Review: `Start every day with a dream'....or not....
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 31, 2014
Young British Oliver Kennedy describes himself as `a writer, a father, a brother and a son, and I am proud of each of those roles which I hold in life. Just as I am proud, grateful and made happy by those people who are a part of that life.' Initially involved with epic fantasy novels (think Game of Thrones etc), his taste has ripened a bit into the realm of grotesquerie and this very short novella allows him the space to sketch his grasp of the world of post-apocalyptic zombie horror tales. A bit heavy on the gruesome side, the story still manages to hold attention because of the rather off the cuff manner in which Kennedy writes. He's young: it shows.OLD WORLD is a spine tingling tale of the undead and judgment day. It is set in the UK 2014, a world inhabited with zombies who have an insatiable appetite for human flesh and marauders struggling against disease and hunger. As the author in the role of narrator states, `The deathwalker virus was in town for lunch and it appeared that the general populous was on the menu...I don't know what was worse, the early days when we were bombarded with news about the cataclysmic nuclear exchange between the US and China or the times after, when there was radio silence, a cacophony of static and recorded emergency broadcast messages which told us nothing.' The flavor is set and one family must survive in this post-apocalyptic world and transform themselves from a loving family to survivalists resorting to brutality when the situation called for it. The countryside is awash with cadavers and near-cadaverous survivors - and Kennedy spares no detail as he leads the reader through this nightmare. The only light comes with the pockets of the innocent men and women who cope as best they can in this land of irradiated detritus from war.For those who `enjoy' (or rather `appreciate') stories of this genre, Oliver Kennedy does as fine a job as any, sparing no twinges of evil and desecration. For readers whose palette does not include the zombie platform, at least this `taste` is short enough that it is over quickly. Grady Harp, January 14