Augustus Berry lives a
day-to-day existence comprised of waking up, getting drunk, and
preparing for the inevitable day when “they” will come up the side of
his mountain and penetrate his fortress. Living on the outskirts of a
city and scavenging for whatever supplies remain since the demise of
civilization, Gus knows that his next visit to undead suburbia could be
his last.
Not only does he face a corpse-infested urban hell, human scavengers, and unending loneliness, but now a new mystery has risen…The undead are disappearing from the streets.
A
force is gathering, beyond the mountain man’s darkest nightmares, even
more relentless and terrifying than the roaming tides of dead flesh. And it’s preparing to hunt.
My Review:
This
is the second book in the series and from the start of this review,
there are spoilers about the end of book one so read with caution!
Gus
is still reeling from the recent events and waiting for his injuries to
heal. He is worried about when he will be able to get his home
repaired, and that becomes critical when he realises that the zombies
have been attracted by all the gunfire and are trying to break down his
gate. Gus is facing total disaster unless he can kill all the zombies
and repair the damage, and then he needs a plan for new supplies and
surviving the winter alone again.
Oh dear. The stupid decisions
that Gus made in the last book have really put him in a bad spot and
threaten his safe mountain hideout. I did try to warm him but he just
wouldn't listen! Now thanks to his obsession with Roxanne, he has lost
his only friend, his safe house, a pile of supplies and his health. The
zombies have located him and he has to do something to stop more zombies
coming up to him. He devises a plan to dispose of all the bodies and
that is when he notices that his previous kills have vanished. Are they
still alive and reanimated again or has something taken them?
The
current situation and going back to being alone really messes Gus up
and he starts doing very stupid things. He comes up with the insane plan
of going out before winter to kill as many zombies as he can to reduce
their numbers. A nice plan in theory but other people in town are not
very happy with what Gus is planning to do as it brings the zombies out
into the open and threatens them. Now Gus is in conflict with other
survivors which gives him a whole new set of problems. And of course his
actions cause him more trouble when he fails to think through the plan
and it is then that he finds out to his horror what has happened to the
zombie bodies. Now his plans evolve into something really drastic!
Gus
never makes life easy for himself but he is fun to read about! I plan
to continue on with books three and four hopefully this winter, to see
what happens to him next. This book does finish on a bit of a surprise
so it will be interesting to see where it goes from here.
Read August 2015.
Boomstick.
Samurai bat.
Motorcycle leather.
And the will to live amongst the unliving.
Augustus
Berry lives a day-to-day existence comprised of waking up, getting
drunk, and preparing for the inevitable day when "they" will come up the
side of his mountain and penetrate his fortress. Living on the
outskirts of a city and scavenging for whatever supplies remain after
civilization died two years ago, Gus knows that every time he goes down
into undead suburbia could be his last.
A novel of the zombie apocalypse.
My Review:
The
first thing that catches the eye about the series are the gorgeous
covers which show the area that our anti-hero lives in. And Gus is
certainly an anti-hero! I first encountered him in a novella prequel
called The Hospital, and I certainly enjoyed that enough to grab the
main books in the series though I haven't read them all yet. If you get
the chance, grab The Hospital which sets the scene for the life that Gus
is living.
Gus is basically an overweight, unfit, anti-social
alcoholic who talks to empty bottles of alcohol when he isn't grabbing
supplies and killing zombies. He is so far removed from a hero but that
is what I like about him. He is a man who has survived two years in the
mountains in a world knee-deep in zombies by a mixture of planning and
luck, and when he gets it wrong, it goes bad quickly. He is not the
smartest of guys, and is obviously under mental strain which I can
understand, and can be downright dumb at times but it makes him more of a
real character.
Scott and his friends are also scavenging in
town and are about to fall foul of a gleeful serial killer who is using
the zombie apocalypse to kill as many survivors as possible on his road
trip. Scott is about to get in his way which leads him to Gus. Scott is
then torn between helping Gus and living in safety as his assistant or
going after the killer to get his revenge. I liked Scott and it
certainly livened the book up when his story began to intersect with
Gus. With him around, Gus starts to look a bit more normal.
Now
there are a couple of things about this book that did detract from my
enjoyment of it. There was way too much about Gus getting drunk in his
house on a daily basis. I get that he is mentally damaged from the
stress of living in this world, mostly on his own, but it did get a bit
wearing to hear about every drink he took and every hangover he has.
Frankly if he was this drunk all the time he would've been eaten by
zombies a long time ago. I certainly hope the drinking thing reduces as
the series goes on as it wasn't greatly interesting to read about all
the time.
The other thing that I really disliked was Roxanne
being introduced to ruin the team dynamic. I never liked or trusted her
from page one and I was suspicious of her motives. To be fair to the
author, Roxanne was put there for a specific plot purpose and I liked
the way that bit of plot played out into a near disaster for Gus, and
into a Scarface style 'say hello to my little friend' finale! That was
actually the best bit of the book and was very well written and
exciting. So as much as Roxanne annoyed me, she was crucial to the plot
and it did turn out to be a very satisfying storyline to read.
The
scenes where Gus encounters the zombies, the bad guys and Scott
encounters the serial killers are all very well written. The author does
a good job of bringing action and tension into the plot and keeping the
reader interested in Gus and his life. It does get a little slow in
places but it is worth it to read to the end as it finishes with a
serious bang.
Overall I'm in two minds about whether to give it 3
or 4 stars and I keep changing my mind about it so until I reread it I
will split the difference and give it 3.5.
Read August 2015.
"Mountain Man" Augustus
Berry is a survivor in undead suburbia. He scavenges what he can from
what's left over. He is very careful in what he does and where he goes,
taking no chances, no unnecessary risks, and weighing every choice...
until he decides to visit the hospital at the edge of town, and
experiences terror the likes he's never encountered before.
Seemed like a good day to do my retro review of this book as Bark has done one over on her blog too!
My Review:
Gus
lives in the mountains, away from the 'gimps' seeking to shred the
flesh of the living, but needs to come down on supply runs. Today he is
seeking medical supplies and needs to take the risk of looking at the
hospital just in case it hasn't been looted. It looks deserted but you
never know what might be lurking in the dark...
This was a good
introduction to Gus, learning about his habits and personality while he
creeps around the dark corridors, looking for anything that can be used.
We know he likes a drink to help him sleep, we know he has the worst
zombie nightwares and we know that he is a guy who is doing everything
he can to protect himself and survive. That does not mean that he cannot
make mistakes. There are blood trails leading into the dark and Gus is
unsure exactly where the medicines might be. Leaving too soon means
losing the chance at hitting gold. Staying too long means danger has a
chance to creep up on you. And then he hears the strange noise...
I
liked the tension and the action in this short story. It certainly
makes you want to find out what happens to Gus in future adventures. He
comes across as a normal guy who learns the zombie rules from watching
crap films. He is no superhero but tries to prepare the best he can when
he goes out to salvage supplies.
The one thing that was a slight
niggle was that in the first half of the story, the author overdosed a
bit on fancy descriptions that just weren't needed. The vending machines
were raped and punished. The squeaky wheel on a hamper was 'whistling
its tune the whole way, like a high dwarf going home to see Snow White'.
It was a bit over the top for me and didn't add to the story. When the
author concentrated on just describing what happens to Gus, the writing
is transformed into something so much better, and we get caught up in
his story. It becomes tense and gritty and entertaining! Sometimes
keeping it simple and putting the author right beside Gus in the story
is a better idea.
Does this prequel make me want to read the full
novels? Hell yes! I think Gus is going to be an interesting guy to go
on an adventure with. The writer also adds enough realism with the
setting of the hospital to show good attention to detail that bodes well
for a novel. I look forward to reading more.
Read February 2015.
For Cade Grayson,
husband, father, and former Delta Force operator, that one warm sunny
Saturday in July - later to be labeled Z-Day by some anonymous person
probably long dead - began like all the others before, and none since.
Whether the virus was
naturally occurring or an escaped lab experiment Cade hadn't a clue, and
he wasn't especially concerned until he learned of its unprecedented
virulence, unusual method of transference, and the fact that, according
to the talking heads on the news, it brought the newly dead back to
life, semi-mindless, and with an insatiable desire to feed on the flesh
of the living.
Armed with this new information and now seeing
the bigger cities such as Washington D.C., New York, and Los Angeles
rocked by the rapidly spreading scourge, Cade ignores the volley of
contradictory edicts drawn up by the White House and set into motion by
FEMA and DHS, dusts off his tools of war, and loads his truck with
supplies. Unable to get ahold of Brook and Raven and unwilling to leave
them at the mercy of some distant politician's inability to hold the
nation together, he begins an impossible 3,000 mile journey across a
reeling United States with presumably millions of infected in his path
and only one acceptable outcome: find Brook and Raven alive-or die
trying.
My Review:
Cade
isn't paying much attention to outbreak reports in the media until his
neighbours Ted and Lisa are trying to eat him. He arranges to meet his
family at a military base and starts on his journey, meeting up with
other survivors fleeing the area, while his family get out on their own
dangerous road trip. But the dead are going to be the least of their
problems.
This goes with the typical type of zombie story that I
enjoy reading. We have the motivated and capable characters, trying to
get back to their loved ones on seperate dangerous road trips, with the
threat of zombies and psycho people who take advantage of the lawless
situation. It has the mixture of action and tension as we switch between
Cade and his wife Brook and what is happening to them. I also liked
that we were following Mike, Cade's old friend at the military base as
he is sent on a mission to investigate the situation at The White House.
There is certainly plenty going on through the book which kept me
pretty happy.
We meet quite a few characters on the journey. Cade
finds two orphaned kids Leo and Ike, and along with neighbour Rawley
decide to get on the road as a group. I liked this early part of the
story as Rawley was a really good character and I was curious to see how
the kids were going to develop. They link up with the grumpy Harry who
doesn't offer much to the group effort yet moans to himself that nobody
values him or his opinions and that kind of gets on my nerves. There is
also the addition of the twins Shelly and Sheila, and former military
man Duncan. They decide on safety in numbers and travel together at
least for part of the journey.
I very much enjoyed Brook's
adventures. She is suffering the pain of her father turning and
attacking her mother, and is now taking her brother Carl and her
daughter Raven to meet up with her husband but the journey is difficult.
They deal with the behaviour of panicking motorists, zombie hordes and
violent looters as they try to get to safety. I liked when we went back
to their story as I thought it was well written, tense and quite
nerve-wracking. Mike taking his teams into The White House to look for
survivors was really tense and I liked that unexpected sub plot. Mike
was a really good character and I want to see more of him.
Cade's
journey is a bit more frustrating. I was annoyed at how many of his
companions we lost on the road trip as I liked the group and wanted to
see them survive more than a few chapters! I at least wanted the
majority to make it to the next book so I did feel a bit annoyed,
especially with their lives being thrown away by stupid mistakes. Cade
decides to teach Ike and Leo to shoot in an area he hasn't checked for
zombies and has not set a proper guard to keep everyone safe. Later he
lets civilians go into a public restroom that he and Duncan have not
checked for zombies. And of course knowing that the raiders set up an
ambush ahead of them, instead of taking an alternative route away from
it, lets drive into it and die! Great choices by a so called military
man!
The copy I had was full of editing mistakes, which is a bit
annoying. The names of the twins are continually being mixed up in the
second half of the book, which is annoying when one is alive and one is
dead. I feel as if the author changed his mind about which twin to kill
at some point and didn't correct all the mentions of the names. These
are the kind of things I don't want to see in something I paid good
money for.
I liked the book overall but there were a few niggles
concerning the Cade side of the story. I think I'll look at the next
book before I make a final decision about whether to stick with the
series right through.
Read December 2016.
I review everything I read, on my blog and
on Goodreads. Most reviews are of a decent length but sometimes you
don't have much to say about the book because of its length or you DNFed
it or various other reasons. In cases like that it makes sense to write
a few mini reviews in one post and clear them out your way! So lets
catch up with these reviews from last year.
Peter Cawdron-What We Left Behind
This is an example of a dreadful MC putting me right off the story. Haze
is a moaning faced, immature, whiny little bitch and I frankly hate
her. She spends most of her time complaining about her friends and
pointing out every fault they have and why it makes her so much better.
She thinks she is more mature than Jane because she calls them zombies
while Jane calls them monsters. Oh yes that REALLY proves your maturity.
Haze
whines about being stuck inside a safe commune in the zombie apocalypse
because she wants more out of life. She doesn't want to be stuck there
doing boring jobs every day for the good of the community. Well take
your whiny ass out there into the world where you have to fend for
yourself and see how you enjoy the zombies! What an ungrateful little
snot! Most people would be grateful to live in a safe commune away from
the zombies but not Haze. Most people would realise that the community
need to work together and share the load as that is fair. So the jobs
might be boring but you do your share and get on with it! Haze is just
lazy, spoiled and needs a good kick up the ass. She is very
snotty about preppers who are successfully living beyond the walls of
their community, calling them 'sad lonely paranoid hermits' and then
wonders why they don't like or deal with people like her. Um, maybe
because you are rude and snotty? And now she decides she is going out
into the world to collect a zombie sample to prove a scientific theory
of her father? Oh yes that should be worth a giggle!
I really cannot stand idiot main characters like this in my zombie books.
Read December 2016.
Robert Kirkman-Rise of the Governor
Philip is the capable brother, determined to look after daughter Penny
in the zombie apocalypse, ready to leave town with his trusted friends
Bobby and Nick. He is also forced by bad luck to take his brother Brian,
who he meets by accident and was planning to leave without. The group
are trying to get to the safe zone in Atlanta.
Basically, this
book was just way too slow for me. We had so much description about the
characters and what they were doing without really taking the story
forward. It was a day to day existance for the group with not much in
the way of exciting zombie action. I just found it pretty dull. By p90 I
was bored and decided to DNF.
Read December 2016.
Glenn Bullion-Dead Living
This book started really well as the zombie apocalypse explodes, leaving
Joe trying to get to his pregnant wife Sarah who is in labour and on
the way to the hospital with her friend Margie. Denise works at
reception as hell breaks loose while Frank is there looking for his
bitten sister. I found their stories interesting and exciting, it was
well written and I was fully invested in it. I couldn't wait to see what
happened to them.
Then we suddenly switch to 14 years later when
Joe's baby is a teenager and the group are fully settled and adapted to
this new life. And suddenly, Frank and Joe are shot on a raid and
Margie and Denise decide to stay with the dying men and get eaten by
zombies instead of getting Aaron and fleeing. I felt so cheated by this!
They were the characters I liked from the start of the book, the ones
who drew me into the story. Now we are left with the one dimensional kid
with no character development or social skills, and a girl living in a
group with asshats and would be rapists. Sam is obnoxious and rude when
Aaron saves her so now we have two MCs I don't really like and I lost
all interest in continuing with the book.
Frustrated as the
opening proved that this is a good storyteller who could do something
great with zombies, but chose instead to go into teen angst drama
instead. Not for me.
Read December 2016.
