I have to give this story a lot of credit for literally making me laugh out loud. The dry humour in the narration of the main character – a true anti-hero - is great! Michael Cooper really has a way with words: sarcastic, funny, and also, very descriptive in an original way. You’ll see what I mean.This story is scary, creepy, full of tension, has interesting characters – it has a lot going for it and I was hooked right through the first half of the novel.
Now, I have to say there was a point about halfway through when I found I’d (temporarily) lost interest in the story and started skimming through. I think the story just ran up against the zombie conumdrum: as mindless, shambling creatures, zombies (although the afflicted in this story are actually hosts to an alien parasite, not zombies, they share the classic zombie characteristics) are not really that interesting antagonists. Once the main characters have figured out how to avoid them while still meeting their food and shelter needs – which they have to do fairly quickly or the story is soon over – what happens next?
The problem for me was that formerly sensible, or at least realistically cowardly, characters started behaving irrationally and taking unnecessary risks, as – it seemed to me – a plot device to keep the story moving along. I think this is where I lost the necessary suspension of disbelief and thus involvement in the outcome of the story. Now I may be being totally unfair: given the context of the story, there’s plenty, indeed PLENTY, of scope for anyone to go a little nuts.
So, I went back to the story, and was won back over by the exceptional writing. And overall, yes, the story does make sense and is, in fact, an amazing work of imagination. Don’t miss this gem – it’s a barrel of fun and a real find.
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