Introducing The Blood Miles

What People are Saying…

I love Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress and so when I heard that Andrew Moody was writing a post-apocalyptic transformation of the story, I just had to get my hands on it. And it did not disappoint! The world of the Autonomous Zone is vivid and richly imagined, its characters diverse and beautifully rendered, its insights into human nature mature and incisive. Not only that, but the deep spiritual truths to be mined from these pages left me thinking about the story for some time after I finished it. A book as thought-provoking and spiritually rich as the beloved Christian classic it is based on, but with its own original flair and fresh application for modern issues, The Blood Miles is a story to be devoured in one sitting, then closely contemplated over many more.

(J. J. Fischer, author of The Nightingale Trilogy and The Soul Mark Duology.

Honestly, a must read! … I was on the edge of my seat from the first page. This tale is packed full of Christian symbolism, and is an honest encouragement to the journey that God has us all traveling. I will definitely be rereading this in the future … Fantastic! Epic! Dramatic! And Thrilling! Overflowing with symbolism and allegory. I highly recommend! Go read this!

(Hannah Hambrock, @hannahbelles_bookshelf.)

A plot-driven, blokey actioner in the best possible sense. There are guns and big trucks and wild action sequences, and it’s all in fairly terse prose … I don’t even know what to do with the fact that this book mashes up the distinctly old-fashioned and very medieval genre of allegory with dystopian science fiction, and does it with complete unapologetic joyfulness.
And it works incredibly well! Bunyan’s tale of a Christian on the long journey to salvation becomes the story of a post-apocalyptic wanderer seeking a cure for a genetic condition known as the Tox. From the Interpreter’s House to Vanity Fair to the castle of Giant Despair, eagle-eyed readers of the original story will find sci-fi analogues of all the major PP moments. Moody hasn’t just given the events a sci-fi update, though – he’s glossed them with 21st-century applicability that could have felt preachy or on the nose, but never is and occasionally becomes incredibly poignant. The sheer audacity of mashing sci-fi with allegory is part of what makes this book so worthwhile: we’re used to allegory for children, in fantasy lands with talking animals or knights-errant or seventeenth-century gentlemen. In the Australian pop-cultural vernacular, the old story becomes suddenly very immediate and fresh.
THE BLOOD MILES doesn’t just retell Bunyan: it’s enough of its own thing to stand on its own …
I had ridiculous amounts of fun with it!  (see full review)

(Suzannah Rowntree, author of The Werewolf of Whitechapel (Miss Sharp’s Monsters #1) and other and other Fantasy/Historical Fiction series)

Moody writes a punchy page-turner with an evolving cleverness.  … The Blood Miles is an engaging, inventive and swift novel. It avoids clunky preaching disguised as a story. Christians will draw the most from it, though it contains allegories accessible even to unchurched teenagers, both guys and girls. (see full review)

(Scott Monk, Penguin-published author of teen fiction)

The more I read, the more that I got invested in it and the more I understood the Christian undertones. I think I read for two hours straight one day, hungrily turning pages and hanging on for the next piece in the puzzle … I found it kind of like a modern-day The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. (see full review)

(Aoife Martin)

Andrew Moody’s The Blood Miles is thought-provoking, moving, at times brutal, and fully engaging from start to finish … And it wasn’t simply engaging. It was gripping and cinematic. Maybe it’s just because I’m watching “Fallout” at the moment, but I really could see it being made into a movie or mini-series. The story included setting after setting and scenario after scenario that I found very easy to imagine. Andrew’s writing style is easy to follow, but full of emotive description.
And as someone who is an audiobook consumer rather than a reader, I LOVED Andrew’s reading of his own work. In fact, I was surprised at how well he read it. It’s an oddly common experience that I find when a book is read by the author, I expect it to be read well, but I am often disappointed at how flat and dull the reading is. I guess it’s just that some people are good writers, but not good readers. Andrew though, was excellent. In fact, I would say he didn’t read the book – he performed it …
Whether as hard copy or on audio book, I can highly recommend this book, especially if you appreciate, not simply The Pilgrim’s Progress, but what The Pilgrim’s Progress was trying to do.  (see full review)

(Simon Camilleri, Author of When Santa Learned the Gospel, and founder of “The Backyard Bard”)

The Blood Miles is a more sophisticated and reliable version of The Shack, containing elements of [C.S. Lewis’s] Pilgrim’s Regress, but set in a Mad Max dystopic wasteland … Like with The Pilgrims Progress, Moody’s allegory made me more conscious of my own sanctification. And similarly to  Pilgrim’s Regress, there are some great philosophical allegories … It was so much fun to see a dystopic setting used in this way, which reminded me a bit of A Canticle for Leibowitz.

(Luke Isham, “Post-Apocalyptic Theology”)

As a post-apocalyptic YA novel with an edge-of-your-seat exciting eastward journey, The Blood Miles is reminiscent of e.g. John Christopher’s The White Mountains (1967) although, given that it is set in a desertified Australia, Lotus Blue (2017) might be a better comparison. There are also similarities with the 2010 film “The Book of Eli” … The world of the novel is cleverly invented and described very well … This is one of the best post-apocalyptic science fiction novels I have read.

(Tony Dekker, “Scientific Gems”)