I woke up today without any power which is a large part of the reason as to why this review is a day behind. Not that you needed to know that little fact, or really even, not that my day to day is all that relevant to the review itself. We are living in the 24/7 digital world here, so it shouldn’t matter when I do the reviews, right?

No, wrong. This was the perfect setting to nearly blow all my battery power and candles on writing a review. Especially a review of Survival Horror/ Zombie Apocalypse superstar writer David Moody’s latest book in the autumn series by Thomas Dunne St Martin’s Griffin press. In fact it was probably the most perfect setting to write the review in. Picture it.

We have a new essay for Zombie Week here at Flames Rising. Reviewer Jason Thorson tells us a little bit about indie films and the zombie/survival horror genre.

Horror and low budget filmmaking have always had a symbiotic relationship. But when it comes to really low budget filmmaking, the type that employs guerrilla tactics, stars your friends and acquaintances, and is shot in your mom’s backyard, well that’s zombie territory. Micro budgeted indie horror and the walking dead go together like guitar lessons and Smoke on the Water – the ends require modest means.

The reasons for this cozy relationship of convenience are pretty obvious, mostly involving the “bang for your buck” ratio. With no resources, including money, equipment, and experience, what would the scope of your story be if you decided to shoot a western, for example? What would your costumes look like? Locations? Guns? Horses?

“Survival horror” is everywhere, if you don’t believe me then just go to the horror section and take a look around. I guarantee you’ll see at least, if the bookstore happens to be Borders, 25-30 titles from small and large publishing companies alike that have something to do with survival horror.

Guaranteed.

And the majority of these titles will invariably have the words, dead; plague, zone, strain, Armageddon and/or zombie on the front cover or even interjected into the title of the book in some way, shape or form. Now for someone who really loves this sort of stuff, as I do, a fact which I make plainly and painfully clear every chance that is given to me, then this is something of a golden age for the “survival horror” fan.

Flames Rising reviewer and Survival Horror fanatic Eric Pollarine had the chance to talk to author David Moody for Zombie Week.

We had previously posted the first chapter of David’s novel Hater here on Flames Rising. In this interview David tells Eric about his work on the Autumn and Hater series.

So, by a show of hands- who would have thought that there would ever come a time, in the history of television, when the total evisceration and down right general defilement of a shambling corpse would make for great, if not EPIC, television?

I know what you’re thinking and no, obviously not me, because if it were me then the first sentence of this little diatribe would be a little misleading. Was it you? I couldn’t see your hands if it was, so I’ll take that as a no as well. But that’s exactly the way it was last Sunday when I watched the second episode of AMC’s The Walking Dead. It was a painful and intimate event, one that even I, one of the biggest fans of the so called “Survival Horror,” genre couldn’t watch without thinking, “Holy crap on a crap cracker, that was intense.”

So I have waited to get this off the ground for a few good reasons, the first being that I am and will probably always be a very, very lazy individual. The second being that I wanted to give my initial awestruck impressions of AMC’s The Walking Dead a rest and see if I could realistically look at the show with a critical and more journalistic eye. Or at least if not a journalistic and critical eye, one that wasn’t covered in fan boy man happiness. Yes I said it fan-boy man happiness. don’t judge, it isn’t a very charming quality in a person.

Sunday October 31st 2010 will most likely go down as one of the most important dates in the history of zombie anything, outside of the original release of Night of The Living Dead. If you don’t believe me then you’re probably not as big a fan of the genre or you really have no idea of what I am talking about when I say “zombie” because you would have had to have been born circa 1949 to not understand the significance that the show represents for the horror community and the world of speculative fiction and/or maybe even the entire Media industry in and of itself. Looking back on it -the entire day, was at least for me, predicated around the premiere of AMC’s The Walking Dead. I know that , if you are reading this article, then it was probably the same way for you.

You might think that it was bad enough to be locked up on an automated spaceship and sent off on a one-way journey to an unknown destination in the company of people even nastier than yourself… but that’s only the start of it. Science-fiction meets horror meets prison drama in this game – and digging a tunnel to freedom is not an option.

Chapter 1: History sets the scene, explaining the political, historical and societal changes on Earth that have led to the development of this rather drastic solution to the age-old question of what do you do with those people too mad, bad or inconvenient to fit in to normal society. Based on rather dodgy psychological theory, people were assessed for their potential to commit violent crime and those deemed most likely to become violent got locked away before they even had a chance to do something wrong.

Former high school history teacher Layne Prescot and his girlfriend Tara are returning home from teaching English in China for Laynes’ father’s funeral. While they wait to board the next flight back to his sleepy and economically depressed hometown of Lilly’s End, Florida they meet a mysterious “professional courier” named Mr. Scott, and from there the adventure, terror and conspiracies are just beginning. Because on arrival back home they find that the mysterious man has left Layne his briefcase, and at exactly 11:23 the townspeople start going mad and committing unspeakable acts of violence towards both the people they love and themselves. While the two and their friends try to find a way out they quickly realize that the town has come under strict quarantine, been cut off from the outside world and that death isn’t picky.

Anthologies are a sordid sort of crapshoot. Admittedly, I am not normally a fan of crapshoots, or really gambling of any sort. It doesn’t come as some sort of moral high ground or religious stance against lady luck; it just isn’t my cup of tea. So when I got the chance here to do a review of Elder Signs Press’s, “The Best of All Flesh” which was edited by James Lowder, whose earlier works are some of THE seminal Ravenloft and Forgotten Realms works. Needless to say I was both excited-as all things zombie leave me feeling somewhat elated, and yet very, very skeptical. I have read the Permuted Press outings, and I have also read some of the newer compilations which have been released in the last five years, as all things “Zombie” seemed to be just the right thing for the failing publishing industry.

I find that as time goes on and I continue reading more and more works in the survival horror/zombie fiction genre that there are good stories, there bad stories and then there are the exceptional ones, that no matter how many times you’ve seen or read the formula-and of course dear reader there is always a formula- you don’t get tired of it. Those works of fiction are the best examples of what the “Zombie” has to offer, and many times it’s the simple disconnection from the everyday, the little glimpses of truth which hold the story up. The idea of modern man faced with the unexplainable horror of reanimated corpses thirsty for flesh, with no rhyme or reason for their new existence,and how they deal with it- those are the greatest aspects of the genre.