Author of sci-fi/fantasy, horror and adventure/thriller fiction

AUTUMN: DAWN by David Moody

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David Moody’s AUTUMN: DAWN breathes new life into my favorite undead series. The book releases tomorrow (May 31).

In the grisly world of AUTUMN, a deadly germ strikes 99.9% of the population dead in their tracks. The dazed and shocked survivors struggle to make sense of it, some of them grouping together for comfort and survival and to try to keep hope alive. Then the dead rise from where they fell. Rotting and feral, they are attracted to the living, creating a new threat of total extinction.

I was totally impressed with Moody’s vision of an undead world back in the 2000s. He gave the undead a totally originally spin, not the least of which was by focusing heavily on character and realistically portraying the horrifying physical and emotional landscape of a world filled with zombies. His zombies are truly horrible, practically rotting off the page. His characters have a strained, stubborn agency, remarkable not for any heroic qualities but simply because they’re able to function and fight among so much horror and hopelessness.

Enter AUTUMN: DAWN, the start of a new trilogy to extend the series. This time, the setting is London, where there are plenty of survivors but the dead number in the millions. A community of people have gathered and find themselves under siege. A short distance away, another group has formed, though it might as well be on the Moon. And other survivors wait in the shadows. Can they unite and survive among an ocean of feral undead? Can they hold out and survive in London? Or will they strike out of the city to an alleged sanctuary up north?

The first book delivers everything you want in a Moody novel, and now I’m eagerly looking forward to the second.

ARMY OF THE DEAD (2021)

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Zack Snyder’s ARMY OF THE DEAD (2021, Netflix) delivers a fantastic setup with a strong cast of characters and lavish sets and action, only to suck every drop of fun out of it with dumb tropes.

The film follows Scott Ward (Dave Bautista), a Las Vegas local who became a legendary hero during the zombie war and who afterwards sank into obscurity. Fast forward: the war’s over, Las Vegas is quarantined, his daughter lives in a nearby quarantine camp, and Ward is a bit broken after everything he suffered to survive and save others. A casino boss hires him to break into Vegas to rob the casino he abandoned, offering $50 million for him and whatever team he assembles. After collecting his old zombie-killing comrades and recruiting other specialists, they venture into a zombie-infected Las Vegas to find the zombies have evolved. The trick is the president has authored Vegas to be nuked, and the clock is ticking.

Wow, right? They had me at Bautista, who makes a terrific understated action hero, but that’s one hell of a great setup. Like something like Adam Baker (TERMINUS, IMPACT, etc.) would cook up. The first half is actually fantastic. The problem is once the team is assembled, it all falls apart.

It’s like the filmmakers didn’t trust themselves (or their audience) to make any of it pay off, so they kitchen-sank every dumb heist and zombie movie trope they could scratch together in the hopes something would stick. You’ve got the Annoying Rebellious Daughter with Principle, Skeevy Security Guard, Tough and Mysterious Scout, Traitorous Scumbag Corporate Guy, Overplayed Unfunny Comic Relief, and so on. As well as hibernating zombies, zombie love right out of I AM LEGEND, alpha parkour zombies, king zombie, animal zombies, and from what some people are saying also robot zombies. The action in the second half is decent, there’s some fun, but mostly I was bored as the predictability of it, found the alpha zombies more annoying than menacing, and didn’t care if anybody died.

Okay, maybe I’m just a party pooper who expected too much from a zombie movie. That’s probably true. I’m just bummed because there was so much goddamn potential in this movie’s setup that I felt the way I felt watching the last season of GAME OF THRONES. They should have torn a page from Baker’s books and simply told a simple story: The team has a legendary past, the band gets back together for a heist, they go in, it goes bad, they barely get out with the clock ticking on a nuke. That’s it. No annoying daughter, no scumbag corporate guy, no skeevy security guard.

Oh, well. It’s certainly not the worst zombie movie, and it has a lot of fun elements to it to make it likeable and a passable watch. It really should have just stuck with its simple premise and core characters and made them pay off. THE DIRTY DOZEN with zombies. It could have been one of the best zombie movies ever.

THE INFECTION and THE KILLING FLOOR Re-Released

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Written back in the heyday of Permuted Press and now considered classics in zombie fiction, THE INFECTION and THE KILLING FLOOR have been re-released with a new edit, new covers, and a new low price. I recently acquired the rights back from Permuted, which led to these new editions and, later in 2021, a third book to finally make it a trilogy.

THE INFECTION
A mysterious virus suddenly strikes down millions. Three days later, its victims awake with a single purpose: spread the Infection. As the world lurches toward the apocalypse, some of the infected continue to change, transforming into horrific monsters.

In one American city, a small group struggles to survive. Sarge, a tank commander hardened by years of fighting in Afghanistan. Wendy, a cop still fighting for law and order in a lawless land. Ethan, a teacher searching for his lost family. Todd, a high school student who sees second chances in the end of the world. Paul, a minister who wonders why God has forsaken his children. And Anne, their mysterious leader, who holds an almost fanatical hatred for the infected.

Together, they fight their way to a massive refugee camp where thousands have made a stand. There, what’s left of the government will ask them to accept a mission that will determine the survival of them all—a dangerous journey back onto the open road and into the very heart of Infection.

Get it here.

THE KILLING FLOOR
The mystery virus struck down millions. Three days later, its victims awoke with a single violent purpose: spread the Infection. As the world lurches toward apocalypse, America’s far-flung military returns home to wage a horrific war against its own country.

Far from the front lines, Ray Young, survivor of a fight to save a refugee camp from hordes of infected fleeing the burning ruins of Pittsburgh, awakes from a coma to learn he has also survived Infection. But this is no miracle. Ray is not immune. Instead, he has been transformed into a super-weapon that could end the world … or save it.

In THE KILLING FLOOR, Craig DiLouie’s chilling apocalyptic vision portrayed in THE INFECTION continues, presenting a nightmarish struggle for survival like no other.

Get it here.

THE FINAL CUT
Months after Infection turned the world into a slaughterhouse and laboratory for new horrific forms of life, humanity counts its losses and loses hope. The apocalypse continues to build one day at a time, though the world isn’t ending. It is becoming something new.

In a small town in West Virginia, a tiny but significant battle ends with humanity finally gaining a pure sample of Infection. Licking their wounds, the survivors set out for Fort Detrick, home of USAMRIID, where the Army studies germ warfare.

There, Infection will offer them the ultimate choice: kill, die, or adapt.

Stay tuned for a release date!

REVOLUTION

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REVOLUTION (Netflix) is a French zombie series that reimagines the history of the French Revolution as being caused by a disease spreading among the nobility that turns them into undead creatures with an appetite for flesh. Sort of a French version of South Korea’s excellent series KINGDOM, though in this case the zombies retain their faculties. It’s moody, cool, and interesting. Overall, I liked it, though with its complex plot and sometimes sluggish pace, it’s no WORLD WAR Z.

Working at the Bastille prison, Dr. Joseph Guillotin meets a new prisoner alleged to have murdered and partially eaten a number of peasants. He suspects something isn’t right, and eventually uncovers a plague that could transform humanity into a direct food chain. Some in the nobility know something isn’t right and resist; others go along with it; and a resistance group hoping to overthrow them all and institute a republic finds an even greater reason to take action. It’s all leading to a revolution with even greater stakes than its real historical counterpart.

The colors are dark, the actors often somber, the plot complex, the atmosphere moody. And it’s slow, which is probably its biggest difference with KINGDOM, which used humor well, offered plenty of action, and didn’t take itself as seriously. Despite this, I liked REVOLUTION quite a bit and regard it as a terrific reinvention of the zombie in a unique historical context.

The first season ends in a way that promises a second, though unfortunately the show was canceled, which may leave viewers expecting the full-on revolution by the end of season 1 hanging. Regardless, it’s a solid watch, particularly for those looking for something new and interesting with zombies.

SURVIVOR’S SONG by Paul Tremblay

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SURVIVOR’S SONG by Paul Tremblay is a literary “zombie” novel with a lot of heart, not a little heartbreak, and a very high degree of realism such it all felt fairly real. I quite enjoyed it.

In the near future, Massachusetts is under quarantine as a new rabies-like disease ravages the animal and now the human population. Like rabies, it’s spread through saliva, but unlike rabies, it incubates in a very short time. When Dr. Ramola Sherman gets a call from Natalie, an old friend who is now eight months pregnant, she hears a frantic plea for help: Natalie has been bitten. Thus begins a journey across a crumbling state to save Natalie and her child before it’s too late.

What I liked: The first thing has to be the world building. I especially enjoy apocalyptic stories where we see the center give way and the rest falling apart. Tremblay’s quarantine zone is filled with panicking people who react in many ways, from denial (including the main characters, to an extent) to paranoia and aggression, along with infected animals and people who lurch and rave as they randomly attack. The police are still in action but overtaxed, vigilantes are taking matters into their own hands, and the hospitals are flooded and starting to break down. Everything rolls out fairly realistically, which made the world feel utterly real to me. The characterizations are for the most part very strong, even the minor characters, and I rooted for Natalie to make it however dimmed her prospects became. I particularly liked two teenagers who treat the apocalypse as something they’ve long awaited and trained for by watching zombie movies. When the story moves, the tension and action are realistic and satisfying.

I had some reservations, notably some long digressions that broke the pacing and tension for me, as well as finding Ramola to be not being nearly as strong a character as Natalie. Despite this, I enjoyed SURVIVOR’S SONG quite a bit, and after reading dozens of zombie novels, found it a standout in a genre to which I’d grown jaded, along with being a solid horror novel overall.

BETAAL

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Filmed in India, BETAAL is a zombie series with a terrific premise, heavy cliches presented so earnestly they kind of work, and plenty of ridiculous elements. The result is not quite serious, not quite camp, and I found it sort of overbaked but I just went with it and had some fun.

The show centers on an elite counter-insurgency military unit that has a reputation for brutality. While they are super patriotic and believe in the work they’re doing, their leader is corrupt, hiring out her unit to corporations to suppress resistance to development of natural resources. A businessman hires the unit to clear out the villagers living near a mountain so they can reopen a tunnel sealed since the Great Mutiny of 1857, which trapped a regiment of British East India Trading Company soldiers inside.

The villagers warn a great evil is trapped under the mountain that will come out, but of course they’re ignored, and the story quickly turns into one of survival horror as the soldiers and the businessman and his family try to last the night as the lost regiment emerges to claim the world.

The result was just fun enough to keep me watching despite the usual plot-pushing zombie cliches and odd elements like the British undead wearing military uniforms from the 1700s and not the Victorian era, complete with tri-horn hats, and an old abandoned British barracks that somehow got fluorescent lighting installed since 1857.

Check it out if you’re looking for something different in a familiar zombie package. (Streaming on Netflix)