Every once in a while I love to immerse myself in the literary equivalent of B-movie cheese. Something like say, The Rats by James Herbert or The Night of the Crabs by Guy N. Smith. This book definitely qualifies!

What started out as a nostalgic trip to the video game arcade of my youth turned into something else completely-a creature feature in the highest order of fun! We have a group of kids, mostly good, one bad. We've got a couple of nerdy adults, (still hanging out at the arcade), and a sweetheart of an employee-the stroke ridden Boden. (A shout out to John Boden of Shock Totem, I assume.) Then Cesare locks them all up in the arcade, (and that arcade gate coming down-whew that was something else!), sprinkles in some weird electrical and biological mojo, shakes it all up and voila! Pure, unadulterated F U N.

If you're in that mood, and you KNOW that mood I'm talking about, where this novella sounds like just what you need right now? You need to snap this one up and spend a little time in the arcade. But beware, even Ms. Pacman can't protect you in here-you have Zero Lives Remaining!

Highly recommended for fans of creature features and B movie cheese!

*I was provided an e-ARC of this novella in exchange for an honest review. This is it.* ( )

The arcade is more than a kids’ favorite place to hang out. Legends are made in the arcade as the gamers compete for the highest score, the special items, and the secret levels. But this day will be different. Legends will die. Robby Asaro’s physical body passed away some years ago, but his consciousness continued on in his favorite arcade. Now an ill-timed act of bullying will trigger a deadly rage in Robby. This time, the body count is real.

This was a wickedly fun story! I know I shouldn’t have enjoyed it so much but I did. What gamer hasn’t fantasized about living in an arcade? Centipede and Ms. Pac-Man! There was definitely some nostalgia for me in this story.

There are few girls in the arcade and Tiffany Park has caught Robby’s eyes… attention. Unfortunately, she’s also caught the attention of the bully Chris Murphy. I really do like how the author portrayed the bully. He’s a messed up kid who’s looking for attention but he’s going about it the wrong way. We get little snippets of what’s going on in his head. I actually found myself hoping he would verbally express his loneliness and that Tiffany would sigh, tell him he had a jerk way of expressing it, and the two would have a friendly Galaga competition.

But this isn’t one of those books. This is a horror flick and it’s a good one. I was surprised how quickly the body count climbed as Robby’s spirit spiraled out of control. Tiffany has to use her wits to make it out of the building but there was no guarantee that would be enough. Her ally in these attempts was the maintenance man, Dan, who had lovingly tended to the arcade games all these years. They have to outwit and out-maneuver this now-malevolent spirit that has taken on the knowledge and attributed of each character it knocks out.

It was a great ride. I really enjoyed this tale. It had some surprising twists and the insight into Chris’s character put it over the top for me. While this is a short tale, I did get attached to some of the characters, Tiffany and Dan especially. I enjoyed the little surprises and the initial nostalgia of the arcade.

I received a free copy of this book.

The Narration: Joe Hempel did a magnificent job with this one. I’ve enjoyed several other books he has narrated and he didn’t disappoint with his performance here. One of the characters has a partially paralyzed face and Hempel brought that to life with his performance. He can bounce between angry jerk-face teen to Robby’s spirit to this partially paralyzed character with ease. ( )

Zero Lives Remaining begins in 1989 and the prologue sets the stage for what would happen down the road.

"In the minutes before the horrific accident that would end his unspectacular life, Robby Asaro was engaged in one of his favorite activities. He as making a pizza."

Twenty-five years later, Robby is still hanging around the arcade of the bowling alley/pizza joint where he met his fate. He just doesn't have a body he can call his own.

Zero Lives Remaining is a bit like a slasher movie where the villain is disembodied ectoplasm and features an ending that is damn near perfect.

Having spent many an hour plugging quarters into Ms. Pac-Man and dozens of other classic games, it was easy to find myself hanging with the denizens of this after school and weekend haunt, even if the actual events did require a certain suspension of disbelieve.

Zero Lives Remaining is available in e-book, paperback, and audible formats from Shock Totem Publications. If you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited you can read this one at no additional charge and if you are an Amazon Prime member you can borrow the book for FREE from the Kindle Owners Lending Library.

Recommended for all the fun of a few hours in a gaming arcade...only with your life on the line.

Adam Cesare is a New Yorker who lives in Philadelphia. He studied English and Film at Boston University. His books include Video Night, The Summer Job, Tribesman, Exponential, and Mercy House. ( )

My original Zero Lives Remaining audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

At little more than 2 1/2 hours, Zero Lives Remaining is a fun, punchy listen chock full of B-movie horror thrills.

Adam Cesare’s latest plays with the haunted house trope, placing a group of teenagers in an arcade where a ghost haunts the video game cabinets and everyone’s lives are in danger. The ghost in the machine runs rampant along the arcade’s electrical wiring, snaring its victims in ectoplasmic tendrils and dispatching the trapped teens one by one. Given its short run-time, the focus here is on the action with the characters only subtly shaded in but not deeply enough to get too attached to. There’s the teenage gaming queen, the schoolyard bully who isn’t quite sure how to express his affection for her, the arcade’s maintenance man who suffered a stroke that ended his gaming hobby but whose work allows him to still feel connected, and a handful of others that serve largely as bloody fodder.

There’s a fun superficiality to the nostalgia-driven proceedings (Centipede and Ms. Pac-Man get plenty of shout-outs), but I never felt terribly connected to the cast even as many of them met their gruesome fates in varied and interesting ways. The creators of Mortal Kombat may want to get Cesare on the line for “fatality” suggestions, as he presents some strong finishing moves against his beleaguered teens. I may never look at a claw arcade game quite the same way again.

Joe Hempel’s narration is solid, and he gives his character voices are distinct enough to help separate dialogue during all the calamity. He has a straight-forward, somewhat airy, presentation style that brings a sense of fun and whimsy to the listening experience, and the production quality is perfect.

Ultimately, Zero Lives Remaining is an enjoyable way to kill a couple hours if you’re in the mood for bloody mayhem set against the intriguing background of a video game arcade palace.

Audiobook was provided for review by the narrator. ( )