Review of Jim LaVigne’s “Plaguesville, USA”
Plaguesville, USA tells a tale set in a world several years after much of the human population has been wiped out by a lethal virus. The timeframe is in the late 2070′s, and much of the United States has turned into a desecrated land filled with survies, as they are called: gangs, small fiefdoms, cannibals, mutants, and a few people trying to maintain some sense of civilization. We are introduced to Dr. Justin Kaes, an epidemiologist from the CDC in New Atlanta who has found himself in charge of a mission to prevent the “Sick,” as the plague has been dubbed, from reinventing itself and destroying what is left of the meager human population. He has been sent to collect the one man who has survived the original iteration of the plague and whose blood might help them create a vaccine for whatever new iterations may come about. He is Howard Lampert, a crusty, cranky old man of 102 who lives in Minnesota. The story picks up after Justin and his team have picked up Mr. Lampert and are on their way to San Francisco, where there are doctors waiting who have the resources to craft the potential vaccine. The doctor and his team’s massive RV has run out of fuel down in Oklahoma, where they are surrounded by gangs and religious zealots who also happen to be cannibals. We are introduced to Teresa, a member of one of the local gangs, who’s interested in hitting the bricks because she has grown weary of the Blood Claws (not to mention that more than one member of the gang has tried to rape her). She crosses paths with Justin as he and the others are trying to figure out what to do to keep moving west and the duo form an unlikely partnership. The story tells of their adventures, which include an onslaught of virtually every post-apocalyptic danger imaginable, except perhaps for zombies, as they try to complete an almost impossible mission.
Plaguesville gives the reader a thoroughly realized post-apocalyptic world that isn’t set in our time, but over a half a century in the future. Each chapter provides a nice little beginning blurb giving the reader a small taste of the world before the fall, with advertisements about the food, entertainment, and culture that adds additional flavor to the story. As readers will note, this tale has an interesting arrangement with the characters. Justin is the main character and we see the world through his eyes in many ways, but as Mr. Lampert comes from our day and age (he would be around 38 right now), it is easy to identify with him and his perspective on a bombed out, shell shocked world of plague and Mad Max sensibilities. Justin is a doctor on a mission who finds himself attracted to the barbaric and yet incredibly enticing Teresa, and Mr. Lampert brings an old fashion sensibility to the story that is entertaining and somewhat humorous in spots, while getting dark and gruesome in others. While Justin the voice of ethics and morality in a world with very little of such things, Lampert is the grumpy voice of reason and sanity in a world gone mad.
The story runs its cast through several different adventures-they meet the good, the bad, and the ugly that remain in the world, and there are quite a few secondary characters’ stories told that intertwine with the main cast as the tale runs toward its completion. Again, the author has done a good job of laying out a detailed post-apocalyptic world and gives us a saga with plenty of action and adventure. Time and again, Justin’s mission is on the brink of oblivion, but he continues to maintain hope and believe that as long as Lampert remains alive they can resolve things. In some ways, it felt like there were almost too many near misses in the story, but it kept things moving at a fast clip. Overall, this was a fun read, with a few gentle messages that weren’t too heavy-handed about corruption, craving for power, and man’s undeniable lust to cause his own destruction. The growing attraction between Justin and Teresa is handled with a deft hand that made it feel believable and touching, despite the fact that these two people were worlds apart in so many ways. If I have a criticism of this book, it would perhaps be that the story does not feel complete. We are only introduced to the CDC team once they’ve broken down in Oklahoma and not when they set out from Atlanta, pick up Mr. Lampert, and make their way through so many other adventures leading up to that point. Granted, the book is already a healthy 350 pages, but I felt as if there were more stories to be told. Even with this minor complaint, this is an entertaining and robust post-apocalyptic tale with entertaining characters and a setting that was quite compelling.
Plaguesville, USA can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Plaguesville-USA-ebook/dp/B0078FN0RA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336273247&sr=8-1
Review of Sean Schubert’s “Infection: Alaskan Undead Apocalypse”
Infection: Alaskan Undead Apocalypse takes place mainly in Anchorage, and begins with a family of tourists from Minnesota who are traveling to Alaska on vacation. The younger boy, Martin, has brought along a friend, Danny, and the family plans on spending time out in the woods at a cabin near a glacier. Almost immediately upon arrival at the cabin, Martin, his sister Jules, and Danny discover what appears to be a dead body stuck in the melting glacier. Thinking it is a caveman, they pose next to it, taking pictures. When the caveman turns out to be a thawed zombie, and Martin gets bitten, the family races back to Anchorage to a hospital as Martin’s health rapidly deteriorates. All hell breaks loose when the boy ends up dying in the hospital, gets back up, and attacks everyone around him.
Things rapidly spin out of control from there, with a plague of undead spilling outside the walls of the hospital and onto the streets of Anchorage. Within a matter of hours, the entire city is under siege by a horde of fast moving undead devouring and infecting everyone in their path.
Throughout the course of this book, the first in a planned trilogy, we are introduced to the people that make up two main groups of survivors. One group is led by Dr. Caldwell, who was treating Martin at the hospital, and the other lead by Neil, an office worker who witnesses one of the first zombie attacks outside of the hospital (and the two surviving children-Jules and Danny-end up with him as well). The pages telling the story of these characters are intermingled with various graphic scenes of carnage as Anchorage is ripped to shreds and the police and military are unable to do much to stop the tide of death rushing over them.
Infection: Alaskan Undead Apocalypse is a fun, fast-paced tale of zombie mayhem that barely gives you time to breath, and zombie fans who crave plenty of gore and undead action should enjoy it. The main characters are well developed and give the reader a few folks to root for as well as one in particular to loathe, which keeps things interesting from start to finish.
As I always try to do, I point out areas of concern with a story, and I have a couple of them with Infection.
The first is a minor point, but one that I feel deserves mentioning. Alaska appears in the title of the book, and as such, I expected this story to bring some unique elements to the table based on the locale. Unfortunately, while the author knows Anchorage like the back of his hand, the city felt no different than any other place on the map. Perhaps the sequels will insert more of the distinctive ‘flavor’ of Alaska in them that will make this story stand out more.
My second issue has to do with one particular character, a police officer. I felt that he would have been far more intriguing character if he wasn’t a cop, but I found it hard to buy into him being an officer of the law. From the beginning, he makes no effort to take a leadership role in a crisis situation, letting Dr. Caldwell handle that role in a non-medical crisis. All I know is that if I were trying to flee from the impending apocalypse and I was in a group with a police officer, I would be looking to him for direction, not a doctor (even as you are racing down the halls of a hospital). But strangely enough, no one calls him on this until well into the book, and by then, I was wondering how this guy ever passed whatever psychological test is required to become an Anchorage cop in the first place. Again, he would have been a far more interesting character were he not a cop.
Overall, I felt that this story has the potential to be a solid zombie trilogy. Infection doesn’t really bring anything new to the table-there are no big surprises to be had for zombie fans here-but my hope is that the author turns things up a notch in the sequels to give this story a flavor of the northlands that leaves a lasting impression.
Infection: Alaskan Undead Apocalypse can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Infection-Alaskan-Apocalypse-Sean-Schubert/dp/1618680161/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335667874&sr=1-1
Review of “Rise” by Gareth Wood
Rise was written as a blog online originally and as the author mentions in the prolog, he wrote it as the days passed in 2004-2005 when the story takes place. He paid attention to the weather patterns, studied the environments he was leading his characters through, etc. So essentially, this book was fairly early to the zombie writing party-before the onslaught of books started showing up in places like Amazon and on bookshelves at bookstores. Of course, with its introduction via Permuted Press to a wider audience in 2012, it comes during the thick of things-when journal type tales of the apocalypse have been done on a regular basis over the past six or so years, along with a wide array of other first person and third person zombie sagas. Credit to the author for crafting this piece before so many others had taken a swipe at the genre-I wish I had read it when it had originally come out because I am sure it would have felt truly fresh and new at that time.
Like other journal format tales, this story goes through the daily struggles of a survivor (this time a man named Brian who lives in western Canada) from just before until almost a year after the dead have risen. The journey we are treated to takes us on a wandering path where Brian and his sister meet up with other survivors, avoid the undead, try to gather supplies, avoid other desperate humans, interact with the military, go on rescue missions, and just try to cope with a world turned upside down. Journal writing gives an author an opportunity to detail out all the minor details that many other tales would leave out simply because they tend to focus on the elements that move the story forward at every step of the way. Journals do this too, but the whole idea seems to more or less be focused on giving you a real flavor of how people cope, which requires getting down to the nitty gritty.
Most of my criticisms of this tale would stem from the journal format and not the author’s writing, which is solid and keeps things moving. One of the things that seem almost impossible to do with this format is allowing the reader to get into the moment with the characters on the page. This happens because there is virtually no dialogue-nothing that anchors the action and relationships in the present moment. Almost always, the story is being written a day, or even several days, after the events being chronicled have occurred. This author, like others, tends to announce critical details in the first sentence of every new entry, which allows you to know, in vague terms, what is about to happen on the next few pages of the story, and in the next few days of the lives of the characters. Journal entries lack tension, though they provide you with a detailed picture of events. This is the blessing and the curse of this writing format.
If there was a genuine criticism that I have for this tale, unrelated to the journal format, is the fact that the story seems to carry on beyond its natural ending point through several more adventures of the main character. My guess is that in the original writing of the blog, the author was trying to determine a stopping point and picked one at a place where there is a relative lull in action and perhaps when he grew tired with relating the saga. With that said, the story could have stopped much earlier, or could have carried on for months and even years beyond the point where things are concluded-through the course of the apocalypse. I suppose that is another challenge related to journaling; the days of your life are not set up in neat, tidy condensed tales that will fit perfectly into a book-like story. Instead, it moves on, with different story lines always happening and intertwining at all times. In essence, this story could have gone on for another hundred pages or more, and could have ended fifty plus pages earlier, with the same result.
I don’t intend for my criticism of the journal format to speak as a negative about the authors writing capability-he has written an entertaining story in a format that is challenging, to say the least. It kept me reading from start to finish and I was definitely entertained. Rise is a solid entry into the zombie genre, and I hope to see more (perhaps in another format) from this author.
Rise can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Gareth-Wood/dp/1618680102/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332714817&sr=1-2
Review of Jacqueline Druga-Johnson’s “The Flu”
The Flu tells the tale of a pandemic flu attack on the world, tracing its origin at a remote Alaskan scientific outpost to where it rapidly spreads across the globe, though the story more specifically zeroes in on the United States, and even more particularly on a small town in northeast Ohio, Lodi, which is not tremendously far from Cleveland. The story focuses on Mick, the Sheriff in town and his surrogate family, which consists of the woman he is secretly dating, Dylan, and her three sons. Sam, Dylan’s husband, who she is divorcing, is attempting to reconcile with her at the same time. The lives of this family come into focus as Lodi goes under the magnifying glass because of the return of one of the world’s most renowned virologists, Lars Rayburn, who lives in Lodi one month out of the year, spending the rest of his time studying strains of the flu and other plagues in Madagascar. As this flu, which has a death rate up around 90%, plows across the country and the globe, Lars decides that with the help of the government that he will shut off Lodi and attempt to create a safe haven away from the flu, one where he will be prepared to deal with it when it comes, and will do his best to block it off from ever hitting the town.
The book devotes a goodly amount of early pages on the spread of the flu, and as is the case throughout this tale, we are given the personal stories of those who are exposed to it and are dealing with the pain and anguish it brings. The Flu seems like a tidal wave, smashing into everything, giving it a sense of inevitability. Some survive, though most do not-at least not until it surrounds Lodi. The harsh reality is that the best that seems can be done is to wait until this plague dies out on its own-it spreads, it infects, it kills, and then the flu dissipates, leaving behind approximately 5% of the former population. The author does do a good job of crafting characters that you grow attached to, and can appreciate-the normal, everyday people of the town of Lodi, including the main characters who are just trying to survive and keep the town safe. I think the strongest, most potent parts of this story were when these people were interacting with each other and trying to go on with their lives despite everything happening around them. These two main components of this tale-the inevitability of the flu and the development of characters we care about-bring things to a head in the homestretch of the book.
I enjoyed this tale, and feel that the author did a bang up job crafting a plausible pandemic scenario and also created characters that you care about and are hoping manage to survive, though you suspect from the beginning that it is unlikely that all of them will survive, and there will be plenty of heartbreak. As far as issues I had with the story, I would say a minor one was some of the typos and editing issues, though they were ones I could certainly live with. If I were to state that I had a real issue with things, it wouldn’t be something that I could exactly pinpoint in the story itself. I think it would be more along the lines of the pacing. As I said, the flu moves with a certain amount of inevitability-which means that it seemed that the surprises in this story were few and far between for me-things happen because the flu is going to bulldoze everything in its pathway, and it does so at a relatively slow pace. The story, in turn, moves at that pace as well, taking about half its pages to really move it along to where it started to get really interesting for me. I can understand and appreciate all that came in the first half of the book, but again, I would have been happier with a faster pace up to that point. Even with that said, I give credit where credit is due, and the author deserves a lot for crafting a realistic and intriguing pandemic tale that had characters inhabiting the story that felt real and compelling, which, in the end, made the build up well worth it.
The Flu can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Flu-Jacqueline-Druga-Johnston/dp/1885093489/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329959697&sr=8-1
Review of Ryan C. Thomas’s “Hissers”
Hissers starts out giving the reader a hint as to what to expect with the rest of the story when we are introduced in the prologue to a General and a scientist in a government financed lab. They are working on ways to help soldiers in war with healing and regeneration of limbs and have come across some significant success, though there is still work to be done. But they need to sell what they’re doing to the higher ups to get more of the financing they need. So they plan on flying across country and demonstrating what they have so far. Fast forward to the start the actual story and we are introduced to a quartet of soon to be high school students-Connor, Seth, Nicole, and Amanita-who are preparing for the last weekend before school starts and their lives change dramatically as they move closer to adulthood in their little town. There is a huge party that night, and some of them plan on attending. But any plans they have come to a screeching to a halt when a plane crashes, plowing down the very street they were headed to for the party. Rushing to see if they can help any survivors, they quickly discover that those that were killed in the crash are getting back up and have turned into ravenous undead monsters. And these aren’t just your typical sprinter zombies, these are ones that have gained the ability to absorb replacement limbs that they themselves might end up tearing off their victims. Not only replacements, but additional limbs. This new race of the undead make an eerie hissing noise as they move and attack that gives the book its name.
The rest of the tale takes place over the course of the night and next day, with our four main characters racing for their lives and coping with tons of teenage angst and drama that comes with them normally. They get to witness the demise of loved ones and just about everyone in their town. No one is safe from these crazed monsters or the author’s willingness to hand over victims to the cause. Parents are struck down, but so are children and even babies. There is plenty of gore, action, and fast paced adrenaline drenched terror to go around for all. Hissers was a lot of fun in that regard-the action is intense and the monsters are creative and scary-they aren’t quite zombies, but still have some of the same qualities we all know with the undead-you have to hit them in the head, their bites turn others into what they are, and they can be tricked and fooled because they aren’t too bright.
For the most part, the four main characters are fairly believable, though the author stretched that believe-ability for me on occasion with some of their dialog and inner-monologues. It seemed somewhat forced on occasion, and a little overwrought. I get that these kids are dealing with incredibly harrowing situations, but it seemed that they were becoming a bit too profound with their analysis of not only what was going on, but life in general and their beliefs (or lack of belief) in God. This wasn’t something that distracted too much from my overall enjoyment of the tale, but something that definitely merits being brought up in this review.
Overall, Hissers is a fast paced, adrenaline charged zombie variation with some new and intriguing twists that occasionally bogs down with a few bits of overwrought dialog from its young cast, but nothing that should take away too much of your overall enjoyment of this creative, fun horror tale.
Hissers can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Hissers-Ryan-C-Thomas/dp/193486160X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328673114&sr=1-1
Review of Carlos Sisi’s “The Wanderers”
The Wanderers is a translated version of a Spanish zombie novel brought over to the United States by Permuted Press. This is a fairly traditional zombie tale that takes place in Malaga, Spain, a city on the Mediterranean coast. It has an ensemble cast with several key characters that are focused on. The tale covers the initial rise of the dead and carries through to when the city is controlled by the dead and very few of the living remain. The zombies are a mix of slow and fast but I would say they are very traditional-they reaction to visual and audio stimulus and require that you do trauma to the brain to put them down.
While the zombies are the main obstacle for the living, as is the case with most quality zombie tales a human nemesis becomes the real problem. In this case, it is a priest who has tortured himself while locked up in his church trying to find the meaning behind the dead rising and has naturally interpreted it as a clear sign of the Apocalypse. Still, he doesn’t know why he has been spared, and in the madness that ensues, he submits himself to the zombie hordes outside the church, prepared to bring things to an end. This is when he discovers that the undead have no interest in him. They do not attack or try to eat him, but move past him, oblivious to his existence. Taking this as the sign he has been waiting for from God, along with a note from some survivors pleading for help that blows by where he is standing, he sets out to become the Angel of Death. He will use the undead to send the rest of the living straight to hell.
While the use of clergy who align themselves with the undead, or use them to defeat the living is nothing new in zombie storytelling, I think this is the first instance I have come across where a religious figure is given a genuine, if perhaps misguided, sign that they are special, and that God has granted them special powers.
The translation of this story from Spanish to English has a few hiccups, though none that really confused me. There are perhaps a few words missing and some awkward translations, but overall it was good enough. The story itself is solid enough, with a few characters that had a genuine feel to them that allowed me to grow attached and saddened by their loss, though there a decent amount of what I would call “cannon fodder” characters that were less interesting. The priest is somewhat one dimensional, with a madness that I have seen before in other stories-they have been chosen to destroy the sinners. This priest does so without question and with no doubts. Don’t get me wrong, the result is a loathsome and vile character that you love to hate, and want to see perish. The author does a good job making things interesting here, since this character you wish to see dead might also hold the key to survival because of his unique immunity to the undead.
Overall, this is an entertaining zombie tale. That it takes place in Spain gives it a bit of a different flavor than what I’m used to, and everything about the priest character made him quite intriguing. While there are murmurs of a possible sequel or trio of books in this saga, this story stands completely on its own, with no real loose ends that had me begging for more answers in the end.
The Wanderers can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Wanderers-Carlos-Sisi/dp/1618680145/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328063284&sr=1-2
Review of Kevin Burke’s “The Last Mailman: Neither Rain nor Sleet nor Zombies…”
The Last Mailman is, as others have discovered, not a really accurate title for this book, given what actually happens in this tale, but it does introduce us to the main character and what his job essentially is, with some caveats. DJ is the hero of his world, which is four years past the onset of the zombie apocalypse. He lives in a walled in, protected city that is a stand-in for New York. Other stand-ins are out there for other cities-the real cities fell to the undead and the survivors that managed to get to the barricaded bases nearby named them in honor of the fallen. So new-New York has a population of a little over 800 people. DJ has been nicknamed the mailman, though he doesn’t deliver packages between cities, as you might suspect. Instead, he is the guy who goes out into the wilderness (which is everything beyond the walls) and searches for people that were left behind, as well any mementos for the survivors who made it to New York and left those others behind. He brings closure, because the majority of the time he finds no survivors, just their corpses or the zombie versions of them, and gives them their final rest. The story leaps from this concept, which would have been an interesting one on its own, to a mission the President of New York has called DJ in to be involved with: Atlanta has indicated that they have discovered a cure for the plague, and they are willing to swap several women for doses of the cure. That is another key element of this story: women are asked to volunteer to breed so the human race can continue to grow. They are not forced to; it seems that most women are willing to do so, at least in New York, and apparently in Atlanta as well, though not everyone is happy with the concept. Despite his better judgment about trading women for a cure, DJ is willing to hop the flight to oversee the trade. The plane ends up crashing, and the survivors land out in the wilderness, which is DJ is at his best. Together, those that survive the crash decide that they’ll try to make the trip to Atlanta instead of heading back to New York, with the hope of somehow completing the mission. The book tells the tale of DJ and the other survivors and their adventures out in the wild, facing both zombie and living perils along the way.
Overall, this was an entertaining zombie read, with ample gore and action. DJ is a man’s man, but he makes plenty of mistakes along the way, which lends a human quality to him, along with the fact that he always seems willing to do what he can for his friends and other survivors. It was hard not to like him as a character. This story is told in first person from DJ’s perspective, and for the most part, that works in this tale. Overall, the story was fun, though I felt that some scenes were sped through that could have been drawn out with more detail and more nuance, but that is a minor complaint. As to other concerns I had with the story, there were a few I feel it only fair to point out. One is that the author swaps perspectives briefly-for about the length of a chapter or two, to two characters besides DJ. It is a bit disorienting in a first person tale, and I don’t think it was necessary here (the author could have figured out another way to share that same information we get from these other people). I also felt that one particular character changed their personality late in the game in a way that didn’t really make sense to me. It felt forced-an attempt to make things more interesting, I suppose.
Even with these quibbles, this was a fun, enjoyable zombie tale with an interesting take on what the future might hold for the long term survivors of the zombie apocalypse.
The Last Mailman can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Last-Mailman-Neither-Sleet-Zombies/dp/1934861979/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327281351&sr=8-1
Review of Jessica Meigs’ “The Becoming”
The Becoming tells the tale of three people in the early days of the zombie apocalypse. Brandt is a military man who flees Atlanta not long after the start of the Michaluk virus. He was at the epicenter, having volunteered to be one of the guards at the CDC when the plague first broke free from one of the labs. As the city crumbles and the dead begin to rise, he heads west to Alabama while the virus spreads further out from the city at the same time. Ethan and Cade, two friends living in Memphis, are swept up in the story not long after as the virus plows through the entire southeastern United States. Ethan is a Memphis police officer who just got promoted while Cade is his next door neighbor and a former member of the Israeli Defense Force, or IDF, who has immigrated to the United States. Things hit the fan pretty fast in this tale, with the bulk of the early story dealing with Ethan and Cade coping with their first horrific exposure to the virus and then hitting the road, trying to figure out how to survive as everyone around them turns into flesh eating monsters. They hook up with Brandt while trying to see if Ethan’s mother is still alive in her small Alabama town, and together the three decide to head back west, toward Mississippi and with the hope of outrunning the fast moving virus. Naturally, there are interpersonal conflicts between the three, and they also end up meeting a few other survivors that add to the intense interpersonal relationships. This tale is the first of what I believe is a trilogy, and focuses quite well on the key things that tend to work well in zombie apocalypse novels: strong characters, lots of action, and a healthy dose of gore. It doesn’t break new ground in the zombie genre, but while stories like that are always welcome, it isn’t necessary when a story is filled with compelling characters and a solid plot.
This story has both of those, and its focus on the three main characters serves it well. They are well drawn and fit well into the survivor roles with their skills and training in the military and police force. But despite those talents, they are just as human as anyone else and coping with such incredible tragedy is quite difficult for them. The good, the bad, and the ugly of their personalities rear their heads when they are dealing with one another, the undead, and the other survivors that appear in this story. While the characters each ticked me off in turn and made me want to slap each one of them for acting the way they do, they were all also trying to do their best to remain human and doing what they can to help each other out, giving me reason to like them at the same time. Their reactions to the tragedies that unfold around them were real for the most part, though a couple of instances bothered me: Cade’s overall reaction to what happens to her niece and Ethan’s lack of urgency in getting to his wife-when they are first separated and later on in the story, when he wants to return to Memphis. Even with those minor complaints, the characters have a realness to them that helped me feel comfortable rooting for them to survive.
Overall, the writing in The Becoming is solid and the editing is excellent. The author tended to use eye color a bit much to reference particular characters and also used the word ‘smirk’ a lot, but even with those quibbles, it was clear that she is a talented writer who should continue to get better the more she puts pen to paper. I look forward to seeing what Ms. Meigs comes up with next for the compelling characters she’s created in this story.
You can find The Becoming here: http://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Jessica-Meigs/dp/1934861855/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1326433053&sr=8-2
Review of Bryan Hall’s “Containment Room 7″
DARC12 is a deep space research vessel that is located as close to a black hole as it can without being sucked into it. Its mission is to do research that is illegal back home (genetic studies, animal experimentation, etc.) as well exploration of distant space. The DARC vessels have been looking for, and have not found alien life, so when DARC12 finds a strange asteroid nearby that seems to be alive, it is a monumental discovery. Despite the fact that this living thing appears to be nothing more than some sort of plant life, or so it seems at first, it is brought on board for examination. Not long after it arrives, the people exposed to it-the scientists and the head of security, Wilson, as well as others among the crew, are hearing voices inside their heads-voices the promise peace and happiness or ignite fears and nightmares insides their skulls. Soon one of the members of the team that handled the alien is murdering at the command of those voices, and Wilson, who is starting to fear that the perhaps the alien presence has something to do with that shocking event, has to figure out what is going on. But the worst is yet to come, as those killed are coming back to life as they too are called by the alien presence to do its bidding. They are ravenous, fast moving killers, tearing into anything that crosses their path.
Containment Room 7, which is named for the room where the alien is kept to be studied, is a combination alien and zombie tale of horror that moves at a breakneck pace, giving the reader little to no time to breath as things happen on board this massive research vessel. I believe the entire story takes place in a little over 24 hours, with madness and the undead spreading through the DARC12 in no time. Like most horror tales that take place inside a space faring vessel, the cramped conditions and remoteness of their location give the tale a claustrophobic sense to it.
There are four main characters in this story: Wilson, the head of security, Rodney and Colette, two security officers, and Lisa, a biologist. Of those that survive the onslaught of the murderous fanatics and undead, they appear able to resist the call of the alien in their midst, or so it seems. They have meager weaponry meant to maintain peace with; a crew of 144 that typically does no worse than have the occasional argument or suicide attempt to keep security busy. They have repeaters, which amount to b-b gun tazers, and a few batons. More than enough to stop a human being, but that do little to stop ravenous zombies.
The book is a wild ride, with desperate efforts to try and discover what is going on and then putting a stop to it with enemies coming at the main characters in all directions-the living, the dead, and alien who are all trying to destroy them. The author leaves plenty of unanswered questions, which is not surprising, though it may be unsatisfying to some readers. We never really understand much about the alien, including how it can control some minds so effectively while others seem able to resist, what it is transforming into, what its purpose is, or how it can control the dead…but as with the case with both alien and zombie sagas, sometimes those questions are best left unanswered, since this is a tale of unknown terror and trying to flee from it when you are stuck on board ship that offers no real escape at all. This is a fun, nightmare inducing book-a scary tale worth checking out for both fans of sci fi and zombie horror both.
Containment Room 7 can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Containment-Room-7-Bryan-Hall/dp/193486191X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326052611&sr=1-1
Review of Eloise Knapp’s “The Undead Situation”
Cyrus V. Sinclair thinks he is a sociopath. And perhaps he is, though it is hard to be certain. What is for certain is that he is an overly confident loner who seems ideally built for the end of the world, at least in a situation where the dead rise and the living become fodder for them. He lives alone in his soundproofed and reinforced apartment in Seattle, and given his lack of interest in anyone except for his pet ferret Pickles and mentor, Frank, he is okay watching the world fall apart outside his window. He is not the man with the plan; he is the man with a lack of concern about his fate, or the fate of anyone else.
This story starts with him doing nothing for the most part except sitting back collecting rainwater and reading old copies of guns and ammo, though he does venture out to a corner store to grab, of all things, candy. Cyrus has a sweet tooth, and while he works hard to stay in shape, has stocked up on MREs, and has a small arsenal in his apartment, he has a penchant for sugary snacks that is extreme, and we are reminded of that on a regular basis in this story.
Things get shaken up in Cyrus’s world when Gabriella, or Gabe as he dubs her, shows up underneath his window, fleeing from a pack of the undead on the street below. Young and tough, she fascinates him enough with her false bravado that he lets her into his apartment, though it becomes clear quickly that he is none too fond of her or her attitude toward the world. Soon, after a few misadventures, the two of them decide to leave the apartment on a hunt to find Frank, Cyrus’s only human friend in the world. Through several more adventures with both the dead and living, the trio happen upon Blaze, a tough as nails ex-marine that fascinates Cyrus for her ruthless nature, which is also why she is also despised by Gabe, who still believes that the world, and the human race, is worth saving.
The story progresses with the objective of getting to Frank’s cabin in the woods-a hideaway built for survivalists that is far removed from the undead world that surrounds the quartet at every turn. Naturally, along the way they find numerous others trying their best to survive-from the desperate, to the crazed, to the innocent and weak. Through these experiences we get to know Cyrus and his compatriots, and what is revealed is often repellant-especially with Cyrus and Blaze. We are not dealing with heroes here, but people willing to do what it takes to survive, often by dismissing others who plead for their help.
I know that this story has gone through some changes since it was originally written as a self-published work and then became a Permuted offering, though I can’t say for sure what all the changes are-I had a chance to check this story out in its infancy (approximately the first third of it) and even offered up some feedback to the author. I have always felt that she had a compelling character in Cyrus V. Sinclair, though I questioned then, as I question now, as to what extent he is a sociopath. Granted, he seems to kill with ease during the apocalypse and does relate an early experience where he killed as a child, though in the telling of the tale it seems that Cyrus has convinced himself more of his homicidal nature than perhaps what actually occurred-we as readers of this first person chronicle have to take his word on how things went down. Or so it seems to me. Cyrus is rather boastful of his ability to remain impassive and lacking in any sort of human compassion and yet he can’t deny the bonds that form between him and the other members of his small company, including his pet, Pickles.
I think the author has done a excellent job in creating a despicable and yet very much human character that despises weakness and vulnerability while displaying it himself quite regularly. And when he contrasts himself with Blaze even he realizes that he is not nearly as tough and callous as this woman with a scar and a nasty streak a mile wide. Cyrus plays at being superior to all around him (except perhaps for Frank), but time after time he makes mistakes, nearly getting himself killed over and over again by the undead and the living. In these instances he typically requires someone else to save him, but brushes over it like it isn’t a big deal. I think it would have been fascinating to read this same story in third person, without the biased viewpoint of Cyrus clouding the picture of him. We see this dead world through his eyes, which is fascinating, but I also think it would be fascinating to see it from an outside perspective. I think much would be revealed about his true nature, and not just what he wants us to believe.
This is a unique story in the zombie genre. My tendency is to prefer works that are character driven like this one. The author has created a very intriguing character to examine and wonder about. On that level, the story is a winner. With that said, I feel it only fair to point out a couple of issues that I had with the telling of this tale. I really don’t feel the change in perspective to another character for a single chapter was necessary. It was like a hurdle that slowed down the tempo of the story and served as an unneeded disruption in my opinion. I feel that what was revealed could have remained a mystery that was slowly unveiled through Cyrus’s suspicious eyes, as needed. I also feel that what occurs in that particular chapter needed to be further elaborated upon (once again, through Cyrus’s eyes). It changes the course of the novel profoundly, and while more may be revealed in a sequel, I think more needed to be devoted to that storyline within this book.
Overall, this is a great first effort from Eloise Knapp. It takes guts to craft a main character that is, for the most part, a despicable human being and then craft another character that is, on many levels, even more despicable. It takes a certain level of skill to make readers grow fascinated with these two, as I did, while I am sure there will be some folks who just despise them and will leave it at that. I’m not sure that I could say I ever grew attached to Cyrus or Blaze and like them all that much, but I have to admit they are a pair of very interesting survivors that will likely draw me in for the sequel.
The Undead Situation can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Undead-Situation-Eloise-J-Knapp/dp/1934861588/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324743397&sr=1-1
Review of Bryon Morrigan’s “Acheron”
Captain Nate Leathers of the U.S. Army is in Iraq on a routine patrol in a small town outside of Basra when his Humvee convoy gets ambushed by insurgents. As the only survivor, he is taken prisoner and dumped in an underground dungeon by the insurgents. Not long after that, there are explosions and other chaos from up above, and a strange green mist starts floating through his prison cell. Concerned that it’s a chemical weapon, he tries to avoid it, but after a while comes to accept that it seems to have no effect on him. He manages to escape the abandoned dungeon and makes it to the streets of Basra, where he discovers that it seems as if the dead are walking and there are very few people still left alive. Hiding and escaping on foot from trouble with an Iraqi named Muhammad, he discovers there are far worse creatures than zombies roaming the streets-creatures that seem to have crawled (and flown) up from the depths of hell. But even with all of that, the real trouble starts for Leathers when he comes across a group of survivors who create even more of a hell on earth for him.
Archeron starts out strong as a tale told in first person. The author does a solid job of explaining military terminology and other aspects of life in the field without going overboard with it. He also does a good job of keeping the reader in the dark as to what is happening outside of the narrow perspective of the main character early on. This gives a sense of claustrophobia which increases the story’s intensity level a few notches for the first third of the book. Even as Leathers makes his escape from the insurgent’s dungeon, the mystery surrounding the green mist and the strange, zombie-like creatures that bewilder him at first kept the story moving at a rapid, entertaining clip. He starts to get his bearings and discovers there are more than just zombies involved in this strange new world he is a part of, which makes the story even more interesting. I liked it when Muhammad, the Iraqi who saves Leathers early in the story, does his best to explain that the shambling figures out on the street are indeed zombies, despite a language barrier. I thought he put the message across in a very creative way. I do regret that Muhammad didn’t play a bigger role in this tale. I would have liked to see more of him.
I enjoyed the fact that this story does take place in Iraq, which is not the typical locale for a zombie story. But as I read through this book, I realized that this is not a zombie story, but a story of demons and ancient mythology. The author has a strong knowledge of how the military operates and the ancient mythology he chooses to develop his horror creations. The action moves at a steady clip early on and in the latter stages of the book, with quite a bit of time in the middle dealing with interpersonal conflicts and the characters pondering what is actually happening.
Unfortunately, I did have a couple of issues with the story that took away from my enjoyment of it.
The first is what I will call ‘asides’ that distract from the main tale. These take place when, for example, the main character spends a chapter discussing the benefits of wearing your combat boots while you sleep, or when the main character starts contemplating the meaning of life-an example of this is when Captain Leathers states that one man’s religion does not make him any more or less moral than another man. These asides bog down the story for me, slowing the tempo and detracting, rather than adding to the texture and complexity of the tale.
My second issue was with Leathers himself. He struck me as a contradictory character. One the one hand, he is a combat vet and an officer who has the guts and confidence to make life and death decisions every day. On the other hand, he fails to take aggressive stance that would diffuse a dangerous situation again and again. I won’t elaborate on this further to avoid revealing spoilers. I will say that I do like a character that is human in their failings, and make mistakes, but the mistakes Leathers makes seemed redundant to me.
While I had some issues with this book, I think the author is a talented writer who has come up with a very interesting universe inhabited by not only zombies, but mysterious netherworld creatures. I will be curious to see what happens in the inevitable sequel to Acheron.
Acheron can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Acheron-Bryon-Morrigan/dp/1934861677/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1
Review of Peter Cline’s “Ex-Patriots”
Those who have read Ex-Heroes know the scoop from that first book. Peter Clines has created a world with his own flavor of superheroes, led by The Dragon (St. George), Zzzap, Stealth, and Cerberus, who reside in “The Mount”, a barricaded movie studio in L.A. They live there protecting the bulk of survivors in the city from Ex’s, aka zombies that have taken over the world. I felt that the author created a wonderful and highly detailed group of heroes and villains, using the writing technique of going back and forth in time, from ‘now’ to ‘then’ and back again, revealing only what the reader needs to know about each character-their origins, what brought them to where they are now, their motivations, etc.-until absolutely necessary to the plot. I loved the twists in the first book, which gave us a surprise ending I thought was quite a zinger. The heroes are unique, complex, and entertaining-there are no cookie-cutter duplicates of other heroes we already know and love.
Ex-Patriots introduces the military to the equation here in the second book. But not just the regular military, a group of super-soldiers created by a government scientist named Dr. Sorenson, who has turned them into physical specimens capable of great feats strength and speed. They are led by Captain Freedom (his actual real last name), though he isn’t draped in the American flag throughout the book. He is a physically massive soldier who is the strongest of the super-soldiers and also the most moral of the military men the reader is introduced to here. The military, huddled at a secret base in Arizona, makes the trek to the Mount after discovering the barricaded safe haven. Despite an introduction filled with missteps, the heroes agree to make the trip back to Arizona to discuss mutual survival plans with Colonel Shelly, the top army officer still alive, and Agent Smith, the only representative on hand representing the U.S. Government. Naturally, more conflict between the military and heroes occurs, with the military wanting the large, robotic Cerberus machine and official control over the Mount, claiming that Marshall Law is still in play. This despite serious questions as to whether the U.S. government even still exists, given that the ex’s seem to control most of the world.
New villains are revealed here, as well as new heroes, and the author does not disappoint with his efforts to provide fresh twists and turns to the plot, both with new characters and old. He uses the same format of ‘now’ and ‘then’ to divulge choice details, which leaves the reader guessing on particular details until the moment is just right. The action is on par with the first book, and the relationships between the different superheroes and the soldiers are solid. I particularly like the slow burn that is going on between St. George and Stealth-the two hero leaders who can’t seem to figure out what type of relationship they’re supposed to have.
Like the preceding book, this was a well written tale and it leaves plenty of room for more twists and mysteries in the final book in the trilogy. Villains that are complex and despicable, heroes that may seem indestructible yet are very much human in how they react and respond to the people and challenges they face…Mr. Clines has created a compelling world filled with fascinating characters. I look forward to seeing where it all leads.
Ex-Patriots can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Ex-Patriots-Peter-Clines/dp/1934861871/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321937132&sr=8-1
Review of Iain McKinnon’s “Remains of the Dead”
Remains of the Dead is the sequel to Iain McKinnon’s “Domain of the Dead” but in a way, it is its own stand alone story. I guess the term sequel doesn’t accurately describe this tale, since this story runs parallel to the first book. Both books start out the same way, with a group of survivors trapped years after the start of the zombie apocalypse inside a large warehouse that is filled with all the supplies they would need to survive. Unfortunately, they have burned through most of those supplies and only have a few months left before they will end up starving to death. A helicopter, stationed out at sea on one of the few surviving military ships, has come to the area where the warehouse is to collect an undead “sample” for the scientist on the ship to study. The people from the warehouse, upon hearing the helicopter, decide to make a run to the bird in an effort at escaping the hell they have lived through for several years and the reality that their time is running out.
The first book focuses on the survivors who climb aboard the helicopter as they return to the ship. Their story is one that examines the science behind the outbreak of the plague and the attempts to find a cure or inoculation against it. It also deals with a fresh outbreak of infection onboard the ship. This novel details the plight of those left behind: the people who couldn’t fit on the small helicopter and must figure out a way to survive until the chopper can return to rescue them. As the readers who have checked out the first book know, the estimated eight hour turnaround time they were hoping for is not quite what happens and the survivors will be forced to somehow make due for much longer than that.
The book is broken up into two storylines. The main story is of Cahz, the leader of the soldiers on the ground, Cannon, another soldier, Ryan, one of the survivors from the warehouse, Elspeth, an elderly survivor, and Ryan’s infant daughter, who happens to be Elspeth’s granddaughter. As we discovered in the first book, Elspeth has been bitten and the baby has been scratched, so it appears as if both will be dead from infection soon enough, which is why they chose to stay behind. The other storyline is that of Ali, another warehouse survivor who gets separated from the others in the throngs of undead trying to tear them to pieces on the race to the chopper, and is presumed dead. He manages to find his own route to escape and fights tooth and nail to survive and somehow figure out a way to reconnect with the others as the helicopter abandons them all with the hordes of undead nipping at their heels.
This was the story I wanted to read in tandem with the first story presented in book one of this presumed trilogy. I had been hoping to see the story rotate back and forth between the survivors on the ship and the survivors on the ground, but the author chose to split the stories up. I have to say that McKinnon turns the intensity up a notch in this, the second book in his series. The constant race against the undead, the desperate measures taken to survive at every turn, and the solid character development make this tale both a fun and invigorating read in the zombie genre.
I am looking forward to the third installment in this series, where I will presume the two sets of characters will be reunited and their saga will go forward as one story. While I suppose I still wish that the two stories would have rotated back and forth through the first and second books instead of being told separately, I have no complaints about the characters and the intense action the author delivers with his two books.
Remains of the Dead can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Remains-Dead-Iain-McKinnon/dp/1618680048/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321572504&sr=1-2
Review of C. Dulaney’s “Roads Less Traveled: The Plan”
Roads Less Traveled: The Plan tells the story of Kasey, a young woman living in the mountains of West Virginia, and a group of students from Pennsylvania coping with the initial days of the zombie apocalypse. Kasey and Ben, one of the students, have been corresponding over the internet for years, though they’ve never met face to face. While there are no real details as to how they stumbled onto one another, it isn’t difficult to surmise that they connected via one message board or another that was discussing the best ways to survive a zombie apocalypse. This story is built for the zombie fan who has been prepared for the apocalypse, or at least talked about being prepared for it, for years. You see, Kasey and Ben had a plan set up for when things fell apart and the zombies rose up. Of course, it was all talk until the undead became a reality. Now they have to put their plan into action, which entails Ben making his way down to West Virginia to Kasey while she prepares her very remote home as a holdout against a world filled with the undead. Ben has some friends coming along with him-other students at the college he’s at, foremost among them being Jake, who is another zombie fan who apparently has a plan of his own. Begrudgingly, Kasey agrees to let them morph their plans together, and make the journey to Kasey’s home, fighting through minefields of the staggering undead shambling rampant through Pennsylvania and West Virginia. A large chunk of the story is taken up with the tale of Ben’s journey south, along with a side story of another friend of Kasey’s who lives in Washington DC…Mia and Kasey speak early on in the book over the phone, and they both assume Mia is as good as dead given the massive population where she lives. But the story of her attempt at survival was one of the more interesting parts of the book for me-exciting and heartbreaking at the same time.
As a zombie fan, I need to make it clear that this story does not break new ground. The zombies are traditional Romero zombies. As a zombie author, I have no problem with there being no new ground broken as far as the undead are concerned. There is plenty of un-life still left in a tale filled with the slow, dragging, moaning undead. The key is telling a story that has characters that are compelling and make you want to root for them…or hate them,. Either way, they have to keep you intrigued.
I felt that Kasey was a well fleshed out character. She is strong, prepared, and takes on a leadership role among this newly formed group of survivors with relative ease. My second favorite character had to be Nancy, who while playing a minor role just seemed appealing-she is Jake’s grandmother, and the strength she exhibits in this story is not all on the surface. Kasey may be the leader, but Nancy is the glue keeping the group together. I wasn’t as fond of Ben, who didn’t seem nearly as fully developed given his key role in the story. He and his new found girlfriend become background noise for the bulk of the story, with a few points where they stand out for short periods of time, at most. Jake is far more complex a character, and outshines Ben from the very beginning. He was sort of an anomaly in a lot of ways, making him a unique. He is diminutive in stature, but plays the role of a bad ass, a leader, but he defers with no complaint to Kasey, and he is a psycho, though only when necessary. I am not sure I particularly like Jake, though he grew on me as the story progressed.
The writing is solid in this book and I had no issues with it, though I do have to admit switching from first person (with Kasey) to third person, with everyone else, isn’t my favorite way to go. It isn’t a major complaint, though at one point in the story, the two styles were intermingled. Kasey is in a scene, and speaking in first person, and yet she is not right next to some of the other characters, but somehow, she is still narrating about them. Again, this is just a quibble. I just tend to prefer it when an author keep the perspective consistent throughout a story.
Roads Less Traveled: The Plan once again does not break new ground, and the plan, though mentioned early on, really has no elements to it that are different than most of the other survivor’s plans I have seen in other zompoc tales. It just is something that moves the story along, giving the characters a purpose for doing what they need to do. For me, the real key to this story is that the characters, in particular Kasey and Jake, are interesting, and emotionally they seemed real. There are no superheroes here, just normal people struggling to stay alive in the face of both the undead hordes and the very dangerous living that tend to create even worse problems for the main characters.
I look forward to checking out the next book in this trilogy-the author has me intrigued.
You can find Roads Less Traveled: The Plan here: http://www.amazon.com/Roads-Less-Traveled-Plan-1/dp/1934861995/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1321116527&sr=8-2
Review of Tim Long’s “Beyond The Barriers”
Erik is a man witnessing the beginning of the apocalypse. As he watches the world crumble on his television, he decides that his best bet is to gather up some supplies and head out to a friend’s remote cabin in the woods. He can hunker down there, live off the land, and hope that somehow, mankind figures out a way to defeat the undead that have been devouring the living. After a harrowing trip to the local WalMart where he sees the undead starting to pop up all over, Erik manages to make his escape.
Months later, out of food and desperate to find out what has happened to the rest of the world, Erik returns home, only to have his worse fears realized, and far worse…because the zombies aren’t the only thing that have it out for humanity. There is a whole new breed of the undead that have risen from the ashes of the apocalypse: ghouls. And these creatures aren’t only ravenous for human flesh; they are intelligent and devious as well, having become the leaders of the mindless zombie hoards in their quest to destroy humanity. But there are still survivors, and Erik hooks up with a group of them. His journeys grow more harrowing with every step he takes, and the ghouls are there at every turn, plotting his, and everyone else’s, demise.
Tim Long has upped the ante on the traditional zombie novel with Beyond the Barriers. He has created a new breed of undead and a new form of terror for fans of the genre to come to grips with. The ghouls are an enemy with more than just a mindless desire to kill, but a twisted, evil desire to create a hell on earth. I just wish that as intelligent flesh eaters, one or two might be able to resist their all encompassing need to annihilate all that they once were-human. For now, they all seem uniform in their desire to destroy, but I know that the author plans at least one more book, which may reveal more behind the meaning of this new form of undead, and also reveal how evil they truly can be.
As I always try to do, I like to be fair and point out any quibbles I might have had with a particular book. The book, which is a first person narrative, has Erik contemplating and pondering on the horrors that surround him more than I felt was necessary. The nightmarish images of the world around him and the endless terrors he faces speak to those horrors loud and clear, and were far more compelling than his words on the subject, which crop up with a good frequency. Even so, his reactions to this insane world felt natural. I would probably act no different…that is, assuming I lasted all that long and didn’t go mad with fear. And again, this is just a minor quibble, but one I felt it only fair to point out.
Even with this slight criticism in mind, this is a fast paced, entertaining read, and I look forward to the next book in this series.
Beyond The Barriers can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-the-Barriers-ebook/dp/B005VT7F0I/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318989127&sr=1-3
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
Review of David Dunwoody’s “Empire’s End”
I read David Dunwoody’s Empire nearly three years ago, and it has stuck with me as one of the standouts in zombie fiction because of its unique approach to the genre. Dave wrote a book filled with an element that seems to make perfect sense although no one that I am aware of has utilized it before or since. The Grim Reaper, Death, decides to take a stand against the undead, tired and angered by their defiance to the natural order of things. It is his job to transport those from this life into the next, and the undead resist that. So in Empire, death relinquished his responsibilities and became something not quite human, but not quite immortal. With his scythe, he laid waste to the undead. At the same time, he saved a little girl named Lily, who made him feel something human, something he’d never felt before: love.
Empire’s End continues the story of Death’s journey, along with that of Vorhees, the cop that was one of the last survivors out of Jefferson Harbor, Louisiana, a town in the badlands of the United States. Essentially, outside of the “Great Cities” to the north, which hide behind massive walls, the rest of the country is the badlands. A century has passed since the plague that released the zombie plague upon mankind swept the world. Before that, there were sources of power on this planet that allowed the dead to rise. They could not infect the living, just devour them, at least until the United States Government decided to tamper with this supernatural power. It was turned into a virus that could infect others and the rest, as they say, is history.
Much of Empire’s End takes place within one of the cities inside the walls that keep the undead out. Lily and Vorhees both are there now, and trying to adapt to a life of civility, or whatever approximates civility in this new world where the populous is convinced they are safe from the dangers beyond their gates. But while the undead are indeed not inside the walls, a group of traveling performers that have embraced the idea of an existence after life that is far more intoxicating, are building an army of the undead whose intent is to come north for a great feast of those hidden behind those walls.
Death, who has taken on the human name of Adam, is searching for Lily while he is being pursued by an undead vessel known as the Omega. I call it a vessel because this creature is filled with the vengeful spirits of many who Death has taken over the countless centuries where he fulfilled his duties. After having given up his mantle of responsibility, he has become vulnerable, and those who he sent to hell crave revenge.
Empire’s End is more than just a solid sequel to an excellent zombie novel; it surpasses its predecessor with a deeper look into a world filled with dark magic and vivid characters, both living and dead. Dunwoody somehow manages to make Death a sympathetic character and his zombies are some of the scariest around.
As an added bonus, at the end of the book the reader gets “Grinning Samuel” and “AfterDead”, two additional stories that explain the origin of the undead plague. I had read Grinning Samuel before, but AfterDead was new to me, and a very intriguing story that gives the reader a genuine understanding of how this all came about.
You can find Empire’s End here: http://www.amazon.com/Empires-End-ebook/dp/B004W9BXJW/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1303068127&sr=1-4
Review of Craig DiLouie’s “The Infection”
The Infection starts out with a brief prologue that introduces the reader to the Screaming that initiates the apocalypse. About 20% of the population starts to scream uncontrollably and then collapse, going into a coma that lasts three days. At the end of that three days, those people who fell down wake up, and their only desire is to spread the infection to everyone else by biting and attacking them. The reader is thrust into the story a few weeks after the initial assault and we are introduced to a group of survivors roaming through Pittsburgh in a Bradley fighting vehicle. The crew of three is led by Sarge, who shares the task of leadership of the civilian survivor crew with Anne, a mysterious woman with a major hatred of the infected. Wendy, a police officer, Paul, a minister, Ethan, a math teacher, and Todd, a geeky high school student, are the other members of this brigade of survivors.
The story relates their current experiences of attempting to find shelter, avoid exposure to the infected, and seeking out other survivors, while flashing back to their initial introductions to the infection, lost family members, and the horrific memories each of them has had. DiLouie does a bang up job of revealing, by inches, what we need to know about each of the players in this story. In time, they settle at a hospital, clearing it room by room, and realize there are more than just the zombie-like infected that have been introduced into this new, horrible world. As they flee the hospital, they discover an even wider assortment of alien creatures-from wormlike to giant demons that hint at something far more sinister than just a virus or plague at work. The group makes their way to a huge encampment of survivors, which reminded me of a vast, wild-west setting filled with both hope and despair as everyone tries to make due and pretend things are normal in a world turned upside down. But the needs of the mishmash of government agencies still in existence will send our survivors back out onto the road, where they must once again come to grips with the horror their world has become.
After reading Tooth and Nail, I knew that Craig DiLouie had a real talent for creating compelling, real, and fascinating characters, but he ups the ante here, with each survivor in the group being given an in depth look that allows the reader to fully appreciate the pain and agony each one of them has gone through to get to survive to this point, and why they have a willingness to stick with one another through the hell their existence has become. This is an apocalyptic novel, but I can’t say that it falls exactly into the realm of a zombie novel; instead, it is a hybrid that provides plenty of brand new terrors to mess with your head. Alien creatures with little to no real explanation make this story unique, though this did remind me of other works I have read prior to this, such as The Mist, from Stephen King. I am positive a sequel is in the works and perhaps that will reveal some answers about the creatures that have invaded this world, but there appear to be no explanations on these pages, only a bit of conjecture on the part of one of the characters. I am not sure if I am griping about this-not knowing what is actually going on-because the characters themselves don’t know anything either. They are just trying to survive, and in some cases, kill as many of these abominations as they possibly can. Another minor quibble I have is something I have grown used to over the course of this novel and DiLouie’s previous one-the fact that the author moves into present tense on occasion, which feels a bit jarring when it occurs. It offers up an urgency, a sense of “now” to the story, but it also serves as a minor reading distraction in my humble opinion.
Those very minor quibbles aside, this is an excellent book of the apocalypse, creative and wild from the start; from how the infection occurs to the results it yields, and the characters that inhabit its pages are just about as compelling as any I have ever seen.
The Infection can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Infection-Craig-DiLouie/dp/1934861650/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300070883&sr=8-1
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
