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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780978970734
ISBN: 097897073X
Label: Permuted Press
Manufacturer: Permuted Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 216
Publication Date: April 01, 2007
Publisher: Permuted Press
Studio: Permuted Press
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Jonah Caine, a lone survivor in a zombie-infested world, struggles to understand the apocalypse in which he lives. Unable to find a moral or sane reason for the horror that surrounds him, he is overwhelmed by violence and insignificance.
After wandering for months, Jonah's lonely existence dramatically changes when he discovers a group of survivors. Living in a museum-turned-compound, they are led jointly by Jack, an ever-practical and efficient military man, and Milton, a mysterious, quizzical prophet who holds a strange power over the dead. Both leaders share Jonah's anguish over the brutality of their world, as well as his hope for its beauty. Together with others, they build a community that reestablishes an island of order and humanity surrounded by relentless ghouls.
But this newfound peace is short-lived, as Jonah and his band of refugees clash with another group of survivors who remind them that the undead are not the only--nor the most grotesque--horrors they must face.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
Dying to Live is more introspective than most zombie novels since the protagonist is a college professor. Most of the plot is standard zombie survival horror, but there are enough twists to give the book is own unique flavor. The protagonist being a professor is one such. The backstories of characters as they emerge are varied and well thought out.
I'm on the fence as far as whether having Milton, the survivor group's spiritual leader, infected with a variant of the zombie virus which keeps him alive and able to make zombies avoid him is a good thing or bad thing. On the one hand, it is an interesting plot device in its own right. On the other, it does make him into a deus ex machina in some situations. Its also still not entirely clear why the survivor group wouldn't have made more use of him - why risk others' lives when you can either send out the zombie-proof guy or at least bring him along as a sort of immunity idol.
Nothing remarkable here, but a good read.
Rating:  -
But it wasn't. I thought the descriptions where terrible and vague. Also I thought the story was incredibly predictable. The characters where one dimensional and stereotypical ESPECIALLY the prisoners. Every character was extremely predictable, It seems like you got a description of the person when the protagonist first met them and than that was the complete structure on how they act for the rest of the book. There were no surprises.
Now, the thing that bugged me the absolute most in the book, the opaqueness of the literary references. I would see them and think "man that is really obvious on who exactly he means, the only way he could make it more obvious is if he actually spelled out what he was refer.....oh wait, he just did. I mean c'mon, half the book is written to make the references more obvious and then he spends even more time telling you what you already gathered. It may seem harsh but I got the feeling that the author thought I (the reader) was stupid.
This book seemed very dumbed down and basic.
Rating:  -
I've been interested in the zombie genre for awhile, and was looking for something thoughtful and well written as my second choice to read in the genre ("World War Z" being the first, and quite good).
I read the various comments about this novel being more philosophical, and showing more of the nature of humanity, as juxtaposed with zombies.
Right from the beginning, it felt obvious that the writer wasn't going to create any truly deep philosophical arguments, as most of the 'good vs evil' in how people behaved in the aftermath of the outbreak was very superficial. Perhaps the most interesting element in this regard was the main character's treatment of those zombies that he killed, when he was able to. I couldn't help but feel that this element was sadly under-explored, primarily due to it occurring in a large city where the chance of running across a friend/coworker/etc who'd been 'turned' was pretty minimal.
There was also an apparent attempt to bring religion into it which felt half baked and rushed at the end (more on this below).
Also near the end was the obligatory "Humanity is capable of far more evil than the zombies are..." Well, yeah... zombies are mindless.. there's no evil intent behind their actions. This 'commentary on humanity' was hardly thought provoking, merely obvious.
Ok, so the philosophical elements that seem to be the draw behind the book were lacking, as far as I was concerned. What about the overall story and writing?
The first half was actually average to good. It started very along the lines of "I Am Legend", until the main character found a community that had managed to eke out an existence. Generally this section was decently, if not spectacularly, written, and the gore and interesting back stories that would be expected in such a novel didn't disappoint. There was one interesting character that seemed to provide a potential way to 'defeat' the zombies, but the community seemed to completely ignore the obvious things that might be done to explore this a bit more fully (I'll refrain from describing my thoughts here to avoid spoiling the character).
Where the story fell apart and almost earned a 1 star rating from me, was the second half where the main characters discover another group of survivors. Here's where the 'humanity can be more evil than zombies' element comes into play. Yup, really bad things are perpetrated on the characters by other humans. Compared to the rest of the novel, this section is poorly edited (misspelled words and badly written sentences). Worse are a couple of almost laughable moments of 'philosophy'. One example is when a character is about to bash in the head of the most evil character in the book.. in between rearing back to swing and when he actually does, there's a paragraph or two about how he tries to decide how he feels about doing so, and once he realizes how he feels, how he feels about how he feels. There are also some giant holes in logic in this section that are poorly and hastily explained after the fact.
Now.. from a zombie novel, I don't expect the same level of writing as I do from the better fantasy I read, but this novel delivered less than expected, especially when compared to such novels as "World War Z".
Rating: -
I hadn't read any post-apocalyptic zombie novels, but I wanted to start. I picked up this title due to the recommendations of many friends (of course Amazon reviews didn't hurt).
The story is great, the characters are reasonably fleshed out considering how short the book is.
I didn't know what I was in store for going in but the story isn't all doom and gloom, and I can appreciate that.
For anyone wanting to get into the genre I think this book is a good choice, I know it was for me.
Rating: -
I'm a huge post-apocalyptic zombie-invasion fan so at first I was excited to get this book. The first half was pretty interesting but the second half was a huge letdown. SPOILER: When the prison and its inhabitants were introduced, the author really dropped the ball. All the prisoners were depicted as nothing but inhumane brutes (complete with a feast scene where wine dribbled wastefully down their chins...something you'd only expect out of a straight-to-DVD B-movie). As a previous reviewer mentioned, it really killed any remaining hope in this book.
Bottom line: the characters were all one-dimensional and there was no character development worth mentioning of any sort. It was a valiant try but this book goes down in my library of post-apocalypse/zombie-invasion as an epic fail.
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