David Moody Autumn: Purification

David Moody Autumn: Purification: Synopsis:

"David Moody brings the AUTUMN trilogy to a stunning conclusion. The survivors from AUTUMN: THE CITY are imprisoned in an underground base, trapped between the door to the outside world and the sealed entrance to the airtight cocoon where hundreds of soldiers sit and wait.

The crowd of bodies on the surface continues to grow in size, drawn there by the heat, light and noise occasionally produced by the people buried underground beneath their rotting feet. The sheer mass of shuffling figures and decaying flesh above them begins to cause problems for the military with vents and exhaust shafts becoming blocked and useless. Soldiers are sent above ground to begin clearing the bodies away.

Encouraged by a relatively successful first strike which is met with little resistance from the corpses, the officers order their troops to the surface again, this time to destroy them all.

Trapped in the middle of a long and bloody battle between the military and the dead, the survivors' safety is compromised and they are forced to flee the base.

Exposed and vulnerable once again, the group run for their lives without aim or direction.

All hope is gone, but in the rotting shadows of the past they find the key to what remains of their future..."

"Autumn: Purification" is the third book of David Moody's four part post-apocalyptic zombie saga. Following on directly from where "Autumn: The City" left off, the reader should already be aware of all the main characters. Bursting with action from the start, the survivors are thrown once again into the dangerous rotting world of the undead, mixing horrific tension with the dark mental anguish that the survivors feel daily.

Influenced heavily but Romero's zombie films, the book takes on many of the ideas and situations tackled in his "Dead" series. We meet another set of survivors who have access to a helicopter and a plane. And we finally see the survivors pulling together (well, not all of them) to try and make a future for themselves.

Perhaps the best written of the 'Autumn' books, 'Purification' uses many styles and techniques to encapsulate the harrowing experiences that the survivors go through. The book often jumps to an almost diary-like first person view-point for a chapter, to then go back to the standard third-person style. The author spends a large amount of the time submerging the reader into the emotions and mental stress of each character producing some beautiful characterization that draws you into this almost believable scenario.

The zombies take on new and interesting changes, which are detailed throughout the book. It's almost as if they are evolving, which brings a nice twist on the classic zombie genre. The book ends in a hopeful, yet still with a dark and slightly negative tone, that concludes the books nicely. The final book of the series is "Autumn: The Human Condition", that is a companion book which brings to an end the Autumn saga.

"Autumn: Purification" is a truly superb novel that will appeal and indeed please every good fan of the zombie genre. Original, dark, fast-paced and in-depth; the book is a fantastic piece of horror fiction.

The novel is released through David Moody's own publishing company 'Infected Books' and runs for a total of 287 pages.