A Field Guide to the Undead: And Other Things That Want to Eat Me (1)

The world didn't end all at once.

It changed.

The dead stopped staying dead. Animals became things nobody had names for. Familiar streets became hunting grounds, safe places became traps, and the rules of survival changed faster than anyone could write them down.

Fortunately, Alicen has been trying.

Thirteen-year-old Alicen has spent years crossing a ruined Britain with her father, Bob. He has taught her how to find water, how to sleep lightly, how to recognise danger and, above all, how to stay alive.

Alicen writes it all down.

Her battered notebook is A Field Guide to the Undead and Other Things That Want to Eat Me - part survival manual, part catalogue of monsters, and increasingly, a record of a world determined to erase everyone she loves.

Shamblers are only the beginning.

There are Runners. Watchers. Harrowers. Mutated animals. Creatures that hunt by sound, movement or opportunity. Some can be understood. Some can be avoided.

And some are learning.

But Bob knows something his daughter is still discovering.

The monsters aren't always the most dangerous things left alive.

As father and daughter travel west through the remains of England, every encounter adds another rule to Alicen's Field Guide. Every survivor they meet challenges something Bob has taught her. Every loss leaves another mark that cannot simply be crossed out.

Then Alicen meets Millie.

For the first time, survival begins to mean more than another night alive. Friendship, attraction and the possibility of a future enter a life previously measured in food, shelter, distance and danger.

And that gives Alicen something the apocalypse can take from her.

As their journey carries them towards Cornwall and rumours of something resembling safety, Bob and Alicen must confront a question neither of them has prepared for:

What happens when surviving is no longer enough?

Dark, frightening, unexpectedly funny and deeply human, A Field Guide to the Undead and Other Things That Want to Eat Me is a post-apocalyptic survival story about monsters, family, grief, growing up - and the things worth remaining alive for.

Survive first.

Remember.

Write later.

Robert Porter is a British author whose fiction explores what happens to ordinary people when the world around them stops playing by ordinary rules.His debut novel, The Repercussion, introduced his interest in consequence, human behaviour and the choices people make when circumstances begin to close in around them. His second novel, A Field Guide to the Undead and Other Things That Want to Eat Me, takes those ideas into much darker territory, combining post-apocalyptic horror with survival, humour, loss and the complicated bond between a father and daughter.Porter's writing places character at the centre of the story. Monsters may provide the danger, but people-their loyalties, fears, mistakes, sacrifices and relationships-provide its heart. His fiction often asks a deceptively simple question: when everything familiar is stripped away, what kind of person are you going to be?Away from writing, Porter has spent much of his professional life in operational management, where leadership, risk, responsibility and the consequences of difficult decisions are part of everyday life. That experience informs the practical, grounded approach to danger and survival that runs through his fiction.The Repercussion was Robert Porter's first novel. A Field Guide to the Undead and Other Things That Want to Eat Me is his second.