Aug 03 2008
Autumn
I’m currently reading David Moody’s Autumn saga. I’ve already finished Autumn and The City and now I am working myself through Purification. I’ve actually purchased the PDF versions of the books from David Moody’s website (which is currently undergoing maintenance) and being a writer myself, I like his approach towards independent publishing.
When Autumn’s plot begins, some unknown force - a germ, a virus, whatever it is - kills almost the entire world population within only a few minutes, leaving just a handful of people alive. Autumn is the story of those survivors and their fight for further survival in a dead world.
Two days after the initial incident, one third of the dead rise again to walk the Earth. At first, they only seem to be moving because for some diabolic reason they can. There’s no direction in their movement, no purpose. We don’t know why they suddenly can move again, and except for a few hints, we don’t learn what actually motivates them either. But it doesn’t really matter. The nightmarish presence of the walking dead is more important for Autumn than the why.
In the course of the story, the risen dead and their behavior change. Although their bodies are decaying, they slowly regain control and senses and become aggressive towards the survivors. But the Autumn saga is not your typical Zombie book. Or maybe it is, but the zombies themselves are not what you’d usually expect. They don’t eat their victims, but if they manage to catch and encircle them, they tear them apart nevertheless. In a further development, they even begin to attack other walking dead when they are in the way or when they get too close to one another.
Noise, light and movement attract them. You attract one of the creatures, the noise it makes to get to you attracts more of its kind. When you are in a city, within minutes you will be surrounded by thousands of them when you were unlucky to catch the attention of just one of the moving bodies.
How do you survive in such a threatening, dead world where walking, decomposing corpses lurk behind every corner, their only purpose being to wait for you and then hunt you down?
How do you find food and shelter?
Where do you hide?
Where will you go?
Will there be a future for you?
While our planet is quickly turning to hell around them, the characters in the Autumn saga are trying to find answers to these questions.
David Moody’s books are great reads and page turners. They are very different to Z. A. Recht’s Morningstar Saga (Plague of the dead, Thunder and Ashes and the forthcoming Survivors), which are set in a more ‘traditional’, George A. Romero-like Zombie scenario. Moody’s books are more about darkness and fear, thus reminding me of Richard Matheson’s I am legend, while Recht pumps the reader through much more action right from the beginning and also provides a more global, total view of the events.
Both authors produce great work for genre fans, and it’s fantastic for us readers that they have different foci.
Read them both and decide for yourself if you like one saga better than the other.
Tip: David Moody used to distribute the PDF version of the first Autumn novel for free on his website www.theinfected.co.uk. But since he is preparing a major relaunch of his website, I cannot say if he will still be offering it for free in the future.