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.

I'm buying Book #2 soon as I submit this review!

I wasn't sure about this one but reluctantly started to listen. It wasn't long before I was hooked. The narrator, Kevin T. Collins does a fantastic job breathing life into the characters. The story line brings an interesting perspective & point of view. I'm buying book 2 as soon as I click submit on this review!

Cyrus V. Sinclair. The V stands for Victorious!

What did you love best about The Undead Situation?

Cyrus's transformation from a sociopath to a somewhat caring person during the Zombie Apocalypse! The action and pace of the story.

What did you like best about this story?

Eloise Knapps take on what a Zombie Apocalypse would be like.

Which character – as performed by Kevin T. Collins – was your favorite?

Cyrus V. Sinclair

Entertaining

In a sea of zombie books, this one is interesting and faster pace. Haven't heard it in years and worth a re-listen.

Average 'zombie book', nothing special.

This is more of a story of a guy who's life changes in a zombie world. Not a zombie book, as no special focus on zombies was uncovered. Just average zombie interaction with a couple explicit-to-shock gross, but silly, scenes. So what's the focus of this story? The plot? It's about the transition of a so-called sociopath into an empathetic survivor who suffers thru the change. Our main characters sociopathic behavior never really proves itself except thru his own words and confessions. Never really proved he was, just eluded he was. Killing a couple of kids, before you graduate high school, doesn't really swing the sociopath stamp-of-approval. Given the opportunity to prove him a sociopath, the author doesn't show it, he just tell us he is. Or rather, Knapp tells us by having Cyrus tell us that he is a mental deviant. Poor story telling.

The main catch of The Undead Situation, a sociopath in an undead world, runs dry after a couple chapters. Further story development, to continue the arc of 'finding the final home sweet home' to live out life in safety never really develops. It turns into rote character interactions with others survivors, the undead, and the now non-sociopath Cyrus. The remaining story scenes swing between boring and repetitious zombie scene's. I equated it to zombie elevator music. Noise (words) to break the silence while traveling up to the office (prepper's home sweet home).

What sealed the lid on this tomb were multiple obvious fallacies of the few who have survived the horror. They show themselves ridiculously incompetent. Example, the single town where a contingent of army troops travelling thru at the time of the fall, who secured it, just letting a triplet of out-of-the-blue travelers drive on in. All these travellers in a highly infections world had to do was have a ex-marine gal have a few words and give shake. No, let's not find out why there's a bleeder in the back seat of their Mustang. No, let's not have them physically examined before letting them in possibly the last compounds left on earth. Just a handshake is all that's needed to let them in. Yep, just a few words and a handshake are enough to prove the guy bleeding out in the back seat of the car is not bit and infected. That incompetent survivor camp story bit of writing broke it for me. There were several other more minor but similar sloppy story threads before and after, that makes it impossible to recommend this book.

meh

a book to listen to if you have nothing better to listen to.....narration scetchie on a few words, well i've never heard them said that way anyway....

I'm going to try to be nice here. ..

I know how hard it is to write a novel...and especially how hard it is to write a UNIQUE, WELL-CRAFTED, SUSPENSEFUL zombie novel. Let's just say this book was lacking. I don't want to point out the flaws of this book in a review, because I'll probably be typing for the next hour. I think the rating speaks for itself, and is adequate punishment for wasting my time/money. What I will do, is steer you towards other books: Day by Day Armagedon, WWZ, Walking Dead: Governor. Now go buy those.

don't bother

What would have made The Undead Situation better?

Lacked plot, dialogue, characters

Has The Undead Situation turned you off from other books in this genre?

no

Would you listen to another book narrated by Kevin T. Collins?

narration was slow, but acceptable.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Undead Situation?

This book was thrown together by a ten year old.

Poor

This book was horrible. If you like arrogance and violence against women, this book is for you.

This story was horrible.

I decided to pick this book up after reading the reviews, and listening to the sample. It sounded like a unique perspective on the zombie genre, and I was excited to give it a try.

Unfortunately, it seemed right away that I had made a mistake. Shortly after beginning to listen, I got the impression that this story was written by someone who an amateur. I forced myself to go on, but the story was basically about some psychotic guy setting in his apartment thinking weird and crazy thoughts as the zombies walked around outside. When finally another character shows up in the story, the guy sits around and ignores her until after awhile he decides to beat her up and torture her.

At this point I decided to give up on this book. The zombies aren't even really a part of the story, and listening to a book about a crazy guy thinking to himself for hours on end became extremely boring.

Hated this book

What would have made The Undead Situation better?

I love zombie books, always searching audible for something new as I've listened to most of their zombie stories. So it surprised me how much I hated this book. The title character is so unlikeable that it made me wish he would die in the first 30 minutes of listening. I think this is what made this story so unbearable, I forced myself to keep listening hoping it would get better but no such luck, just kept getting worse. I highly recommend staying away from this one. If you want a good zombie story checkout Z.A. Recht's "The Morninstar Saga".

What was most disappointing about Eloise J. Knapp’s story?

Title character is horrible

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

Performance was ok.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Undead Situation?

I would throw the whole book in the fire.