Books by Ellis Grayson

If you've been reading the books, following the Fall Archives, or you've just stumbled across this little corner of the apocalypse, I've now got somewhere else you can join us. The Fall Universe Facebook group is dedicated entirely to the world of The Fall. It's a place where I'll be sharing things from across the series — updates on the books, behind-the-scenes bits, characters and locations, archive material, discussions, and probably the occasional argument over what we'd all actually do when the dead start walking. More importantly, though, I want it to be somewhere readers can get involved. Talk about the books. Ask questions. Share theories. Tell me which characters you love — or which ones you wouldn't mind seeing fed to a Reaper. And don't worry if you haven't read everything yet. You don't need to know every character or every bit of Fall lore to join us. Just bring a love of zombies and the apocalypse. Come and join The Fall Universe: J...

New look. Same apocalypse. I’ve been giving The Fall Series a fresh new look, and I’m finally ready to reveal the new covers for Before the Fall, After the Fall and Beneath the Silence. The stories haven’t changed. The survivors are still fighting. The dead are still hungry. And the fight for survival is far from over. But the series now has a look that I feel fits the world of The Fall better than ever. So here they are — the new covers for The Fall Series. I’d love to know what you think. Which one is your favourite? 👇 Ellis Grayson

  👋 Say Hello! I can see people dropping into the blog from different parts of the world, and I’d love to know who’s actually out there reading. So if you’ve found your way here, leave a comment below and say hello. Tell me where in the world you’re visiting from — Scotland, elsewhere in the UK, the US, or somewhere completely different. And if you’re a reader of The Fall Series, let me know how you discovered the books too. It would be great to see just how far The Fall has travelled. So... where are you reading from? — Ellis

"I’ve learned something about people. Give them safety, and they grow careless. Give them hope, and they grow blind. Take both away... and they show you what they really are. I watched the world tear itself apart long before the dead ever touched it. I saw men with guns freeze. I saw officers crumble. I saw crowds begging for mercy they didn’t deserve. And when the screaming started in the tunnel, when the air filled with blood and orders and the stench of rot, only one truth remained: Someone had to be willing to do what the rest of you couldn’t. You call me ruthless. Unforgiving. A monster. You’re right.” [RECORDING ENDS]

  AAARRRGGGHHH! Do you think this is easy? All these lives. All these people. Every decision resting on my shoulders — all to keep them alive. Control is order. Order keeps them safe. They'll never know what I do for them. The lines I cross. The choices I make so they don't have to. They can hate me for it. They can call me a monster. But they'll still be alive to do it. And that's enough. Recovered from Major Damien Blackridge's room at Caerlaverock Castle.

  How I Created the Reapers The Reapers had been playing around in my head since After the Fall was written, but they were very different when I first imagined them. Originally, the Reapers were going to be human. I had the idea of introducing a group that would pose a new threat to the survivors, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised they'd just dealt with Ellis. Introducing another dangerous human threat so soon felt like I was covering the same ground again. That's when the idea changed. Instead of humans, what if the Reapers were something that had evolved from the original zombies? Once I made that decision, everything else started falling into place. I imagined them as pack hunters. Fast, agile and brutally strong, with claws capable of ripping through human flesh and bone. Unlike the normal dead, they wouldn't simply see someone and attack. They would stalk their prey, work together and learn from their mistakes. And they would be incredibly difficult ...

 How I Created the Smilers When I first came up with the Smilers, they weren't actually supposed to smile. I knew I wanted to introduce a different kind of zombie into The Fall Series. The normal dead were dangerous because of their numbers, but I wanted something smarter. Something that could look at a situation, understand what was happening and make calculated moves rather than simply charging towards the living. Visually, though, I still wanted them to look like zombies. I didn't want to create some completely different creature that felt out of place in the world I'd already built. They needed something that immediately set them apart. That's where the smile came from. I'd seen the film Smile, and I loved how unsettling something as simple as a smile could be when it was just slightly wrong. I started thinking about how disturbing it would be to see one of the dead standing among a horde, staring at you... and smiling. From there, the idea grew again. What if t...

LOCATION: Central Scotland STATUS: Active THREAT LEVEL: Extreme A Smiler has been spotted in woodland somewhere in central Scotland. If you see it, do not approach. Do not attempt to engage it. RUN. TURN AND RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN. They are not like the others. They control the dead.

 Dr. Hensley hadn’t expected the file to still exist. Most of the data pulled from Outpost 9 was corrupted, burned, or deliberately erased. This one survived — partially. Whoever tried to destroy it hadn’t finished the job. She read in silence. OUTPOST 9 PROJECT: ███████ / CHIMERA MUTANT STRAIN CLEARANCE: ████████ STATUS: PARTIALLY REDACTED LOG — INITIAL AUTHORISATION Baseline Chimera exhibits limited effectiveness against █████████ clusters. Objective: create a controlled variant capable of rapid █████████████ of the dead. This is not a cure project. This is a ██████████████. LOG — PHYSIOLOGICAL DEVIATION Unexpected skeletal acceleration observed. Metacarpals elongating and ██████. Keratin density increasing along ██████████. Subjects capable of short bursts of ████████ speed. Locomotion improved when ██████████. LOG — BEHAVIOURAL NOTES Subjects display adaptive ████████. Pattern recognition confirmed. They anticipate movement. They do not linger on █████████ targets. LOG — INCIDE...