The sweeping sickness, a global pandemic.
Billions lie fallen, gripped by an unknown affliction.
Hope is all the few survivors have. Hope that the collapsed will recover and wake again.
But waking is when the real nightmare begins…
Collapse is an apocalyptic horror novel with terror at the turn of every page.
Available as paperback, ebook and audio book.
A darkly compelling end of the world story
“I thoroughly enjoyed this. There are plenty of characters, a lot of which I really liked. Even the incidental characters have depth and add to the overall feel of the story. Plenty of gruesome bits, all of which are written with some style. Actually, the standard of writing is very good throughout the whole book . I also liked the occasional illustrations, they added something extra. A big thumbs up to the author. If this is the standard of fare we can expect from future books, I for one look forward to them.”
A mystery illness sweeps the globe. In a matter of days, the world stands on the brink of collapse. After a few unbelievable and devastating days, a small percentage of the population remains unaffected.
With incalculable numbers lying unconscious, those lucky enough to be immune are left with the impossible task of coming to terms with the situation. All they have is hope. The hope that the fallen will recover from their coma-like state, the hope that civilisation will be saved from catastrophe.
When the collapsed come back, the end will begin.
Collapse is the story of a handful individuals as they attempt to retain their humanity …and survive a world where monsters swarm every street.
Collapse · An Apocalyptic Horror Novel
The names are misnomers, semantics, swirls of the matador’s cloak. The names don’t matter. There isn’t time for that. Normal life is slipping its gears, sliding into unknown territory The illness is never properly classified, identified or studied. The descent into disaster is too fast, the effects so debilitating that the impact is already catastrophic. Put simply, vast numbers of people become too ill to work and so things stop working. Horror is here, and greater horror lies ahead. Because the collapsed aren’t just unconscious, they’re changing.
Cities lie strangely silent. Roads oddly deserted. In the countryside, the fields are empty of humanity, once more the preserve of the beast. The power is failing, the twittersphere going quiet, the fires burning unchecked.
After a few unbelievable and devastating days, civilisation stands on the brink of collapse, on the precipitous edge of a fall that will be beyond comprehension. The smouldering dawn of an apocalypse.
A tiny percentage of the population remains unaffected. With incalculable numbers lying unconscious, those lucky enough to be immune are left with the impossible task of coming to terms with the situation, of grasping a horror that that is continuing to reveal itself. Recovery is still possible. The fallen may recover from their coma-like condition, their increasingly mutated state. If they come back, civilisation can be salvaged from catastrophe.
But when the collapsed come back, the true Apocalypse will begin. Collapse is the story of a handful individuals as they attempt to retain their humanity …and survive a post-apocalyptic world where, more often than not, all you have left is yourself. A world where monsters swarm every street, and horror haunts every thought.
Collapse is the first novel of the Ferine Apocalypse. Stories of survival in the face of unrelenting fear. But what cost survival? What cost living beyond apocalypse? The immune, those that remain unchanged, have very few choices left, and none of them are good. As the Banjo Man says, days are dark and living ain’t what it used to be. Mankind has dropped down a rung on the food chain. If you were fortunate enough to escape infection, you’ve just become a food source.
Writing Collapse
Collapse is the first book that I published. Writing and publishing a novel was something I’d promised myself while undergoing treatment for a serious, quite possibly terminal illness. The latter changed my life and so did the promise. I had no plans beyond Collapse in terms of writing fiction. I was simply glad to be alive and to have fulfilled one of my ‘let’s dodge death today’ pledges. Just goes to show, you never know where things are going to go.
Collapse got some fabulous reviews. I was vaguely astonished. After all, it was my first attempt and I’d pressed the publish button without any anticipation of praise or even feedback. No doubt Collapse has flaws and could be improved. To my mind, it still stands as 160,000 words of bitey goodness. A snapshot of where I was at the time and a testament to that old cliché of never giving up.
The story could be classified as zombie horror in some ways. That’s certainly something which is close to my heart and was in my mind at the time of writing. However, strictly speaking it’s not a zombie novel. The creatures in Collapse are humanity mutated, not the dead walking. They’re blindingly fast and utterly lethal, almost unstoppable. Terrifying killing machines rendered in flesh and blood. Alongside the monsters, there’s a large company of characters. Probably too many, but I love them all.