Narrator Battle: Zombie Edition

By: Nicholas Ryan

Narrated by: Sean Runnette, R.C. Bray

Length: 14 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Sean Runnette: voice of Zombie Fallout and Lycan Fallout.

R.C. Bray: voice of Arisen and Mountain Man.

Two award-winning zombie narrators go head to head! Each given one of Nicholas Ryan's highly praised zombie apocalypse standalone stories.

There can be only one survivor. Which narrator is the baddest and bloodiest?

1. Dead Rage

When Steve Bannon and the crew of the fishing boat, Mandrake, sailed into Grey Stone harbor, they arrived into the very jaws of a zombie war.

The zombie apocalypse has overtaken the coastal town, and Bannon must fight for his own survival in a horrific world filled with unimaginable peril and betrayal...at the highest, and the most personal levels.

Dead Rage is a white-knuckled ride into the frenzied terror of the zombie apocalypse, where friends become enemies and every step is a life-and-death struggle.

2. Die Trying

Trapped amidst the horror of the zombie apocalypse, three men hear the sound of a helicopter overhead and know it represents their last desperate hope to survive the terror and reach safety. But survival comes at a cost - and the zombie war that ravages the world is not the only lurking evil the men must face.

For Mitch Logan, his brother, Jed, and their friend, Clinton Harrigan, there is no choice. They must fight to survive...or die trying.

©2014 Nicholas Ryan (P)2015 Podium Publishing

Bray is the clear winner

If you could sum up Narrator Battle: Zombie Edition in three words, what would they be?

Good, Better, So-So

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Both the stories were decent for Z-A. I felt like Ryan was trying to find his footing in "Dead Rage". Almost too much with the graphic description of each corpse, it was like he was trying to find the genre. Once he got past that, things settled into a nice pace. "Die Trying" had a better flow to it, although still a little herky-jerky at times.

While I'm sure some people loved the whole romantic triangle twist in each story, it really didn't do it for me. And some of the twists were a little cliche. I like my Z-A stories to be simple tales of survival and overcoming the odds, and uncomplicated by the drama of a disappeared world.

That being said, they were still enjoyable and I don't regret spending the credit.

Have you listened to any of Sean Runnette and R.C. Bray ’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have not listened to Sean Runnette before but I will definitely look for his other performances.

As for R.C. Bray, I could listen to him read the encyclopedia.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

If I had a reaction to the book, it was frustration. I had trouble connecting to the characters at times and I thought some of the plots twists too blase.

Any additional comments?

Get it for the performances. I doubt I'll listen to it again.

Narrators Rise to the Occasion

Any additional comments?

This is the same tactic used when a studio puts a name actor in a so-so movie to increase it's box office. Both Runnette and Bray are excellent narrators. Without them I may not have purchased these books and I'm a fan of wild card zombie fiction. They both do a great job bringing these two mediocre books to life.

Overall Ryan is a good writer but under-researched. Especially in areas of civil defense and the military. In both books there are gaps in logic that could have been overcome if only he had spent a little more time thinking it through and researching the topics.

Dead Rage opens with an excellent sequence that follows a fishing boat back to port after losing touch with the shore. The characters are well developed and one thing that stands out about them is that none are likeable. Every single character in the book is a selfish ass and jerk. This isn't a bad thing and is one of the more interesting things about the narrative. Where the thing goes sideways is that we later find out that the Army has the region quarantined because of the zombie outbreak. But, for some reason only has limited resources so just a few helicopters and soldiers to hold back the growing undead hoard. What? Without giving away too much story this flaw dominoes into a series illogical strategic moves and leads to lots of 'red shirts' getting killed.

Die Trying follows the adventures of a bunch of guys who have hunkered down in a safe house to ride out a zombie apocalypse. They are pulled out of their hiding place when a helicopter crashes nearby and, for no particular reason, they decide they need to rush to the crash site. Good thing they do though because the surviving passengers give them a potential way to escape. If, that is, they can survive each other, the zombies and a few random side quests thrown in.

Take away - Runnette and Bray are great. Ryan spins words well but needs to think his character's tactics through a little more.

You cant compare these two narrators!

I enjoyed each of the stories. But you can't really compare these two awesome narrators. Sean Runnette is more mellow and R.C. Bray more urgent in their narrations. Both give the stories a different feel and both are good.

What a battle

love the idea of two of the best narrators going head to head
both stories were good very realistic story line

R. C. Bray all the way!

Storyline was excellent and R. C. Bray was fabulous as normal. Bray is such a good narrator in my opinion. If this was a cage match our Seabree would've TKO'ed Sean in The first 10 seconds. If Bray would have had his story first in the audiobook I wouldn't even have listen to Sean's past the portion that they get to the dock on the mainland.

Good Stories . . . Great Narrators

I love both of these narrators and I would be hard pressed to choose one over the other as far as talent. Characters were well developed and action packed story line.

Nice Job Mr. Ryan

Loved both books. I have read Ryan's work before but somehow missed these.
They didn't let me down.

its was a great experience

I'm a big fan of R.C Bray and now I'm a fan of Sean Runnette it was great to hear another voice that I haven't heard.

Bray si, Runnette no!

Sean Runnette continues to slice the "ham" with a meat cleaver. His narration is overblown and at times cringeworthy.

On the other hand R C Bray is top notch.

There's no battle R C Bray is in a league with George Guidall. And Mr. Runette is out of his depth.

Not heavy on zombie action but...

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

It is worth the credit if you don't have any thing else new to listen. Not sure who I would say the winner is if any....Sean Runnette to me at least IS Michael Talbot so listening to the first book was not easy because I kept expecting to hear BT this or Henry that. Just seemed weird to me that the story was not about Michael Talbot. (HUGE Shout out to Mark Tufo for forming my total ADDICTION to this genre). R. C. Bray did a nice job, and I will look for other books that he reads however the storyline in both books was rather boring and very predictable.

What other book might you compare Narrator Battle: Zombie Edition to and why?

Can't really compare to other books in the genre

Have you listened to any of Sean Runnette and R.C. Bray ’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Sean Runnette is always amazing...to me he IS Michael Talbot just as Ray Porter IS Joe Ledger in the Jonathan Maberry books and Mark Gagliardi IS Jack Walker in the John Obrien books.