Short Story: Zombie Beach by Anthony Renfro

If you missed the other reviews of the previous short stories in The Mike Beem Chronicles. You can check it out in the the following links:

• A Zombie Holiday Trilogy
• A Zombie Christmas 2
• Flesh For The Zombies

Zombie Beach
By: Anthony Renfro

Part 1: Mike and Captain

On the Coast, Mike runs into an old Sea Captain and they form an instant bond. Mike learns of Captain’s boat, his son and daughter-in-law. Captain is desperate to get off Carolina Beach, but there is a problem (and it is a big problem) the town is swarming with zombies. Mike decides to help the old man fight his way through the hordes in order to gain safe passage on his boat.

Part 2: Mike and Myrtle Beach

Alone again. Mike finds an old motel on the South Carolina coast and decides to call it home. While rebuilding his life and motel he meets some new friends, fights off countless numbers of zombies, and settles into his new life by the sea.
– Goodreads

Excerpt

Mike Beem lowered his rifle, put his right eye on the scope, and closed his left eye. The zombie he was about to shoot was an ugly sucker. He was currently hanging ten on a tall gigantic wave. The zombie surfer was riding a long board, wearing red flowered swimming trunks, and a tee shirt with a dirty smiley face on it. His shirt and shorts along with his thin long blonde hair were flapping in the breeze as he sailed down the wave at top speed.

Poof!

The zombies head exploded leaving only a ragged stump shooting blood up into the air. The headless body surfed for a moment or two before tumbling into the crashing wave.

“Why’d you do that?” A voice behind Mike asked, an older voice full of age and salty wisdom. He sounded like a man who had sailed the sea for most of his adult life.

Mike turned around to face him, lowering his rifle.

“Just saying, he wasn’t hurting anybody,” the old guy replied, leaning on a wooden cane with a silver metal ball on the top of it. His long white hair and soft white beard reminded Mike of his own granddad who had died when he was just a boy.

“I found this silencer, and I just wanted to try it out,” Mike replied, reloading his gun. “Besides, one dead zombie is one less zombie in this world as far as I’m concerned. Don’t care if it’s a threat or not.’”

“Got a name, son?”

“Mike Beem, you?”

“Most folks call me Captain, and I’m fine with it,” the old guy replied, as a cool blast of air pushed back his long hair. “Storm’s moving in. Going to be a nasty one.”

“I had the same feeling,” Mike replied, scanning the late afternoon sky filling up with grey storm clouds.

“That your truck?” Captain asked, nodding towards the 1955 Chevy.

“It was,” Mike replied, turning to face the machine, which was currently sitting perfectly positioned in a parking spot. Pieces of zombies where sticking out of the smoldering radiator, including one complete head with the eyes still looking around, mouth chomping away. “Parking lot was full of corpses. I had to get down to the beach somehow.”

“Guess so,” Captain replied, thinking this Mike guy wasn’t exactly all there. “How about a hot meal and a place to rest your head?”

Mike looked up and down the empty beach, across the decaying splintered boardwalk and the buildings now falling into disrepair. His decision was a quick easy one to make. “Sure, lead the way, Captain,” he replied, climbing down off the bench he’d been standing on. He slung the rifle over his shoulder, picked up his small bag of personal items, and then set off after the old man.

Review

If you haven’t read Mike Beem stories before, it usually adds a much more hopeful twist to the grim zombie apocalypse world. Mike Beem has lost a lot over the last few stories however he is a survival. His character is the pillar of these novels and he is written always as someone who is not only a hero but also very human and relatable. It is why its so engaging to read these stories. While Zombie Beach expands on the location with two parts and still has some charming characters, its hard to feel that that at some parts, it falls a little flat. Of course, those moments are never long, especially seeing as this is a short story however, with the comparison of the previous stories, this one lacks a little more depth perhaps its the fact that the circumstances are little more docile for the most part with only a few more action-packed moments. However, for the well-written characters especially the badass Mike Beem, this story (and all the previous ones) are totally worth your time.

Links

US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0736H6M52
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0736H6M52
AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0736H6M52
CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0736H6M52

The Mike Beem Chronicles

If you want to check out all the Mike Beem stories in one book, this is the collection of the 6 stories.

US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0736DX4CS
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0736DX4CS
AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0736DX4CS
CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0736DX4CS

TMI Podcast: David and Kim’s Random Chat about 28 Days Later (2002)

Welcome to this week’s Random Chat over at That Moment In with David! We’re talking about the popular zombie apocalypse movie 28 Days Later directed by Danny Boyle.

Hope you enjoy! 🙂

Also, on a side note! For some of the fellow video gamers and readers, That Moment In will be starting to branch out into the video game and book reviews/moments, etc and is calling out to whoever is interested in contributing.  If you are interested, head over  to contact David HERE!  You will find more info at that link.

Happy Saturday!! 🙂

Zombie War: An Account of the Zombie Apocalypse that Swept Across America by Nicholas Ryan

A huge thanks to Australian author Nicholas Ryan for getting in touch with me to review his novel, Zombie War: an account of the zombie apocalyse that swept across America. I have no idea how some people search me up.  I’m guessing, Goodreads?  Regardless, I don’t normally go seeking out zombie apocalypse novels so I’ve only read a few of them but its a premise I starting to enjoy a lot. Zombie War apparently gets compared to World War Z a lot so maybe I’ll do a little talk about that or better yet, head over to see what I thought about it HERE.

ZOMBIE WAR:
An account of the zombie apocalypse that swept across America

BY: NICHOLAS RYAN

John Culver interviews various military, leaders and others involved over a year after the zombie apocalypse has happened and things are on the way to recovery in America.  He dives into the different domains of the 3 stages from Operation Containment, Operation Conquest and the last stage, Operation Compress. What started in Iran for political takeover caused an entire nation to collapse in several weeks and took months to find back some form of control. Now the government is ready to embrace what its recuperated but is the war really over?

 Zombie War is an engaging recount of how the zombie apocalypse was dealt with.  Although not quite so emotional manipulative as World War Z was, its flow of events makes it a lot easier to get into because its laid out in a better way with a good deal of continuity and order.  That part was something I appreciated a lot.  Also, there is no doubt as I was reading the novel that a great deal of research was put into it.  Although there are a lot of military lingo to say the least, and I know relatively little of it, the description used because of the narrator, John Culver being a journalist, its explained so that even with my little knowledge, I still understood what went on.  That also is a huge pro.

The concept of a zombie apocalypse is one that many people play with nowadays but the main question is how does it all begin. Nicholas Ryan chooses a political angle to deal with this putting it into a man made consequence launched against America and to cleverly choose to begin the novel with exactly how it all began and wrapping it up with possibly one of the most impressive endings that I’ve read because although the recount of the events weren’t quite as strong (as World War Z) in the whole attacking the ethics, morals, human nature, the further you read, the story builds up to people involved that show their feelings more and more hidden in the context and the choice of words of what was said.  A lot of thought was put into each character and how they each contributed in every stage of the zombie apocalypse portrayed in Zombie War.

Honestly, I’ve never read a zombie apocalypse book as fast I did with Zombie War.  If I had to compare World War Z and Zombie War, I’d have to say that other than not quite hitting my buttons as much as World War Z, Zombie War had a more progressive, engaging and far more organized set up and this did it wonders.

Overall, it was easy to follow and never let the readers forget the urgency of what every single person involved was going through.  The intricate interviewees and the journalist as the narrator kept things real.  The research made it feel authentic and each character was designed very intricately to move the story in a certain direction to bring a good idea of how everything was at each stage of the operation in healing America.

Zombie War is an impressive read and definitely one of the best novels I’ve read this year. I highly recommend this and I think that you should check it out also! 🙂

You can get a copy of his novel on Amazon.

A Zombie Holiday Trilogy by Anthony Renfro

I’m having a few repeat authors showing up here but Anthony at Books, Movies Poetry was super awesome after he saw my post about his short stories that he sent me his entire A Zombie Holiday Trilogy. Before we get into it, a huge gigantic thank you to him for doing that because I appreciate it a lot 🙂

If you happened to have missed my review of a whole bunch of Anthony’s short stories a little while back, its right HERE!

Actually, one of the short stories, A Zombie New Year was published yesterday.  To get more details, head over to Anthony’s blog HERE!

A Zombie Holiday Trilogy

by Anthony Renfro

A Zombie Holiday Trilogy includes 3 stories (I’m sure you figured that part out):

• A Zombie Christmas
• A Zombie Thanksgiving
• A Zombie New Year

Each story is focused around that holiday during the zombie apocalypse in whichever town and city it is set. The characters are different and they all have their own little mission, regardless if its the protagonist’s desire to give gifts to the survivors or find a turkey for Thanksgiving or reunite as planned on New Year’s.  Among a completely unexpected and pretty bad circumstance, the protagonist look for that shred of hope to forget whats going on outside.  Its that hope that there’s something more to look forward to.

I read A Zombie Christmas earlier with his short stories collection, A Long Journey Off A Short Pier and it was the first time that I realized what these stories were about.  It definitely left me a different and good impression. A Zombie Thanksgiving also gives a nice direction to the story. It shows the growth in the writing to a more detailed story and having more characters involved and adding some concrete relationships.  However, A Zombie New Year differs a little because it combines two aspects of horror with zombies and the haunted.  I sure hope thats not considered a spoiler.  Its two parallel stories because the readers follow the two leads in separate places struggling to survive and to meet up with each other.

I won’t say any more because short stories are exactly that and shouldn’t be gone more in depth to keep your reading experience full of surprises.  I think this trilogy has something different going for it and its worth a read.  Its different what you’d typically expect in this genre (although I only tiptoeing my way into this zombie/horror literature world).

Give it a go and maybe you’ll find something that will give you the pleasant surprises I had with these ones as well 🙂

Also, Anthony is doing a Goodreads giveaway with the publishing of the last short story so head on over to the link up there to get the details.

Zombies, Vampires, Owls and Food!

This week’s personal post is totally going to be *almost* all about Halloween! Almost, ok? A few key events has happened this year which makes me somewhat excited about.  We’ll try to do this in as chronological order as possible 🙂 Lets get right to it since I need to head out for some overtime at work REALLY soon!

First up, earlier this week, on October 22nd, a fellow blogger, Jack Flacco launched his novel about the Zombie Apocalypse and used a very witty and smart character called Ranger Martin.  I got to awesome chance to review it last week. If you didn’t get a chance to read my review of it, you can check it out HERE! If you think only my opinion isn’t enough, then you can check out the words of the rest of the review team HERE! Jack’s a great supportive blogger and if you need some reading material to go with the Halloween mood, this one is definitely a great choice for you and even your kids.

Second, on Wednesday or Thursday, I came home to a cute little package sunk into my mailbox and it turns out the Kickstarter project I had supported for a movie called Lord of Tears arrived in the mail.  I had took the pledge for the Signed DVD Collector’s Set with the soundtrack, I think.  It looks like this 🙂

Cool stuff, right? Its going into the Halloween marathon! I have a lot of stuff for the marathon coming up.  Maybe a few days of double reviews for Monday to Thursday.  Just a quick heads up for that! I’m on horror overcharge.  I’m going to try and kick up the intensity at the same time.  We’ll see how that goes 🙂

Next up, I’m going to talk about a campaign right now for a giveaway in Tribesports to win some tickets for the Run For Your Lives race and some other goodies.  That looks totally cool although they don’t have it here in Montreal.  Closest for me is in Toronto.   They do have locations all over the place.

You can comment below with your best kickass zombie-training plan, Tweet @Tribesports with the hashtag #zombiesurvival, or comment on the Facebook post.

The instructions are over HERE. If you are into working out, Tribesports is an awesome supportive community and they even have some workouts targeted for the whole Zombie Apocalypse preparation.  How about it? I’m definitely getting some in and I’ll talk about it soon in my workout post.  Its never too soon to prepare for running away from some zombies, right?

Last thing that actually happened was last night, my friend got these certificates to eat at the Casino of Montreal for the buffet and all four of us feasted in a crazy way.  We almost had to roll down 5 flights of stairs and to the car.  Believe me, it was painful over potholes and the uneven highways.  It was some really delicious stuff.  Here’s a mix of my plates and some of my friends (especially dessert and crab legs for them).

My first plate

Second Plate

My 4th and dessert plate

I just realized that I didn’t take my 3rd plate which had Fried Shrimps, Lobster Claw and Garlic Shrimps and probably something else but I can’t remember.

How about a little update for my TV watching! The only thing I watched this week was Vampire Diaries and I find it pretty good.

Don’t click on that picture.  This was taken from the Hollywood life site.  I just liked this poster a lot for the Season 5 Vampire Diaries.

Okay, I’m really late already! Apparently, writing posts are time-consuming.  Who would have thought that, right?

Lets end with some awesome music! Nothing Halloween though, I haven’t found it yet, but there was a really cool Disney Medley from two very talented artists on Youtube.

Not the end yet! I just remembered that my boyfriend took some awesome vids of last weekend’s excursion.  One is at the pet store.  Our conversation is hilarious since it was the first time he used his new phone to record a video.

Kim = smartass…yes, I know 😉

Then, later that day, we had my piano practice and my cat getting all excited.  Its pretty cute!

Hope that put a smile to your face! I know I had a good laugh out of it!

Have a great weekend everyone! Stay awesome! 🙂

Book Review: Ranger Martin and the Zombie Apocalypse by Jack Flacco

As weird as there’s only two book reviews that stand out in that section according to my WordPress stats, I was given the opportunity of reviewing the advanced copy of fellow blogger, Jack Flacco’s debut novel, Ranger Martin and the Zombie Apocalypse. It will be launched on October 22.  As late as this review may be due to some technical difficulties on my alarm not ringing, I had to read this over the last two days.  I love the world of zombies and even though, I don’t read a tremendous amount of it, I do enjoy watching zombie flicks a lot. Very much like Jack in THIS POST, I may not have hated zombies (unlike Jack) but my love for zombie flicks did start with 28 Days Later also.  Over the years, I’ve watched Dawn of the Dead (remake), 28 Weeks Later, Zombieland and the most recent World War Z. The list goes on but those are some of my favorites.

Ranger Martin and the Zombie Apocalypse is about an Oklahoma shotgun wielding man who is determined to figure out what started this zombie apocalypse and how to end it.  He is teamed up at a military silo with a teenage boy he saved that he nicknamed Wildside.  Wildside is not ordinary either, he has some very nifty skills, one in particular that could be very useful but also extreme.  Along the way, he picks up siblings, older sister Matty and her younger brother Jon who had been wandering by themselves.  Later on, another teenage boy joins them in the attempt to save the world from the zombie apocalypse.  This boy, Randy, is special as he escaped from a prison where he was possibly put there for a specific reason due to the belief from the military that he is the saviour. However, nothing can be sure as when he woke up in that prison, he had also lost his memory prior.  As each have their own reasons to join together to figure out how the apocalypse started and why they want to end it, they all know one thing for certain, it was going to be one where they had to fight to stay alive.

I’m quite inexperienced when it comes to zombie novels.  The only ones I’ve read prior to this one is Warm Bodies, which I reviewed earlier this year.  There is nothing to compare to for me however, Ranger Martin and The Zombie Apocalypse is an engaging read.  There were some parts that felt a bit lengthy here and there but the down times were never long enough to make it slow.  Its a good debut for Jack.

There are a few things that I liked about the book

First of all, I liked a lot that its beginning wasn’t overly descriptive in a way that it was a drag (which happens a lot).  It was a fun way to introduce us to all the characters and what generally brought them together.  Because its from a third person, we see how everyone interacts and their reactions instead of just one person’s view and that works really well for how the story pans out.

Second, we get a good idea of the contrast of the personality and the value their abilities have to make this a good team.  Definitely its a team with their own sets of problems and kinks they need to work out but with Ranger Martin’s over the top entrances powered by his anger towards the situation, the tough and protective Matty who protects her brother Jon from growing up before he actually has to amidst the situation and the two teenage boys.  We get emotional clashes and bonds that develop and that brings on character development.

Third is what I mentioned on the top, the book has quite a bit of intense action especially in the last few chapters.  However, aside from it being very much action, in a way that you feel like you are reading a movie.  Jack’s writes in a way where I had an easy time picturing and seeing in my mind what was really going down.  Its a pretty fun experience for the most part and especially in most situations, we always have Ranger Martin bringing in some witty smartass comment to loosen up the intensity sometimes.

How about it? Halloween book review featured a novel written by one of our very own about zombies.  Jack does a great job in this first novel and I urge you to grab a copy when its released on October 22 (thats next Monday!).  I promise it’ll be fun! I read this over 2 days and there were many times I didn’t even want to put it down, not because of time constraint to get this review up but because it just had so much action going on. I loved it and totally recommend it! 🙂