Roads Less Traveled: The Plan

By: C. Dulaney

Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers

Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

Ask yourself this: If the dead rise tomorrow, are you ready? Do you have a plan? The dead rose, and the living quickly realized that Hollywood-style tactics were the quickest way to find yourself one of the walking dead.

Kasey, a strong-willed loner from West Virginia, and Ben, a college student from Pennsylvania, have shared an unlikely friendship over the years. And their bond is stretched to its limits when society collapses under a tide of zombies. But Kasey has something she likes to call The Zombie Plan. While Ben sets out for West Virginia, taking with him a ragtag group of friends, Kasey prepares for their long-term stand against the deadheads at her home in the mountains.

But every plan has its weaknesses, and the youths are unaware that a freight train of tragedy is bearing down on them all. In the darkness that follows, Kasey's Plan slowly unravels: friends lost, family taken, their stronghold reduced to ashes.

©2011 C. Dulaney (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Dulaney didn't reinvent the wheel, but goddamn if she didn't send it spinning down interesting paths. I'm invested now... what's going to happen next?" (Thom Brannan, author of Lords of Night, co-author of Survivors)

"If you're addicted to zombie literature, this one's for you. C. Dulaney's Roads Less Traveled: The Plan is crafted with such beautiful and terrifying scenes, you'll think you are one of Kasey's friends, running from the dead and preparing to live in a dark new world. Her prose crackles off the pages and into the mind's eye. By the time you've finished reading, you'll be clamoring for more from this exciting new author!" (Clyde Wolfe, author of Down Darkened Paths)

UGH!

This was written by a woman? I was surprised… since the females were so poorly written….correction- ALL the characters were pretty bad.
Kasey is the dominant she-male, wanting to do everything and make all decisions, always “snorting” and squeezing shoulders in way of comfort to others; she says things like “Hell man, you think something like a bullet is gonna do me in?” and “Ben insisted I was treating him like a little bitch”. UGH.
Kira is the requisite selfish resentful scheming bitch….finally nurse Nancy who seems to do the all the work…..medical care, cooking, comforting others, radio operator….not sure what the male characters did.
The book needed some heavy editing…..she actually writes “we all know what assuming does…” then spells it out; and characterizes dialogue as WHINING over and over, I don’t think she likes them much.

The reader was ok, tending to phase in an out of a southern twang for Kasey and over dramatizing at times.

Lots of violence, lots of swearing, no sex I can remember….would not recommend this one.

Juvenille

I am a big fan of the zombie/apocalypse themed stories.This one, while I was able to finish it, just did not have the vibe to it. It lacked detail, basically a bunch of young stereotypes hanging out at a ranch having high school drama with the occasional zombies showing up.

Slow, shallow, and overall just plain

The book has a very shallow plot, no large developments or twists, just a slow description of survival in a standard zombie apocalypse.

You call that a plan?

I've listened to 8 1/2 hours of the book, but I'm not going to bother listening to the final hour. I am not patient enough to spend more time on this. There just can't be anything good enough in that final hour to redeem all the prior wasted hours.

Pros:
1) Its a zombie book
2) Two likable character: Nancy (nurse, age 65), Ashton (age 6)

Cons:
1) No other likable characters. Between fits of anger, they exude bad attitudes, bad language, bad habits, and limited skills. Worse, they all seem to think this is normal and acceptable. Despite their foolish childish behavior, they brandish annoying false bravado and unfounded confidence. Just stating that a character is smart or good at something isn't convincing if their actions demonstrate the opposite.
2) Very poor decisions and tactics. The zombies are slow moving so most of the excitement happens exclusively when the living humans make mistakes. The living do continuously make poor decisions that create unnecessary risk and destruction so you might think the result would be gripping and intense. However, its hard to care what happens when you know the risk could have been readily avoided. For the most part, they don't learn from their mistakes or even realize they made them. This makes the unfounded bravado even more annoying.

The best thing for me to do now is to delete this without listening further. I do not care what the ending is.

What Plan?

There wasn't much of a plan here. Keeping a few guns around and some food was not much of a plan. No detail why she had a Zombie plan in the first place. It seem like everyone gets zombiefied in a short time period with not many survivors. The town of maybe a couple of dozen people mentioned in the book would be initial survivors till an outside attack occurred. The ability of a few college kids to travel great distances without much problems yet the rest of the population succumbs easily to the plague of zombies. The whole scene of the attack on the house was amateurishly written. I have no plan to continue the series. Only a few teenage girls would find this book interesting.