This Rotten World

I say this as a writer who knows writing any novel is an achievement: This is what\’s wrong with self-publishing. We have here what seems to be the first draft of a potentially good novel. The author should not have published it in this form; he should have more professional pride. It needs a proofreader to correct the countless typos and misspellings. (Spell-check won\’t catch homophones.) It needs proofing for the countless continuity errors. (A garbage truck becomes a plumbing van in the next paragraph; an officer is a Major, then a Colonel, then a Major again; a gun transforms from a semi-auto to a revolver, etc. etc.) Most of all, it needs a book editor to talk to the author about pacing, about structure, about describing a sequence of events, and in general, about the god-awful prose. Seriously, there is some appallingly bad and awkward writing in this book. Bizarrely awkward phrasing. When characters nod, it\’s called \”shaking their heads\”. I really thought the author might have English as a second language, but apparently not. And yet — there are occasional fragments of good writing and clever or profound character moments, like golden nuggets in a big pile of, let\’s call it refuse. (E.g., there\’s a chapter called \”From Worse to Worser\”. That\’s clever.) Also, the short chapters make it a page-turner. Cheap trick, but it works. And the characters are well-drawn enough (though some of them are caricatures) that I can\’t help being curious about their continuing fates. So, Christ help me, it looks like I\’ll check out the next book in the series.

The good: The story is great. The zeal that the author has for describing the gore and brutality of his world is great if you\’re a zombie fan. The characters are also enjoyable and well developed enough for you to feel it when bad things happen to them. The Bad: I\’m not sure who was the editor/proof reader….. but they suck at their job and probably need to find a new line of work. Typos and words that are only partially printed ( such as the word \”end\” obviously being what was meant to be printed but only \”e\” appears in the text ) I always find this to be jarring in a novel and it pulls me out of a what is a very enjoyable story. I\’m sure this point won\’t be an issue for everyone but, when the author writes about military rank / time in service it is obvious that he has no military experience and didn\’t consult anyone who does. He also swapped some characters ranks back and forth in the same chapter. Overall this is one of the best zombie books I have read. I enjoy how character stories do not go as other books and movies have conditioned us to. I order the next two books with 70 pages left to go in this one…….. hope they got a better proof reader.

I agree with another reviewer that this guy needs an editor. The number of typos and grammatically incorrect sentences suggests the author is just writing for quick sales. The first book is cheap, but the price goes up if you want to see if they escaped from the first book. I didn\’t read the third, so who knows. Story is okay, but pretty much The Walking Dead with another title. Character development is reasonable, but the books are like one of those TV series where they string out one issue for weeks. The second book is just the group dealing with new ways to get stymied on their escape to the beach. The author promises a fourth novel in the series, so, I suspect it will just be more of the same.

It seems to me that writing a zombie book requires no research or expertise of any kind, including human feelings, relationships and nature. This book is a hodgepodge collection of vignettes barely connected by the overarching \”pandemic.\” Characters (not that any are actually developed) are at best, caricatures. Since there\’s no science in this science fiction, one is left with the fiction part. Well, other then describing fight/action scenes well, there is nothing in this book warranting your money or time. As other reviewers have pointed out, the editor must have had their brains eaten by zombies because there is no evidence that this book even got the attention a third grader\’s essay gets from an overworked, bleary eyed parent. Major annoyance: At least get the firearms terminology correct. You can\’t reload magazines with clips. That\’s basic stuff and this author could not be bothered to even get that right. Drek.

I had purchased all three books in this trilogy. There were areas where the prose was not constant and some of the sentences themselves did not make sense. That is until you went back and switched a few words around or deleted one. Books 1 & 3 had page numbers while book #2 did not. Am I being too picky? I don\’t know who proof-read this series, but they should have not been paid imho. i.e. in the first book a zombie actually asked if a procedure was safe! That is… until you realize the mess up and switched in another name. This occurrence (except talking zombies) happened throughout the entire trilogy. Not a bad read. I did enjoy the story and actually started to care about several of the characters. As you read, you could see the character growth/change in several of them. The deep emotional turmoil in one of the characters was actually a bit unsettling (a good thing). I would recommend this series but with a condition that you warn them of the grammar and missing page numbers from book #2. It\’s the little things the make or break a great author.

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