SFX review of The Dead (August 2010)

Young adult horror with guts...

When it comes to young adult horror, Darren Shan wears the crown, but pretender David Gatward has made a strong case for his succession to the throne with his debut, The Dead.

It's the story of Lazarus Stone, a young man with a destiny... Nothing new there, then, but what the book lacks in innovation it more than makes up for with its gruesome thrills, relentless set-pieces and knack for distilling the voice of young on the printed page.

Hell is full, you see, and as any Dawn of the Dead fan knows, when Hell is full, the dead will walk the Earth. Now it's up to Lazarus (along with best mate Craig and sword-wielding, alcoholic angel Arielle) to stop them after Lazarus's father, the guardian between worlds, goes missing.

Although The Dead is unlikely to appeal to readers over a certain age, young 'uns will lap up its blend of grisly post-Hellraiser body horror, pacy narrative and wicked streak of black humour.

It's the first part of a trilogy, so don't expect any conclusions, but on the basis of part one, horror for kids has a compelling, and very twisted, new voice.

(Jordan Farley)

The Dead hits the shelves

Thursday saw The Dead 'officially' in bookshops (check the link at the bottom of this). Though it had appeared the weekend before at airports and train stations. I saw it for the first time in my local WHSmith. There it was on the shelf, just like all the other books.

I was expecting more. I wanted a Damascus Road experience. I wanted flashing lights, some kind of spiritual kick in the teeth, a sense which./ riddled my body with a machine gun burst of 'YES!'

But it didn't feel like that at all.

This isn't being ungrateful. What it is, I think, is the sense that this is yet just another part of the whole process of becoming a writer.

I never doubted that I'd end up, some day, walking in to a main bookshop and see my stuff published. I wasn't quite expecting it to the scale that's happening with The Dead (cracking reviews, competitions, badges, stickers, skateboards...), but I still ALWAYS believed. I had to; it was what kept me going. I never wanted to be someone who 'wrote for himself'. The only way the stories would ever work for me was if they got out there and breathed.

So, The Dead's out. FANTASTIC! But I'm already on with other stuff. I've just finished book 2, I'm cracking on with book 3, and I've another few projects I'm sorting out, too. Trying to crack it in this mad world of writing is tough. Exciting. Fun. Terrifying. Brilliant. Odd.

I'm now in bookshops across the country. I'll soon be out in Australia and New Zealand. Hopefully after that I'll get foreign deals (wishing on that star again...) And, strangely, it feels incredibly natural. This is what I've always wanted to do. I've never wanted anything else. Finding my book in WHSmith was like my life turning round and saying, 'See? Told you so.'

I'm a lucky boy, people. A very lucky boy.

Dave

http://twitpic.com/1z1a17

And here's what SFX said...

LAZARUS RISING...

The dead walk the Earth in YA horror

Most young 'uns have a tough time making it through those volatile teenage years unscathed. Spare a thought then for Lazarus Stone, the adolescent lead in David Gatward's new action horror trilogy, who discovers he's got much bigger problems than school bullies. The Dead are coming to our world and it's his job to send them back to hell.

"Initially, like most teens, Lazarus thinks his dad's rubbish," Gatward tells Red Alert. "He's away all the time, but then he goes missing and Lazarus discovers his dad's been living this secret life - keeping The Dead away from our world - so it's up to Lazarus to find him and send The Dead back."

Gatward is a self-confessed horror fanatic, but insists the walking corpses in The Dead aren't your average grey matter guzzlers. "I didn't want them to be the brainless, knuckle-scraping dead you generally find. They lust for life and they'll do anything to get back - all they need is a nice warm body to take over."

The first chapter in a trilogy (The Dark and The Damned hit shelves in october 2010 and April 2011, The Dead is infused with an anarchic, breakneck, heavy metal sensibility - and tons of gore.

"I'm writing what I would have loved to have read when I was younger. I'm trying to get a story that you could see as a series of action movie set-pieces, so you're almost out of breath when you get to the end. I want the gore in it to be the kind of stuff kids don't want their parents to find out about. It's very over-the-top and ludicrous, like Evil Dead violence, it's just not horrendous or malicious." (SFX)

The Dead arrive on Thursday 1 July.

The Dead arrives... and I appear in SFX Magazine!

What a week. Yesterday I'm in SFX Magazine, and today, my first copy of The Dead arrives on my desk. Astonishing.

I think I'm supposed to feel more elated than I do. Trust me, I'm amazed, stunned, excited, happy, giddy... but in my idiotic brain, I'd built this moment up so much, that nothing short of a total eclipse, lots of fireworks, and some dancing monkeys would match it.

This has a lot to do with that build-up we're all prone to giving events in our lives, but when they transpire, they're brilliant, but not neccessarily knock-you-dead. We expect one specific sliver of time to crack us one on the chin and change our lives. But that doesn't really do justice to all the work that's gone before, without which this 'moment' wouldn't even exist.

I'm seeing it now more as a crescendo of events and experiences that are taking me further and further in to a world I simply can't believe I'm a part of. From getting the chance to try out for a ghost-writing job, tolanding a major celebrity ghost-writing deal, through landing a frighteningly good agent, and then to signing the contract for The Dead, writing it, seeing it turn up in print, getting a website together, doing interviews...

Events are cool, milestones that give us a little something to wave at and take photographs of as we pass them. But it's the journey that's so important, surely. And I'm still only at the beginning of mine. Which, to be frank, is possibly the most exciting thing of all...

Dave

Do cliffhangers kill?

When I came up with The Dead, my aim from the off was to write not so much a novel, or a series of novels, but a story which had such a pace, it left the reader breathless. I wanted it to feel like a movie experience where you leave at the end exhausted. Much like I felt after seeing the new-and-improved (apparently) Dawn of The Dead movie a few years back. I came out feeling like I'd just spent two hours in a wind tunnel. Instead of a headache tablet, me and my brother turned back round in to the cinema and watched (oh wonder of wonders) Shaun of the Dead... Genius!

Anyway, that's what I wanted to achieve, still do. And a key part of that for me was to have cliffhangers that pulled your guts out of your throat.

So I did my best to start the story right off in the middle of something a bit weird, have chapters end in such a way you're forced to flip the page, and ultimately to end each book - while concluding the individual story/adventure/horror of each - with a killer cliffhanger. Something that gives the reader barely a breath between the conclusion of what Lazarus (the main character) has faced and survived... and what he's thrown in to next.

Personally I love cliffhangers. And to me they're an essential part of writing horror. I don't want my readers to get to the end of a book and feel all comfy and happy and 'Ooh, look! A puppy!' That would seriously stink.

The aim of horror is to unnerve, challenge, disturb, send shivers, thrill, excite, upset, challenge, move... and cliffhangers help with this. I've read some books that end with such a shock ending that they're not so much a cliffhanger as a knife in the back as you're kicked off the ledge screaming and kicking as you plummet down to the rocks below...

You want a book to end in a hug? Don't buy The Dead. Seriously, I'm warning you. Don't go near it. Don't even pick it up, look at the cover, walk past it in the shop.

But if you want something that (hopefully) makes your breath catch in your throat, widens your eyes to the point of bursting from your skull, your guts squirm like they're trying to get out and fast, and gives you cliffhangers than cause you to run screaming to your local independent bookshop to find out when the next installment is out...

... enjoy...

Dave

To London, to London...

I live in The Rural. Today I went to The London-London. It's so big, so different, you have to say it twice.

Meeting with agent. I was terrified. First boss in my life I've wanted to impress. Always convinced I'm gonna get a beating. Thankfully, it went well. Lots of excitement about The Dead, great feedback on two other projects I'm involved with, and hints that some other stuff might come my way.

This is the odd life of a writer. We live in intense solitude with our imaginary worlds, inventing stuff we hope sufficient people will like so that the books sell and (holy of holies) we make enough to either make a living or at least buy a few extra beers down the pub (and I know some seriously excellent pubs just a walk away from where I live). Then, now and again, we're thrust in to the hustle-bustle world of city walking, The Under-The-Ground (oh, what a mystery marvel...), ludicrously expensive beer, and the entire populous being dressed in something other than what looks comfy. And wearing shoes they didn't just find in the porch.

So here am I, and it's a giggle. I've even gone and found a tremendous pub just a walk away from Paddington Station, which serves my favourite stout on tap: Youngs Double Chocolate. I kid you not! And, bizarrely, as I ordered it, a bloke at the bar was so astonished to hear someone ordering it that he went and had a taster from the bar, then ordered a pint himself! Ah, what influence I have...

I love these moments in my writing life. Getting away from the desk, out with the people who have been key to getting me to where I am now, and just having a natter. It makes it all a little more real (though my agent is in agreement with me: I really shouldn't make use of the skateboards being produced for The Dead; I'd look a right twit).

I've realised something though; I need to bring a camera with me, one of those nifty flip-cams. It's all very well me getting excited about what's going on, about the pub I'm sitting in and the beer I've found, but it needs to be filmed! Will rectify immediately.

Something else, too: perhaps this is what blogging is about? A little update on what's going on, where I'm at with what the writing's doing...

So that's what it's gonna be and I'll do my best to keep on top of it.

34 days (I think) till The Dead is launched. Excuse me while I neck this pint, scream, then run around like a nutter. This is all a bit weird...

The Dead are coming... in 35 days...

Haven't blogged for ages. Got caught up in writing, writing, writing. It's been crazy. still is. And now it's almost upon me. Can't believe it: my very own horror series hits the shelves with book 1 of The Dead in 35 days on July 1st... Jeez...

I'm nervous. Terrified. Excited. Stunned. Bemused. And lots of other things I can't quite put a word to.

Some crazy stuff has happened already, including:

Trailer of The Dead on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=045_InSeUTY)

Skateboards of The Dead produced as prizes (they're amazing!)

Website now live (www.davidgatward.com)

Badges of The Dead (see pic)

Facebook page up (just search for 'David Gatward Children's Author on facebook)

Two reviews already (will post links in a mo)

Interview/review in SFX magazine on 28 May

Review in Gorezone (will post when this is out) and trailer of The Dead on the covermount DVD

So there you go. The Dead are nearly here. I can't wait to meet 'em...

Dave