Fiend

A Novel

By: Peter Stenson

Narrated by: Todd Haberkorn

There’s more than one kind of monster.

When Chase Daniels first sees the little girl in umbrella socks tearing open the Rottweiler, he's not too concerned. As a longtime meth addict, he’s no stranger to horrifying, drug-fueled hallucinations.
But as he and his fellow junkies soon discover, the little girl is no illusion. The end of the world really has arrived.
The funny thing is, Chase’s life was over long before the apocalypse got here, his existence already reduced to a stinking basement apartment and a filthy mattress and an endless grind of buying and selling and using. He’s lied and cheated and stolen and broken his parents’ hearts a thousand times. And he threw away his only shot at sobriety a long time ago, when he chose the embrace of the drug over the woman he still loves.
And if your life’s already shattered beyond any normal hopes of redemption…well, maybe the end of the world is an opportunity. Maybe it’s a last chance for Chase to hit restart and become the man he once dreamed of being. Soon he’s fighting to reconnect with his lost love and dreaming of becoming her hero among civilization’s ruins.
But is salvation just another pipe dream?
Propelled by a blistering first-person voice and featuring a powerfully compelling antihero, Fiend is at once a riveting portrait of addiction, a pitch-black love story, and a meditation on hope, redemption, and delusion—not to mention one hell of a zombie novel.

Critic reviews

“Certain to invite comparisons to Hubert Selby and Cormac McCarthy…one scalding pressure cooker of a novel, and I advise you to buckle up and hold on tight because you're in for one hell of a ride. --Donald Ray Pollock, author of The Devil All the Time and Knockemstiff

"This is the real meat. The last zombie novel you'll ever need."—Warren Ellis, New York Times bestselling author of Gun Machine and Twisted Little Vein

“Peter Stenson has done the near impossible in delivering a savage fire-storm of a page-turner while also enabling a hard and earnest look at addiction and love. I tore through Fiend with the crazed fervor of an addict, but like all great stories these characters lingered in my thoughts long after I turned the last beautiful and brutal page.”—Alan Heathcock, National Magazine Award-winning author of Volt

“Peter Stenson is the bastard child of Cormac McCarthy and George Romero. In Fiend, he takes the reader on a dark joyride replete with junkies, zombies, and buckets of gore. Here is a novel that will jack your pulse and break your heart all at once.”—Steve Almond, New York Times bestselling author of Candyfreak and Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life

Unusual

This is the most unusual zombie novel I have ever read or listened to (and I have read a lot). When the only survivors of the zombie plague of addicted to meth, and they have to keep using to survive, what kind of hope does the world have? This novel is interesting, sad, funny, and frightening. You get an interesting glimpse into the brutality of man.

An interesting twist on the zombie apocolypse...

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

It felt a bit non climactic, but it fell in line enough with the overall mood of the book so it made sense.

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

When he described body odor and such.....it really left me feeling dirty so lol I guess he did a very good job. He played the part of a junkie really well lol. I mean he did a good job. I bought the emotion in his voice and there was plenty of it.

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

When he described himself being a failure and his parents being crushed by his drug addiction. It was pretty hard to listen to. Then there was the baby scene, not soul crushing but definitely disturbing.

Any additional comments?

This story is definitely not for everyone, but I liked the idea of a different sort of zombie and the crazy way to stave off becoming one. I felt like the author was really genuine about describing drug abuse and addiction. There was absolutely no glamorization of it.

A zombie story unlike any other

Such a powerful story and an amazing narrative perspective. Was hooked the entire time, and the narrator was incredible. This one will sit with me for a while.

Much more than a zombie story.

A disgusting and heartbreaking portrait of the tenacity of addiction and the horrific actions it compels no matter what setting or situation into which addicts are thrust ... holds up a mirror to how nothing, not even a zombie apocalypse, can hinder a committed meth feind who truly believes he will die if he doesn't use... just a little... to take the edge off... to get my head straight... any addict reading this will find familiar themes, and many unsettling parallels with their own feindishness.

Great!

Performance can make or break a book and this performance was phenomenal! Great book, well written, and oh so creepy.