A 'Must Own' for Zombie Fiction Fans - No Spoilers

My introduction to Luke Duffy's writing originally came from scouring YouTube looking for zombie audiobooks. There is a brilliance to the way he writes that keeps me captivated, with this book being narrated by the awesome Jack Wynters making it a truly great listen.

The story follows the familiar tale of survivors in a zombie outbreak, broken into three main stories with additional sub-plots intertwining to build an exciting narrative. Duffy, using his experience in the Armed Forces applies much of it to the story, giving it a tough but believable edge, missing all of the errors that non-military authors make when writing about militaristic action. This is countered by telling the story of ordinary people with no such experience, doing their best to stay alive in a world that has completely gone to sh*t. This helps to keep the book 'down to earth' and not filled with the overused trope of bad-ass military men capable of all and sundry.
There is one narrative thread in this audiobook that I'm personally not that keen on as it goes into territory I do not like within zombie fiction, yet even that part is still very good and told in an endearing manner.

The range of characters is a nice mix, giving us heroes, antagonists and regular people. Mistakes are made at times by figures here and there, but thankfully Duffy does not go down the road (used by many other authors - looking at you Iain McKinnon!) of writing characters that simply stumble from scene to scene doing one idiotic thing after the next. Some character deaths are saddening as we become attached to them throughout the story, and some are very pleasing - both indicative of good writing. Some parts of the story are inevitably heart-breaking, particularly when innocents come to harm either from zombies or worse yet, other humans - however it is bearable due to being so well told.

The narration is top notch! Jack Wynters does a fantastic job at keeping the listener engaged and is almost too good for the story. He is well spoken and incredibly entertaining which is a complete juxtaposition to the story being told of death, destruction and decay. Wynters delivery brings a brightness to even some of the most distressing parts of the book, maintaining a 'stiff upper lip' and 'chin up' old school English mentality, enticing the listener to keep going along on this journey. It is also incredibly helpful that Wynters is British, as one of my personal pet peeves with audiobooks, is having an American narrator who cannot pronounce certain words written by British authors, due to not being familiar with them (names, places etc.). This is not to say that Wynters is perfect - he too mispronounces certain words at times, however he is so good and gets so much of it right, that it does not matter in the slightest and he can be quickly and easily forgiven. The way he rolls his 'R's even in some of the most horrific or gory moments of the story is both amusing and enjoyable.

My only wish when buying this book, is that all three parts were available in a package and did not need to be bought separately.

This is among my favourite zombie audiobooks and Duffy may have the edge over TW Brown (All Dead) who is another fantastic zombie fiction author.

If you love zombie fiction, I cannot recommend this audiobook enough and would also point you towards Luke Duffy's other zombie novel The Dead Walk The Earth - in fact, I'd suggest doing that first and then coming back to this book, as the change in narrators makes this the better of the two, notwithstanding that there is a whole thread in this book that I would not have missed if not present.

10/10.

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