Review of Meghan Ciana Doidge’s “After The Virus”
Quite a few post apocalyptic novels have attempted to inject love and romance into their pages. Some do it by cramming it into a high action, gore splattered story, while others let it flow more gradually into the mix, letting it germinate based on circumstances surrounding the characters-people pushed together and sharing the horrors that surround one another, so they come together to push back the nightmares. Meghan Ciana Doidge is one of the few storytellers who pushes the love story up front and center with After The Virus. There are a couple of other books I have read that have the relationship between two main characters stand as the key element, but this is the first that I would categorize as a true romance tale.
This story surrounds the two main characters, Rhiannon and Will, as they live their separate lives after the apocalypse…if you can call it living-especially for Rhiannon, who begins the story captured and put into what amounts to a baby mill. Over 99% of the world’s population has died, and the barbaric pockets of survivors are lead by men who need as many healthy women to breed as possible. But Rhiannon is special. She is an actress and a world class beauty that has caught the eye of the local boss, who wants her all to himself. She escapes, but throughout the rest of the story is pursued by the boss’s men, who are intent on bringing her back to him. Will, on the other hand, is a man who has chosen to live his life alone, in a small, remote town where he dutifully takes to the task of cleaning out the dead bodies and restocking the stores and and maintaining the hotel. But Will just wants to be left alone, which creates friction when other survivors come across his little Shangri La who are looking for a place to stay. He eludes danger with them, and on one of his trips to find more supplies, comes across a mute nine year old girl he dubs Snickers (that was what she was eating when he finds her) and though she is skittish, brings her back to his place to live with him. Rhiannon, who manages to escape her captors, stumbles across Will’s town and finds herself reluctantly feeling that this new place could be home. Of course, due to the character’s actions and the other desperate survivors that surround them, things do not go at all well for them. Will and Rhiannon are thrust into the wider world, with other survivors, desperate for heroes, latching on to Will. Rhiannon gets captured again, and Will realizes that he has a greater responsibility in the world than he had hoped or wanted, but will accept, if it will allow him to save the woman he is falling in love with.
The story flows very well and I liked the characters the author developed. Snickers and the dog B.B. allow Will and Rhiannon to focus their efforts on something more than their awkward, fumbling steps toward the realization that they belong together, and draw them closer throughout the story. Some would call this a zombie story, but more to the point, it is an apocalyptic love tale with a smattering of infected creatures that perhaps resemble zombies, though they are a side point altogether. As the author states clearly, this is a story that pays homage to other author’s tales, including one of my favorite books of all time, The Stand. It is about people living, loving, and struggling after the world has crumbled; trying to put the pieces back together and start again, which requires reluctant heroes and leaders, and symbols of hope that can stand against the devastation that not only a virus can do, but what men can do to one another.
The areas of concern I had with this story were a couple of main distractions that I think took away slightly from the tale. First and foremost, the use of pronouns when it came to stating who was speaking and thinking were confusing. One character would be speaking or would be in action one paragraph, and the next would start out with “he” or “she” and would be referring to an entirely different character. This was consistent throughout the story, and while it is something I got used to and started to expect, it disrupted the story when I had to figure things out more than once. The other issue I had was with the nicknames given to various characters. I totally understand and appreciate them for characters that pass by in a story and become nothing more than minor details, but when they become key characters, and when their real names are learned, those nicknames need to evaporate, or at least used less liberally-it caused confusion, and in some cases didn’t make much sense. Especially when it is really only one person who creates the nickname and doesn’t necessarily speak it out loud, but just as a device to remember them, but in no time, everyone else is using it as well. This works when a few characters call Will “Tex”, but not so much when a character is dubbed “Stupid” early on in the tale, but even when his real name is provided that dismissive moniker is used up until the very end of the story.
Rest assured, these issues were not deterrence for me in reading or completing this book. It is a solid tale, with well fleshed out characters and a story that has a place in the PA pantheon as unique because it is a true love story. I know this is the author’s first book, and my gripes are minor issues that are a sideline to her ability to tell a tale. I look forward to checking out more of her work as it is released.
After The Virus can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/After-the-Virus-ebook/dp/B0053HT0FG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312059772&sr=8-1
Review of Steven Konkoly’s “The Jakarta Pandemic”
Alex Fletcher is a marine who left active duty eight years ago and is now a pharmaceutical rep with a bit of paranoia about the latest impending pandemic flu assault. The year is 2013, and he has vivid memories of the pandemic of ’08 and the less noteworthy panic that occurred in ’12 after a swine flu outbreak. Since he works for a pharma company that provides one of the leading flu treatments, it is essentially his job to pay attention to all the reports on how bad this new outbreak is likely to be. That plus the fact that he spends much of his time with doctors who deal with infectious diseases on a regular basis, he is hunkering down for what amounts to the viral equivalent of World War III.
Alex is paranoid, and under regular circumstances might be considered somewhat of a flake. He suffers from post traumatic stress after his time in Iraq, and his house is set up with all the fixin’s to prepare him for a long hold out against the flu with food, water, his own power supplies, and plenty of guns and ammo. His plan is simple: isolate himself and his family from everyone else and they will make it through the flu outbreak just fine, even as the world crumbles around them. Yep, Alex would be probably a bit wacky if it wasn’t for the fact that he is absolutely right about what is about to go down.
And despite Alex’s unheeded warnings to his neighbors to isolate themselves, stock up on food and water, things do go bad rather quickly for them, with food not getting delivered to grocery stores, hospitals getting filled up with flu patients, sickness running rampant and a danger of the power grid going out since less and less people are monitoring and maintaining it. Essentially, Alex has predicted a crash of catastrophic proportions, and that is exactly what happens. And with it, the natives get restless and turn their ire toward the most prepared member of their community. Alex has good intentions, but refuses to be sucked into communal expectations that he play ball and share all his food and every last flu treatment he held on to before quitting his pharmaceutical job. On top of that, scavengers have moved into Alex’s upscale suburban neighborhood in a desperate attempt to find food and shelter as riots and overall madness have driven them out of the bigger cities, and they are even more dangerous than the neighbors.
The Jakarta Pandemic is a well laid out story of one man’s quest to keep his family safe during a devastating assault on their existence. I read a lot of apocalyptic fiction, and while this doesn’t quite tip over into the realm of apocalyptic, it gives us a hefty dose of how the apocalypse could realistically occur in our world. It does share some similarities with some of the other stories I read in that genre in that it shows how desperate people can become, and how hard the choices are when your family is at stake and so is your survival. Alex reminds me of one of those guys on message boards who talks about how they’re prepared for the end of the world, whether it be by natural disaster, plague, or even zombies.
The action sequences are compelling in this book, though I wish there was more of them, and more drawn out tension between the main character and the people who confront him. A lot of the tale is spent with the build up to the pandemic and the slow, boring days Alex and his family spend cloistered inside their home. We are given only one perspective-Alex’s, and only find out what is happening to the outside world through his observations of the news on TV and via the internet. It does help provide a sort of closed off perspective, because we as readers know nothing more than Alex does from minute to minute about what is happening in the wider world or even outside his house as they get buried deeper and deeper into the Maine winter. Still, I did feel that parts of the story dragged and did wish for more of a psychological thriller showcasing more people like Todd, Alex’s on edge neighbor, and the man Alex dubs “Manson”. I felt like the scenes where Alex was dealing with them crackled with energy and craved more of that in this story.
The bottom line is that this was a well thought out, entertaining story, though I was left wanting more interaction between Alex and his key rivals. It is my understanding that this story was recently re-edited, so the typographical issues prior reviewers on Amazon brought up didn’t deflect from the story too much for me. The only real issue I had was when the author slips into present tense on occasion, which was a distraction when the rest of the time he sticks with the traditional past tense. Otherwise, the story kept my interest and was an enjoyable read about an intriguing subject that had a bitter and frightening dose of realism to it.
You can get The Jakarta Pandemic here: http://www.amazon.com/Jakarta-Pandemic-Steven-Konkoly/dp/1456309501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309311567&sr=1-1
Review of Ian Woodhead’s “The Unwashed Dead”
The Unwashed Dead tells the tale of a zombie uprising on an English Estate. I have to note that as an American, my interpretation of the term “estate” is something along the lines of a village, or at least a close facsimile. Several residents complain of severe migraines one night, and not long after, they transform into flesh eaters, tearing apart everyone around them. As their neighbors are devoured and others are left trying to grasp what’s happening, the army, or some mysterious government agency, moves in to clean up the mess they apparently created, which translates into making sure no one is left around to tell the tale. The story moves at a rapid pace, with plenty of guts and gore carrying the story forward as many of the characters are slaughtered until only a handful remain.
The Unwashed Dead was a quick, simple zombie read. It doesn’t bring anything new to the table as far as the undead are concerned-they are traditional Romero shamblers, but for me, there is nothing wrong with that. Perhaps the breakneck pace made it hard for me to grow attached or intrigued by any of the characters, but it was clear that the author plans on a sequel due to the sudden and abrupt ending to the book.
The story was a fun bloodbath with plenty of zombie action and gore. It could have perhaps done with another editing run by the author. There are a few instances of misplaced identity, in particular early on in the story-by which I mean that I thought one character was doing or saying something because of pronoun usage, but it was actually another character and I had to reread a few passages here and there. There were some other typos, though my philosophy on that is that I can tolerate them as long as I get the gist of what the author is saying, which I did, but it deserves to be mentioned here as a fair and honest critique. Despite those quibbles, I did enjoy this story for what it was-a fast paced, gory tale of a traditional zombie uprising. It will be interesting to see where the author takes the story with his sequel.
The Unwashed Dead can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Unwashed-Dead-Zombie-Armageddon-ebook/dp/B004U34WXE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=books&qid=1307414173&sr=1-1
Review of Bowie Ibarra’s “Down The Road: The Fall of Austin”
Down the Road: The Fall of Austin is not a continuation of the saga that Bowie Ibarra started with the first two novels in this series, but a story that runs parallel to it. More specifically, there are connections to the first book and the main character in that storyline, George, the teacher who is flees Austin as the zombie apocalypse gets rolling in Texas. The author takes things from a different angle, giving us a point of view from characters that were passers-by in the first story, but play a significant role here. This is somewhat of an ensemble piece, with an assortment of characters slowly migrating together toward the end of the story, but for the most part coming to grips with the apocalypse as individuals or in small groups in the rest of the tale. There are two fire teams from the army (who are at each other’s throats) that are assigned to clear out the capital building of viral threats, a police officer with a partner who seems to be a sadist, a teacher that George, the main character in the first book, had a tryst with before he fled Austin, a prison guard and the gang banger prisoner he frees as the world around them begins to fall apart.
This story, much like the other two in this trilogy, stands alone. You don’t need to know what came before to read this tale, though it doesn’t hurt to have read those books, in particular the first one. The spectacle of gore and zombie violence is pretty steady throughout this story, but it doesn’t overpower the story lines of the individual characters and groups that inhabit this world. Each character is well defined with clear motivations and developed personalities. I might not have agreed with everything that happened or how everyone reacted, but it made sense in relationship to the plot and who these people were. For the record, I wasn’t a big fan of the second book of this series, primarily because of the broad brush strokes the author used to paint the military and government in a negative light. I was pleased to see a more evenhanded approach in this book-there were evil men, but also good ones, who donned uniforms in this tale. Overall, the story was entertaining and filled with ripe imagery, though I did feel that every now and then the author would choose to dip into the similes and metaphors a bit more heavily than necessary, but it didn’t detract from what was, in essence, a quality zombie apocalypse tale that had the advantage of being in a local that the author knows and loves, which allowed him to paint a highly detailed picture of a world being swallowed up by destruction.
Down The Road: The Fall of Austin can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Down-Road-Austin-Bowie-Ibarra/dp/1934861235/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1305947355&sr=1-1
“Collabthology: Kindle of the Dead” is now available!
A year ago (or there abouts), I agreed to be a part of a project that would bring together around twenty different authors in a collaboration effort to write a zombie book. Each of us would take on the responsibility of writing a chapter of the book, until we got to the half-way point, and then we would mix it up and write another chapter each to finish the book. It would be a chance for each of us to build upon what anyone who had written chapters before us, and try to keep things cohesive while messing things up, killing off beloved characters, and putting those who survive into some really crazy situations.
We are now halfway through the project. In an effort to raise the funding so that once this magnum opus is complete, it can be published, the coordinator of this project, Matt Nord, came up with the idea of creating an anthology of short stories written by the various authors involved in the project. He would also put the first five chapters of the collaboration in this anthology, in an effort to wet the future audience’s taste buds for this project. So what we have is something that Matt has called Collabothology. Despite this odd word, it is a great little project, and here is the description of it:
Collabthology. Is it a real word? Yes. Will you find it in the dictionary? Probably not, unless you get one that I’ve found a scribbled the word “Collabthology” into.
But that’s besides the point. What you hold in your hands is an anthology chock-full of fan-freaking-tastic horror stories (note that while most are zombie stories, not all are) from a ton of names you probably know as well as some new writers you may not know. Either way, you are in for a treat!
This anthology is also my attempt to introduce the public to the world of the Collaboration of the Dead. At the end of this anthology are the first 5 chapters from the Collaboration of the Dead, a novel featuring over 20 of the best and brightest writers in the horror/zombie genre. Each writer adds a bit of themselves to the story and makes it their own.
Collabthology features stories by Patrick D’Orazio, Gerald Rice, Mike Mitchell, Rebecca Besser, John McCuaig, Brandon Cracraft, Jeremy Bush, Ken Goldman, Lorraine Horrell, Marius Dicomites, Jamal K. Luckett, Douglas Hackle, Cassie Shaver, C.H. Potter, T.W. Brown, Tony Schaab, Suzanne Robb, Mihai Boc, Ben Langhinrichs, Michael S. Gardner and Matt Nord, poetry by Carey Burns, Karime Limon and Matt Nord and sample chapters from Collaboration of the Dead from Matt Nord, T.W.Brown, GNBraun, Zombie Zak and Stephanie Kincaid.
So, for those of you who don’t know what Collaboration of the Dead is, this will be your first taste of what we are about! Bon appetit!
And so, I am proud to be a part of this project, both the collaboration itself and this anthology. If you are looking for an opportunity to check out some interesting and varied horror stories, and want to see a bit of the collaborative effort some of my fellow authors have put to paper at the beginning of the book that will hopefully come to fruition in the next year or so, swing by Amazon and pick up your copy of Collabthology. Just click on the image below, and it will get you there. 
The Dark Trilogy is now on Kindle!
Just a brief while after it hit smashwords, my trilogy is now on the kindle! I am pretty thrilled about this one because it is FINALLY on the kindle, without the errors that the faced the original release of Comes The Dark that led to my publisher and I agreeing not to do any more kindle releases until the entire trilogy was ready to go. And now, it is ready to go!
Here is the description:
Patrick D’Orazio’s Dark Zombie Trilogy (Comes The Dark, Into The Dark, and Beyond The Dark), was originally released on the Kindle in an unedited form under the first book’s title, Comes The Dark. It is being re-released with the entire trilogy as it was meant to be read: edited and expanded, with additional chapters not appearing in the original Kindle version, along with the Dark Stories that have appeared in the author’s blog that provide a full fourth book of additional stories about many of the secondary characters appearing in the trilogy, including Megan, George, Jason, Michael, and Ben. The Dark Trilogy, Revised, Expanded, and with Additional Stories is over 250,000 words of an intense saga of the zombie apocalypse.
The end came with a whimper, not a bang. The mysterious virus came out of nowhere and engulfed the world in a matter of days. Everyone who was infected seemed to die…and rise again. Governments collapsed, armies disappeared, and entire civilizations turned to dust as the human race tore itself to pieces. Jeff Blaine had a good life: a beautiful wife, adorable children, and a nice house in the suburbs. He liked his job, loved his family, and spent his lazy suburban Sundays out on the deck, barbecuing with the neighbors. Things were perfect until everything fell apart. And no matter how hard Jeff tried, he could not spare his family from the horrors scratching at the door. Now, with his family gone, his life in ruins, the only thing left is raw anger and pain. As the world continues to sink into darkness, Jeff does as well. So he ventures out into the desolation with no better plan than to destroy as many of the monsters that stole his life away before they destroy him as well. But soon Jeff will discover other survivors unwilling to give up. They will force him to decide whether or not to give in to the venom that gnaws at his soul. Should he continue to fight to survive, or succumb to the things in the darkness?
Just click on the picture below and it will send you on over to Amazon so you can pick up a copy:
Review of Keith Luethke’s “A Zombie Apocalypse”
A Zombie Apocalypse is a pretty simple, straight forward novella written in journal form. Rachel Cormac spends half the story hiding away from the undead and the second half as a zombie, after having injected herself with a “cure” some scientist handed to her before dying from a zombie bite. Instead of curing her, it turns her into a new form of zombie that can still read and write (but can’t speak), looks pale and ghostly, doesn’t rot, but otherwise has the same cravings as the other zombies it surrounds itself with.
The idea of writing a story from the undead perspective is not a new one, though many folks haven’t seen it done too much. Typically because most zombies are brain dead monsters without much to offer as far as insight into their affliction. The author has created a new tactic, a psuedo-intelligent zombie that has the urge to feast on flesh but has some reasoning abilities still remaining, making them both more crafty and also guilt ridden for what they are doing.
As a standard zombie story, this one is entertaining enough, though the editing problems were a distraction. It became clear that the author needed to inspect his work with a human eye and not just spell check due to the replaced words here and there, which were repetitive. While it did distract, I knew what the author was getting at, which allowed me to look past that. The basic story has the main character trying to get back to her sister and her niece in Ohio, both before and after she is bitten, and details her experiences with the people, both living and dead, that she meets along the way. I would have preferred a sharper, more defined “new” zombie with this creation the author made. She is still driven by her hunger, and while she seems a smart hunter, her humanity never seems to get in the way of a good feast, so the deliberation or interesting debate on if she is more human than monster really never takes place in this tale. Still, I see that there is a sequel on the Kindle, and I felt that this was enjoyable enough, and priced right, for me to pick that one up as well. I have to admit, I am curious where the road takes Rachel.
A Zombie Apocalypse can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/A-Zombie-Apocalypse-ebook/dp/B003WEA0H4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1298882344&sr=1-1
Review of Remy Porter’s “Dead Beat”
Johnny Silverman is a policeman in a small town in rural England when the dead begin to rise. The reader is provided with a minor hint as to why this has happened, but for the most part, the plague that has caused the dead to come back to life is a mystery as we watch a few select people turning into zombies before all hell breaks loose across the countryside. Johnny is checking things out in a store when a woman inside attacks him. He narrowly escapes with his life and manages to get back to the police station, where Summer, a support officer, and Lester, the town drunk, barricade themselves inside while things go to hell quickly outdoors. At the same time, Jack Nation, a farmer, and his son Griffin, are coming to grips with this new plague as well. But despite the horrors they face, them seem more than willing to take advantage of the situation and bring many of the survivors together to build a fence around the town to prevent more of the dead from entering the area as they clear out the the undead from the town and surrounding region.
As Johnny and his compatriots start to sort things out in town, Jack and his son begin to thrive in a thuggish new world they have created, which doesn’t need the likes of people like Johnny and the laws he tries to enforce. Given that most of the people in town have fearfully thrown in with Jack, there is little that Johnny can do as the farmer becomes more and more willing to enforce his own laws and rules, ruthlessly if needed, to keep everyone following his orders.
Dead Beat is a fairly accurate title for this book, because Johnny has no beat anymore-the town is no longer his, and since Summer and him are the only remaining law enforcement personnel, they are seen as a threat to the new order. On the few occasions that he attempts to step in and assert himself as an authority, it doesn’t go over too well, and at one point I was shocked at how willing he was to give in to the demands of Jack and his depraved son. The author does a good job of giving Johnny a real human side to him. He doesn’t strike me as much of a hero, just a guy trying to hold things together and survive with both the dead and the living threatening him at every turn. And until things really fall apart for him, he doesn’t make a huge effort to stop Jack in his depraved ways, and by then, it seems clear that it will all end in tears for just about everyone still alive.
The author switches from third to first person, with the sections of the book with Johnny in them being told from his perspective. The story flows well from one perspective to the other and that wasn’t an issue for me. I do pride myself on being able to pick up on British slang for the most part as an American reader, but even so, it was a bit tough in places to know with one hundred percent accuracy what the author was saying. I don’t say that as a deterrent, because the language variations don’t detract from the story at all, they just forced me to pay a bit closer attention. All in all, this was a good zombie story with compelling characters. As is my tendency, I prefer character driven zombie stories, and this one definitely falls into that category. Johnny isn’t a hero by any stretch, and reveals tidbits about himself throughout the story that made it clear that he is most assuredly human and has tremendous weaknesses and even a dark side that reveals itself near the end of the tale. And despite the filthy depraved nature of Griffin and Jack, I can still see where the farmer had probably once been a good man and in his own screwed up mind was doing a good thing for the people of the community by building the fence that keeps the undead out. Lester, the town drunk who ends up sobering up in time, is another character who grew on me and proved that he wasn’t one dimensional as he transformed into someone fighting to discover the cause of the plague.
Overall, an entertaining zombie read that was definitely satisfying. Plenty of gore, plenty of action, and most importantly for me, plenty of characters that kept the story interesting from beginning to end.
Dead Beat can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Beat-Remy-Porter/dp/0956373364/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1297226757&sr=1-3
Review of Ian Woodhead’s “Shades of Green”
Shades of Green tells the story of a small town in England, Holburn, where the world has been turned upside down. A flashback to an experience two brothers had in the woods with more than one mysterious creature before the main story begins introduces us to this tale. After that, the sense of normality we see on the page lasts only a short while before we are exposed to people within the town becoming irrationally violent and several seemingly hallucinogenic trips or dreams intervening in the normal experiences of a few of the different key characters. Soon, it becomes clear that these trippy visions are actually the new state of affairs in Holburn, with a strange mix of science and magic boiling out of the ground and causing the populous to change, to morph into new biological creations. They are changing genetically, with strange creatures and demons being the results of the transitions. A few select people, including Damien and his girlfriend Jen, appear to be immune to these changes, or at least transitioning at a slower rate than everyone else, who are either being sacrificed to the evil forces at work or are working for them. The few survivors are the ones that must get to the bottom of this mystery, which unravels rapidly as the story surges toward its conclusion.
I liked the idea behind this story. It was a strange series of events that often left me puzzled, but intrigued enough to forge ahead to see what might happen next and what might happen at the end of the tale. In all honesty, I’m not sure I quite understood the explanations near the end, or what all happened along the way and the reasons behind them, but once again, this is a hallucinogenic, trippy tale that really would defy a simple explanation no matter how well I tried. The story is gore laced, gooey (a word I use because of the biological emphasis put on the reformation of both the human and animal elements of this town), and eerie, to say the least. I don’t want to spoil things for the readers, but I will say that this story shared elements of some of King’s works laced with a healthy dose of Lovecraftian flavor thrown in for good measure.
The issue I had with Shades of Green was with the editing. Now I will state very clearly that I am not a person who gets upset at typos and even a few contextual errors that show up. I expect that to occur with a self-published work. My belief is that if I can understand what the author was trying to say for the most part, I am good with that. With that said, I feel strongly that Shades of Green could have done with another editing run, because some of the errors left me confused as to the intention of the author at certain points in the book. The errors made this a more challenging read for me. Now this isn’t to say that I didn’t figure things out in the end, or throughout the story, but it slowed things down a bit. I will cite one example of the confusion I faced with the story, and it comes from the very first chapter: Damien and his brother Paul appear to be swapped in the first chapter. If this was the author’s intention as part of a dream sequence, it still left me puzzled and believing that after I had read the next few chapters that it was an error on his part: it was Paul who was having the vision from his past, or a dream, and not Damien. Then again, perhaps that was the author’s intention: to confuse the issue, because that would go along with the rest of the trippy nature of the story. Even so, another editing run through this book would serve it tremendously.
Overall, I enjoyed the concept of this book and I think the author has some wild and disturbing ideas. The editing was where it stumbled for me, but given that this is Ian Woodhead’s first book, I think he has a promising future in writing ahead of him.
Shades of Green can be found at: http://www.amazon.com/Shades-of-Green-ebook/dp/B004E10WCC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1296155046&sr=8-1
Review of “Barriers Beyond” by Tim Long
Barriers Beyond is a Kindle novella that I decided to check out once I got a kindle for Christmas because I’ve read plenty of Tim Long’s other works and have enjoyed them. Barrier’s Beyond tells the first person perspective of one survivor during the zombie apocalypse, a former military man who shares his experiences during the first few months of survival after the dead rise.
Tim adds a nice twist to the story by giving us a new form of undead-the ghoul. Zombies in this story are your traditional undead flesheaters, while ghouls are humans who get desperately hungry enough to eat zombie flesh to survive after things go south and food is scarce. The taint of that flesh turns those who eat it into something along the lines of a half undead, half human creature (or at least some of them, while others go the full zombie route). These ghouls retain some of their smarts, craft traps, and crave the flesh of humans and other ghouls. They lead the undead in their charge on those few humans who remain. It was a nice little addition to the zombie pantheon.
The story itself is a pretty straight forward apocalyptic thriller-Erik, the main character, reacts to the initial days of infection and prepares for the impending end of humanity by traveling up to the mountains to a friend’s log cabin to escape the assault of the undead. While he is safe there, he finds the loneliness enough to drive him back to civilization, or what remains of it, several months later. The story at that point goes into overdrive and the action gets amped up quite a bit until the end of the story. Again, this is a novella, so it is a quick read and the storyline not too complicated, but it is fun if you enjoy stories about the zombie apocalypse. The window is left open by the author for future novellas, or perhaps a tie in of this story with one of his other apocalyptic novels.
Barriers Beyond can be found on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Barriers-Beyond-ebook/dp/B0042G0QZ2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1293518750&sr=1-1
Review of “Elements of the Apocalypse” from Permuted Press
Elements of the Apocalypse, as the title suggests, gives the reader four stories using the classic elements to show us how the apocalypse will occur. I thought it was a creative take on apocalyptic stories from the standpoint of using this theme. Fire, Air, Earth, and Water are the means to our destruction, and a different author took a swipe at each particular element.
The first story, by DL Snell, gives us fire as the source of our destruction. Dylan Bradley is minding his own business on a bus ride home from school for spring break when the bus driver bursts into flames. Rather quickly, most of the people around him are doing the same, as spontaneous combustion takes hold as the means to our end. Dylan races home with several other characters as madness takes a hold of the few remaining survivors, in an effort to find his girlfriend.
The second story, by John Sunseri, deals with aliens invading our planet and placing huge atmospheric generators on earth, which make our air unbreathable for humans. Thirty years later, a team from New America, the last surviving lair of humans, has created a device that might help them fight back. Led by Bess, the toughest survivor left, they climb out of their underground hideout and make their way to one of the alien’s air processing stations with the device in tow. Since the atmosphere is polluted not only with unbreathable air, but with “demons” and “diggers”, both servants to the aliens who crave the oxygen inside human blood, making the trek is somewhat like traversing one of the nine planes of hell.
The third story, by R. Thomas Riley, has the animal kingdom in revolt against humanity when Gaia decides that we are poor caretakers of our planet and she needs to start over. Animals don’t just turn on us, they become smart and vicious servants of their earth mother. But Gaia has a plan, and that includes enslaving some of the humans to do more of her dirty work.
The final story, by Ryan C. Thomas, has water the entire world over disappearing in a rapid fashion, leading to a desperate scramble to find the cause and find the last remaining sources of drinkable water on the planet. Cam, an estranged husband and father, has to work with Scott, his scientist brother in law, in an attempt to discover the cause of this catastrophe, while at the same time trying to find water for his infant son as he lay dying from dehydration.
Each story has individual merits, and I give credit to each author for giving us compelling characters that made each story more than just simple doom anthems. I grew attached enough to the characters that I found myself rooting for them to find a miracle despite knowing how most of these types of stories end. I am not going to pick out a favorite here, because I really don’t think any of them missed the mark, and there were parts of each tale that resonated for me. If you enjoy reading stories about our destruction that lean toward the fantastic, than this book is a entertaining choice I highly recommend.
Elements of the Apocalypse can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Apocalypse-D-L-Snell/dp/1934861502/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293203900&sr=8-1
