The first book (there’s 2 so far with a planned 3rd) is called Day By Day Armageddon by J.L. Bourne. The book is written in journal form by a naval pilot trying to survive as zombies start taking over the world.
In three days I’ve read both books, I just could not put them down. Full of action it is a very exciting tale. Seeing as how the author himself is current military there is a lot of military lingo but it is very accessible. Whether he has first hand knowledge of all he talks about or he just really did his research he’ll say something in a paragraph that only someone truly familiar with the military and its workings could know, which makes it much more believable.
I high suggest this book if you’re a fan of zombie stories.
I was fairly okay with this book, but I never made it into book two. I couldn’t get past the dumb right-wing politics (“no communists around here, so they couldn’t supress the news!”–as I’m sure is the case with news everywhere else…) and the problem that he couldn’t really pull off the diary bit. The latter is just bad writing: “I miss my sisters, Jenny and Mandy…”–not something you’d find in a diary. “I miss the girls,” sure; “I miss Jenny and Mandy,” right on. Clunky, clunky exposition in any other form, and besides, not even relevant, but happens often enough to get me out of the reading mood…
:rolleyes: I guess it’s good to make sure your fantasy genre writing matches up with your real world political leanings.
Honestly, there is not a strong political bent in this novel. And your criticism about authentic diary writing is a bit excessive. I seriously doubt the writer was hoping to earn a Pulitzer…it’s a zombie novel for God’s sake.
Good job starting out on the discussion with :rolleyes:, that leaves such a nice atmosphere for discussion.
I’m glad to note that you have no standards for fantasy and zombie novels, whyever that’s so. I just thought I’d offer a different opinion for those people that do. Carry on doing whatever it is you were doing.
Sure, there are things that I personally prefer in the reading of fantasy and zombie novels, but having the political bent of any of the characters matching my own is normally not a requirement.
It makes sense though, that sounds like something a right-wind diary writer would say. And in the second book he ends up reading something from a guy at the Times that says something like, "the government actually sent someone down to our headquarters who would go through all our stories marking things out.
I was wondering about that and then just figured it was the unmediated author’s point of view–but I suppose it could be a carefully drafted protagonist. At any rate, I might yet get into book two, but I still have some other zombie books before me…
I’ve stil got a couple of the David Moody books lying around (Autumn…whatever the volume is that I’m currently at). Not that I’m especially happy with HIS writing either, but the story is still somewhat unique in where it’s going. And I’ve got a couple of older anthologies that I should read before I forget: Stephen Jones’s The Mammoth Book of Zombies and Skipp & Spector’s original Book of the Dead. And I’m a bit ashamed to say that I have, but have not yet read, Kim Paffenroth’s Dying to Live…
Is The New Dead the anthology by Christopher Golden? I got that under the title Zombie: An Anthology of the Undead. Contains everyones favorite (at least on this board) “What Maisie Knew,” which I think is the best zombie story out there, or at least recently published.
Thanks for the offer to mail, anyhow!
Has anyone read Paul is Undead by Alan Goldsher? The Beatles are all zombies (except for Ringo who’s a ninja) and the British Invasion is actually a zombie invasion. I saw it in a bookstore the other day. It looked like it could be fun but I’m also thinking it might just be another Pride and Prejudice and Zombies knock-off - an amusing concept but not worth reading 320 pages of.
That’s the short story I’m talking about. I have no idea why but it really resonated with me and if I’m in bed I have to make sure I don’t think about it or else I’ll be laying awake all night.