The Undead Situation

By: Eloise J. Knapp

Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins

Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

When the end finally occurred, everything about it was cinematic. The dead came back and ate people, civilization collapsed, and no one could do a thing. But Cyrus V. Sinclair couldn’t care less; he’s a sociopath.

Amidst the chaos, Cyrus sits back and contemplates the gore stained streets and screams of his fellow man with little more emotion than one of the walking corpses. With his cache of guns and MREs, he rather likes the idea of hunkering down in his Seattle apartment while the world ends outside.

All is well and good for Cyrus… until he meets up with Gabe, a belligerent annoyance, and the other inconvenient survivors who cramp his style and force him to re-evaluate his outlook on life. It’s Armageddon, and things will definitely get messy.

BONUS SHORT STORY: The Undead Situation includes "Strictly Professional", one of four interlocking stories from The Junkie Quatrain by Peter Clines.

©2010 Eloise J. Knapp (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Killer book, Ha , get it.

I had never heard of Eloise J. Knapp before, which is because this is her first novel. I need to find a first of edition of this book. Carrie by Stephen King in first edition is worth thousands. It could be someday this book in first edition will be worth thousands. EK is not better then King, yet. She actually self-published it on Kindle. This book shows a lot of promise. It is very intelligently written and keeps your attention. I was a little slow at first to get into the main character, but as the story went on, I started to like him and his companions. I won't say I loved it, but I did like it a lot and I am interested in the sequel that she is writing now. According to her photographs she is fairly young, so we could be seeing a lot of her in the future. I hope she does not limit herself to Zombies, as she has the talent to do more.

According to EK, to survive a Zombie End Of the World scenario you must be a sociopath or Evil, but mostly selfish. (It is nice to know that most of my family would survive.) Nice guys don't finish last they just die. This is no happy ending, good feeling book with lovable characters. It is more like reality, only with Zombies.

If you like this you should also get Cell by Stephen King, it is my favorite Zombie book so far.

The last hour of the recording is a short story, by Peter Clines. The best thing about that is that I now that PC is not my cup of tea.

An interesting take on zombies

What did you love best about The Undead Situation?

In a small way it reminded me of the Showtime series Dexter. Mainly in the main character. He feels nothing, but at times he seems to be developing the ability to feel. I found myself pulling for him to "become normal". That helped add to the zombie part of the story.

What did you like best about this story?

It kept me entertained.

Have you listened to any of Kevin T. Collins’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have not listened to Kevin's performances before so I can not compare. I did enjoy his performance in this book.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

No one moment moved me. As I stated earlier, the continued "almost" emotional growth of the main character kept me tied to him.

Any additional comments?

This book is definitely worth a listen.

Interesting Zombie Take

What did you like best about The Undead Situation? What did you like least?

The characters were not overdone, they were ordinary people with ordinary issues. You weren't made to

What did you like best about this story?

How the main character was developed. He didn't remain the same and became more complex.

Have you listened to any of Kevin T. Collins’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I haven't listened to Kevin Collins before but it was a great performance. I would definitely buy something to hear how he performs it.

Was The Undead Situation worth the listening time?

Yes it was. The ony things, as I mentioned before, that was a little frustrating was the characters developed that just dropped out of sight. I wanted to know their endings.

Nice little gem. Not bad for a first zombie book.

Would you listen to The Undead Situation again? Why?

At some point, most likely.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Undead Situation?

Unusual main character, Not farfetched though. I guess when the main character bared his fangs, it was an early warning to everyone that the character and situations will be unexpected.

Have you listened to any of Kevin T. Collins’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Cant say with certainty, and too lazy to check.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I refuse to cry listening to an audio book. That's chick stuff. I do recall saying 'Daaang

Any additional comments?

This is my introduction into the horror thing. If half the books are as good as that one, then i think ill have something else in the rotation.

The zompocalypse from a different perspective....

Any additional comments?

With the incredible number of choices available in the zombie fiction world it is hard to find one that stands out, but I believe this is one of those stories. The main character is normally someone who would play more a side role in most dystopian novels. He isn't a hero and isn't trying to be one, but we definitely get to see him change through out the book. A serious character driven story that takes you on a journey of apathy, to ambivalence and finally empathy. There are so many stories that follow stereotypical hero plots, give this one a read/listen if you're looking for something different.

liked it more than i thought

Any additional comments?

story is told in the first person. cyrus is a sociopath. he's killed a few people before the zombie apocylapse most notably those who've bullied him. cyrus is not a full blown sociopath although he thinks he is. as the story unfolds he's not as bada$$ as he thinks he is. he does care- about his candy, his pet ferret, and frank. frank is the only person he cares for b/c frank is the only one who's ever given a crap about him.

frank is a survivalist. cyrus is waiting for him to come get him so they can head out to his cabin inn the mountains. as cyrus hangs out in his apartment, he comes into contact with a young girl, named gabe, who's running for her life. cyrus doesn't care about people and has watched people die without intervening.

how does he interact with people when he only cares about himself? as the story progresses, cyrus starts to have feelings for some of the people he comes into contact with. but are these real feelings? does he know how to feel? or are these feelings related to what cyrus can get out of them?

this is not really a man vs. zombie book. it's more of a look at the inside of cyrus' head. how does he cope with other feeling people. can he grow feelings or is he destined to be alone?

cyrus likes being alone, he even strives on being by himself. cyrus is thrust into situations where he's challenged to figure out how much of a sociopath he really is. however if you, the listener were in his situation, would you do the same? would you be a hero or save your a$$. if you chose the latter, would that qualify you as smart or a budding sociopath?

as for the zombies, there's nothing new. survivors? yup, there are your typical bastards. but where this book is different and shines is in the lead character, cyrus. that's what makes this book different. for once, i actually cared about the characters. the characters drive the story not the plot.

Unexpectedly good!

Really enjoyed it! Good story, characters and narration. Two thumbs up! I highly recommend it.

I highly recommend this audiobook

Where does The Undead Situation rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Most zombie audio book that I have listened to are from the point of view of some military or ex-military or some super macho testosterone filled guy. The Undead Situation is told from the point of view of Cyrus V. Sinclair, a complete sociopath that really only has 2 cares in the world.

What did you like best about this story?

While I could not relate to Cyrus what-so-ever, I did fully enjoy witnessing the discoveries that Cyrus made about himself along his journey. Be warned that nothing in this book is fluffy little bunnies and four-leaf clovers. This story is raw, real and sometimes a touch disturbing.

What does Kevin T. Collins bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The narration done by Kevin T. Collins was perfect, he made me think that I was really listening to a crazy sociopath. I will admit that when the audio book first started I did not like the voice of the narrator, but as the book went on I found that very few people could have done this book any justice.

Any additional comments?

I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys straight-up zombie apocalypse survival novels; it has everything in it you could want.

Cyrus isn't as bad as the description states

Any additional comments?

I'm writing this review mainly because I passed over this book so many times because I just didn't think I could care about the main character enough to enjoy the story. Luckily while he is no saint and does some really unforgivable things to he author does a great job at making him interesting and maybe even somewhat like able. So don't judge this book based on the description, give it a try if you like zombies and have been through all the really good ones.

Entertaining, but not much more.

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

This was a good book for listening to while doing other things. There just wasn't much to the plot so if you missed something it wasn't that hard to get the thread of the story back. The one part of the story I did enjoy was the transformation from the begginning of the book to the end of the book of the main character. Another thing that kept me listening despite my overall disipointment in the story was the very good narration.