Mike Keleman

The blurb for this series says...

"The ‘Zombie Chronicles’ universe, where the zombies don’t stay mindless, shambling adversaries. Instead they grow smarter, faster and stronger as they feed on the flesh of the living."

...and to that statement I would add, "And where zombie-fighting humans begin to suspect that they, too, are changing as they struggle to survive in this bleak world."

Author Mark Clodi distinguished The Zombie Chronicles by coming up with the very novel idea that Romero-type zombies could learn and grow as they feed. The human survivors in the Zombie Chronicles world therefore have to content with both types of zombies as they try to survive.

The first three Zombie Chronicles books center upon Max, his best friend Bill, a cop Jane Steward, and a great supporting cast of minor characters -- both human and zombie. Interesting questions are raised: Can a thinking zombie still care about humanity? Could zombie and human work together to overcome the common evil? What qualifies as humanity? There are some grammatical mistakes in the series, particularly in the first book, but for me those faded in significance as I was caught up in the unique "smart zombies" premise, the multidimensional characters (it was particularly interesting to see the world through the eyes of the smart zombies), and the action as Max and friends try to stay alive.

In book one, Outbreak, Max meets his first zombie at the office, and fights his way home to his family.… (mehr)

When I first started reading this e-book, I really did not think I would finish it. The story resembled something written for young teens, the characters flat, the story rushed. Luckily I was bored and had nothing else to read so i stuck with it. Once they got out of the building the character's personalities grew as did the story. It bloomed out dragging you along by introducing a new form of "smart" zombies but kept the "shamblers". The "Smart" zombies kept their thoughts and personality from before they were changed, grew smarter, could talk and became stronger the more they fed, and the "shamblers" were just your traditional stupid, non talking "brainnnnnns" type. Even though i am a die hard "brainnnnns" fan, I liked the new smart zombies. I liked how it showed the story from the zombies point of view. It was more of "evolution" than a "invasion" of zombies. Its about time zombies became as smart as vampires and take their place as something that could form its own society to feed off the weaker humans. Its soooo nice to see them as something other than a monster to just fear and bash their heads in. I can see great possibilities for the story to grow out to a new world order type thing where the zombies become the dominate species and humans battle for a spot to live and not be food.

The typos and mis-labeled/named characters were distracting and confusing. There is a part where Nancy is slapping Jimbo and it says Fred. I had to read that section several times to understand it. And then there is a chapter that ends with just the end half a sentence hanging. It makes you wonder what you missed.

Over all for the price I paid to read the story, it was totally worth it. I am intrigued and off to buy the others by Mark Clodi. I totally recommend it as a read, just take the errors with a smile, no one is perfect.… (mehr)