Taking a break from Crime and Punishment I decided to download a couple zombie horror books. The main reason is I am writing a Zombie novel right now and wanted a bit of inspiration. The free version can be found on kindle, if you do not own a kindle they have a printed version and if you would like a kindle I have a selection of the cheapest on the right side of this blog.
This is the first of L.T. Ryan's writing I have tried and found it quite pleasant. The book has a story line very different from the average Zombie apocalypse. The book begins as a special forces mission in Nigeria. The characters don't know what their mission is, but quickly find Ryan's interpretation of a zombie. A being that has an extremely high pain tolerance and the ability to move quicker than a normal human. The description is very detailed and intense. It is clear that Ryan has a deep knowledge of military with his descriptions.
One of the best points of this book was the characters. The two main characters Ryder and Turk have extremely deep personalities. They feel very real and carry themselves with their individual characteristics throughout the entire book. This allows much leeway in the plot line. If the characters are this believable then the reader begins to care about them and is willing to overlook errors in thought or writing. The entire seal team had good individual characters though I wish Ryan would have taken more time on some of the sub characters.
The story itself is pretty believable. The story is not set too far outside of reality allowing the reader to believe what is going on. Very few zombie plots allow the reader to believe in the possibility of the story happening in real life. For the fear factor this is a crucial part in creating a horror and Ryan made this happen. He describes the virus as one that we have encountered before and a doctor has mutated. This of course has been done in real life and is usually prevalent in bio chemical warfare.
The main downfall of this book is the size. At the end of the book Ryan considers this a novel, but only had around 20-30k words which forces the book on the border between short story and novella. With such a short book the story could have expanded in so many areas the main one being descriptions of environment and actions taken by the main characters. The story line was very solid, but I felt as though the book could have been made better if the author took the time to really bring the environment and events to life.
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