Dead of Night

A Zombie Novel

By: Jonathan Maberry

Narrated by: William Dufris

Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's Summary

A prison doctor injects a condemned serial killer with a formula designed to keep his consciousness awake while his body rots in the grave. But all drugs have unforeseen side-effects. Before he can be buried, the killer wakes up. Hungry. Infected. Contagious. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang… but a bite.

©2011 Jonathan Maberry (P)2011 Macmillan Audio

The narrator ruined it.

I got roughly 15 minutes into this, and couldn't get past the narrator. I'm not sure if he had a cold, or his voice is naturally congested, but I couldn't handle it. Maberry is one of my favorite authors, but I think he needs to stick with Ray Porter as a narrator.

Who Will Be Eaten Next?

Do not even think of opening this book if you are even the slightest bit squeamish. There is brain eating, rotting bodies, skin crawling, and worm-eating flesh. It will affect everyone men, women, and children, with equal gruesomeness.

This book tells a story of one man’s journey to revenge leading to biological experimentation gone bad and gives you a glimpse of what would happen if an unknown disease were to strike in some small town USA. Actually I think the experimental drug worked as it was designed to do, but not the way the good doctor had planned.

This story had pulse pounding action to the very last word! I am going to have to add Jonathan Maberry to my favorite authors list because I just love his style. I absolutely loved the ending!

The Narration Review
William Dufris narrated this book. He has great character voices and you can always tell the difference in the characters when they speak. He put a lot of effort into making the emotions come to life. When he starts to describe some of the gruesome scenes you get the feeling he is actually looking at it and can hear the disgust building in his voice.

** Note **
I received this audiobook as a Random Act of Kindness (RAK) from Darlene over at Darlene’s Book Nook. If you haven’t heard about RAKs for books, then feel free to click on the link up on my Alaskan Bookie Blog and visit the Book Soulmates website. It is an awesome way to share the love of reading!

Terrible, just terrible

First off the narration was by far the worst I've heard yet on audible. It got so frustrating I couldn't even finish the book. He just over acted every line. I recommend not buying this book just for that.

Second, I love the ledger series and can't believe the same author wrote this book. The story is ridiculous, slow and frustrating. The main character Dez comes off as a baddass for 30 seconds then a whiny crybaby for the next 30. It's just odd. I'm very disappointed. To the people that said this was a great zombie book, you should read zombie fallout. 100x better than this crap.

Worst Narration Ever

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Cheesy "campfire ghost story" tone and over-the-top delivery.

Any additional comments?

The story is typical Mayberry - thoughtful, detailed with just the right amount of science and fiction built in. It was hard to get fully sucked in due to the narration, unfortunately. If done by Ray Porter or Tom Weiner, this would've been a 4 star book.

pretty good zombie story

Any additional comments?

first off, i'm a big mayberry fan. i've read all of his joe ledger books and enjoyed them. however, i wasn't sure about his zombie books. probably b/c of the audible samples and some of the reviews. yes, i read a lot of the reviews you guys write (thanks!). i've listened to a bunch of the zombie books on audible and needed my zombie fix. b/c of that and the strength of the joe ledger series, i decided on dof (dead of night) before dust & decay and rot & ruin.

don starts off slow building the story. dez is a female cop in a small town. she's your stereotypical hot blonde cop with an attitude. she's pissed at the world b/c she believes everybody's always left her so instead of being hurt again, she lives a reckless life, indulging in men with blonde hair and a good butt. the only person she cares about is jt, her partner. jt is an older black guy who is like her surrogate father.

the story starts with dez and jt investigating a crime at a funeral home. the doc and cleaning maid have been viciously killed, and the dead body is missing. while investigating, the cleaning lady attacks dez, and she re-kills her. at first, jt doesn't believe dez and asks her if she's still drunk. that's when they notice the body of the doc is missing. they try to come up with some plausible story as their backup arrives. the chief doesn't know what to make of their story so dez, jt, and their backup start searching the woods for the missing bodies, and this is where the action starts to pick up.

as people start to get infected, they don't know what to do with them b/c they're friends. in a small town, everybody knows each other. so at first, they're reluctant to kill someone they know. so what do they do? they handcuff an infected friend and take him to the hospital.

eventually, those killed by the infected come back to life, and infection starts to spread. the story starts off slow, but the action builds as the story progresses.

trout, dez's ex-boyfriend, is a journalist who happens to be in town when the first killings take place. they fight like hell, but trout smells a story. he realizes the missing body is that of a missing serial killer. he thinks a group of crazed fans stole his body so he follows the leads. he eventually tracks down the prison doctor who injected the serial killer. trout and his buddy, goat, learn the doc's secret and try to get the word out, but the military has encircled the small town.

i don't want to give more away, but i enjoyed the story. i enjoyed listening to what it's like being a zombie. we learn about it from the funeral home doc. what the virus does is break the link b//ween your consciousness and your body. you can see and hear everything you're doig, but you can't stop your body from craving fresh blood. this is a great take- it's sad and horrifying!

i think the biggest downside is the whining about killing all the people you know. i think i'd be too s#!tless to care at the time. how about you?

overall, i'm glad i took a chance on dead of night. it's a solid standalone zombie story. it's got everything for a good zombie story- background, characters, action, zombie carnage, and a good ending.

13 Hrs & 49 Min of My Life I'll Never Get Back...

Would you try another book from Jonathan Maberry and/or William Dufris?

Love Jonathan Maberry -- would not listen to another book with William Dufris.

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

Great.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of William Dufris?

Anyone -- the narrator for Dust and Decay.

Any additional comments?

I liked the story, love Maberry. Would have passed on this one with this narrator, though.

Terrible Narration

The narration of this book is terrible and distracting. Instead of just reading, the narrator over-acts each sentence like a little kid telling a ghost story with flashlight under his face, doing his best imitation of Vincent Price. It was tiresome. The content of the book seems like it has potential, but I couldn't get past the narration.

Wish this was a movie

Love this story. The humor. The drama. The snarkes. The characters are epic. Highly recommended.

Slow to start, but it does get going

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

The time spent listening to this book could have been spent listening to one of Maberry's other, more action packed reads. It was slow to start and the characters weren't very enjoyable.

If you’ve listened to books by Jonathan Maberry before, how does this one compare?

This one isn't as 'hit the ground running' as his other works, but it does get up and grab you eventually. Once you reach that point, you can't wait to hear what happens next.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

The performance was fine, in my opinion, seeing as how he didn't have much to work with at first.

Did Dead of Night inspire you to do anything?

Dead of Night isn't exactly inspirational. Unless of course you make sure you never, ever volunteer to buy a long lost relative on family property....

Come to think of it, that's a good idea.

Any additional comments?

The female lead was a guy with ovaries, but other than that, it wasn't half bad. Eventually you grow attached to the characters. The last few chapters are heart wrenching, and terrifying all at the same time.

Reasonable storyline & writing. TERRIBLE reading

Fairly run of the mill as zombie stories go, a bit more solid on the explanation side in terms of where the zombies come from and why -- but they're zombies, so they are what they are and any author that tries to backfill that story has his hands tied behind his back already.

The reading, however, is truly horrible. William Dufris should be prevented from ever doing another audio book interpretation. It's so over the top melodramatic as to be cloying -- as if he's reading the story to a pre-teen audience who have only ever seen Mexican soap operas before. The minute I started the book an realized this was the same terrible reader that totally ruined John Scalzi for me on Audible I cursed and almost shut off the player. I've suffered through the book because the story line isn't bad -- but the reading so terrible that I am frequently "outside" the story and focused on the bad reading instead of what's going on.

Ugh.

Great story, poor Narrator

I loved the story but the narrator was terrible at times. He kept getting carried away thinking he was Vincent Price... Muahahar.

Different but similar to Joe ledger

Having been through every single Joe ledger story i thought I'd try one of his others. Liked it very much, strong female lead this time instead but I think it's maberry's overall style i like as this was easily as good as any of the ledger novels. Well read and most importantly, a different voice.

dead of night

Jonathan Maberry is on his way to becomming a grandmaster of terror fiction. bloody awesome bloody awesome bloody awesome bloody awesome bloody awesome bloody awsome bloody awsome bloody awsome bloody awesome bloody awesome bloody awesome.

Don't Expect Shakespeare, But It's OK To Pass Time

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The plot sounded promising - a zombie outbreak. So much could be covered. But I felt that this book was very slow paced. And also, how many zombies do you need to see before you realize they're... uh... zombies? The writing style was also different to what I was used to. Having listened to a lot of Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan and so on, I was surprised at how different this was. I guess this was a little like getting a trashy novel out, ha ha! But I don't regret, it - I did listen to it all the way through.

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

I actually really liked the ending. That surprised me because I didn't really think I'd get to the end. But it kept my attention, and the ending actually made me think, 'I'd like to know what happens next'.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

I wasn't keen on the narrator but I did listen to the whole book, so I guess he can't have been that bad.