Autumn (Autumn series, 1)

Despite some less than stellar reviews I bought this book. I got a chapter or so into it and thought it sounded familiar. I had seen the movie. I really liked the book. I liked that it moved slowly. I think if real people faced such a scenario, they would experience the same disconnect: disbelief in the situation and the idea that rescue would come if you just stayed put and waited. Deciding on your own what to do would be a difficult decision, especially in the face of pressure from others.Moody's story slowly built up to the final confrontation. Anticipating some horrible climax is, to me, good horror. Even after having seen the movie, as I read the story I wanted to put it down. I couldn't. I wanted to see what would happen.I'm hooked. I'll read more of his books.

David Moody, Autumn (Infected Books, 2002)To take an old publishing saw and turn it on its head, for every million self-published disasters, where cartons of bloody horrible novels sit in an author's basement waiting for a single sale, there's one monstrous, awe-inspiring success story where a self-published author becomes richer than Croesus based on word of mouth alone.But I'm not here to talk about Christopher Paolini, I'm here to talk about David Moody. Who is not yet Croesus, but probably will be given a few more years.Autumn is like nothing you're ever read. It is often referred to in word-of-mouth gatherings as a zombie novel (and, in some cases, the zombie novel), and it's blurbed as a zombie novel on its cover. But here's the thing: it's no more a zombie novel than 28 Days Later... is a zombie movie, really. And this has led to some negative reviews by folks who were expecting something other than they got. If your blurb suggests a comparison to Romero, your readers are going to expect Night of the Living Dead lite, at least. Autumn is, above all, not that.It actually starts out rather more like Day of the Triffids than Night of the Living Dead-- a plague, whose genesis we do not yet know (though I assume we'll find out in the rest of the series), wipes out most of humanity. Or so we think-- again, our perceptions are confined to England here. For all we know, the rest of the world is just fine. (A trope used to great effect, with opposite endings, in Day of the Triffids and 28 Days Later....) But it's England we're focused on, and things are decidedly not fine there. A small group of survivors of the plague holes up in a drafty town hall and tries to live together. Moody is not interested in everyone coming together to face tragedy despite conflict, as was the case in Romero's or Robert Kirkman's or Brian Keene's works; no, Moody allows that the group is not sacrosanct, and three of the characters split off to try and find something better. (And yet even this group is not sacrosanct; Moody's iconoclasm cuts all the way to the bone, folks.) The remainder of the first book deals with the first period of his three characters adapting to post-plague life, after the dead finally do get up and walk around, which takes an awfully long time for a supposed zombie novel. It's impossible to go into the other main differences between Autumn and your typical zombie novel without major spoilers. Let's just say that Moody seems to have set out to write, simultaneously, an anti-zombie novel and a satire of zombie novels. Which, for obvious reasons, seems as if it's going to be working at cross-purposes with itself. And yet, somehow, he succeeds-- well enough, at least, that I've put the other three novels in the series in my Amazon shopping cart, to be bought with my Christmas gift certificate.As with most post-apocalyptic novels worth their salt, Moody doesn't focus on the by-products of the plague (in this case, the walking dead); he uses them as accents to highlight his story of interpersonal relations. Which sometimes falls a touch flat; there is, after all, a reason this is self-published work. But while the gulf between self-published and professionally published work is often a vast one, there is the odd book now and then that narrows the gap considerably; Autumn is one of them. This is one of the best-written books you'll ever see outside a professional publishing house. It's worth your time. ***

This book is basically a tale of survival that makes us follow a group of people, foreign to one another, in a remote English city. What starts off as an isolated viral attack spreads incredibly fast and reaches the scale of a global epidemics in way less than a day. People just die randomly under one mere minute and spares no one: elders, infants, women and men alike, everybody's subject to the potential threat. A group of people manages to survive -the explanation will probably be given in one of the sequels- and decides to make it to the relative safety of the countryside. This is the story of their survival that Moody has us follow.I share the opinions of many a reader here: the book is somewhat slow to start. However, towards the last quarter of the novel, the pace gets up all of a sudden. Probably the main merit of the book is the quality of its human characters' thorough description. None of them is a Mr or Mrs "I-know-it-all-inside-out". Rather, they are full of doubts, subject to the highs and lows that each and every one of us would go through in just the same situation. Their morale is fragile, as is their social bond. Everything, from characters' description to the succession of their decisions and acts, the layout of the scenery, the behaviors of the various people involved, everything is accurate and highly credible.Know what? I don't know if you noticed that too, by Moody's managed to write his entire book without mentioning the term "zombie" a single time!! He instead uses words like creatures, corpses, pathetic beings etc. I guess this shows his willingness to break away from the usual zombie clichés: everything in his description of the transformation of the corpses into walking deads suggests that he is very fondly attached to the human side of things. He never criticizes what's happening. Rather, he writes in the style of a journalist: factual, to the point.This makes for a very great reading. If you manage not to be deterred by the somewhat slow action pace at the beginning of his novel, you won't be disappointed afterwards.Can't wait until a get the copies of his sequels in hands!!

Although I have never really been a huge fan of the zombie/b movie type of book, I do like to dip into one now and again. The last I read was ‘Night of the Living Dead’ and thought it a really awful read. But when looking through a second hand book store I came across ‘Autumn’ and thought I would give it a try. Looking at the other reviews this seems to be very much a love it or hate it book with many ratings from the extremes of both sides. I suppose that it will depend what you are expecting to get from the read. If you approach it wanting some gritty drama or in depth plot then you will probably be disappointed, but if you are looking for some escapism into a cataclysmic world full of death and gore you will love it.So what’s it about?A deadly virus has struck the USA (maybe the world) that causes death within a few minutes. The unlucky individual has a very gory end that involves plenty of blood and pain. All across the country there are homes, work places and public areas where people are dropping like flies. Strangely though, there does seem to be the odd few that are immune to the disease. These survivors are spread far and wide and as they wander through the decimated landscape, start to gel together in groups. Whilst trying to decide what their next step should be an odd thing happens, some of the corpses begin to move; at first wandering aimlessly but with each passing day they seem to be getting more self aware and through the sheer numbers pose a threat. A decision needs to be made, do they stay holed up in a potential ‘safe’ house or should they make a break for open country where hopefully the undead will be less in number. But more importantly, what would you do?Although described as a Zombie novel, this really does the book an injustice; it is as much about survival and the different ways in which people cope with a changing world (and undead walking around every corner). I can’t remember even seeing the word zombie except on the cover, so if you are fed up with the seemingly daft theme of ‘dead people trying to eat the living’ storyline, then Autumn offers something different.I absolutely loved this book, the speech at times was a little wooden, but the writing was short, sharp and to the point. The atmosphere really does build and actually gets quite creepy at times. I cared what happened to the characters and found myself rooting for them, more than I usually do when reading a book, so much so that I went straight out and ordered the next books in the series.

A great read. I love this genre and so picked up a second hand copy. I enjoyed it enough to order the next in the series. The main characters are realistically fallible. Too many apocalypse novels are based around super resourceful and brave characters but here the main protagonists are fallible, confused, irresponsible and annoyingly unprepared, ie like most people would doubtless be. I also appreciated that the dead didn’t instantly rise and hunger for living flesh, instead there is a gradual change , equally daunting for the survivors. A welcome addition to the genre

These I bought as presents and everyone said they had enjoyed them and was pleased to receive them. They all arrived on time and packaged well. The David Moody books were bought for a friend who likes horror books not something I would read but lots of people like them. And I think they were OK on prices I paid for them, hope this helps, That's all I can say.

I really enjoyed the story. It's well paced and intriguing. A definate page turner and I have to say I am glad there are more books in this series, I can't wait to read them.However, I have to say the constant use of the word words "pitiful" and pathetic drove me insane. The phrase "pitiful/pathetic creatures" must be in this book a hundred times.There are a list of other words he could have used to describe the zombies in this book yet constantly the same phrase cropped up. In one instance I saw the word "pitiful" used twice, in adjacent sentences. Which is a pet hate of mine when it comes to writing.I found it funny how the author lacked descriptive skills when it came to the zombies but had no problem in using "big words" that stood out like a sore thumb based on the surrounding lack of expressive terminology. For me, it was an annoyance and did have me sighing outloud in parts but over all....great story! I will be reading the rest of the books. However, I will be filling in my own descriptions next time I see the words "pitiful" or "pathetic" pop up!

There is nothing exciting about this book. The story is a typical zombie tale, no twists or originality. This is a genre done to death in book, film and TV. To write zombie fiction now, it needs to stand out from The crowd and Autumn does not, it disappears into mediocrity. The characters are bland and not likeable and it's not that well written. Disappointing.