Better than I expected it to be.

What made the experience of listening to Time of Death: Induction (A Zombie Tale) the most enjoyable?

I liked most of the characters in the book, and the humour at times made me laugh out loud. The action scenes were good, though at times I did question how likely they would be to happen like that in reality. Still, they kept a good pace to the book.

Would you recommend Time of Death: Induction (A Zombie Tale) to your friends? Why or why not?

It is a good enough beginning. I've certainly seen far worse tales in this sub-genre of horror. Is it the best out there? No, but good enough that it's worth reading if you like this brand of horror.

What does Sarah Tancer bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

Nothing. A narrator can only make an experience worse than reading in my opinion by grating against how you see the story yourself. Not the case here. She voiced the story well in both narrative and dialogue. Her character voices were done well enough too.

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

It isn't overly long, so certainly can be done in one or two sittings without it being boring.

Any additional comments?

My only major issues with this book were two-fold. Firstly I found that men seemed to cry way to often. Happens a lot in books written by women, and I can only assume they know the few men in the world that cry a lot or like to assume that men cry as much as women do. We don't. Sure, with grief or similar I'll buy it, but not over some of the stuff men cried over in this book. Or many American men cry a lot - I don't know.

Secondly, I felt that some of the action scenes were not that likely to happen. I don't believe that one infected person could take down several hundred survivors when most are military. First screams and gun shots and that outbreak would be over. First days of an outbreak and civilians then sure okay, but otherwise I'm not a believer. Likewise with another scene that had similar happen. Small groups of infected taking down armed camps of tried and tested survivors is not that likely. People would not die quietly enough for it to happen. Have you ever been bitten?

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Time of Death Induction

The narration of this Audible edition is excellent - I've both read and listened to ToD now, and largely prefer the Audible edition, primarily because the narrator absolutely nails Emma's characterisation.

I tried desperately to find a flaw in this book. Really, I did. Not so I could be nit-picky in my review, but so I could turn around and give a reason, any reason, for me to not say “I wish I’d written it”.

don’t waste time – pick up your copy now

This is the book many post-apoc authors wish they’d written.
Keep in mind, folks, this is a debut novel.

Author Shana Festa is well known in the horror circuit for her excellent work on the Bookie Monster, as well as blogging and being a good egg in general. Given the amount she reads, it’s perhaps not surprising that she’d be able to turn her hand to the written word, and to zombie fiction in particular.

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of strong female lead characters. Forgive me, then, for being predisposed towards Emma, Time of Death’s protagonist and all-round buttock-thwacker.

She is a refreshing lead in a genre where the trope is for women to be weak, mere bit-part players in an alpha male hip-thrusting competition to zombie glory. Don’t get me wrong; Emma has her weak moments. This makes her more real to the imagination, and makes her eminently more readable than a battle-hardened post-Middle East war veteran that just happens to be on home soil when the world explodes. Emma cries (a lot) and relies heavily on her husband Jake for mental and physical stability. But where a man is lacking, her pet dog Daphne steps up to the mark (and God help anyone that tries to hurt the dog).

The story in ToD flows well. We’re straight in to the action (well, right after a Code Brown, which made me want to bring up a little bit of dinner). Festa’s prose is second to none. There is a lot less dialogue in this book than I see in many books of zombie fiction. This is perhaps accurate; who’s going to want to gossip when the world ends. She also avoids needless filler; where there needs to be a passage of time, it is there. We don’t get a fortnight of laundry and horizon-spotting.

The gore is there – in spades. It’s close to the bone, and more than once I had to close my eyes to shake off the pictures being put in to my brain. There is skill in the action crafted in ToD and I didn’t want to put this book down. It has a neat balance between civilian and military conflict, and I wasn’t overloaded with military jargon, which I feel happens in some similar books. I read it in two swift sittings, though the book perhaps deserves more time and effort – so I got it on Audible, too.

Well worth the buy and read AND a listen – consider me a fan.

I can’t wait to see where Emma and her group head to next.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!