Incredibly I’ve already had ten books released in various countries this year but, to my mind, the two most important releases are still to come. In November THEM OR US will bring the HATER trilogy to its dramatic conclusion and then, a couple of weeks later (December in the UK), AUTUMN: DISINTEGRATION will finally hit the shelves. As many of you will know, DISINTEGRATION has been a long time coming…
I’ll be posting a lot about both of the new books in the coming weeks. Today, however, I want to focus on DISINTEGRATION and give you a little bit of background.
In Summer 2005 I released THE HUMAN CONDITION (the book which is gradually being expanded and made available on www.lastoftheliving.net). I genuinely thought I was done with the AUTUMN series at that point, but new scenarios kept on being presented to me. As you know, the AUTUMN books aren’t popular with all zombie fans – there are a large number of people who don’t want to know about the survivors and their problems because all they’re interested in is reading about as many zombies as possible getting dispatched in as many gruesome ways as the author can imagine. And that made me think: what if those same people found themselves stuck in the AUTUMN version of the zombie apocalypse? How would they survive, and would they have more or less success than the survivors from the earlier books? That question is the crux of DISINTEGRATION, and here’s an extended version of the blurb:
Forty days have passed since the world died. Billions of corpses walk the Earth. Everything is disintegrating…
Survivors are few and far between in this deadly environment, and those who are still alive are forced to deal with a nightmare situation: the scale of the devastation is unprecedented.
The shadowy landscape is swarming with the dead, their decaying bodies deteriorating day by day. Limited by their appalling physical condition, the only emotions they are able to display are anger, rage and hate and yet, remarkably, they are becoming more controlled. They are becoming self-aware, and they will defend themselves at all costs.
A group of eleven men and woman have managed to survive against the odds, protected by the geography of the land and sheltering in a derelict block of flats. They have been surrounded for weeks, but they have always been in control. On an almost daily basis, they attack the dead with brutal ferocity, tearing through them with utter contempt. Until now. For the bodies are advancing. The situation is changing.
Somewhere nearby, out of sight and out of earshot, is another group that has adopted a completely different survival strategy. Where the others have used brutality and strength, these people have demonstrated subtlety, planning, and tactics.
A series of horrific events force the two groups together. Backed into a corner and surrounded by hundreds of thousands of corpses, they all know that their final battle with the dead is about to begin. Do they attack first, or is it time to take a different approach? The decision splits the group, and with the life of every last person at stake, no one is prepared to back down.
Time is running out. With tension rising and fear reaching unbearable levels it’s no longer clear whether the biggest threat comes from outside the walls of the shelter or from within.
Next time – I’ll tell you how this book fits in with the rest of the AUTUMN series and I’ll explain why it’s taken so bloody long to be published!