously high number of similar scenes, themes and story beats with my book. When I started getting emails earlier this year about another movie with a not too dissimilar premise, I was concerned. I needn’t have been. Netflix’s HOW IT ENDS is nothing like STRAIGHT TO YOU. It is, however, a masterclass in how NOT to tell an apocalyptic story.
When a mysterious disaster turns the country into a war zone, a young lawyer heads west with his future father-in-law to find his pregnant fiancée.
Sweet Jesus, where do I start? I approached this film with high hopes. The trailer looked good (the trailers always do), it had a decent cast, and some of the initial reviews were positive, but man, what a let down.
STRAIGHT TO YOU had a resurgence of popularity over the summer – it often does when the sun comes out. It was a featured story on WATTPAD for quite a time, and I saw a welcome sales spike. The longer the sun stayed out here in the UK, the more people started to think, what if…? One of the things I’ve always loved about the book – both the original and the 2014 re-write – is the simplicity of the story: a couple are geographically separated, they discover the world’s about to end, they do everything they can to get back together before it’s too late. HOW IT ENDS takes a very similar approach, but it manages to unnecessarily dilute its story so as to render it completely devoid of any impact. As I said in the title of this post, by the time I was halfway through the movie, I didn’t care how it ended, just as long as it ended.
So what went wrong? Firstly, the apocalyptic event itself is poorly handled. We see just enough money shots to pique our interest, but not enough to imbue any sense of impending doom. Making a desperate dash from one part of the country to another is all well and good, but the lack of any ticking clock strips the story of any sense of urgency and, therefore, just about all drama.
Second, cliché. All too often the film resorts to cliché to keep it moving. Car chases and incidents on the road, crazy preppers etc. It felt ‘by the numbers’… oh, so this is the part where they lose their car/their car breaks down, this is the part where a key character gets fatally injured, this is the part where a madman appears to tell us eveything’s going to be okay…
Third, characters. Sorry, but I just didn’t care about anyone in this film. The backstories are under-baked, and there are numerous examples of illogical decision making by the characters. Such stupidity strips away any emotional investment. Oh, and they were all beautiful. Come the end of the world, we will all look like shit within moments of the impending apocalypse being announced (some of us already do).
Four, the ending. I won’t spoil it, because despite all I’ve said, I do still recommend you watch the film. There’s a predetermined inevitability to a movie that deals with a subject like this, but it’s still got to mean something to be worth watching. I re-watched the last five minutes to check I hadn’t missed something important. I hadn’t. It’s like the cast and crew clocked off early.
The film’s not without some merit. It has Forest Whittaker, who is always interesting to watch, even when he’s given little to work with, the opening sequences are engaging, and it looks good throughout. Ultimately, though, HOW IT ENDS has nothing to say. It’s a long-winded hotchpotch of half-ideas which don’t go anywhere, and that’s a real shame. You don’t need a multi-million dollar budget and a cast of star names to tell a post-apocalyptic story that’ll resonate with its audience: you just need to have a coherent premise and characters people will invest enough emotion in to care how they end.
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September 13, 2018
Post-summer news update
Is it weird to collect copies of your own books? Maybe it is, but I don’t care. Have a look at this gorgeous little copy of HATER from Japan. It’s taken me a long time to get hold of it, but I’m pleased I did. It’s genuinely very tiny, and also very cool.
Anyway, as usually happens in the summer, I’ve had my head down writing for most of the time. I thought I’d better give you an update of what I’ve been working on. You wouldn’t think so judging from the infrequent updates here, but I’ve actually been really busy.
THE FINAL WAR
The second HATER trilogy is rapidly reaching its conclusion (I’ve taken a break from working on the final scene of book #3 – CHOKEHOLD – to bring you this update). Another quick reminder in case you missed it last time, book #2 – ALL ROADS END HERE – will be released in paperback, ebook and audiobook on 19 February 2019. If you want to bring yourself up to speed in readiness for the new books, I’d recommend reading ONE OF US WILL BE DEAD BY MORNING first, then (re)reading DOG BLOOD. ALL ROADS is a parallel sequel which exists in the same time frame and same location as DOG BLOOD. And it’s a blast. I think you’ll really enjoy it.
THE LAST BIG THING
As you may remember, ALL ROADS was originally scheduled for release this month, and now that it’s moved I have a gap in my publishing schedule. That’s going to be filled with the release of THE LAST BIG THING – a hardcover collection of some of my favourite short stories from those I’ve written over the years; many that are hard to get hold of, along with several more written specially for the collection. Release is tentatively scheduled for the end of October, and there will be more news soon.
GERMANY
You may have noticed that many of the German versions of my books are currently unavailable. Unfortunately two of the German-language publishers I work with stopped trading this year. I’m pleased to announce, though, that most of the titles will be re-released in German through Infected Books later this year.
AUDIO BOOKS
And at long last my back catalogue will shortly be available as audio books. STRANGERS will be the first release at the beginning of October, with THE COST OF LIVING the following month.
AND FINALLY…
This is a real unsubstantiated tease and I apologise in advance, but I just wanted to let you know that yes, THE HATER MOVIE is still very much alive and kicking and yes, I hope to have some concrete news to share before the end of the year.
And on that bombshell, it’s back to work!
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