Hello, boys and ghoulies. Today David Moody joins me. The man who invisioned a new style of zombie horror. I have to say, he sold me before I even read one word of prose from his stories, and I am not the only reader who enjoys his kind of crazy.
Mister Moody, tell us about your Autumn series. The basic outline of the saga.
On one had the Autumn books are (almost) a traditional zombie story, but there are a few differences. First off, the zombies (and I never call them that) don't eat flesh. That's an aspect of the zombie mythos I've always had trouble understanding. Why would they eat? They don't drink or sleep or use the toilet or anything else like that... they have no metabolism. Flesh eating has just never sat right with me! Similarly, I didn't want the survivors in my books to be constantly worried about getting infected. That can detract from the story and you leave yourself open to cliches (because someone's always going to get bitten and hide it from the others until it's too late, aren't they?!).
So, in answer to your question, the Autumn books are about an infection which kills 99% of the population instantly, leaving the remaining survivors completely shell-shocked and helpless.The books focus on the living rather than the dead, and they look at how a group of normal people would survive such a cataclysmic event.
What inspired you to write this collection?
I've always been a huge fan of zombie movies, but I was always frustrated by some aspects of the stories. They always seemed to follow a similar formula and they all started and finished in the same place. Writing the Autumn books gave me an opportunity to take the zombie apocalypse one step further, and to track events from the first case of infection right through until the bodies have all but rotted down to nothing.
Also, I'd always been frustrated by the portrayal of the zombies themselves. From the first scene to the last in most stories, they remained the same: a constant, characterless threat. With Autumn, I was able to give the undead a character arc too! They begin as clumsy lumps of reanimated flesh - crashing into things and posing very little threat - but over the course of the novels they become something far more sinister. Because while their bodies are deteriorating, their brains are less affected, so there's this great paradox - they can only express themselves through basic actions such as attacking the living, but they're starting to remember. Imagine that - being undead but knowing who you used to be...
Tell us about your Hater series.
The Hater books often get classed as zombie novels but they're not really, although there are some similarities. In Hater, people begin turning against each other. These 'Haters' feel they have no alternative to attack the others (the Unchanged) because they're convinced they are a mortal threat. Essentially, therefore, the population turns in itself with zero tolerance; both sides intent on wiping out the other until none remain. The book follows the story of one man - Danny McCoyne, a really ordinary guy - through the 'outbreak', into the war for survival, and out the other side. There are three books in the series - Hater, Dog Blood and Them or Us. Incredibly, Guillermo del Toro has bought the film rights!
And what inspired you to write the Hater collection?
My inspirations were two-fold. Firstly, I wanted to look at how we instinctively split ourselves up from other people. We use as many divisions as we can find to do this: age, sexuality, beliefs, race, etc. etc. I wondered what would happen if a new division came along which rendered all those old divides obsolete. With 'the Hate', anyone can turn against anyone else, so you've got lovers fighting each other, parents turning against their kids, and so on and so on. I started writing the first book in 2005, just after terrorists had attacked London. One of the suicide bombers was actually a classroom assistant, working in a primary school. I found it incredible and terrifying that someone could be helping kids to grow in the classroom one day, then head into the capital with a bomb on their back the next, with the sole intention of killing as many innocent people as possible.
Any other books or series that you are currently working on?
Both the Hater and Autumn series have just wrapped, so I'm able to work on something new for the first time since 2006! I've just rewritten an older novel of mine, and I'll be announcing the republication of that in the coming weeks. I'm also writing a pretty unique novel about the end of one man's world (can't say anymore than that just yet!), and I'm developing a five/six book horror/science fiction series.
Who are your inspirations?
Too numerous to mention. I think if you're creative you get inspiration from everything that happens around you. That sounded really pretentious, didn't it? Sorry about that! My horror inspirations are mainly film-based: George Romero's first three zombie movies, John Carpenter, and anything directed by David Cronenberg. I also have a huge soft spot for pulp horror and science-fiction from the 1950s and 1960s. Those stories were told with a thousand times the heart of your typical Hollywood blockbuster today.
Who's your favorite author/s?
John Wyndham - author of Day of the Triffids - my favourite novel. Wyndham had an incredible ability for writing about huge, catastrophic events from the perspective of 'ordinary' people. His stories always felt grounded in reality, and that's something I've tried to emulate in my books.
It has been a pleasure having you here sir, thank you so much!
Thank you for having me! I appreciate it!
A bastard hybrid of War of the Worlds and Night of the Living Dead, Autumn chronicles the struggle of a small group of survivors forced to contend with a world torn apart by a deadly disease. After 99% of the population of the planet is killed in less than 24 hours, for the very few who have managed to stay alive, things are about to get much worse. Animated by "phase two" of some unknown contagion, the dead begin to rise. At first slow, blind, dumb and lumbering, quickly the bodies regain their most basic senses and abilities... sight, hearing, locomotion...
As well as the instinct toward aggression and violence. Held back only by the restraints of their rapidly decomposing flesh, the dead seem to have only one single goal - to lumber forth and destroy the sole remaining attraction in the silent, lifeless world: those who have survived the plague, who now find themselves outnumbered 1,000,000 to 1...
Without ever using the 'Z' word, Autumn offers a new perspective on the traditional zombie story. There's no flesh eating, no fast-moving corpses, no gore for gore's sake. Combining the atmosphere and tone of George Romero's classic living dead films with the attitude and awareness of 28 Days (and Weeks) later, this horrifying and suspenseful novel is filled with relentless cold, dark fear.
Soon to be a major motion picture—produced by Guillermo del Toro and directed by J.A. Bayona
REMAIN CALM DO NOT PANIC TAKE SHELTER WAIT FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS THE SITUATION IS UNDER CONTROL Society is rocked by a sudden increase in the number of violent assaults on individuals. Christened 'Haters' by the media, the attackers strike without warning, killing all who cross their path. The assaults are brutal, remorseless and extreme: within seconds, normally rational, self-controlled people become frenzied, vicious killers. There are no apparent links as a hundred random attacks become a thousand, then hundreds of thousands.
Everyone, irrespective of gender, age, race or any other difference, has the potential to become a victim - or a Hater. People are afraid to go to work, afraid to leave their homes and, increasingly, afraid that at any moment their friends, even their closest family, could turn on them with ultra violent intent. Waking up each morning, no matter how well defended, everyone must now consider the fact that by the end of the day, they might be dead. Or perhaps worse, become a killer themselves. As the status quo shifts, ATTACK FIRST, ASK QUESTIONS LATER becomes the order of the day... only, the answers might be much different than what you expect....
In the tradition of H. G. Wells and Richard Matheson, Hater is one man’s story of his place in a world gone mad— a world infected with fear, violence, and HATE.
David's BIO:
David Moody was born in 1970 and grew up in Birmingham on a diet of trashy horror and pulp science fiction books and movies. He worked as a bank manager and as operations manager for a number of financial institutions before giving up the day job to write about the end of the world for a living. He has written a number of horror novels, including AUTUMN, which has been downloaded more than half a million times since publication in 2001 and has spawned a series of sequels and a movie starring Dexter Fletcher and David Carradine. Film rights to HATER have been bought by Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth) and Mark Johnson (producer of the Chronicles of Narnia films). Moody lives outside Birmingham (UK) with his wife and a houseful of daughters and stepdaughters, which may explain his pre-occupation with Armageddon.
DAVID MOODY self published Hater online in 2006, and without an agent, succeeded in selling film rights to Guillermo del Toro (director, Hellboy 1 and 2, Pan's Labyrinth and the upcoming Hobbit series) and Mark Johnson (producer, The Chronicles of Narnia). With the official publication of Hater, David is poised to make a significant mark as a writer of "farther out" fiction of all varieties.
