Stephen Knight (2) (1940–)

My original These Dead Lands: Immolation audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

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 show more 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. show less

I think this was a very fun book, the way that he had the zombies shooting and driving cars was unique, something no one else has done.
The plot was very fun, had very little holes, lots of action, very little of the much hated drama. In the end, it was very fun, and I would read it again any day.

I don't really want to call it a short story because shorts do have an ending which this one doesn't. My fault for not looking closely enough in the first place to realize that this was not an entire novel, but rather a first installment of what will be a much longer piece. I already have part 2 so I will continue on; I just can say yet if I'll carry on all the way to the end.

It looks now that further parts of this series are not being given separate distinction from the overall title of show more 'The Last Town' since I've read parts 2 and 3 but don't find them listed on their own. I'm not a fan of serialization of novels ('The Green Mile' is one of my all time favorites but I waited until the parts were released as one novel) so I wish I had waited here as well. It's not bad or anything, and seems pretty typical of this author's work, so I'll stay with the 3 star rating for the 'series' overall. show less

Not Bad, definitely more to the world in the book I'd like to read about. Hope this isn't the only book in this world