Official Blurb
After the zombie apocalypse decimates the world, human civilization tries to put itself back together again. Their secret weapon: the Mechs. But what happens when a mech pilot dies in his mech and becomes a zombie? Hell on earth is unleashed...
My Review
This book was not what I expected. It's been hanging around at podiobooks for a while and I've been avoiding it. Why? Because it looked like (and the blurb made it sound like) literary trash. I don't mean literary from some high-falootin intellectual position but rather it looked like a kids book, that is, written by kids.
BOY! WAS I WRONG! What you have here is a rather good military sci fi story with an after-the-bomb-type background, and the horror that is zombies entwined to make a great story.
The author has created a rich and interesting future for the human race and populated it with some great characters that he's put through a great story. In the future of "Dead Mech", humanity has fallen back to small pockets of humanity. Humans survive in the few city states or scrape a living out in the blasted wastelands. Protecting humanity are the few and the special, highly trained Mech pilots. These men and women pilot massive metal robots, and use them to protect people from hordes of zombies.
In this future a virus has caused everyone who dies to rise again and become flesh hungry zombies, so there is never a shortage of new zombies.
The story follows these few heros as they're world is rocked by events that threaten the survival of humanity itself. It's a story of high tech and horror (and the zombies aren't the worst of the horror).
So as you can tell, I really enjoyed this book, but there are a couple of things that might put you off. The book was written as a series of "drabbles" meaning that it was written in one hundred word segments. Although this hasn't effected the writing in any way that I noticed, it has effected the audio presentation. As you listen you'll notice a second or so silence between each "drabble". I admit this did bug me during the first couple of chapters, but after that I was so additcted to the story that I didn't notice it.
The second thing to be aware of, is that this is a horror novel aimed at adults with all that means. Not for those with a weak tummy, or those easily offended by sexual/horror/language issues.
The author is reading his own work and does a pretty good job. However there is music behind a couple of the chapters and this was off putting.
Reading 2/3
Production 2/3
Story 3/3
Total Score 7/9
Download it from the Podiobooks
Listen to the first part.
.
