Lee Emerick

Told through alternating present day and flashbacks, Survival After the Zombie Apocalypse is the story of Konnor, who, 20 years after the zombapocalypse, is living in relative peace one of the last strongholds of humanity. However things are about to take a sinister turn when the water purifier buried deep beneath the ground in a former government military bunker breaks down, threatening to spread the zombie virus through the survivor community.

Although Harri from 20 Years After the Zombie Apocalypse is briefly mentioned, this book also functions as a stand-alone. The story of Konnor is barely touched upon in 20 Years After the Zombie Apocalypse and equally in Survival After the Zombie Apocalypse, Harri plays a very minor part.

Survival After the Zombie Apocalypse is non-stop action and packs a lot of punch in a very short space of time (140 pages on my Sony reader), and the tension is high during the present day scenes, but I found the flashbacks to be most interesting - learning about how Konnor made it through the zombapocalypse and met up with the band of survivors he now lives with.

One problem I did have with this book was the stilted dialogue. Particularly noticeable in the beginning, characters speak very formally, using full words such as I will instead of I’ll and we will instead of we’ll – which didn’t exactly sit right with me, particularly during scenes where the survivors are being hunted by the undead - I definitely would have been speaking in contractions with zombie teeth snapping at my ankles!

Otherwise this is a good zombie tale – the underground scenes are very creepy and there is an interesting science-y (yeah, that’s my word, OK?!) explanation for the virus which also ends the book nicely.… (mais)

20 Years After the Zombie Apocalypse is short, but sad, emotional and intriguing. The focus is not so much the zombapocalypse, but afterwards – the dangers of being a survivor, trying to keep your makeshift family together, watching the world deteriorate with lack of upkeep and care.

I really liked Harri as a character, and also felt incredibly sad for her, being (as far as she knows) the last survivor of the human race, pursued by the man she loved who is now a zombie and therefore sees her only as fresh meat.

Harri’s story is told in a series of flashbacks and hallucinations, and in a few places the switch was quite sudden, and took me by surprise, but gave great insight into how Harri came to be where she was, why she was alone, and her reasons for returning ‘home’.

There are some gory moments, but much of the focus is on Harri and her story, so it is far less than some other zombie books, and is written as almost background noise – if you don’t like the descriptions of people being attacked by zombies, 20 Years After the Zombie Apocalypse is written to your taste. I enjoyed this book a great deal.

I’m really looking forward to reading the second book.

Note – there are some small spelling errors that I spotted, but for self-published the spelling Nazi won’t get much of a workout.… (mais)