Last Stand in a Dead Land

Yes, one book doesn't define a writer. narrator was bad so maybe new narrator helps me finish book?

Fast-paced, and action-packed, but a bit over-the-top. Zombies, aliens, and bigfoot are good by themselves, but a bit much altogether. If you are going to cram that many major legendary and widely known characters into one book, you need a longer book.

Last Stand in a Dead Land started out strong, has a solid foundation and could have lived up to all of the reviews that I read, but it just seemed rushed to me. Started out with a survivor collecting up other survivors via a secret device. Doesn't really tell us why he is doing this. After that it really surprised me with all of the different directions the plot went and could have gone. With everything from zombies to Bigfoot and well, not going to give everything away. I would have preferred a bit longer of a story if it meant more and better descriptions. Maybe I am spoiled by Jonathan Maberry's, et al., expert precision with action and suspense, but I expect more out of action sequences than, "They were behind us, we turned around and shot them" (not an actual quote, just an example). For people who need a zombie fix this will suffice, but left me wanting much more.

The narrator Coleman Ford used a voice that made me think he was telling ghost story to a bunch girl scouts sitting around a campfire, trying overly hard to make everything "scary". It seemed that every sentence or two were recorded separately and was full of choppy edits that seemed to cut off the first syllable of the first work of the new recording. Along with a somewhat monotone delivery that made it hard for me to stay awake and the narration was all at one speed, slow. Action happening, narration slow, never a pace change. Because of the wall of performance created by Ford I really think that this would have been immensely more enjoyable if there would have been a better, more engaging narrator.

This story was your pretty average zombie story....until. There were some crazy twists that I just cannot talk about, but it was so unique and fresh that it made the book a real page turner. The ending was perfect and left me feeling like Eric really threw the zombie genre a curve ball. All in all, I want more of Eric Brown.