Apocalypse End Book

This is a slight improvement over Reign of the Dead, mostly due to editing and for the fact that the human enemies in this book actually are worth mentioning as key roleplayers in the story, as opposed to the pathetic preacher in the first book.

Still tons of plot holes, simplistic dialogue, and more of the "uber" leading man, who reveals he was in the Navy SEALs, no less. I get the feeling the author inserted this tidbit after probably getting some comments that he was just a bit too studly. So he was a Navy SEAL-ahhh, that would explain it all.

There are a TON of coincidences in this book, almost cringeworthy in the extreme. How convenient is it that our main character meets up with the militia on his way to the coast? The timing of them crossing paths is pretty impressive. How convenient that he meets up with another character AT the coast? Once again the timing of it and just missing a helocopter crash is incredible. How amazing is it that our main character is flying over the spot where his girlfriend is fighting off undead? Once again, timing is everything. Finally, how incredibly odd and convenient it is that we discover the brother of one of the minor characters is not only still alive (when approximately 7.3 million people residing in Virginia died during the zombie holocaust) but is also grouped up a with the enemies of our main group-plus he is the spy sent to the island our main character ends up on? And how do they figure out who he is? He has the same last name as this minor character...which is Smith. WOW! Thank God it wasn't a really common last name! Otherwise they might have never...oh, never mind.

I like the idea of the human race struggling to survive against horrendous odds and this tale does display that happening here. I like the conflict between different groups-one of which is power hungry and desires to create a new world order. But the bad guys are caricatures of typical morons. I was honestly surprised the main baddy could even tie his own shoes, let alone lead troops into battle with some of his dimwitted ideas and actions. If it were the real world, he would have accidentally shot himself with his service revolver while cleaning it.

The ending sequence is ok, but I think the final act was done for shock value, as if the author felt he needed something to slap the audience in the face rather than just let the story end in a less reckless fashion. Not that it was implausible...for that I look at the absolutely unnecessary "visions" of two of the female characters and the equally unnecessary dream sequences they have.

So why 3 stars? Because this book was ok for all its flaws (well, as a genre book at least). I do feel the examination of the why? related to the zombies and how they came about was somewhat interesting. Every author and movie maker has carte blanche to do this since Romero basically made it a mystery (for the most part) as to why it happened or could happen. This author tries to make sense of it with a scientist doing research on the problem. The story moves forward and is driven more by a few select characters as opposed to the movement of a larger group from one place to another so you can focus on specific things more so than the first book.

As I said with the first book, the author possibly has potential and might improve with future works. This one is not great, but it is a slight improvement over REIGN. I am a big fan of zombie fiction so I can enjoy something that is not spectacular, but I would not recommend this one for anyone who is not a huge fan of the genre.