autumn

Title: autumn
Author: David Moody
Pub: Thomas Dunne Books; 2010
Pages: 308
Genre: Horror, Zombies
Etc: Received via Library Thing's Early Review Program

"Combining the atmosphere and tone of George Romero's classic living dead films with the attitude and awareness of 28 Days Later, this horrifying and suspenseful novel is filled with relentless cold, dark fear."

That statement, my dear readers, filled me with zombie excitement. A book getting compared to Romero's films is a must read in my opinion. And maybe it is because I had my expectations raised or maybe it's because I only recently finished I Am Legend or maybe it's because I experienced scary burn out after my October spook immersion. But mostly, I think that maybe it just really wasn't that great of a book.

It let me down. Like I jumped off of a burning building expecting the firefighters to have that huge bouncy trampoline that you see in silly cop movies and at the last minute I realized that it was never really there and SPLAT, I landed.

'Cuz what do you know, here we are in the UK and all of a sudden people start hacking and dying for no apparent reason. And then, you notice there's, like, only eight of you still alive, so do you stay or do you go exploring. Do you seek answers or do you settle in a life of fear in a warehouse until you inevitably die. Of course there's a trio that goes off exploring right about the time some of these dead folks are returning to the walking world.

It definitely occurs to me that everyone is going to experience the inevitable. I mean, you can't have a zombie novel where, at the final chapter, we find a cure and our heros inject themselves thus creating a NeoHuman race that is immune to the walking dead. Perhaps you're asking: "Then why read zombie novels to begin with if you assume everyone is going to perish or you will be left with a *insert music* da da DUM!!! maybe they will survive cliffhanger..."

It's simple really. Sure part of me is interested in a bit of zombie munching brains gore, but in a novel such as this one, where it is already stated in the back that the gore will not be there, I'm looking for GREAT CHARACTERS. Characters that are going through the realistic freak out, maybe a bit of denial, anger, acceptance (heh, recognize those stages anyone. Come on authors, it's almost a formula!!) These characters were such a passing thought I can't even remember their names.

Maybe I'm going to put my zombie love on hiatus for a bit.