Plague of the Dead

The Morningstar Strain, Book 1

By: Z. A. Recht

Narrated by: Oliver Wyman

Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

The end begins with a viral outbreak unlike anything mankind has ever encountered before. The infected are subject to delirium, fever, a dramatic increase in violent behavior, and a one-hundred percent mortality rate. Death. But it doesn't end there. The victims return from death to walk the earth.

When a massive military operation fails to contain the plague of the living dead it escalates into a global pandemic. In one fell swoop, the necessities of life become much more basic. Gone are petty everyday concerns. Gone are the amenities of civilized life. Yet a single law of nature remains: Live, or die. Kill, or be killed. On one side of the world, a battle-hardened General surveys the remnants of his command: a young medic, a veteran photographer, a brash Private, and dozens of refugees, all are his responsibility-all thousands of miles from home. Back in the United States, an Army Colonel discovers the darker side of Morningstar virus and begins to collaborate with a well-known journalist to leak the information to the public...The Morningstar Saga has begun.

©2006 Z.A. Recht (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

couldn't do it

couldn't finish this.
this is about as much fun and entertaining as you would guess reading emails aloud would be.

YOU MIGHT WANT TO PUT DOWN THAT CUP OF COFFEE

A DECEASED AMBULATORY VIRAL HOST
Written in 2006, it would not be fair to say this is the same old same old, even though it is. Since 2006 the Zombie boom has brought us a plethora of Zombies. Now a book that talks about the start of a plague, the slow discovery, the convincing of the public, the government cover up, the fact that you have to shoot a zombie in the head to kill it and everything else we all know like the back of our hand, is boring. The writing is also simplistic.

Now we have Cell by Stephen King, Cattle by Joseph Duncan, The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey, The White Trash Zombie series by Diana Rowland and the Apocalypse series by Peter Meredith, just to name a few. Skip Plague.

P.S. One of the advantages to following someone with your same likes and dislikes, means you get all the reviews, even during a sale. Low reviews get held pending approval, and don't get released until after the sale. Followers get an immediate e-mail, saving them money.

"Sci Fi Movie channel 'quality' writing"

In my opinion, the absolute best job of writing in the zombie horror field is "The Walking Dead" (comic series, NOT the tv show) followed probably by Max Brooks' "World War Z".
The best thing about "The Walking Dead" is that the group of survivors usually try to make sound, logical plans and then try to put them into action, but the scope of horror is so immense that things still work out for the worst. "Plague of the Dead", on the other hand, is poorly written and has to resort to just about all the characters doing the most stupid action possible (even when they are supposed to be 'the best' in their field or at least very experienced). The author tossing in a lot of medical and military jargon does not cover the fact that he/she did very little studying of how the military works and how characters this stupid would not survive long enough to make a novel-length story. For example, when the outbreak of the virus begins in Africa, the entire continent is surrounded by the forces of the world's military might. Carrier battle groups, tanks, artillery, fighter jets, bombers, attack helicopters. A sort of 'line in the sand' is drawn at the Suez canal. Certain events lead to that being the point where the hundreds of thousands of zombies choose to try to make an escape from the continent to the rest of the planet. So, what does the 'Veteran General' do? He chooses to defend this line with only a single line of riflemen. That's it. With all that military hardware he chooses just a few soldiers with a limited amount of ammo against that many zombies then he acts shocked when they are overrun within minutes. Further this General continues to make the dumbest choices possible which continuously results in more soldiers getting killed and yet none of the surviving troops desert or frag the officer like was done in Vietnam with incompetent boobs in charge. Aside from that, the story is only mildly entertaining to about the same level of watching a Sci Fi channel movie.

I tried.. I really did try!

To like this book. I love zombies. However, it takes more than zombies as the topic to be a good book. First of all,in any story, the writer needs to be consistent! You can't define the characteristics of a zombie and then conveniently change them later with no explanation as to why they suddenly changed, as though you forgot what you said in the first pace. For example, there is a scene where doctor examines a dead zombie and notes that there is no sign of blood flow from a wound (of course not, zombies don't gush blood as they are animated corpes with no pulse or heart beat, etc). Fine. Then, in later scenes, red blood splashes about when zombies are shot - just for the gore affect. It doesn't work - choose one or the other and try to remember what you chose... Lazy, cheap writing...

Besides those sort of inconsistencies, the plot is weak and there are seemingly endless, boring action scenes without a lot of plot or developed enough characters to make them at all interesting and they drag on and are difficult to follow or care about... and they take the story nowhere. The characters are completely uninteresting and uncompelling in any way. The story just meanders around in no real direction, with pointless sub-plots about some reporter being tortured or whatever... I really struggled to make it through the whole thing, and I am a very patient reader, and completely forgot about it a day later... Had to have a real think about it to remember enough to even write this review.

No one likes a critic, and I hate to be one, but just want to give a view to help people decide to spend their money or not, and this is honestly my opinion - a MUCH better choice would be Word War Z.

Bland and Predictable

It seems like a militaristic story written by a civilian. The characters are all one-dimensional, stereotypical special-ops, army, or medic types (oh yeah, and a Canadian, eh?). It doesn't help that the reader makes several of the characters sound half-baked. The author puts the dots really close together for us and there aren't any surprises. The plot plods along with a lot more talking than action and didn't really hold my attention. It's ok for a distraction while doing chores and I got through it, but I won't be reading the rest of the trilogy.

THE ABSOLUTE WORST ZOMBIE BOOK EVER!!!

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME. MY CAT WRITES BETTER THAN RECHT. HORRIBLE.

What could Z. A. Recht have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

BURNT IT!

How could the performance have been better?

BY NOT PUBLISHING IT IN THE FIRST PLACE

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

UTTER DISAPPOINTMENT

Any additional comments?

I LOVE ZOMBIE BOOKS. BUT THIS IS BY FAR THE WORST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ!

Bad book even for $6.95

Would you try another book from Z. A. Recht and/or Oliver Wyman?

No for Recht. Oliver Wyman did a good job.

What was most disappointing about Z. A. Recht’s story?

The writing was teadious.

What three words best describe Oliver Wyman’s voice?

The narration was clear and understandable. Its not Wyman's fault the book was unlistenable for me.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

No reaction at all

Any additional comments?

I put in about two hours with this before deciding it was a waste of my time. Other 1 star reviewers have stated the problems with the book. Most annoying for me was the email conversations between two of the characters. The narrator reads everything on the email, reply buttons, headers, email addresses, and you know the stuff you glance over but do not really read on your emails. So a typical conversation, supposedly to move the story along, is broken up by minutes long sections of narrating the headers and the RE; and RE; REs. The story just stops at these points. Who ever thought that would be entertaining should find a different job.

A wasted credit....

I was optimistic based upon the reviews and the premise, but the writing was too simple for my taste, and I just couldn't continue the book. The story was cliche' ridden and the characters (not the zombies) were one-dimensional. For ex., I have seen the character that sacrifices himself for his brethren so often in movies/books, but it still can be originally written/portrayed with skill. This books fails to do this. For apocalyptic novels, I would recommend Stephen King's "Cell" McCarthy's "The Road", or Matheson's "I am Legend" to name a few that were so much more satisfying. thanks for letting me share my opinion

Not a good book

The book is just not smart I found myself getting mad at big mistakes in the setting up of the story. And dumb people who just keep doing dumb things to get killed. I must say That Z A seems to find his way as the story gets going and book two is much better sorry that he passed away. He was getting there and im sure book 3 would have gotten All the kinks out and wound have been Great. Rest in peace Z A

Amateur, not even close to the others in quality

If you're hard up for zombie stories, sure, but try others first. Some list this zombie story along with the likes of Day by Day Armageddon or Dead City (Excellent books). But its not even close.

The story and setting are good enough, that's what drew me in. But the author can't handle the intricacies of his story to make it believable leaving large plot holes

I loved that they had a firing line set up along the Suez...but wtf, where was the rest of the military? Recht could go great places, what with his main character a *general* who promptly goes AWOL and hops off the very safe and powerful destroyer to go wandering from coast to coast with rag tag refugees with little food and ammo, when he really had the whole US military at his disposal! Oh, and that stupid macho fist fight...ugh.

Too many stupid and nonsensical decisions being made throughout the book.

Recht made some good set ups but fumbled all his chances to make them any good. Hear he's dead now. Oh well, RIP, don't get back up!