Northern Europe, 976 AD. Bjolf and the viking crew of the ship Hrafn flee up an unknown river after a bitter battle, only to find themselves in a bleak land of pestilence. The dead don't lie down, but become draugr - the undead - returning to feed on the flesh of their kin. Terrible stories are told of a dark castle in a hidden fjord, and of black ships that come raiding with invincible draugr berserkers. And no sooner has Bjolf resolved to leave, than the black ships appear... Now stranded, his men cursed by the contagion of walking death, Bjolf has one choice: fight his way through a forest teeming with zombies, invade the castle and find the secret of the horrific condition - or submit to an eternity of shambling, soulless undeath!

Author Biography

Toby Venables is a novelist, screenwriter and lecturer in Film Studies at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. He grew up watching old Universal horror movies when his parents thought he was asleep, reading 2000 AD and obsessing about Beowulf. There was probably a bit more to it, but he can't quite remember what it was. He has since worked as a journalist and magazine editor - launching magazines in Cambridge, Peterborough, Oxford and Bristol - and once orchestrated an elaborate Halloween hoax for which he built and photographed a werewolf. He still works as a freelance copywriter, has been the recipient of a radio advertising award, and in 2001 won the Keats-Shelley Memorial Prize (both possibly due to typing errors). His first novel (for Abaddon) was The Viking Dead - a historical-zombie-SF mashup which has been described as "A fantastic mix of history, violence and horror" and "ludicrous fun."