The Remaining

By: D. J. Molles

Narrated by: Christian Rummel

Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

In a steel-and-lead-encased bunker 20 feet below the basement level of his house, a soldier waits for his final orders. On the surface, a plague ravages the planet, infecting over 90% of the populace. The bacterium burrows through the brain, destroying all signs of humanity and leaving behind little more than base, prehistoric instincts. The infected turn into hyper-aggressive predators, with an insatiable desire to kill and feed. Someday soon, the soldier will have to open the hatch to his bunker, and step out into this new wasteland, to complete his mission: Subvenire refectus. To rescue and rebuild.

The Remaining is the first book in the best-selling series, which tells a gritty tale of survival, perseverance and fighting to get back what has been lost.

©2012 D.J. Molles (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Realistic View of a Zombie Apocolypse

I don't read a lot of zombie apolocolypse books, but this one gives a very realistic view of what might occur if one were to happen. The realism is the most notable part of this story, done very well by the author. It starts off very slow for a while, but eventually gets into some more intriguing situations. It's not really my kind of book, so I can't give it a truly objective critique. It's pretty well written, and the characters seem realistic. No romance or any frills with this one. It's straight to the point survival all the way. I wish it were my kind of book so I could give it a better rating since it's well written.

Felt Like I Was Inside The Characters Head!

Simply fantastic! Worthy of keeping the television off. Love the narration as well and am investing a credit for the next book in this series.

Awesome

I've finished the series and the novella so I'm posting this same review for each of the books. This series is awesome. Really entertaining.

Lee Harden is such a great protagonist. You want to shake some sense into him, you want to stand up and applaud him, you want him to stop being an idiot and then marvel at his genius. Mainly you want to grab a rifle and join his squad.

The story is suspenseful, intriguing and funny (at times). Is it believable.... it's a freaking zombie story, of course it's believable'ish. Great twists, some great wins, terrible losses and a lot of "what would I do".

The narrator is really good. I'm pretty critical of most narrators because you have to be pretty strong to fill my ears for 40, 50, 60 hours without annoying me. He was a perfect choice for the series.

Will there be more books? There have to be. There are too many bad guys to fight, too many bunkers to breach and not enough series out there of this quality. It can't end, we're all geared up and ready to fight. Keep typing DJ, keep typing.

Nice change

I like the different twist on the zombie novel genre. Having a government somewhat prepared for such an event. Great story, interesting characters and we'll read

Nice introduction to the series

This is a series of books that are meant to be read one after another as in the story stops and picks up in the next book, almost at the same point its not something that is sorta the same - so that being the case this review will sorta be the whole review of the series while the other books will have reviews just shorter ones.

The zombies in this series can sorta plan ambushes and sneak attack which makes for a more interesting zombies or "infected" as they are called, its not like you are used to seeing in movies or TV shows like TWD - the infection effected about 90% of the population and its unclear if there are any immune people but its unlikely and the other 10% are just the people who survived and they can get infected as some do but it takes direct blood to open wound contact or something close to that just getting blood on you isnt enough but if you swallowed some you would probably get infected.

This series starts off without much of a back story for the main character but as you get into it you pick up on things that help you understand who he is better, Lee is in a bunker that the government built for him and its his job to go into it when they tell him to and he is given a set of instructions to follow which include that if he looses commutation with command he is to wait 48 hours and open a special box that has more instructions in it and to wait 30 days before leaving the bunker after the last contact with command.

Well to make a long story shorter he leave a little early because of what he is told is happening outside, which is crazy stuff.

Lee gets out and things keep going wrong for him and its like whats on the board in his bunker "The only easy day was yesterday" really is his motto as things progressively get worse for him as his plans keep failing.

There are a few things I think were missing from the series or things that should have been done differently but for the most part I really liked it.

This is a good story and at times you think you know whats going to happen next and you are wrong, people get killed that you didnt think would and everything like that - I liked the whole series and I hope that its not the end I would like to see more books in the same world that continue this story because there are some unanswered things a whole other story happening with the command of the military that isnt in contact with Lee and I hope it gets written

my new favorite author.

I am looking forward to listening to the rest of the books in this series.

Great performance sort of saves it

Kind of a plotless zombie apocalypse story. However, the narration is one of the best I’ve heard.

GREAT SERIES !!

What does Christian Rummel bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Impressive narrator. This series will hold your attention and he did a good job of bringing it to life.

Any additional comments?

Gets better with every book. Looking forward to the next one.

awesome story telling!

Absolutely loved this book. I would recommend over and over. I loved how he described many of the locations and characters.

top notch! highly recommended!

If you could sum up The Remaining in three words, what would they be?

thrilling, creepy, realistic

Which scene was your favorite?

the infected hoard scene. reminded me of some of the scenes from the movie, world war z, with hard-charging zombies.

Any additional comments?

this is a great book! definitely in my top 5. the author does things right. w/o divulging too much, lee works for the dept. of homeland security. he is one of the 48 coordinators spread across the lower 48 states. his job is to get into a bunker whenever something big happens. sometimes, he's in for a couple of days, and sometimes he's in for a week or two. when the fury virus hits, frank lee's commander orders him into his bunker. as the story opens, lee is going stir crazy b/c this is the longest he's ever gone being cooped up in the bunker, and the news is not good- people are killing each other. it's july 3rd and all of the news web sites are stuck on news from june 28th. lee is eagerly awaiting his regularly scheduled call from frank, hoping frank will give him the low down. lee's only companion is his trained german shepherd, tango.

the author does a great job portraying the emotions lee goes through, from feeling antsy, anxious, and claustrophobic in his bunker to being jumpy and nervous when leaving his bunker for the first time. the range of emotions lee goes through is totally believable and realistic.you can feel what he is going through.

i found the pacing of the story to be perfect. the author doesn't rush the plot, and the plot keeps moving. there are no slow points, and you won't get bored at all. there's plenty of character development mixed in with the action.

while this is not a traditional zombie book, i really dug the spin the author put on it. the infected are alive, aggressive, and fast, reminiscent of 28 days later. just like in that movie, when the infected show up in this story, it is heart pounding!

christian rummel's narration perfectly fits lee. he was a pleasure to listen.

overall, a truly exceptional and realistic apocylaptic story. if you're into end of the world or zombie stories, you'll definitely want to add this to your library. i highly recommend it!