McClellan shows great promise with his first book: Zombie/Apocalypse 2012: A Political Horror Story. It’s a story about a zombie apocalypse in the USA, told through the perspective of an ordinary guy. The guy in question is Lance, an unemployed factory worker who feels the media and politicians are all failing to take control of the situation and work together to resolve it.
McClellan says about his book: “My book is a funny and entertaining look at the politics of the zombie apocalypse. Hopefully, it can get people asking why politicians keep fighting each other instead of doing something for the American people, and why the media keep asking all the wrong questions…”
Lance lives with his wife whose obsessed with conspiracy theories. Needless to say, she doesn’t survive for long. Afterwards Lance gets scratched by a zombie, takes a load of antibiotics and locks himself in his basement.
After sometime Lance feels better and decides to journey to C.D.C to share his experience with them. He thinks that he maybe the key to a cure for the zombie plague. Lance and Larry (his neighbour & new best friend) set out on their journey.
The plot is well thought out and captivating but left one major plot hole: why do the zombies sniff the main character and then turn away? What’s different about him now? This is a source of frustration for the reader on finishing the book.
There were good peaks and troughs of action interlaced with the political aspect of the book. The politics didn’t appeal to me. The politicians were American and I’d never heard of most of them. Luckily, the politics was sparse and mainly focused on the frustration with bureaucracy and political correctness.
The title of the book is too long to stand out to the average reader and will ultimately date the story. The cover design is completely unappealing and off-putting. However put the title and cover design aside, overall Zombie/Apocalypse 2012: A Political Horror Story is a great zombie story. One that is an easy read, at times very funny and is well worth reading.
Just over two years ago, I was chatting with a friend about how unhappy I was with my old hosting provider. He suggested that I checkout Vidahost and I’m so glad that I did.
I decided to give Vidahost a go; it was really easy to sign up, quick to transfer my blog and without any downtime. It didn’t affect my search engine ranking either. Vidahost offered me more features for less money. Vidahost features include:
Really easy to transfer my domain name, website and email accounts.
More disk space: great for images and an ever growing blog/website.
Reliable Hosting, hardly any downtime. EVER.
Fast Servers – meaning that your website, uploads, images, music and videos load super quick.
Plenty of email accounts, subdirectories and SQL databases allowed. (Many more than my previous provider).
Easy to use through CPanel and My.VidaHost Dashboard. CPanel comes complete with WordPress and the other software/scripts you’d expect.
Truly outstanding customer support via live chat, email and a support ticket system. All Vidahost Staff I’ve wrote to have been friendly, quick and efficient.
They Back Up their Servers regularly.
Competitively priced with a range of packages, one that will suit everyone’s needs.
The ability to host multiple websites on one hosting package.
Unlimited Password Protect Directories.
I’ve been with Vidahost for two years and have never been so impressed with a hosting provider. They’ve made continual investment in the hardware and software throughout the time I’ve been with them.
My friend was looking for hosting and I recommended Vidahost to him, telling him all about my experience. He bought hosting for a month to give it a try and was so impressed that he bought an annual subscription. He said that Vidahost had exceeded all of his expectations.
And it’s not just my friends and I that are heaping the praise on Vidahost. Here are some testimonials from other Vidahost customers:
“No matter who I speak to I always feel that you guy’s are really helpful and very professional. 10/10. Thanks and well done to you all.” – Tony
“Another designer / developer recommended that I use Vidahost and I have not regretted the decision for a moment. Support has always been accessible and responsive, and the packages come with a full featured cpanel. I have since had the opportunity to recommend Vidahost to others and have moved another 2 domains to this hosting.” – Andrew Kennedy
“In short : Does what it says on the tin.
After being messed about and being treated like an insignificant inconvenience, by some far more well known names, I discovered Vidahost.
They’re efficient, friendly, there when you need them and don’t laugh when you’ve missed something glaringly obvious.
I’ve paid five times more for a tenth of the service I get from these people, and It’s become a mission to recommend them whenever the occasion arises.
Bravo Vidahost – I look forward to many more years with you.” – Allan J Wilkinson
Thanks for the last two years of superb hosting Vidahost; I look forward to the next two years and beyond.
If you’re looking to transfer your hosting or get some, without any hesitation I would recommend Vidahost. You can get 10% off your hosting by entering the Coupon: HOSTRED during the sign up process.
The Enemy Series is a series of books by Charlie Higson about all adults becoming diseased sicko’s that like to eat children. The stories are about the kids survival (or not).
This review will be like the ones I’ve done for the other books in the series – it will give an overview of the storyline. So please be aware that this review contains spoilers.
In The Fallen by Charlie Higson The Holloway Kids are finally back! These were the children introduced to us in book one of the series: The Enemy. Since then there’s been three books (The Dead, The Fear & The Sacrifice) with little mention of Maxie, Blue and the others.
The book starts by reintroducing the kids to the reader as they reach The Natural History Museum in London. They’ve travelled a long way to get there, but it’s not exactly the safe haven they imagined. They arrive to a scene of carnage. Grownup’s and lots of them are chasing the kids that have took up residence at The National History Museum.
The grownup’s were released from below the museum by Paul, a kid who got bit on the neck by and adult in one of the previous books and has started to get diseased. Blue, Maxie and Co get to work and help the geeky kids make the museum safe again.
The museum kids welcome the new comers and talk about their work – trying to find a cure for the disease. They explain that they need to get some supplies from a warehouse which used to be run by Promithios (a biomedical company). The problem is that the warehouse is a few miles away near Heathrow Airport. It might as well be hundreds of miles away, giving how dangerous the streets are.
So Blue, some of his crew and some of the museum kids set out on this perilous journey to the warehouse and back. The reader joins them on this journey, which is a throughly entertaining read. The excerpts of Lettis’s diary give the reader an insight to her character and perspective.
Big Mick’s death was a concern. It felt like Higson had been unsure where to take his character, so he killed him off. I recognise Higson’s need to develop Blue’s character to make him feel more vulnerable, more human, but killing off Big Mick didn’t fully achieve this for the reader.
Meanwhile back at the Museum: Maxie and the rest of the kids have got problems of their own – as Paul continues to cause trouble.
Blue is forced to leave some of the group in a Church, taking a smaller group onto the Promithios Warehouse. They reach the Promithios Warehouse to be met by The Twisted Kids. The Twisted Kids explain that they are the children of the Scientists at Promithios. That their parents found a lost tribe of people and were careful not to infect them with any diseases; but didn’t realise that the tribe had infected them with something.
An infection that only became apparent when the Scientists children were born odd and twisted. The Twisted Kids explain that they can’t stay there because the diseased grownup’s keep getting in. They agree to let Blue and Co take what they want, in return for letting them move into the Museum with the other kids. The Twisted Kids send a small group of their kids back with Blue and Co to check out the Museum.
Paul realises he can communicate with the diseased adults, leaves the Museum and heads back to David at Buckingham Palace.
Chapter 90 gives a summary of the over-arching plot. In North London Shadowman is following St. George’s Army; In East London The Kid is trapped in a dark cellar with The Green Man (a diseased adult) trying to stay alive; Southern London is a blackened ruin caused by a fire with Ed & Kyle crossing Lambeth Bridge to St. Paul’s Cathedral looking for Small Sam. Small Sam trapped by Mad Matt and his followers.
The Enemy Series has a very detailed storyline with lots of characters. Add to this a year between new releases and it means the reader (even one that’s an avid fan) looses track. It doesn’t help that the books in the series don’t always follow a straight forward timeline. So Higson should do more of these plot overviews like the one in Chapter 90.
The book ends with Small Sam finally arriving at the Museum to find his sister Ella. Only he’s a day late. Ella left with Maeve, Robbie and Monkey Boy a day ago for the countryside. Small Sam arrives with Ed, Kylie, The Kid, The Green Man and some other kids.
The Fallen is the best book of the series to date. Not as much action as some of the other books in the series, but as brilliantly written as ever. Lots of character and plot development that is starting to bring all of the kids together for the grand finale. It’s going to be an unbearable wait for the next book in the series.
Gone by Michael Grant with it’s black cover and illumines title caught my eye and I was like a month to a flame. In truth, I’ve always wanted to buy this book. But knowing that it was part of a series of books and that I had a number of other books from publicists, I’ve put it off. That was until I saw 3 books for £10 in ASDA and couldn’t resist picking it up.
In Gone everybody over the age of fifteen disappears in the blink of an eye. There’s this impenetrable white wall/dome that extends around the Power Plant for a ten-mile radius encompassing Perdido Beach (a small southern Californian town), The CliffTop (a hotel), Coats Academy (a school for rich but naughty kids), a desert, part of a National Park and some agricultural land.
The kids are cut off from the outside world and some are starting to develop powers. Some of the animals are mutating and in a mine deep underground is The Darkness.
It has a host of likeable characters including: Sam the hero, Quinn best friend to Sam, Astrid the genius and Pete her little brother. There’s also a host of less likeable characters including: Caine the villain, Drake the sadistic and Diana the power reader – who reads kids and rates their powers like a signal indicator on a mobile phone: one bar, two bar, three bar or four bar.
Gone is jam-packed with action, which builds to an epic battle between Sam & Caine and their respective groups of kids. The book answers some of the readers questions like what made the adults disappear? And what created the barrier/dome?
But still leaves plenty of questions like what is the darkness? Will other kids develop powers? What’s the story of that kid from Coats who kept his head down when Caine and the others arrived in Perdido Beach? What will Orc do next? And will he get over Bette?
The book is so absorbing that you’ll find yourself saying ‘Just one more chapter before bed…’ before staying up to read three chapters. I haven’t enjoyed a book this much in ages. The next book in the series is Hunger which I have already started reading.
Review soon,
Antony
Share on Social Media:
Thursday 19 September 2013
About
Antony Simpson - Author, Blogger, Nurse & Witch.
Author of eight books.
If you find my blog educational or entertaining, please consider making a purchase or donation on Ko-Fi.
Categories
Amazon
Antony Simpson is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk.
