No Easy Hope

Surviving the Dead, Volume 1

By: James N. Cook

Narrated by: Guy Williams

Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

Eric Riordan was once a wealthy man leading a comfortable, easy life. Until one day Gabriel, his oldest friend, Marine Corps veteran, and a former mercenary, told him how the world was going to end.

He did his best to prepare. He thought he was ready for anything.

He was wrong.

As the dead rise up to devour the living, one man finds himself struggling to survive in the ruins of a shattered world. Alone, isolated, and facing starvation, his only chance is to flee to the Appalachians and join forces with Gabriel. But the journey will not be easy, and along the way his humanity, his will to live, and his very soul will be tested.

This is the beginning. This is his story.

©2011 James N Cook (P)2013 James N Cook

Dig it

Great story. A little mono tone but again the story it solid and keeps you in. Dig it.

Great Story, but Doesn't Offer Anything New

I stumbled upon this author through someone's Goodreads review, and recently have been reading a lot of "first published independently" authors. When I discovered the author was a fellow North Carolinian and that the story takes place here in NC, I was fairly excited to try him out!

The zombie genre is, in a word, overdone these days, but I was hoping for a new twist on the theme. This one is well written, and kept me interested all the way. There were a few minor snags for me, though.

The prologue started out great. Once we get into chapter 1, however, the story jumps back to the main character's life before the outbreak. Then we get to see the outbreak itself. I don't know about you, but I've seen the zombie "origin story" enough times by now. This one is fairly straightforward, and I could have done without it.

I kept hoping we would quickly make it back to the timeline in the prologue, featuring the main characters of Eric and Gabriel. Unfortunately, the story gets sidetracked again, and I realized that I wasn't going to like the direction the story was taking. Again, don't get me wrong: the story is pretty good. I just didn't find anything particularly unique about it, nor about the rest of the plot as it unfolds. The book also suffered from a lot of cursing and bad language that I wasn't expecting and frankly could have done without.

In fact, the entire book itself is backstory, which is a shame, because it is well written and interesting. The problem is, we KNOW that Eric is going to end up with Gabriel, just two of them, holed up in a cabin inside a fence looking out on the world. I wanted to find out what happens AFTER that, and I didn't want to wait until book 2 or 3 to find out.

Great Book!!!

Any additional comments?

I thoroughly enjoyed the characters or Eric and Gabriel and their struggles. I hope there are more to come.

Good start

Any additional comments?

I thought this was a good start for a zombie apocalypse series. Of course, it is one of those situations where all the cards happen to fall into the protagonists lap: Inherited money, befriended a former Special Forces Operator, was taught MMA fighting, taught how to use weapons (guns and knives).

One issue I had was the in-depth description of guns (types, use, etc). I'm a gun fanatic myself and a former veteran, however I don’t need constant reminders of what someone is using, or the detail each time someone has a gun. If I wasn’t into guns or served in the military, I would probably find it even more annoying. That’s just a pet peeve of mine though, and the overall story is great with great characters (one being the luckiest man in the world for his situation pre-apocalypse).

I really enjoyed the introduction of the virus. That is always interesting to me when another author comes up with a great way to end the world and turn most of the population into flesh eating Z’s.

The Narrator did well. He definitely did a great job with Garrett’s voice.

A good zombie series

The story line is good and as plausible as an zombie apocalypse story could be I guess.

Solid EOTW, biochemical (zombie) story.

This is a solid EOTW, biochemical (zombie) story with a strong lead character and good action. My rating 4.25.

Eric is a wealthy man, not a military man. He and Gabriel, Gabe, became friends during the sale of land between them. Sometime later, Gabe warns Eric to prepare for a chaotic collapse of the world. Gabe is a former Marine and former mercenary who has reason to know of biological secrets that could endanger society.

Eric had the money to prepare a bunker and stock it with food and weapons. He thought he was ready – but who can really prepare for the bloody rising of the dead? After staying alone in his own bunker for a time, Eric sets to meet up with Gabe who is hunkered down in a cabin in the mountains.

Along the way Eric faces danger and rescues a young man from an attack of the undead and returns with him to a compound of survivors. Some of the survivors are thankful but some are resentful and untrusting. Eric remains and proves his good intent as he helps the group clearing local communities of infected so they can gather more supplies. Sadly, the undead are not the only enemy that the survivors must face. There are rival survivor groups who are lawless and brutal.

I really liked Eric’s strong, well developed character. The survivor group he works with is well developed also. Mr. Cook does a good job of creating an engaging story with a good balance of human elements and action. There is gore and bad language but it is not the focus of the story but rather part of the situation.

There are also grammatical errors which might be attributable to the nature of the characters… otherwise it is just inadequate editing. I let them slide. There are a few slower segments but for the most part the story pacing moves along well. I did not realize that this series is already up to 8 books. I will likely continue to read at some point, although not immediately. I recommend this to readers who like well written, catastrophic, end of the world (EOTW), scenarios.

Audio Notes: Guy Williams does a good job with the narration. I found it is easy to listen and follow the characters. There did not seem excessive emotion but adequate to convey the scenes of the story. The narration added to my enjoyment of the story.

Over all well written story

What did you love best about No Easy Hope?

That Gabe was a squared away Marine

What other book might you compare No Easy Hope to and why?

The Remaining by D. Molles, Day By Day Armageddon by J Borne, and Going Home by A. American. All of them involved survival in worst case scenario.

Which scene was your favorite?

The ambush

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes

Any additional comments?

Who ever was the gun or military advisor for this book failed. The device you use to load bullets in is called a magazine. Not clip. hopefully someone fixes this problem in the next book. Other than that the book was a good listen.

good content

the way the reader depicts the voices of females and non important characters kind of got annoying. my wife didn't like it and so i finished it without her. story is good if you don't mind that

Good story

MC was not my cup of tea…
Luck was too much in his favor

4/5 prefer more ‘realistic story’

better than expected

Any additional comments?

one of the better zombie stories i've listened to lately. eric comes into money the old-fashioned way- he inherited it. however, how he comes to be a millionaire is well thought out by the author. along with money, eric inherits some property. he sells his grandmother's cabin in the mountains to a guy named gabe. over time, they become good friends and one night eric finally asks gabe how he got the money to buy eric's cabin. hestitantly, gabe tells eric about his mysterious past and the preparations he's making for an uncertain future.

while there are some aspects of survivalism in the first part of the story, the author does not bog you down with too many details.

the 1st 1/3 of the story details eric's background, how he came into money, his relationship with gabe, and the initial outbreak in atlanta. i enjoyed this part b/c the author slowed down and described the initial outbreak via newscasts ric was watching. plus, gabe's background is interesting.

as the outbreak begins, eric is alone. he lives somewhere ooutside of charlotte, nc while gabe is living in the cabin in the mountains. before the phone lines go down, gabe tells eric to hole up in his bunker and head to the cabin once things get a little less crazy.

the last 2/3 of the story is eric's journey to the cabin. on his way there eric faces a moral dilemma. he meets up with another group of survivors and decides to help them. in doing so, he makes new friends and frenemies. the author does a good job of adding depth to these other characters. eric comes to be good friends with some of the survivors and ends up staying with them longer than he planned.

towards the end of the book, you learn more about the state of things in the u.s. and around the world. although most of the zombie gore is in the beginning, this is a good end of the world survival story.

the writing is strong, and there's believable introspection by the different characters.

however, there are some weaknesses. aside from the opening, there's not a lot of zombie gore and carnage. i really like z-bboks that have a sense of dread. i never feared for characters in this book. there was no sense of impending doom, no shambling zombie hoard. guess tufo spoiled me in those regards.

my biggest caveat was the narrator. whlle his guy voices were ok, his girl voices were just aweful. so bad that i wondered if some of them had an adam's apple. LOL

overall, i enjoyed the story. i listen to a lot of zombie books, and the difference between the middle tier z-books are mostly the characters. i've listened to z-books with all kinds of characters- average joes, moms, military types, etc.. i think this is the 1st i've listened to where the main protagonist is a 1%er. so, yeah, i liked it!