‘Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?’ – Max Brallier (Gallery Books)


If you’re a regular visitor here, you’ll know that I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ style books; mostly ‘Fighting Fantasy’ (okay, pretty much all Fighting Fantasy actually) but every now and then, I like to step off the beaten track a little and see what else I can ‘choose my own adventure’ in. If you’re a regular visitor here, you’ll also know that I love anything with zombies in it so ‘Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse’ was a great chance to combine two of my favourite things and see what state I was in when I came out the other side. Living, dead or undead…

Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? offers 150 Paths and 75 Endings (40 ending in death, 20 ending in zombification, and 15 ending in survival).

No longer are you given the luxury of sitting back and watching the fools on the page or screen make all the wrong moves. All hell is about to break loose - and this time you have a say in humanity's survival.

You're 27 years old. You live in a crappy, over-priced studio apartment in Manhattan. You work a corporate job that you're not particularly fond of. Up until now, your day-to-day life offered few surprises. But now, on a hot and humid July morning, zombies have come to Manhattan. You have choices to make now - lots of them. Moral dilemmas. Strategic decisions. Weapons. Vehicles. Will you be a hero? Or will you cover your own ass at all costs? Will you survive the coming hours, days, weeks, and months? Or will you die amidst the chaos and violence of a zombie uprising? Or, worst of all, will you become one of them...? The choice is yours. And if you don't make it, you've got no one to blame but yourself.

And… Wow, that was a rush! While there was no way that I was going to experience every ending (you’d be waiting on this post for a long time if I had…) I was still able to get a good feel for the number of ways there are to go through this book. And there are many. The death scenes are appropriately gory (and that’s including all the ones where you aren’t eaten) but what I really liked was that while there are ways to survive the book, your chances of surviving past the end of the book are still pretty bleak and that’s ‘Romero’ right there. Just because you made it to the end, doesn’t mean that your problems are over. Far from it. Brallier really hits the spot with this approach, adventuring (well, just trying to survive) in the short term but a hint of long term problems really adding to the atmosphere.

Brallier also really captures the feeling of outright panic that you’d get in a city surrounded by water and bubbling over with zombies. That urgency makes you focus on what’s in front of you and gets you thinking about what you should do next. A little knowledge of zombie movies will get you a long way here but Brallier still retains the capacity to surprise you when you least expect it. The obvious answer may be the right one but you could still end up getting bitten and I like the uncertainty we get here. All you can do is keep reading and hope you make it through, just like a real zombie apocalypse.

‘Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?’ is as creepy as hell and with a nervous energy that keeps you focussed on making it out alive. If you’re a fan of choosing your own adventure, or just zombies, then you’ve probably read it already (it was published back in 2011) but if you haven’t… Do give it a go and see if you can make it out of Manhattan… 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘Deathworlder’ – Victoria Hayward (Black Library)

Image
Before I get into the review proper, thank you Black Library for sending me a copy of ‘Deathworlder’ in return for a fair and honest review. Talking of ‘fair and honest’… There will be loads of the latter but I enjoyed the hell out of ‘Deathworlder’ so… We’ll see how being fair goes ;o) That’s your only warning, lets talk ‘Deathworlder’… Lazulai is a world beyond the brink, its battle against the tyranids all but lost. Once-magnificent cities lie in ruin. The seas boil. The skies crack. Horrific alien bioforms devour. In mere days the planet will be consumed. The 903rd Catachan ‘Night Shrikes’ defend one of the last fortresses still standing. Led by Major Wulf Khan, to die fighting is all that is expected of them… until she is given one last mission: to lead a squad through the apocalypse and recover a piece of archeotech that may doom or deliver the entire Lazulai System. Facing insurmountable odds and zero hope for aid, the major must hold her squad together as they pick their way ...
Read more

‘Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth’ (1992)

Image
Every time Halloween comes round, I promise myself that I’ll watch more horror films and read more horror fiction; we’re halfway through the month and you can see how that’s going so far… There’s still plenty of October left though so lets see how I do from now until the end of the month ;o) First up is ‘Hellraiser 3’ which I watched last night, mostly because I love it (you can tell how this post is going to go, sorry…) but also because it was cheap on Prime and I’m still just on the wrong side of payday. Here goes… TV reporter Joey Summerskill’s life is changed forever when she witnesses the horrific death of a teenager, torn apart by bloody chains. Joey’s search for a story leads her to the Lament Configuration Box but it has already been opened, waking an old evil from its slumber… Now Pinhead walks the earth once more, creating a new army of Cenobites from the transmuted flesh of his victims; his one desire to reclaim the Box. Even with help from an unexpected source, Joey Summers...
Read more

‘Cursed City’ – C.L. Werner (Black Library)

Image
I always have these vague ‘reading resolutions’, for the New Year and without fail, they all come to absolutely nothing. I still read loads, just none of the books that I meant to… This year is panning out slightly differently and I think I’m going to enjoy it. All the books that were originally ‘out of sight, out of mind’, in the loft at my old place, are now all over my new place and wherever I look, I’m constantly discovering books that I totally forgot I had but now quite fancy reading. Books like ‘Cursed City’ for example… I’m not going to tell you how long ‘Cursed City’ was sat in my loft, lets just say it was long enough for me to totally forget it was there and buy myself another copy… Oh well. I found it on the shelf the other day (only the one copy now) and figured it was way overdue a read, let me tell you about it… Ulfenkarn is a city of nightmares. Its vampiric rulers have indulged their bloodlust in every shadow-clad alley, turning the once-proud metropolis into a charnel...
Read more