Book Review – Z Chronicles: The Beginning by Anthony L White

I have virtually met a lot of people via social media over the past several years. Lately, it seems the virtual relationships have been developing into more of a friendship. If you look at the purpose behind the idea of social media, it is tracking with exactly how my life is going. As many of you know, I switched blogs from blogspot.com to wordpress.com and then was approached by one of my new found social media friends about a website hosting company that he was part of. I investigated and eventually switched to prepperhosting.com. 

It was through this switch that I met Anthony (Tony) L White. We had been discussing projects and different aspects of social media, prepping, blogs and books when he mentioned he was about to release his new book on Kindle. As I inquired more, I found out that it was around the premise of zombies. That peaked my interest real quickly.

Since I was a child, I have enjoyed zombie stories. From Romero’s black and white zombies to Brooks’ idea of telling the story via an “oral history”, I enjoyed the stories, movies, books and comics. I also enjoy reading and adventure so it was a no brainer when I offered to review a pre-release copy or “Review Copy” of Z Chronicles because I was able to have everything I wanted in a book. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy each aspect of adventure and story telling but when you add the zombies, well, I just get plain excited.

Z Chronicles starts out with Jack Burrows, part of a group of scientists on an expedition, trying to determine the cause of the zombie apocalypse. As the story progresses, the characters are not just thrown into the story; they are are built. What I mean by that is instead of just introducing a character like Lori, Jay or Virginia, who may or may not play a major role or may or may not die, Tony actually takes the time to build a story around each of the characters.

There are good authors who do this and do it well, I consider Anthony White to be one of those. This mean he has invested in the story and brings the reader closer to the individuals so that you feel what the character feels and you get excited or saddened depending on their mood or event that takes place within the story.

In some of the greatest books ever written, you, the reader, are sucked into the life of a character or characters and become totally invested in their life. If they die, you truly feel the pain as if it were a close friend. If they are on a journey, you scream with excitement when they are successful.

You may question what I just said and ask, “is this one of the greatest books ever written?”. That, my friends is where the word allegorical comes into play and every reader will have to decide for themselves. I will say this in regards to Z Chronicles, it was definitely worth my time to read it and definitely worth any money that you spend on this book.

To that I say, buy the book!

Just the facts:

• 89 pages
• Kindle edition: $2.99
• Paperback: $6.99 (soon to be released)
• Made it to Amazon’s #11 spot in its category in less than a week

The last thing I will add about Z Chronicles: The Beginning is, I am pretty good at figuring out story-lines, plots and where the author is going to take me. I can usually tell you within a few chapters the outcome or ending but I truly enjoy a book that will take me on a journey. In this book, because I couldn’t see the surprises that were coming, I was definitely kept guessing.

Great job Tony White! It was a pleasure to read and review a good zombie book.

Until then,

Use your instincts to survive