Glynn James

This fourteen book series is thrill, after gut-punching thrill, and provided me with over one-hundred-thirty-four hours of listening pleasure. I laughed, cried and had several "Heck Yeah," moments. Most of the characters are explained in-depthly, offering a flashback into their flaws and their warped perspectives, as the zombies evolve and eat up the world. But I really do get sick of Anglo-Saxon authors describing Africa and other countries in less than flattering terms, despite the fact show more that it has been Europeans who ruined most of these locations. I mean, if you're going to call a country and all it's people bad names, at least acknowledge how they got that way - I digress!

The story begins a few years into the apocalypse, thus, we are thrown into the action of tier-one, special-ops, trying, and often failing to carry out a series of last-ditch efforts to save the last pocket of humanity, even as that slice of civilization is being gobbled-up, by a new breed of dead-heads that can think, and possess super-human abilities.

I appreciate the consistency of all the books being narrated by the same gentleman, with his soothing, animated voice (I hate when publishers switch narrators, mid-series). I would have liked more books that dive into the rebuilding process, but I am more than satisfied with the kindness of the author, of not leaving us hanging, and wondering how things turned out, as he took us all the way to the end of the fight for their very existence...SMILE!!!

PS:
If you dig strong females, you will love this series! show less

This is a genre overflowing with books, new books published daily. This collection of 7 different zombie books and writers in one book piqued my interest and I decided to take a chance. Unfortunately, there is no summary available for any of the books in the package which caused me to start reading a title that I had absolutely no idea of what to expect. As it were, if the first couple chapters didn't grab my attention or interest I moved on to the next story in the collection. Some show more reviewers offered rave reviews to certain books and admit they had clumsy or slow starts...unfortunately, these were books that didn't grab me from the start and I never finished them. I did find four of the stories enjoyable: Affliction Z, Earthfall, Contamination Prequal and Slow Burn, which all deserve 4 and 5 star ratings. Their stories are much different from the majority of books in the genre...there is an apocalypse, of course, but the survivors and victims are much different The price of the entire collection is a pittance to what you might spend to purchase them individually - this book is guaranteed to keep your attention for several hours or more. A couple of those books I finished are book-one of a series - I do plan on adding them to my collection. Thank you for the opportunity to read through this collection. Highly recommended!

John Podlaski, author
Cherries - A Vietnam War Novel show less

I know what you are thinking: I have only myself to blame. I mean, I'm reading a zombie book that's a step up from self-published. What was I thinking? Do you really want to know? Really?

I was thinking about urgent care, and the record numbers of people in October trying to be seen for upper respiratory infections.

I was thinking about my upcoming beach vacation, cancelled because my dad has to be hospitalized for a couple of days and then undergo a medical procedure.

I was thinking about, in show more current pop psychology parlance, my attachment-avoidant relationship with humanity.

I might have even been thinking about upcoming elections. Not because I want to, but because the ads are effing unavoidable.
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Given my over-full brain, I really wanted something cathartic. Enter zombies. You get to kill off a whole bunch of humanity in satisfyingly horrible but clearly impossible ways (as opposed to real life ways that one does get to witness in an emergency room) and then focus on the efforts of a few to survive both at an individual level and to pull together the splinters of humanity. It's fucking amazing, really; stripping us down to our most basic function: can we work together enough to survive?

Alas, this entry in the genre, a collaboration between one writer that specializes in military-focused stories and another that specializes in post-apocalyptic something-or-another, was a disappointment. I enjoyed the idea of elite, multi-specialty military teams doing targeted missions to recover whatever data there was on vaccines/cures from various companies--this is a premise that actually makes some sense--but the actual storytelling felt awkward. The premise is great--that elite special forces have training to survive in terrible situations:

"But military personnel, especially special operations guys, had been operating in catastrophic vacuums of order and structure for most of their careers. Think Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq during its civil war. Being able to be effective in such wretched, menacing places was much of what it meant to be a special operator. Homer supposed the end of civilization really just supercharged what had always been the main human problem – working together to survive. The civilians had been shielded from that for a long time."

But authorial skill limited the development of such a great concept. As we jumped from one character to another, it started to feel a little 'samesies.' Like each person was just a military dude that gave up a personal life to become an elite. It made for some awkward info-dumping that allowed the author to show-up knowledge about elite military divisions but not so much about personality traits. There is a token woman, and interestingly, what we learn is that she is having sex with someone and the rest of the guys speculate who. There's also a Muslim who is, of course, very religious and will say last rites, etc (because to be Muslim is to be religious?). There's a couple of guys that are huge and like to intimidate other men through their size. And that's about all I remember of the special ops team. There's a couple more 'ordinary' military people who get pulled into meeting the special team, for reasons that are clearly silly.

The authors used an underused resource in apocalypse fiction, that of a enormous Navy carrier, built to stay at sea for months. This had the most interesting potential, particularly when they started to get into the Doomsday cult or mentality that develops after extended time at sea. Possibly this would continue and be further developed in the next book. This section hinted at issues raised in [b:The Last Policeman|13330370|The Last Policeman (The Last Policeman, #1)|Ben H. Winters|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1344370646l/13330370._SY75_.jpg|18538006], which I hadn't seen before in a zombie apocalypse. I am curious as to that potential.

As one might expect, the book ends as they head into a life-or-death--most likely death--mission. Overall, the unique military focus wasn't enough to overcome the problems in story-telling flow and lack of character development. show less

This book for me was the most subtle of the three I've just read in terms of strange events/paranormal, but I found it heartbreaking. The tale of a man's life, and the regrets he has for what he missed were extremely poignant. There's a lot going on in this book that I can't describe for fear of spoilers, but I loved the tie-in references to the other Displaced books I've read - something about that just feeds my inner geek - but of all the characters Glynn James has written this one really show more resonated for me. I think Reg Weldon will haunt me for a little while. show less