900 Miles

A Zombie Novel

By: S. Johnathan Davis

Narrated by: Jamison Jones

Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

John is a killer, but that wasn't his day job before the Apocalypse.

A businessman trapped in New York, John rushes to get to his wife just as the dead begin to rise. In a harrowing 900-mile race against time, he sees firsthand the horror of what man is capable of and soon learns that zombies are the least of his worries. Teaming up with an ex-army pilot named Kyle, they escape New York only to stumble across a man who says that he has the key to a rumored underground stronghold called Avalon.... Will they find safety? Will they make it to John's wife before it’s too late? Get ready to follow John and Kyle in this fast-paced thriller that mixes zombie horror with gladiator-style arena action!

©2013 S. Johnathan Davis (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

The Great Thrilling Z Story

What made the experience of listening to 900 Miles the most enjoyable?

All of it

Who was your favorite character and why?

John, he was very reluctant in getting home to his wife and child

Have you listened to any of Jamison Jones’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No this was the first and it was AWESOMEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

YES!

Any additional comments?

I so wish John's wife didn't die, but the book was great. It seemed like she became a Z as well................am so anxious, wanting to know if there is a Part 2 for this book, i would get it without hesitation.....................Great book. I would recommend it to every adventurous personnel as myself :)

Great Story

The story was great, but the narrator was inconsistent, every time he mispronounced across to acrosst I cringed....but his accents were awesome so overall good job. I'm about to listen to the next book and am looking forward to it.

A "road story"--with zombies!

John is a mid-level functionary at some company or other, sitting in a meeting at the head office in Manhattan. Suddenly everybody gets an alert text to the effect of "Stay in your homes! The dead are coming back to life!"

Of course everybody cracks up laughing and the meeting goes on. But when it ends, reality barges in--the alert text wasn't lying. Worse, John's wife is about to give birth down in Georgia: 900 miles away. He has to get back there. John and his tough new friend, former soldier Kyle, are facing a lot of clogged roads, bandits, and of course there's that whole zombie problem. Will they make it in time?

If this sounds like a "road story," that's what it is--a road trip movie in book form. John and Kyle get into and out of trouble as they go on any way they can, siphoning gas, meeting some new people, and making stops that, in hindsight, were probably not such a hot idea.

Fans of this genre will probably recognize most of the mise en scene from elsewhere--but so what? First-time novelist Davis keeps the story going, with plenty of hand-to-hand combat and close calls. 900 Miles is imaginative without being over-the-top. And it's not too depressing, either, thanks to protagonist John's grimly humorous outlook.

One issue--in terms of the actual writing, Davis is hardly Henry James or T.S. Eliot. But again, so what? For me, the story's movement made up for any grammar problems. Besides, this is a zombie novel; when I want something literary, I'll go shop in the literary fiction section.

Narrator Jamison Jones does a competent job; I could tell he was as interested in what was going to happen next as I was. Overall, a fun ride and definitely worth a credit. Looking forward to the next installment in this series!

New writer mistakes

Great plot and premises, but the overuse of fore-shadowing and the abrupt end, took away from what was brilliant in the story.

Good zombie lore with feasible pathology and physiological interesting points.

Expand the ending and fine tune character introductions and its a good book.

Top marks for the narrator!!!

Great book. Ready for the next.

Just finished my first book from this author and immediately want to start the sequel.
The narrator did a great job differentiating the separate characters.

This is my favorite sort of zombie story

I love zombie books, But I approach each book like this download I found called “ONE but the only one.”

It’s a 100 song compilation of the song “ONE ” by U2, There are every kind of musical approach to the song. Some are good some are painful. They all have more or less the same words, but how each artist has done something with those words makes all the difference.

900 Miles is a great story about people, and the zombies are almost an after thought.

This is my favorite sort of zombie story,

The people do the sorts of things both good and bad that you can see yourself and your friends doing,They are not superheros, nor are the idiots, The story is very believable and yet there are parts where I had to rewind and listen it again.

Not to give away any of the plot. But when the story goes off the main plot line. Let’s just say I was a little more tired then I would normally be at work the next day. From not being able to just pause it, without hearing how it was going to end.

The story is at it’s heart a very simple one, Something very bad happens and the main person has to struggle to travel 900 miles to where his very pregnant wife is waiting for him. Had the very bad thing, been something like an air plane crash, or say a flood, then the story would be a fairly straight forward one of “man versus the elements”. However the very bad thing that happened was zombies.

Jamison Jones did a great job of narration, and his voice has a familiar ring to it and that might be because he was a regular in the FOX series 24.

900 miles is a long way to go with out the modern conveniences of “zombie free travel”, and you feel every single mile before the story is over.

Audiobook purchased for review by ABR.

Please find this complete review and many others at audiobookreviewer dot com

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Good Story, Great Characters, & A Decent Apocalypse

Zombie novels are cheap, easy pieces of literature that have been run into the ground over the years, which is why finding a good one can be challenging.

This is a good zombie novel.

Hell, it's a great zombie novel. From the beginning I was hooked, enjoying the author's take on how the apocalypse began using the very low-to-the-ground view of a typical office worker. But it was the persisting relationship between the two main characters (John & Kyle), and a very real and stress-inducing end goal that kept my attention until the very last sentence.

Are the zombies a bit generic?
Yes.

Do some characters have a bit too much plot armor? Yes.

Does any of this take away from the overall story? Absolutely not.

An amazing book that will be in my top 3 zombie novels for a long time. (Also, the narrator was fine, y'all just way too picky.)

funny zombie thrill ride

Any additional comments?

as the story opens, john is in a meeting in nyc when he and everybody else get a text message that the dead have come back to life and have started eating the living. at first, everybody thinks it's a prank, but as they turn on the t.v., the news reports otherwise. john's group is trapped in an office building with only a thin pane of glass between them and the street. utterly paralyzed, they watch others in a similar situation while planning their escape.

in the lobby, john meets kyle. he's the security guard. kyle is an iraqi war vet who flew choppers. as they all search for weapons, the only things they come across is a broom stick and a potted plant. their only saving grace is that they haven't been noticed yet, but that quickly changes as their boss, now a zombie, heads back to where they are. he attracts the attention of the other zombies, and together, their pressure eventually causes the plane of glass to shatter. as the glass tinkles to the ground, all hell breaks lose, and it's every man for himself!

the beginning of the story really caught me. the narrator's voice and the dialogue immediately engrossed me. the narrator's voice perfectly matches john's character. the writing was funny yet action packed. after the first 15 minutes, i was totally engrossed.

one guy emerged from the crowd with a slightly raised voice. he was bald with a cul-de-sac cut. the kind where he kept the hair on the side of his head instead of shaving the whole thing, creating a perfect half circle of baldness on top. i'd seen him around the building. he's either a ceo or acting branch manager. he was in charge of his own little world before this. real alpha male type, and he was sure he had all the right answers. mr. cul-de-sac kept rattling on about how the waterfront was only 4 blocks away and that we could get a boat and get past the crowds in the city no problem.

humor, zombies, and gore...yeah, i was into this story! i also liked the aspect that john and kyle had to do a lot of hand to hand fighting with the zombies. that fighting was pretty realistic b/c neither was particularly adept at it. they had to learn quick. i also enjoyed the story b/c neither was a survivalist with a bunker full of food and guns. i've listened to quite a few of those stories so i found this one refreshing.

john's goal is to get back to his pregnant wife 900 miles away. kyle decides to join him on his journey b/c they're headed the same way. kyle has a few friends at a base in augusta, ga so they band together to try to escape nyc.

along the way, they rescue michael from a helicopter crash. michael tells them he's heading for a place called avalon in the blue ridge mountains.

i really enjoyed listening to this zombie novel. it was full of humor yet still maintained tension throughout. the narration is excellent. it makes the story. the is a WTF cliffhanger ending, and i had to see if there is a second book coming out. the ending reminded me of the ending of the movie, inception, where you can interpret what happens next.

overall, a fun zombie book i recommend!

WTH Avalon????

If you could sum up 900 Miles in three words, what would they be?

Oh MY Gosh!!!

What did you like best about this story?

Without giving away any spoilers, I'd have to say my favorite part was Gordons "crowd surfing". and what led up to it :)

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

Raw emotion

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes! Though this was shorter than most books I listen to, it still took me a day and a half to get through. That pesky thing called "having a life" got in the way. :)

Any additional comments?

I wish the book was longer. I'm used to listening to 12, 14, sometimes 20+ hour books. This was only 71/2. Though the story was EXCELLENT, I felt it was over quickly, and lfeft me yearning for more (in a good way).

Awesome!

Loves this book. Very few books can bring out a lot of emotion in me but this one definitely did! The narrator was terrific too!