THE DEAD TIMES

RATING:

ZOMBIE RATING:

DESCRIPTION:

An incident in a small province of Russia does not get much attention from the media - dismissed as nothing more than ill-thought-through terrorist activity. However, this insignificant blip is actually the beginning of the end for civilisation. A virus has been unleashed and now courses through the society of the living, turning anyone infected into voracious undead monsters. Governments cannot stop the spread of the virus. People panic – fearing the unknown pandemic, trying desperately to flee beyond its reach. Society crumbles. The world becomes chaos. "Safe havens" are formed to house the few survivors of the initial infection but nowhere is truly safe. A lawyer, still grieving at the death of his wife, unwittingly records the last days of humanity in his online blog.

MY VERDICT:

This is, without doubt, the best Zombie novel I have read in years - I was generally excited whenever I got the chance to read it. The text is comprised of a series of journal entries a bit like the older Zombie novel by J. L. Bourne Day by Day Armageddon. Where Day by Day Armageddon documents the daily survival of a trained soldier, Apocalypse Z charts the life and feelings of a regular Spanish citizen as the undead apocalypse unfolds, resulting in a more tense and horrific narrative. There are many points where the Spanish lawyer has to make vital decisions and it's great to be able to read about his thought process. These questioning blog entries often end on challenging conundrums, provoking the reader to think about what they would do in the same diabolical situation - the lawyer's solution being given in the next entry. I suppose the only downside of this wonderful book is that it was originally a series of blog posts written entirely in Spanish. It has been translated to English with few, if any, errors poking through but it can sometimes feel distant and confusing for UK and US readers - some descriptions seeming a bit odd in the different cultures. However, that being said, I still cannot recommend this book highly enough.