Against the Current

Zombies!, Book 2

By: R S Merritt

Narrated by: Mike Thomas

Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

In this second installment of the Zombies! series the horror continues as Randy and Kelly continue to battle their way towards Florida, Brenda and the girls keep fighting to stay alive and Kyler fights hard to make his way in this new world order.

In this book, the struggle to survive continues to get more intense as groups come together to keep outsiders out.

The Zombies continue to get hungrier and the desperate people of the world grow ever more desperate.

If you enjoy adventure and horror mixed together then check out the Zombies! series for a dystopian journey through a post-apocalyptic world gone mad.

©2019 R S Merritt (P)2019 R S Merritt

Awesome

Series is among the better of zombie tales. Journey tales divides among three groups. Has the same basic themes, but written very well and with characters you can believe and like. Narrator is excellent. Can’t wait for the next.

Good but mistakes were made

The overall story is enjoyable. A man of god causing problems? Really? Every zombie story has that. Could have picked someone else for that role and it wouldn’t have been as predictable. The marines weren’t at normandy. Not in any numbers or unit size. Accuracy is important.

nice read

this book keeps getting better and better i am praying she find her babies momma cub is not having it

Against the Current Sinks Itself

As with Merritt's other early work, ATC Z2 has the spark of what is yet to come as his writing skills improve. This one continues to follow the lives and survival of the great characters introduced in Z1. The story and protagonists are interesting and intriguing. The zombies are well thought out and frightful. A couple continue their race south to rescue their children, a boy scout tries to survive alone, and a shrinking church group try to protect each other and the children with them - while the zombie threat grows.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to retain suspension of disbelief because the writing itself is so distracting. A decent editor, or a second read through by the author (at his current skill level), would do wonders for this series. There are so many extra words, out of place colloquialisms, and general grammar problems that it becomes distracting. In one chapter, it seems Merritt wanted to see how many times he could include the word "ambulance". Its as if he wrote one sentence a day but, each day, forgot that he had already told the reader the protagonist was in an ambulance and needed to turn the ambulance to the left, and then turn the ambulance to the right, and then hit the brakes of the ambulance, while he sat in the driver's seat of the ambulance, etc, etc.

Mike Thomas does an excellent job with narrating the Audible edition. His voice has the right tone and inflection for the material and he made, even the hard to read parts, almost palatable.

I don't think I'll go on with this series, it is so distracting. I think I'll skip ahead to some of Merritt's later work where I know his skills are well applied. He has become an excellent writer and story teller. It's just not there yet in this series.

On the Fence...

There's definitely potential. There's a decent storyline and an interesting interpretation on a zombie, but the writing style reads like a middleschooler wrote it for class. But that narrator though... he has moments where he starts to engage me and then he either butchers the accent (worst. Australian. accent. ever. not. even. a. little. bit.) or mispronunciates a word, distracting me from the story. Baklava? Really? Oh! You meant balaclava!