These Dead Lands: Immolation

By: Stephen Knight, Scott Wolf

Narrated by: R.C. Bray

Length: 15 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's Summary

The United States of America is falling before the armies of the dead. Leading the sole survivors of the US Army's 10th Mountain Division out of the overrun city of New York, Captain Phil Hastings heads for the safety of Fort Indiantown Gap, a National Guard training facility deep in the woodlands of Pennsylvania.

Joining with other remnants of the military, government, and civilian communities, Hastings and his men must try to keep the tsunami of corpses from taking over the world and plan the resurrection of the nation.

But first, they have to outlast the ravages of the dead...and the living.

©2015 Immolation LLC (P)2017 Immolation LLC

An "Arisen-ish" great listen, keep em coming!

What did you love best about These Dead Lands: Immolation?

The story started and progressed without unnecessary filler or character development. This is a fast pace, realistic and well developed listen with likeable and understandable characters who band together to defend against realistic (as flesh eating zombies can be) living and dead bad guys. In most stories I've listened to with over armed military survivors (except Arisen) there has always been over eager bad character/s who want to rule the world. This story has an over armed group of hard core military members who want to protect survivors without exception, or demands, even though I found myself wanting some survivors run over, beaten or eaten.This is an incredible beginning to what can be an outstanding series, please keep going, I am a fan!

What does R.C. Bray bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

R. C. Bray is hands down the BEST at what he does. He could narrate paint drying and I would listen for hours. The only problem with his work is I do not want to listen to anyone else.

more than a shoot-em-up/eat-them zombie book

These Dead Lands: Immolation by Stephen Knight and Scott Wolf is a definite must-read for those who love the zombie genre.  But it’s so much more than that!  The authors bring in the humanity piece in a vivid and realistic manner.  Ballentine is a soldier who discovers his family has survived and does anything and everything to protect them once they are back in his world.  But in the midst of all his angst and fears, he still has a job to do as do the others.

The main characters are complex but personable; Ballentine, Guerra and Hastings never forget their mission or their humanity.  The others: Diana, the Asian stripper/call girl, Kenny the autistic orphan, and Devil Dog an ex-military old guy add more flare to the story engaging the audience.

I enjoyed the new ways in which Knight and Wolf describe fighting the zombies or "reekers" – makes me want to move next to a lumber mill!  The book was detailed a bit on the military weapons but I didn’t think it was overly so.  I will say, that Knight and Wolf do not go into great detail about some of the action scenes; for instance, what happens to the group of men they track down for their actions against Kenny … that was just missing.  I went back and listened to that passage two times before I realized I hadn’t missed it – they just hadn’t detailed it.  Neither good nor bad, but I think a better transition would have made it easier to follow.

Overall I enjoyed the book, I thought it was written in down to earth language; I never struggled with any of the terms.    This was more than a shoot-em-up/eat-them zombie book.  I appreciated the inner glimpses into humanity.  The bad guys didn’t get away with anything!

R.C. Bray, as usual, provided an excellent performance!  He owned the book using his “military” type voice that has a strength to it that is both riveting and mesmerizing.  His ability to assume different accents is amazing and well done.

There were no issues with the quality or audio production of this book.

Audiobook was purchased for review by ABR.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog.

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From one 10th Mountain guy to another...

This was one of the most enjoyable audio books I've ever listened too. I was attached to the 10th Mountain Division while in the NY Army National Guard and the banter, camaraderie, and humor was spot on. Some reviewers are getting down on the way some of the characters were written but that's because they were never in and don't understand that the depicted humor is out of love and respect, not malice. Watch out for the yogurt joke near the end, you may crash your car! I can't wait for the next book!

Good bones;conservative misogyny kills the fantasy

Good concept and well narrated. Author knows about military and tactics - so assuming a veteran, in which case - TYFYS. That said, a story should allow you to get lost in it. In this case, the authors' personal biases serve only to jolt you out of the fantasy and that's bad.

Women are mostly reduced to a stripper prostitute with big breasts, a demure wife and a one that is raped and left for dead. Rarely, you will be introduced to other women who make short and unmemorable appearances. The authors' go so far as to call women a "sex muscle".

They don't help matters by constantly referring to Diana as "asian" and giving her so little depth that you care little about her or what happens to her. This "asian" thing goes off the rails when the soldiers complain about a restaurant being shut down by liberals because it's official name is "Chink's" Seriously - no one is naming a restaurant that and both liberals and conservatives should be offended that the authors' thought this funny and interesting enough to add as an element of their story. Lastly, the constant bashing of liberals and California - references to "liberal bullSh$t" only further serve to alienate half the potential reader base and do nothing to help the story which means it ends up hurting the story.

Would love to continue the story, but this constant and jarring reality hits make it more of a troublesome chore than it is worth, and so, I will be moving on despite being interested in the outcome. I would encourage the authors to spend more time on character development (men and women) and making strong characters of both sexes along with back stories that make us care about them. Stop focusing on women as sex objects and throwing in unnecessary racist references. This will help fill in the space between the well thought out and well described battle scenes and make this a book and story-line worth spending money on.

I enjoy RC Bray as a narrator and he is the saving grace on this flawed audio book.

Wow awesome book

So, my first thought: this story is very similar to the Arisen series by Michael Stephen Fuchs, but with a couple of key differences. 1. This zombie story takes place all in the US. 2. The military character personalities are very realistic and RC Bray does a FANTASTIC job of bringing them to life in a very realistic way. Either one of the authors is prior military or they did extension research and/or had access to some military personnel for reference. There were only a couple of things that bugged me about the overall writing of the book: the formality of radio communication was a little too formal, but towards the very end it did significantly improve. Another thing was that general military assets were not brought up that would certainly be brought up in real life... such as: status of NORAD, ability to use heavier aviation munitions (such as bombs). I mean the authors clearly covered the continuity of government and the succession of POTUS... so why not even mention the status of NORAD and the nuclear assets. The topic could have been brought up as a cliff hanger type deal.... but I digress. Fantastic book nonetheless. I sincerely hope that book 2 is not far in the future.

Missing a section.

It seems the audiobook is missing a section between chapters 10 and 11. One second they are rolling up on the bad guys and the next they are holed up in some farm house. Everything else is fantastic; story (except for the missing part), narration, etc.

Not Over The Top

Enjoyed the family element to this story. Its not an over the top story line as in Arisen or Extinction yet still a nice straight forward approach to the military response break down and rebound to the ZA

very much a military theme

This was very much a military themed zombie book. it was good with lots of gun information and military jargon. The characters were very believable as being Army members. I didn't like the down play of the National Guard The book plays on the old National Guard with the weekend warrior thought process. The current National Guard is a patriotic, citizens first, highly trained trained fighting force. Overall I enjoyed the book.

excellent storyline... fun listen

book picks up with action, easy listen and get background thur out story. you get to know each main character.
good deal for 3 book for 1

next 2 are out at full price...?

freaking awesome

the book was great top notch on the level with the arisen series loved it

Great start.

This book is the first entry into a series that I can see becoming a big hit! I'm a sucker for military/zombie sci-fi and this book has everything you would expect from the genre. There's fun loving grunts, a mysterious virus that turns people into zombies (yet to be explained), a few bad ass leaders and people from almost every branch of the U.S. military! (which is awesome but it's missing an unflappable SAS guy because everyone loves a brit) but I digress, all in all this series has the potential to be a vast lore filled world. I can't wait to see where the authors take it.

Boring

I like the genre and have listened to many books. RC makes it just about worth a listen but the story is sooo slow and boring. Not for me I'm afraid returning this one. Arisen series is far better IMHO.

Brilliant new series

Had this one for a while finally got round to listening to it. It’s brilliant. I like how it makes fighting the dead hard some books make it seem easy and mundane you get a real feel for a hard battle thought and lost a lot of the time

great story

I really hope there will be another 5 books to read in this series and that they were ready for us to read now. I will look forward to reading more whenever.

Awesome

Loved it! R C Bray is outstanding, I was hooked in from the beginning. Can't wait for the next audio book in the series.

RC bray makes anything listenable

The story is fine but nothing special, the role of women is pretty tedious and the treatment of us liberals is also a little needless but over all of you like military zombie fiction, which I do, you'll probably enjoy this.

Another great Zombie apocalypse book

I've read a few Zombie apocalypse books now and this one ranks amongst the best one out there, namely the Arisen series. I can see a good series starting and look forward to the next installation. RC bray, as usual (and I'm always repeating this) was amazing and made the book come alive.
To the authors, lay off Stilly!! The guy really gets his fair share of stick! :)
I'm looking forward to the next book, make sure you stick with RC bray reading it!

“No one said the zombie apocalypse was going to be easy”

Brilliant, on the edge of your seat zombie action. Great characters that really play off each other well and fantastic storyline with epic battle scenes.
Feels like a ‘it could actually be this way’ story rather than some of the obviously fictional storylines and I couldn’t put it down.
RC Bray is a legend amongst narrators and he does no less brilliantly narrating this book.
I could listen to this story all day and never get bored. I’m looking forward to hearing more from these pair! :)
This is my honest opinion on a free review copy.

zombies.

loved it, does what it says on the tin. simple as that. Zombies and soldiers and the end of the world. Great fun book. I recommend it.

Interesting in parts, with some flaws

This is a hard one to call. There were quite a few aspects that I found quite enjoyable, but many I did not.

The Pros:

Narrated by RC Bray
The military is not all made up of 'perfect' super soldiers. This makes a nice change from the military zombie genre generally, ('Arisen' series, anyone?)
There is some character development, (not much, but some).
The action sequences are quite exciting.
The story is relatively well written.

The Cons:

The homophobia, racism, misogyny and extreme right wing attitudes are hard to stomach, as is the use of language such as 're**rd'. There were several points when I almost stopped listening and returned the book because of any/all of the above.
Aspects of the story are ridiculous. For example, that no one at the base had done anything meaningful to protect against zombies before Hastings' arrival isn't that unrealistic, but that the top brass would then give him carte blanche, gratefully handing everything over to the one man who can solve all their problems, is ridiculous!
Most of the novel is given over to the preparations for the defence of the base, (which is done for no really good reason).
The interlude with the Amish didn't serve any useful purpose.
The portrayal of the two women is so stereotypical as to be laughable, (if it wasn't so sad). Kay, the dependant '1950s housewife' and Diana the stripper, (who, gosh, who would have thought it, turns out to have a heart), are little more than caricatures.


It's coming to something when a novel manages to make the 'Arisen' series seem politically correct by comparison, but this one somehow manages it.

In terms of quality and enjoyment, there's the 'Mountain Man' series, then 'Arisen', and then, way, way, way down, is this!

Despite all of the above, however, I still somehow, weirdly, sort of want to know what happens next. I might, (I say 'might'), listen to the next one if and when it's available on Audible.