Archive for January, 2013

Book review – Sanctuary: Surviving the Zombie Apocalyse by Joshua Jared Scott

Posted: January 31, 2013 in Book reviews
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Sanctuary: Surviving the Zombie ApocalypseThis is just the sort of book that you might ignore if you saw it on Amazon as the cover is very dull. Sorry here to the author, but it’s not very appealing. Then again, never judge a book by its cover, you have to read the reviews.

Well I had a look through the reviews and they were very balanced and very good. The reviewers were right – this is a right gem of a story.

Basically, it’s a pretty grim post-apocalyptic story. It starts with an event in the early hours of the morning where 25% of the world’s population drop dead. Bad enough as a start you might think, but then 7 minutes later they reanimate and are hungry. So many of the remaining 75% of the world’s population died, and then reanimated,  leaning over their family, friends and loved ones just as they reanimated. This meant that very quickly,  without warning, and whilst some of the world slept, civilisation crumbled.

By the end of the first day, the streets are filled with shambling corpses, looking to feed. This is the story of Jacob and the ramshackle mix of people he meets and rescues along his quest for safety.

There’s no science and no explanation of what has happened, but that really doesn’t matter in this story. There’s the usual mix of characters for such a zombie book but most of them are really well-written and very believable. It’s written in the first person by Jacob, but there are little interludes in-between the chapters with back stories for other characters. I really liked this approach and it didn’t detract from the storyline at all.

There are also a few twists and turns in the book. I found the banter between the key characters to be excellent. I felt that Jacob and Briana’s relationship built really well, until suddenly marriage was talked about. This little bit just seemed a bit at odds with the characters and the story. It really is only a small niggle in the whole book though…

Definitely worth a read. I didn’t want to put it down once I started reading it. And, do you know what? I only paid £1.02 for this excellent book. What a bargain!

I’ve not been able to find out much about the author, other than he does have a collection of horror stories too.

Does anyone have any further info?

Book review of Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

Posted: January 29, 2013 in Book reviews, News
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Warm BodiesThis book was on my Kindle wish list for about a year. Why you ask? Well, I liked the blurb for the storyline and though it might be a quirky take on the usual zombie storyline, but it was the bit in the blurb about it being a ‘zombie Twilight’. I don’t like Twilight…

I realised that the film of the book was coming out this year, so I thought I’d better get my skates on. Here’s the trailer for the film –

The world is now overrun with zombies and ‘R’ is one of those zombies. The zombies are a pretty mindless bunch, but ‘R’ knows he was once human and had a name but he can’t remember what it was. He knows it began with an ‘R’. The zombies just mill around all day in the airport hoard, occasionally riding the escalators when they come on or herding off to feed on the remaining humans. They follow a sort of parody of their old living lives, even creating zombie family units with the zombie children.

On one of these raids, ‘R’  eats a male human called Perry and instantly starts to get flashes of his life, including his girlfriend Julie, who us also about to be eaten. Instead of eating her, ‘R’ masks her with zombie blood and saves here, taking her back to the airport.

At the airport their relationship starts to develop, with Julia starting to trust ‘R’ and ‘R’ becoming more human-like with words and thought. It is a sort of black comedy Romeo and Juliet story. I don’t want to go into the storyline anymore in case it creates some spoilers or people.

I’ve got to admit, the thought od reading a book with a zombie as a romantic hero just seemed kind of wrong, but believe me, this story and the characters really work. I even loved the other zombies! Go with the flow and you’ll be pulled into this postapocalyptic world so easily. You won’t want to leave…

Book review of Zombie Fallout Series by Mark Tufo

Posted: January 28, 2013 in Book reviews
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Zombie FalloutOK, first things first. This is my favourite zombie series.

It took me a while to get around to buying the first book, despite the good reviews, due to the cover. It just didn’t grab me in the way that other covers do. Anyway, I got myself around that little obstacle and downloaded it (I’ve been using my Kindle to read everything for a couple of years ago). Oh, and it was only 72p so I figured I couldn’t go wrong!

Right, onto the storyline. The main character in this book, Mike Talbot, writes the story as a series of journals. He tells the story, but quite often drifts off at tangents, which actually I like as I tend to do that myself. It tells the story of the Talbot family at the start and during the ongoing  zombie apocalypse. There’s also some third person narrative from others in the clan such as Talbot’s wife.

Talbot is an ex-marine now roadworker, who’s a bit of a survivalist at heart and has sort of been waiting for something like a zombie apocalypse for a while. The first book is about the start of the rise of the walking dead and the subsequent books continue the story and the action. There are even zombie vampires – please don’t let that put you off as it all makes sense when you read the series!

There’s Talbot’s wickedly sarcastic and sometimes, OK often, very dark humour throughout this book. Things don’t always work out for him and despite what he says, he doesn’t always think things through properly. He’s not scared of anything, except maybe the missus. There is fantastic banter between the characters, especially Talbot and BT. You find yourself more than liking the guy. You want him to be with you if you’re in a zombie apocalypse.

I read the first book really quickly, and thankfully, as I’d been late in finding this excellent series, I was able to download one book after the other. In fact I read books 1-5 in just over a week. It was torture waiting for Mr Tufo to write book 6!

The books in the series are:
– Zombie Fallout
– Zombie Fallout 2 – A Plague on Your Family
– Zombie Fallout 3 – The End…
– Zombie Fallout 3.5 – Dr Hugh Mann
– Zombie Fallout 4 – The End Has Come And Gone
– Zombie Fallout 5 – Alive in a Dead World
– Zombie Fallout 6 – ‘Til Death Do Us Part

Zombie Fallout Series

The author, Mark Tufo, is great with the fans and has a Facebook page here – Mark Tufo Facebook

Let me leave you with this – what would Talbot do?

Book Review of Ragnorak Rising – the Awakening by D.A. Roberts

Posted: January 27, 2013 in Book reviews
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Ragnorak RisingI might have ignored this due the title, but when I looked it up, ‘ragnorak‘ means the final destruction of the world in the great conflict between the gods and the giants and the powers of Hel under the leadership of Loki. So pretty much an apocalypse then!

I read it as a recommendation of the Zombie Book of the Month Club on Facebook, and I’m really glad I did.

The basic premise of the book is, that initial reports of rioting and chaos begin to appear in the news, slowly spreading east from California. As more is shown about the ‘riots’ it becomes clear that these people aren’t rioting, but eating other people.

When the disturbances finally reach Springfield Missouri, all law enforcement officers are called to field duty and only Office Wylie Grant and Corporal Chrissy Wilder survive the onslaught Their goal becomes to survive the trip back to the Nathaniel County Sheriff’s Office, where the few remaining officers are attempting to regroup. They, and the other officers, rescue a number of survivors and gather as many resources as possible to help survive. Of course they also encounter the worst that humanity has left alive after the invasion of the undead. These can be worse to go up against that the dead…

Wylie also made a promise to his wife that he would come for her and the kids, and part of this story is his journey across the USA to meet her at the boat he told her to hole up on.

I’ve got to admit, I found the very first bit of the book a little bit stilted. It was a bit of back story, and a bit of what was happening, but it just didn’t flow very well. I found this completely changed though once the action got going, and it really didn’t take long to get going. And there’s a lot of action! I did find all the description and guns and ammunition a bit dull but I could put up with that for the story and the pace. Maybe this is because I’m in the UK and we don;t have the same fascination with guns? The characters are entirely believable too and fallible, which makes them very human. Wylie doesn’t always make the right decision and I found myself liking him more and more.

Spec-4 (or Chrissy) is a real ‘lock and load’ character and reminiscent of strong female leads in films like Alien. Again a very believable and likeable character.

The book ends just where I wanted it to continue. Basically, Wylie can’t be left like that? I can’t wait for the follow-up book!

I’ve found a blog from the author – Ragnorak Rising Saga.

Have you read it yet? What did you think of it?

Are you prepared for a zombie attack? Well, Britain is!

Posted: January 24, 2013 in News
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zombie apocalypseI was idly looking around the web today and couldn’t believe that I’d missed this story on the Telegraph. Actually I can, as it was Boxing day so I was probably eating chocolates and watching trash TV.

Anyway, a Freedom of Information request was put in and the British government responded. This is the full article here.

Apparently if we were to be invaded by hoards of zombies, “civil servants would co-ordinate the military’s efforts to return England to its pre-attack glory”. It would be the Cabinet Office that had to deal with the aftermath if attacks from the undead and not the MoD. Well, most zombie books I’ve read always have the army coming to rescue survivors, not a bunch of civil servants. Quite a strange though that some pen-pushers would be the zombie attack force coordinators!

Similar FoD requests have been put into local councils.

For example, Leicester doesn’t sound like it has any preparations for a zombie apocalypse – you can read an article about it here from the BBC.

Then again, Bristol sounds a lot more clued up the possibility of being over run by zombies. The guardian reported details here.

A similar request was put to Nottingham council and they came back with the following response – here. Personally I would have thought Nottingham council may have been a bit more aware of the potential of attacks from hoards of the undead as Zombie Hood has been in film production for a couple of years and has seen lots of extras playing zombies around the city.

Anyway, how are you zombie apocalypse plans progressing??

The most anticipated date in February

Posted: January 19, 2013 in Zombie finds
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Feb Walking DeadWell, we all know that it’s Walking Dead day in February. Can’t wait.

Some people seem to celebrate Valentine’s Day in February too. Luckily, Quirky Purple has come up with a suitable gift list for people that love Zombies, but have to celebrate Valentine’s Day too.

You can find their Etsy Treasury List here – enjoy!

They also have some cool zombie gifts here on their own website.

Welcome to Quirky Zombie

Posted: January 17, 2013 in News
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Well, I’m obsessed with zombies. What about you?

I often blog about zombies on the Quirky Purple blog and list new zombie related items from the online shop, but I decided it was starting to take over and I thought I would start a new blog. This one is dedicated to all things zombie.

I’ll add in some book reviews of the recent books I’ve read. I might even add in some general post-apocalyptic novels as well as the main zombie genre.

I’ll post up new items that I’ve designed and have for sale, plus other quirky zombie things that I like.

So watch this space!