The zombie apocalypse was just the beginning of vampire hunter Emily’s problems. Now she must team up with Death himself in this thrilling apocalyptic adventure series!
It’s been two years since the zombie uprising devoured 99% of the world’s population—and the vampires have come out of the shadows to claim the spoils. It’s Emily Campbell’s job to destroy vampire communes and rescue their human herds, but when a mission goes wrong, and she faces certain undeath, she would rather die than ever let them transform her. The problem is that when she makes a desperate suicide attempt, not only does the Grim Reaper fail to take her life—he also somehow loses all his powers in the process.
Now neither alive nor dead, Emily is stranded in the California desert with Death himself. She has heard the remnants of human civilization are developing a cure that could make her alive again in New York—all the way on the other side of the vampire- and zombie-swarmed continent. Only with Death’s help does she have a chance to complete the journey.
But without his powers, Death is mired in a crisis of his own. And he is not used to having company.
Having been a member of her Vampire Book Club for most of the year, you'd think I'd have already read her book, right? Well, now that I have a Kindle Unlimited trial, I'm jumping on one of the (many) books I've been meaning to read. Besides, I've already covered the other big Halloween themes this month: Demons, Superheroes, Vampires, and Werewolves. So a book about zombies (and more vampires) and Death incarnate sounded like a great way to finish off my month's proverbial bingo card.
I got huge Roland Emmerich vibes from this book. You know how Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow both had multiple groups of characters that you'd follow through the story, each telling their own mini-story, and then eventually working to meet up at the climax of the movie to all get involved in the big showdown? Well, that's kinda how this story felt.
We start off with Emily, our assumed lead character, in a group of the Life Preservation Initiative which is preparing to infiltrate and take down a vampire colony. We get a little insight into her life, how things have changed during the zombie apocalypse, and her struggles with her group. She has a strong aversion to vampires, which she struggles to articulate both to herself and her crew. I'm not sure I fully understood what she was getting hung up on, and I don't know that she fully understands either, but I felt for her and hope that it is further expanded on in the future. She ends up going through the most change in this story, but you still get the sense she has a lot of self-discovery yet to go.
We then get a short snapshot of some guy, Scott, scavenging through some houses before continuing with Emily a bit longer. Then, just when her group is about to make first contact with some vampires, we switch POV to one of them. Leif is a smarmy dude, kind of a Jack Sparrow type with a bit more conniving and a bit less drunkenness (though I'm sure he'd love to be so). Having lived for a few hundred years, he's definitely more lackadaisical than most vampires running around these days; happy to converse for a while rather than going straight for the jugular. However, his brain is always working every angle, and make no mistake, he will drain you dry as soon as he deems it advantageous to do so. He's the character we get the least time with of the bunch, so I'm looking forward to seeing how he develops and plays off the others more in the future.
But back to Emily, who decides to meet Death on her own terms instead of succumbing to either zombie or vampire. Too bad things don't quite go according to plan, saddling her with Death as her new companion. Death as a character was much less a character than I was expecting and more of a dysfunctional query machine. Emily would constantly ask questions—the logical choice, considering her new situation—but Death would either refuse to answer or churn out cryptic replies that didn't help any understanding. It's clear that he doesn't consider Emily a peer, or even worthy of engagement half the time, but since we never get an actual look inside his head, it's hard to ever pin him down as a character in his own right. I get that he's not human in the slightest, so keeping him as a cryptic other is thematic in and of itself, but that choice also makes it hard not to see him as a dysfunctional machine, a cranky Ask Jeeves that refuses to offer any solid answers. Maybe this will develop in the future, but here it was definitely disappointing for me.
Finally we get our last couple cast members, Carol, the android with a super-advanced AI, and her human companion, Scott, the scavenger from that short chapter 5. Now their dynamic was pretty interesting to me, as Scott slowly reveals their history and how they came to be travel companions, but I honestly was more interested in Carol than Scott. Carol is, as I said, an android with an AI that practically makes her human, but she's obviously still got machine-based logic and commands that she has to follow, making it hard for her to be seen as truly equal. Add in a literal Robot Slave Mode that can steal away her agency and it makes it that much harder. I'm especially looking forward to seeing her develop her relationships, especially those she's not already bonded to, and see if she can't maybe have some feelings override logic sometime?
Scott, meanwhile, seems like your typical unlucky dude stuck in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. He's not militant, he's not a scientist, he's just a normal dude riding on the good graces of others until his luck ran out and plopped him in the middle of things without any training. It's not an inherently bad character, but usually he's got to make up for his relative uselessness with wit, charm, or personality (think Dylan O'Brien in Love & Monsters, or Jesse Eisenberg in Zombieland), and Scott was lacking for me. I'm sure he'll develop more, have more to add to the group's dynamics other than being the sole human, but so far he just didn't come off as endearing or funny or even annoying. He's just a blah character that needs to be dragged around and protected for the plot's sake.
I will say the post-apocalyptic world of zombies and vampires is absolutely fascinating. Not only is there interesting tactics for surviving the zombies—being in militant groups, holing up in island strongholds, or turning to vampires for protection—but there was a surprising hidden lore involving Death as well. I won't spoil it, as it was a welcome surprise, but I'll just say that chapter blew me away. There's still lots to discover about this world in both fantasy (with Death, vampires, and the supernatural lore) and sci-fi (with the scientific advancements of robotics, origins of the zombie plague, and the research of a cure) elements in the future, but I felt like this world felt well-developed and enticing as it was.
You've probably noticed by this point how much I keep referencing "the future" or "future books" in describing things. That's because their stories are largely unfinished—heck, most characters haven't even started their arcs yet. In a lot of ways, this feels like the 2-hour pilot of a new TV-show: it establishes the world and our main characters, introduces a change to the status quo, reveals a surprise element, slowly brings the characters together, states the endgame, and sends our characters off into the sunset to kick the series into gear. It's catchy, fast, and fun, but there's not much to really analyze or summarize at this point other than what I liked or am interested in. It's not bad, per say, but compared to other first-in-a-series books, this one feels unfinished, and without anywhere to go next (the sequel isn't out 'til at least next year) it's definitely leaving me a bit dissatisfied and hungry.
As far as its ending is concerned, it's not as bad as it could have been, but it's definitely not a conclusion to anything. The story just kinda stops with the goal and timeline being set, like the credits music just kicked in and Netflix is about to ask if you're ready for the next episode. I mean, it's not a literal cliffhanger in that it doesn't leave our characters in direct peril, but it does feel as if an important conversation was just about to kick off. If you're adverse to that type of thing (like I am), definitely hold off until the next book is out, or you can join me in impatiently waiting.
Overall, this seems like it could be the entrance into a binge-worthy series. Unfortunately, for me at least, the rest of its series is not out yet and I'm left in a lurch. It's definitely got the makings of something memorable, with a grand quest, quirky characters, secrets and mysteries, and a dangerous world that mixes monsters and magic with science and logic. I'd probably recommend waiting until a sequel is out, unless you've got a special deal (Kindle Unlimited) or enjoy speculating (fanfiction) in the meantime, but it's definitely one to check out if you enjoy stories involving zombies, vampires, Death incarnate, strong female leads, post-apocalyptic survival, road-trips, quests, or existential quandaries. Just be sure to grab some popcorn, and settle in for an interesting ride.
Read by Traci Odom
Unabridged Length: 10.7 Hours
Listened at 2x Speed
Unabridged Length: 10.7 Hours
Listened at 2x Speed
I hate to say it, but I wish this book had another narrator. Not to say Ms. Odom did a bad job, I just wish there had been another voice for Death, specifically. While she definitely tried to do a low, menacing, mysterious voice for him, it often came off as either too soft to register or simply just plain. Very much my opinion, and nitpicky at that, and I totally understand it's most likely down to budget constraints, as Traci does a great job with the rest of the cast, but just throwing my two cents out there...
The rest of the production was fine. No major deviations from the text, no huge hiccups in quality (barring the occasional hard-to-hear responses from Death every once in a while—probably not an issue with headphones), but also no largely memorable positives either. The voice acting was alright (again, barring my dissatisfaction with Death), the inflections and emotions pretty solid, and the pacing was consistent as well.
Overall, a solid performance that'll get you through the story just fine. The text has no huge accents, dialects, or foreign languages that might trip you up, so I see no huge reason to recommend this over print, but if you generally enjoy or prefer the audio format, there's also nothing to dissuade you from seeking this one out either.
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