Book Review – Z Chronicles: Surge of the Dead by A.L. White

I have been focusing a lot on history and how-to type books lately. My book reviews have also become a little more scarce due to my busy schedule. Every now and then, I feel the need to put seriousness aside and indulge in a little guilty pleasure. Zombies!

Author A.L. White did a great job at his first attempt at writing with Z Chronicles: The Beginning (review here) and was happy to see him follow it up with another in the series. Z Chronicles: Surge of the Dead ties in nicely with the first book and picks up where we left off. Please keep in mind, they can also be read independently if one so desires.

Contains SPOILER to the first book:
The first in the series left off with Lori and Virginia and the lads trying to survive the Zombie Apocalypse while following the map given to them by Bob. Virginia is watching Lori’s story unfold and we are then taken down the rabbit hole that is the mind of A.L. White.

There has always been the notion of walking, or rather trudging, and meandering zombies versus those that run, but White has taken this to a whole new level. He has gone from a regular zombie, if there is such a thing, to zombie 2.0 and beyond. For the zombie “purist” this will simply not do, however after reading the book, I was overly pleased that I opened up my mind for this twist on normalcy.

Being a fan of Zombies since I was a child has led me to read many books, read comics, and watch many movies about Zombies. While some of them were unmistakably horrible and even somewhat cheesy, I can say without a doubt there are a handful of works that make me want to read or watch them again. Z Chronicles is an example of such in that I have read both of them twice and even gone as far as loaning them out to a couple of folks.

There are certain subject matters that I will sit and read in a book that is over 200 pages or watch in a movie longer than 90 minutes, while they are typically historical in nature, this is unfortunately where I draw the line on one zombie story. My attention is hard to keep after that period of time. This is only one of the reasons why I like Z Chronicles and specifically, Surge of the Dead.

While being less than 200 pages, my mind is not given much time to wander. Mr. White does a fantastic job of leading you along a path and surprising you with something you may not have seen coming. It amazes me at how the development of his characters play such a key role in an author’s ability to do this.

After reading the book and speaking to A.L. White, I mentioned that his writing had vastly improved from the first book. While I enjoyed The Beginning, it was still a little lacking. I have been able to walk through this process with him and know that he wrote, rewrote, scrapped everything, and then rewrote the second in the series before publishing. It undeniably shows in this work.

I was very happy to have been able to review this literary work and look forward to any more he has planned in the series. Even if he does not write another book about zombies, I think he has the talent to write on many other subjects.

Just the facts:

• 190 pages
• $2.99 for Amazon Kindle
• $0.00 for Kindle Unlimited

I hope you enjoy the book(s) as much as I have.

Until then,

Use your instincts to survive