Ten or so years ago, when my zombie love was hitting its first of many peaks, I stumbled across an interesting looking zombie diary.
Once I got it home, I figured out it was the sequel and quickly made sure to get the first installment because the concept alone sounded so cool.
But still, I was worried.
Over the years, I have watched damn near every zombie movie I could get my hands on, I would read any zombie books I stumbled across.
And 70% of the time I would be disappointed by dogshit effects or cheesy ass dialogue and attempts at suspense.
Zombie fiction is hard as hell to get right, and even the masters sometimes stumble.
But when it’s good, it’s so damn good.
So where did this fall on that oh so hard to hit target?
Lets find out!
As always, this is your offical ***SPOILER WARNING***
After a drunken night out partying, a Naval Officer makes a New Years Resolution to start keeping a journal.
January 2nd an outbreak in China is mentioned offhandedly.
January 10th, all hell is starting to break loose.
By the time the book ends, on May 19th, this unnamed military man and his fellow survivors have been through the ringer and the biggest shit storm is about to fully unload on them.
The 1 issue I have is that the main character never gets a name, but given the format it does make sense.
Who writes a diary in 3rd person?
Even so, it would have been nice to have an inside cover inscription or page where the narrator wrote his name and age.
That’s helpful information to have if he or his descendants look back on this years in the future.
Now, having said that, the rest is so damn good that it’s easy to forget that one minor quibble.
As the world descends further and further into chaos, the world is painted just as bleak and frightening as you’d expect.
There are a few moments of hope sprinkled throughout, so it’s not all depressing, but it really does capture what I imagine a zombie apocalypse would be like.
The hunt for food, supplies, and any fellow survivors that you could trust to help you make it until somebody figures out a way to fix the now broken world are all fully fleshed out.
J.L. Bourne’s actual military experience and knowledge adds credibility, believability, and depth to moments of technical rigging, flight, and weapon handling.
By the end, our protagonist has gathered a pretty good sized group of survivors together including his neighbor John and his dog, a family of 3 they tracked through frightened radio transmissions, and a woman whose car was surrounded.
The main character travels through Texas collecting this new tribe of the living at sometimes great costs.
There are some really fresh ideas in these journeys, particularly when they hole up in an air traffic control tower.
The 1st time that I read this book, I burned through it in a single day.
This time, I read it in 4.
Weighing in at 200 pages, this story zips by at a pace that’s hard to believe.
From the jump, it’s pretty damn enthralling, but by the time you hit the final page you’re left disappointed that it doesn’t keep going for another 200 pages.
Long story short, it nails the bullseye of the aforementioned target.
It’s just as good and creepy now as it was 10 years ago.
A good story is a good story, gang.
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Special thanks to @ACFerrell1976 & @Gigiamk30 for their continued editorial assistance.
