ardiym0434

This is an intense and very addictive book. Like Max Brooks' "World War Z", it depicts a worldwide outbreak of the walking dead. Unlike WWZ, it is only from the perspective of one man's journal entries as he survives the ordeal, "day by day" as it were. You might think that compared to Brooks' epic of dozens of accounts, this point of view would be limiting, but to the contrary I find it a much more engrossing and realistic experience. The book begins with one man on on military leave (the reader never gets to learn his name, which makes sense since it's his own journal) and writing how the world is going to hell one day at a time. This hell begins with reports on the news of plague in China and escalates to undead walking outside his very home. The "author" describes each day how he takes measures to avoid detection, contact other survivors, find food, find transportation and everything else to stay alive. And even though this type of writing doesn't allow for a lot of character build-up, I became emotionally involved with the main character and the other survivors he meets. Being a military man, you could call the main POV a bit convenient, as there were few skills he didn't have that helped him in his tasks. One thought I had as I was reading the book was what it might be like from the perspective of someone less experienced in arms and survival (someone like myself perhaps?) Perhaps it would be a bit more terrifying, but in this book, probably a lot shorter as well. The undead world here is harsh and realistic. Lack of food, water and shelter are as big of enemies as the undead themselves. It's the human experience of it that makes the book so addicting. While I love a good zombie story, the subject matter could have been any number of things and this format of human survival would've been just as intense and addicing. Don't let this deter zombie fans however. Although the word zombie isn't used in the book, it IS a zombie book and as far as zombie fiction goes, this is probably my favorite. If the movies were made like this the genre would be much more entertaining. Why only four stars? It's not a full book. It ends is a pretty reasonable cliffhanger and I'll have to aquire the second book (as yet unreleased) to figure out what happens. I don't mind this so much, but that's the only thing keeping "Day by Day Armageddon" from 5 stars. In any case, if you're a fan of Max Brooks or of zombies in general, treat yourself to this book.

2022-11-14 18:30