Blood Crazy: Aten in Absentia - Simon Clark

At the end of Blood Crazy we were left with the grim acceptance that the situation the world had been plunged into was irresolvable. With the adult population having been altered in a way that would drive them to tear their own children apart, everything had changed and the world wasn't ever going back to the way it was. Without giving away any spoilers, while some interesting theories were proposed to explain what had happened to trigger this apocalyptic situation overnight, it still meant that it would be up to small communities of survivors to rebuild society and find a way of defending themselves from the ever present threat of the “Creosotes”. That doesn't mean that there aren't more stories to tell and new revelations to be told, but it has taken almost 30 years for Simon Clarke to get a sequel in print. It's a long time for some fans of the original novel (recently republished by Darkness Visible), but by the end of Blood Crazy: Aten in Absentia, I'm sure fans of the original will agree that it's definitely been worth the wait.

So where does Simon Clarke take the Blood Crazy world next? Well, instead of continuing down the route of Nick's Aten journey just yet (the title Aten in Absentia is a clue), this book takes a slight detour three years after the day the world changed forever. Nick is the person who seems to have - or be - the key to potentially resolve in some way the issues that were left open at the end of Book 1, but there are other developments that need to be considered before we get there. That said, you can be sure that there is no less action, danger and intriguing ideas on how people and society cope with a catastrophic event in this middle trilogy book. In fact, Blood Crazy: Aten in Absentia opens with a situation that is even more fraught, since the young teenage community of survivors and close friends that Jack Ranzic has returned after an expedition are ill and in too weakened a condition to defend themselves from an attack of Creosotes that appear even more wild and ready to tear apart their prey with their bare teeth.

Jack himself barely escapes, and that sets up the premise of this book and the challenges that have to be overcome before society can move on, if it can move on at all. Definitively bringing about an end to the threat of the Creosotes in a society which has lost most of its basic technologies and has few and only limited defences is going to be near impossible. Will they all die out first? And will the teenage survivors live long enough to see it? What if there was some new way to stop their murderous rampage? Is it possible that their might be some cure and that civilisation can be restored or does society need to accept and move on to a new evolutionary phase? Well, even raising these possibilities already extends the range of the Blood Crazy series and provides more insight not just into ‘Creosotes’ but human nature and behaviours.

As well as being an effective horror series then, Bloody Crazy is a highly creative and thought-provoking look at a post-apocalyptic situation that is akin to a viral disaster, and the writing in this book is as good as ever. I like the short snappy chapters that make it feel urgent, like Jack hasn't got time to waste on niceties, that he just gives it to you direct and recognises the need to keep moving in this new world where you are constantly struggling for survival. Even relating that he can no longer listen to music the same way or at all now gives you a sense of just how much things have changed and what has been lost; the old world is gone and it's not going to come back, so any reminder of it is painful. Little authentic touches like that show that author realistically considers how people are likely to change and behave in such circumstances, how hard it is to keep going, where the focus on what is important changes.

These are the kind of things that make reading the second book in the series addictive. If there is a mind virus that is affecting Creosotes, Simon Clarke has his own way of getting inside your head and convincing you over into accepting the rationale for what has happened. Personally, I found the final stand-off conflict a little too drawn-out and filled with mindless slaughter but by the end of Blood Crazy: Aten in Absentia, we are definitely in new territory and at a stage that will have you longing to find out how things develop in the company of charismatic characters like Jack Ranzic, Nick Aten, Martin Del-Coffey, and, dare I say it, even Myra.

Reading notes: Blood Crazy: Aten in Absentia, Book 2 of the Blood Crazy series, is published by Darkness Visible. My thanks to the publisher for a preview ePub copy of the book, which is now available in paperback and in eBook editions.