Firstly, I know it’s been a while since my last post! Non-author life has got in the way in well, lots of different ways, but even though I’ve not been writing as much as I’d like of late, I have been continuing reading some amazing books by a variety of indie authors!
Now, what’s the point of reviewing an indie book from 2016, you may ask? Well, I admit, I’m posting this because I haven’t posted for a while but also to prove the point that indie books can be around for years before they pick up readers. That’s something that’s important to know for any indie author – your books can find their audience years after they are published and can certainly have a (book)shelf life longer than that coffee that keeps so many of us going!
So here I go, lurching along with the zombie hordes of Stage 3 by Ken Stark
Though I’m not zombie-mad, I’m a fan of the genre, playing Resident Evil doggedly over the years and keeping up with The Walking Dead and its various spin-offs. With that in mind, I wasn’t sure how a zombie novel would come across, having never read one before.
Stark throws the reader straight into the action but in an original way, which got me intrigued right from the start. Rather than going all-guns-blazing action from page one, which would be the tempting thing to do, he pulls the reader in, as the apocalypse begins and the world starts to unravel around our protagonist.
Speaking of which, he and the other characters are vivid, believable and human, as Stark expertly weaves their backstories and current narrative into some seriously bone-crunching action, through numerous set pieces that took me right back to my survival horror sofa days, game controller in hand, from tense, hand-to-hand alleyway encounters to multi-zombie vehicle mow-downs. Of course, not everything is back and white in post-apocalyptic San Francisco, and there’s also some less than scrupulous survivors that our protagonists Mace and Mac meet along the way.
Without giving too much away, Stark leaves us with a number of unanswered questions which set everything up neatly for book 2 which I’m really looking forward to reading!
Simon Says 