James Lovegrove – author

I love a good zombie movie, me, and I’ve long been harbouring thoughts of writing a story in that genre. So when Barrington Stoke told me they were starting a new line, Most Wanted, for Reluctant Readers who aren’t teens (i.e. adults), I thought I’d have a bash at giving them a tale about the shambling undead. But I didn’t want it to be about mindless cannibalistic hordes laying siege to innocents holed up in some self-contained environment somewhere, because let’s face it, that idea’s been done to death. And then resurrected and done to death again (bullet through the brain, it’s the only way to be sure).

Zombies in the military seemed to be the way to go – commando cadavers, Frankenstein fusiliers, grunts who grunt. And that’s how Dead Brigade came into existence.

It’s double the length of the usual Barrington Stoke title, so I class it as a novella rather than a short story. It’s also gory, funny, nasty, cynical, and sad. If you don’t feel rather sorry for the book’s half-living heroes by the end, then I haven’t done my job properly.

Amazon UK:

• Dead Brigade [Barrington Stoke, August 2007] – ISBN 978-1842995082