Survivors

The Morningstar Strain, Book 3

By: Z. A. Recht, Thom Brannan

Narrated by: Oliver Wyman

Length: 12 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's summary

Survivors is the all-new soul-shattering climax to the postapocalyptic trilogy, featuring a deadly virus, military action, global devastation - and zombies.

A lot can change in three months: Wars can be decided, nations can be forged...or entire species can be brought to the brink of annihilation. The Morningstar Virus, an incredibly virulent disease, has swept the face of the planet, infecting billions. The infected hosts rampage, attacking anything that remains uninfected. Even death can’t stop the virus - its victims become frightening and deadly cannibals. Scattered across the world, embattled groups have persevered. For some, surviving is the pinnacle of achievement. Others hoard goods and weapons. And still others leverage power over the remnants of humanity in the form of a mysterious cure for Morningstar. For the survivors, the peril remains, and the search for a cure goes on....

©2012 Z.A. Recht (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Few Lulls in Action!

I was apprehensive at the start of the full series but, by the time I made it 1/3 way into the 1st book, I was hooked! Survivors fulfilled a great ending & I caught myself fully involved knowing most characters personalities hitting both highs & lows as it rampaged in action to the end! My 1st "Zombie" books & I was surprised in fully enjoying all 3 books in the series but the best was saved for last!

The end of guilty pleasures ...

I found myself hooked part way through the first volume in this series and, without waiting, bought the second and third volumes. I read the second in about 2 days barely able to put it down and interrupted my reading of another book to start on the third volume of this series. I had (with apologies to Charles Dickens) great expectations for the third but found myself disappointed.

Perhaps the first thing I should say is that this is not a bad book. It is reasonably well written and follows the characters from the first two volumes through the effort to find a vaccine for the Morningstar Strain. Parts of the book are as good as the first two, but about half way through I began to wonder what had happened to the author and why the tone of the books had changed. Suddenly the characters were taking actions that made no sense, even in the contorted world created by The Morningstar Strain. Characters, who should have known better, were doing truly stupid things and plot curves were coming out of nowhere.

Why would characters who had proved themselves to be survivors in this violent world and should have known better be taking chances for no particularly good reason? Why would they be lighting campfires out in the open 10 miles from their destination? Why would government agents become terrorists? Why would innocent towns be raided and destroyed by government officials when there was no discernable reason for them to do so? And where did the final zombie come from?

This volume, on its own, is probably what I would have expected from a "Zombie" book, but the first two volumes were so well written and so gripping that I expected the same from the third. Only after having finishing this volume did I find out that the author, Z. A. Recht, had died and that another author had completed the work. The fact that the concluding volume of a work has been written by a new author does not, by itself, mean that the volume will not be as good as the others (for examples see the latest Spenser book or volume 3 of the Winston Churchill biography by WIlliam Manchester), but this volume did not live up to the high standards of the first two.

While the author of this volume may have changed, the narrator did not and I think that this book was read as well as the first two. I really cannot fault the narrator for the less than steallar writing he had to work with.

If you have read the first two volumes of this series you may well want to read this as well to follow the story to its conclusion, but don't expect the same writing quality.

Author droped the ball,what a waste

Any additional comments?

the narrator forgot the accents of a few characters,and dumb down some of the others..

3 of a kind

Would you consider the audio edition of Survivors to be better than the print version?

I have never read the printed version but I have now read all three of the Morningstar audible books and they were great. The characters came to life and there was sad times, and glad times and times I wanted to go in the book and whoop some butt myself, ..... all in all I would do it again. I highly recommend this book.

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

yes and i did, thanks to a long trip i was on, I drove 500 miles down to Laredo Texas and 500 miles back this gave me lots of time to listen to all three books with a little time in a hotel with nothing but time on my hands every evening.

Better than the others

I had two mid sentence cut offs in the story with this recording. I never had this happen before so I don't know if it was just a download error.

I don't know what happened to the narrator because I've replayed the samples of the earlier two books and it doesn't sound like the same guy! I think the narration is pretty good and better this time around.

This book picks up the story with a group from the USS Rammage trying to hook up with Gen. Sherman from the last book. There's a "rogue" government out to get them because they have the "cure".

Already here is a nonsensical plot moment. G-Men going around killing everyone just to claim the cure rather than just asking nicely. Its manufactured evilness just to have "bad guys" in the story.

There was that incident with the camp fire, and I don't know which author is responsible for this. They manage to get hold of two armoured cars yet they want to play boy scouts and camp out seemingly far away from their main protection. Its this kind of inexplicable stupidity which I don't like from Recht. Its as if he was going somewhere cool with the military vehicles but woke up the next morning and said "I'm bored now and there are too many characters so make up something exciting and kill them off".

Neither do I know why they suddenly opened the sealed laboratory and into the arms of the bad guys when they knew what was going on out there. Things just happen in order to push the story forward.

The author tries his hand at romance which is Stiles trying to hit on Becky and can only come up with his war trauma story about getting hit by an IED and finding bits of body of his friends. Awkward romantic moment.

Nah...this book is about action, guns and gore.

Recht had a lot of plot holes in his previous books and because he only wrote half of this book, I gave it a try to see what the new author could do with it.

Over all I think this book is much better than the other two. Fewer plot holes and the characters doing fewer stupid things so I wasn't as frustrated as I was with the previous two books. But it could be so much better.

A solid follow up book in the series

The third book in this series maintains the high quality established in the first two books.

It delivers on great story, good action, and offers tidbits to the attentive listener to the first two books.

If you enjoy Zombie books (and who doesn't) this trilogy is amongst the best I've listened to. Well worth you time and money to give it a try.

Good story!

A good story, but it ended abruptly. Still, I enjoyed all three books, and the author finshed things nicely.

Morningstar

How I love the Zombie Apocalypse. This is one of my top 10 series in the genre. If not all but most Zombie books are roughly the same. And many reviews on here will mislead you with words like (brings nothing new to the genre or unoriginal story line) which in turn pisses me off. There books about Zombies!!! If you change much more then Speed of the zombies or how they came about then there not ZOMBIES anymore. Alright that said Book 1&2 are great full marks If your a fellow zombie lover it's a must have. Book 3 was a little disappointing but considering Recht died before finishing his series, I has grateful to have the series completed.

AWESOME FINAL BOOK IN TRILOGY

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Definitely - it's a really good book

What did you like best about this story?

The characters were so real, the storyline was great, just enough action vs humour vs scare.

Which character – as performed by Oliver Wyman – was your favorite?

Bruster (sp) was definitely my favourite. I quite liked Sherman too

Any additional comments?

Oliver Wyman did an exceptional job with the voices.

best thing

loves it but I got sad went peaple I liked died
love this book :3