The Most Important Rule

Zombie Rules, Book 9

De: David Achord

Narrado por: Graham Halstead

Zach is back at Mount Weather and has resumed his role as Director of Operations. In addition to working to make America functional again, and the upcoming birth of a child, Zach is faced with a new dilemma.

The zeds are active again and attacking survivor communities.

Zach knows the only course of action is to eradicate them, but how do they do it with their limited resources?

©2024 David Achord; Copyright 2024 by Severed Press (P)2025 Tantor Media

Phenomenal continuation in world building!

this story continues the series splendidly! I loved the evolution of the characters and where they are! meeting new people is always a plus in this series!

my biggest gripe is length. it's been nearly 5 years since the last book. looking back on the release of each title they all launched a year or less from each other and their length was impressive. I suppose it's possible the author is running out of material but that shouldn't be the case.

Sadly. at least for me. was the ending and what happened with one of the characters. while I'm not disappointed in the results I'm disappointed by how brightly it was broadcast through the introduction of other characters.

lastly and this has been an issue since the beginning of the series is the author making mistakes with names and events and where they fallout in the story. while keeping up with everything going on has to be insanely difficult and I do sympathize it is jarring when it takes place. pulls me out of the immersion.

overall I'm grateful for another addition to this series and I absolutely loved it just wish I didn't have to wait so long. hope there are more coming and faster.

Continues to hold my attention

The series has somewhat ran its course. It’s less woe is me Zach, which I appreciate. That being said, I will continue to get excited about a new release.

Good concluding story

One of the names where wrong I caught when they were talking about Fred killing the serial killer Jeffery Thompson was a victim not the killer

good, not great like some of the others

Zach is just such a rockstar operational character. It was fun to learn more some of the side stories were entertaining. We can tell there's another book. It's good it's not as great as some of the other volumes but still entertaining.

great as always

I started this book thinking it would be the final one, but now I'm delighted. and hopful David keeps them coming

Nice continuation, short on lots

overall disappointed with length and substance of book. Don't agree with some of authors choices for character action, but narration good and knocked it out in 2 days

Why???

Honestly i expected way more from this book, i feel like the author made it in a rush, a lot was left out, like what will happend with Eve, the death of Kelly was pre-mature, leaving the idea that theres gonna be another book after this, ect.
Over all, i really expected more especially from the title.

Meh..

Not nearly as engaging as the rest of the series. Seemed kind of empty. Not enough Fred. I’ve listened to the entire series multiple times but I won’t be listening to this book again. Hopefully they will make up for it in the next installment.

…. and the mention of Covid was just weird.

As Expected

This book series is what I like to call “My Guilty Pleasure”. They will never win any awards but it has become a comfort to read these over the years.

David Achord is consistent with his technical knowledge without adding a deeper level of empathy and wisdom that’s become a trade mark of greater novels and series.

Characters are often one dimensional and stereotypical. Dialogue leaves much to be desired, especially in scene transition, and characters tend to repeat what has already been narrated.

I hate saying it, considering how much I enjoy this series, but this is the worst book yet. Outlandish plot development with either no foreshadowing or too much where the big reveal is figured out chapters ahead of time and you find yourself getting antsy for the writer to get to the point so we can see the inevitable aftermath.

Spoiler!

If I could spend five minutes with Mr. Achord, it would be an earful over Kelly. While I always preferred Julie, I saw Kelly’s death coming a mile away. It has become a pattern for Achord to introduce a strong female candidate for Zak’s love interested, then kill his current one by the end of the book. Happened with Macy, Julie, and now Kelly. I have little doubt Bailey, aka the Roanoke Laura Croft, will become a new favorite character of mine. My only question will be how many kids will she have before she too meets an unfortunate, yet predictable end.

My final thoughts on this character death: Achord is going to have some serious explaining to do. How the hell those two broke into Mount Weather to ambush Zak has a zed horde sized hole in it. It’s one thing to suspend disbelief for the sake of story. It’s another to cause an inverse Deus Ex Machina to reach a desired story ending rather than allowing events to play out naturally. There were many ways this could have happened and each one is more believable than Zak getting attacked by two banished thugs in his own base where he set up the security protocols. On this, I digress.

This book feels strained and stressed as though Achord did not write this for the act of loving the story and seeing where it will go. Rather this feels like a contract that he was obligated to fulfill and threw everything at the wall he could to keep the train moving. There’s no true plot development and majority of the book is filled with character development that it could have done without.

In my not-so-humble opinion, we need to wipe the dust off the Tennessee crew, put them together, and take on Eve. I hope there will be meaningful deaths, surprises that have been eluded to since the first or second book, and an ending that is both bittersweet and satisfying.

I truly hope the next book is more inspired and handled with as much love as Zombie Rules.