Contents

That Ghoul Ava by TW Brown
Kin by Kealan Patrick Burke
The Colony: Genesis by Michaelbrent Collings
Chronicler of the Undead by Mainak Dhar
Painted Darkness by Brian James Freeman
Chasing Spirits by Glynn James
The Home by Scott Nicholson
Preta’s Realm: The Haunting (The Hidden Evil Trilogy, #1) by J. Thorn

The man would rather be dead drunk than fighting the dead. But with a diminishing amount of alcohol and a city (Gangtok) teeming with zombies, the unnamed (until the last page) man has little choice. In Mainak Dhar’s Chronicler of the Undead (Westland; Rs 250), the eponymous chronicler is a bitter ex-soldier who gets stuck inside a hilltop bungalow when a virus outbreak turns into a zombie apocalypse. Luckily, the man is an aspiring writer who puts his potential to the full use on the brink of humanity’s extinction.

https://www.indiatoday.in/lifestyle/culture/story/mainak-dhar-horror-genre-books-author-chronicler-of-the-undead-303062-2016-01-10

A new thriller from the author of the Amazon bestselling Alice in Deadland trilogy. When there were still people around to talk to, I would introduce myself as a drinker with a writing problem. It sounded witty at the time, and certainly got a smile once in a while from the ladies. None of that matters now. There are no people left to read my books, and nobody left to listen to my attempts at wit. Now it’s just me, sitting in my house on the hill, watching the undead rampage through what we humans once called our world. I sometimes wonder why I still live when those much younger, stronger, smarter and fitter than me perished. Maybe it’s just dumb luck. But maybe I am being left alive for a purpose. Nobody may have cared much for my novel, but maybe this is what I was meant to write. Maybe this is what I was meant to be. The chronicler of the undead. This is my story.

An interesting way to present the story of a “zombie” apocalypse. The journal or diary makes the experience more personal. Reminded me a lot of I am Legend by Robert Matheson. The difference between the two holed-up recluses having to deal with a hoarde of zombies is that one is very much pragmatic while our indian fellow is more inclined to take to the booze if available and observe things around him as they happen. Welcome to “Writing a Diary 101”. It’s sometimes humorous, sometimes sad, and most of the time, we get to see through the eyes of another how a zombie apocalypse would really turn out.

What you most need to survive a zombie apocalypse is not a shotgun, but a bloody can of air freshener.

The chapters are numbered based on how many days it has been since he’s been alone. His musings about the nature of zombies and their attack mode seems to indicate that it’s World War Z again and we have rabies virus:

They just come at you, focused on biting you, and don’t seem to feel any pain or fear. I’ve seen men infected by a single bite, but sometimes They just go frigging rabid and tear people to pieces instead of infecting them. Who knows that They’re thinking, if they still think. I remember some news articles from back in 2012 about so-called ‘zombie’ attacks in US where people high on drugs would go totally apeshit and start attacking and eating people. If I remember, one of them had to be shot dozens of times to stop him, since the drug gave him almost superhuman strength and ferocity. I wonder if what’s happened to us has anything at all to do with that. I guess I’ll never know for sure.

He’s quite inventive and manages to grab some food and water before being sieged by what he calls Morekos (undead). They are comprised of men, women, children – all hungry and filthy.

The struggle to survive becomes much more pronounced when there is a connection to others. Becoming a leader at time when others are afraid or almost broken just serves to reinforce the instinct to survive. Knowing you have the skills others lack to continue that survival re-energizes a stunned spirit. He has about 20 people he freed just like Spartacus but without getting laid every episode. The comparison continues as he heards his people like sheep through the dangers of the forest, the undead, the slave owners and the Chinese.

Do you remember that movie, 300? Spartans, all three hundred of them, all bare-chested with sculpted muscles and abs, facing off against thousands of Persian soldiers in a heroic last stand. They died to the last man, but inflicted such damage on their attackers that the Persian Empire’s progress was halted. Our situation is not quite as dramatic, but no less dire.

Even feeling you have selfish motives but still reaching out to help others shows strength of character. Finding out at the end that someone else had to finish the journal/Diary just reveals how strong and caring this survivor became. How much his example and sacrifice meant to those following him. But also showed that humanity can still find the good to combat the evil.

The world is a fucked-up place, and we have very little other than ourselves, and very little going for us other than the fact that we are stronger together than scattered. So don’t sweat the small stuff and remember the big, bloody, fucked-up picture we are dealing with.

After about the half of the book, I starting losing interest. They were moving from place to place, running away, finding help then going again. It felt too drawn out. At least Survivors * Terry Nation had some conflict between the characters. It started to feel to me like I was reading rambles of the fever-mind and I started skipping a lot. What is humanity? What is purpose? What is leadership?

This book tries real hard to be a lot more than a zombie flick.

Killing a man is easy, dealing with the dreams that come night after night afterwards is not.

I finished it barely but I don’t think I’ll pick anything else up from this author.