Therapy time again… I’m writing these posts just to get them out of my system as I prepare to draw a line under the AUTUMN series. Today I’m looking at book four, DISINTEGRATION. I’ll have a couple of posts about short stories next week, then a piece about AFTERMATH to coincide with the UK release of the final book later this month. To learn more about the series, visit www.lastoftheliving.net.
When I finished writing AUTUMN: PURIFICATION, I thought that was it for the series. Then I realised I still had more to say and wrote THE HUMAN CONDITION (more about that book and AUTUMN: ECHOES next week). Once again, I thought I was through with zombies. But as I finished writing HATER back in early 2006, I changed my mind again and found a reason to return to AUTUMN.
The books were taking a critical hammering. They still do, to be fair, although these days people seem to be a little more accepting of zombie stories devoid of the usual flesh-eating clichés. For every positive comment I received, I seemed to get many more decrying the lack of blood, guts, guns and action in the novels. That frustrated me beyond belief. It would have been one thing criticising me if I’d done blood, guts, guns and action badly, but to have a pop because those things weren’t there seemed a little below the belt. I’m not one to respond confrontationally to a bad review (because we all know where that can lead) but I did need a way to work through my frustrations. AUTUMN: DISINTEGRATION was it. I decided to see what would happen if I dumped a group of stereotypical zombie survivors into AUTUMN. I wanted to know how they’d cope.
But there had to be more to the new book than that. It had to be more than just following a group of folks battering their way through the living dead, because that would have made it just another bland, run of the mill zombie tale and I wanted to do something different. It occurred to me it would be infinitely more interesting to pit survivor against survivor: to imagine what might happen when those who’d managed to stay alive by fighting and killing were forced to try and survive alongside those who’d taken a more cautious approach. The potential for conflict was huge. You could argue they’d all chosen the right way because they were all still alive, but who would back down first? With all their lives on the line, would anyone accede?
