Review: Adding to my "Favorite Author's" list
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 12, 2014
I stumbled across Mr. Forsyth thanks to and endorsement on Hugh Howey's Facebook page (WOOL series and others). The first book in the series was free and being endorsed by an author I like so what is there to lose?Plot Summary: Flotilla of the Dead is the second in a ZA trilogy recounting the survival of a group lucky enough to be at sea when the ZA breaks. Adding to their luck, the protagonist, Scott, has all the money in the world prior to Z-day and had bought all the toys, so they're ready. Book 2 focuses on the establishment of a survivors colony or a safe haven for the flotilla of boats holding others lucky enough to be at sea or close to sea on Z-day. There's some bureaucratic nightmares and institutional tunnel-vision now added to the dangers of zombies and Mr. Forsyth nails it - - at least the dangers of the zombies are straightforward. Bureaucracy and institutional rigidity are actually harder to conquer and flat out more annoying.Pros: an original take on the zombie apocalypse with multiple angles of approach. While there is one central story, we get vignettes of other survivors' experiences. Just as in a real natural disaster, there is the immediate (we must take care of this right here, right now), the intermediate (well, we're still alive. What do we do to maintain that status), and the long term (who, why, what is this all about?!?!) stories. Also, there are some really great peripheral characters here. I love the sergeant-major and Carl.Cons: As with any self-published author, there are a handful of errors (this is where the author says "tell me!!! where!? I'll fix it!" and this is where I point out I was reading it on my Kindle, did not have my red grading pen handy and don't have an eidetic memory. There were maybe 4 small errors like an extra "the" or a forgotten "he" but I can't give you a page number, sorry.) The male characters are all well written and interesting, the female characters, less so. The women are mostly window-dressing and the ones that do propel the story forward (in the later books) are excessively two-dimensional, clearly put there out of necessity rather than enrichment.So if ZA is your thing, go for it. Awesome, fast read. The writing is so good, the story so captivating and the characters so compelling that I have plowed through all three books in the trilogy in four days.