Why I Set My Zombie Novels in the North of England
A behind-the-scenes note on why the fall of Britain begins in the north — and why place matters in apocalyptic fiction.
When I started writing The Zombie Fall of Britain, I knew I didn't want it set in London.
London is where most British apocalypse stories go — and for good reason, it's dramatic and recognisable. But I wanted the fall of Britain to feel like the fall of Britain, not the fall of one city. I wanted small towns, long roads, quarries, valleys and the cold patience of the north.
Place is a character
In apocalyptic fiction, the landscape isn't a backdrop — it's a character. The sandstone quarries of Sandstone, the motorways sheared away in The Reckoning, the quiet high street in Outbreak where the traffic lights click through their colours for an audience of no one. These places shape what happens in them.
The north feels different
The north of England has a particular quality of light, weather and distance that suits survival fiction. The days are shorter, the towns are further apart, and the landscape has a stubbornness to it that mirrors the people who live there.
Ordinary places, extraordinary collapse
The most frightening scenes in the series aren't set in famous landmarks — they're set in ordinary places. A bakery. A school run. A motorway services. The horror comes from watching the familiar stop working.
That's why the north, and why ordinary Britain. The fall of a nation is most real when it happens to the places you recognise.
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