The Zombie Autopsies: Secret Notebooks from the Apocalypse is just that, a field report from a medical facility that is trying to understand the “disease” of zombieism, how the humanoids (as they are referred to in the audiobook) can function even though by all intents and purposes are dead. At times is get very graphic and I would have complained if it wasn’t, because in my mind I have the picture of what an autopsy would looking like and then throw in a squirming moaning zombie on the table. I would only recommend this audiobook to the hardcore zombie aficionados because it is a bit dry. Lots and lots of medical terminology that I had no idea what they were talking about until something I heard of came up and it all fell into place. There was a point near the end where I started to believe that this was actually happening because of all the political jargon being thrown in and the policies being form at the UN. The Zombie Autopsies: Secret Notebooks from the Apocalypse is short but very frightening more so than the typical fictional zombie novels.

Peter Berkrot was the voice of the doctor that was performing the autopsy and he was absolutely amazing. The fast paced energetic, the wonder, the panic, the fright that he was able to inject into every single word, I actually started to think that he was really there and I was really listening to to everything happen in real time. I will be on the lookout for more of Berkrot’s work in the future. Stephen Hoye was the “real” narrator of the story, he would jump in from time to time and add extra information, much like a newscaster and his voice suited this very well. Emily Durante had a very small part, about 5 minutes, and not really sure if she added anything to the story. Doing this did fit in well with her part being a recording from the field and I can appreciate that.

So I am completely sucked into the Zom-B series and I keep having huge expectations of what the next book will contain. I am starting to wonder how much longer “B” can continue on as a zombie, her body is deteriorating at a pretty solid pace, either she is going to run out of body parts or something else is bound to happen. Judging by the cover of the print copy of this book I am going to assume that Owlman and Mr. Dowling will play a large role in this third book> I hope that I am right because I found his character tantalizing when he first showed his face. But I have been wrong before…

In Zom-B: City, B has now escaped from the military installation that really put the Zom in Zom-B, she now finds herself in the zombie ravaged city of London. Zom-B: City now feels like how the typical zombie apocalypse stories as opposed to something really special, like the first two books. Protagonist wakes in zombie ruined word having missed real time devastation of it all and is only left with the carnage and destruction, a rouge zombie or two and the human that have obviously been brought to the edge of what their minds can handle. This really seemed like the transition book of the series, many series have that one book that not a whole lot happens, The Empire Strikes Back for instance, more of a story building, setting up for the crap to hit the fan in the next installment. I must say that I was a bit disappointed, especially after reading all of the glorious reviews on this title. However as I said above I am hooked on the series, on “B”, wanting more of Mr Dowling and Owlman and will be listening to the next episode of Zom-B.

Emma Galvin again has delivered another inspired and flawless narration. There is not much I can say about the narration of Zom-B: City that I haven’t already said. So if you want to know more about Emma’s awesome narrations of the other books in the Zom-B series, use this link.

After reading Married with Zombies, I was pretty sure that I was going to revisit this series, I was just waiting for the right time. Seeing how May is Zombie Awareness month I couldn’t resist any longer. I completely enjoyed listening to the first book in this series and this always make me set a high bar of expectations for this next book. I hope that Petersen keeps up with the lightheartedness of the first, after all these are supposed to be romantic comedies about surviving in the zombie apocalypse. I was hesitant because of the change in audiobook publishers, makes me wonder, was this book worse so the previous publisher let this go, or was it because this series is so great that a larger production house picked it up, only time will tell.

Flip This Zombie met my expectations of what this audiobook was going to play out.It is, for me, always nice to get to know characters and have them return in sequels and to continue to grow and become more dynamic, and this is the case for Sarah and David. A couple who where thrust into the middle of the zombie apocalypse when their couples counselor turned into a zombie during their session. Since then they have become close and better understand each other, kind of ironic isn’t it. I would truly believe that there is no better solution to quarreling couples than to have everyone you know turn into a zombie and have to fight them off and kill them. Sarah and David have come along way since Married with Zombies, they are now an infamous team of zombie slayers for hire or as the like to call their business ZombieBusters-for all your zombie extermination needs, I love it. Jesse Petersen has created a post zombie apocalypic world that I could believe to be real. Filled with all of the gory action sequences that one, ok I, tend to anticipate from all zombie tales. But there is another side to story, a vivacious side, a side that makes my laugh out loud and disturb my coworkers sitting around me. Then you throw in a mad scientist, with that Petersen has fully transported me to right there right now.

With the switch of production companies I was at first concerned that for whatever reason the narrator choice would be changed from the first book, I am so so happy to report that this was not the case and Cassandra Campbell continues narrating for the series. Campbell really captures the essence of Sarah, as the story is told from her point of view, you can tell that her self-confidence as a narrator is high because she is able to highlight and execute the dark humor that lives in Sarah’s mind flawlessly. She also differentiates the other characters in the story very well, by creating these voices that are almost indescribable and yet perfectly matched to that character.

I must say, that for a debut novel A.G. Howard chose her subject well and executed it without flaw. Howard’s Wonderland/Underland captured me from the very start and her writing style made me sit on the edge of my seat, impatiently waiting for what will happen next. I just realized that the only iteration of Wonderland that I know is the Disney version, if you are like me then you are in for a crazy wild ride. Howard took the Wonderland that many of us are familiar with and turned it on it’s head by replacing all of the characters with and Wonderland it self with much darker almost sinister versions. Yes, most of the storyline was focused around a love story of two high school students, I do think that Splintered would have been more successful if this was either toned down a bit or left out all together, because I wanted more Underland. This is the story of Alyssa Gardner descendant of Alice Liddell, the basis of Alice from Lewis Carroll’s work, and that is how the connection is made to Wonderland. Alyssa must travel to Wonderland to right the wrongs of Alice so that Wonderland may be brought back to a state of normalcy and to remove a curse that was place upon her family. That is about all I can tell you without giving everything away. If you are looking to be transported to another world that really captured my mind and made me want more, mixed in with teenage love trials, this is for you.

This was my first experience listening to Rebecca Gibel and I must say I didn’t like her narration style at all for about the first 2 hours of Splintered, then I got over myself and let go of my preconceptions of good narration. Then I found my self really getting into the book and Gibel’s narration. She reminded me of a much lower intense version of Sarah Drew. She did a good job of adding in the necessary, for me, voice fluctuations needed to imply emotions. While Gibel may not make me run out and purchase every audiobook she has narrated, but I will not turn away from one just because of her.

I have been hoping for a sequel to one of my favorite zombie tales ever, The Undead Situation, for some time, then I saw a post of facebook by Permuted Press saying that The Undead Haze Book 2 was coming out soon. I was beyond excited. As Knapp has created one of my most favorite characters there is, Cyrus V. Sinclair, a self-proclaimed sociopath who has no cares for anyone other than Pickle the ferret. Cyrus had quite the zombie apocalypse adventure in the first installment. I really hope that Knapp can recreate the same feeling with The Undead Haze to prove that her first book wasn’t some sort of a fluke.

The Undead Haze picks up approximately one year after the brutal end of The Undead Situation, the ending that I thought was a joke, because it made me want the next book so badly. At that time I don’t even know if there were plans for this sequel or not. This audiobook is all about Cyrus wanting to find Blaze who was surprisingly separated from him at the end of the first audiobook. I missed the original feeling that Cyrus gave me, because in this book he was preoccupied with his mission of finding Blaze and because of this much of his sciopahicness was gone. This audiobook started out with a bang of an encounter with a gang of cannibals and brought much of what I wanted, I only wish there were more. Now don’t get me wrong, Knapp despite changing Cyrus’ focus, still created a wonderfully original and creative continuation of a story that needed closure. I will be looking for the next audiobook in this series, in fact more from Knapp in general,  and hopefully it will not be as long of a wait as this one was.

Kevin T. Collins is not your typical or maybe stereotypical is better, narrator. He does not have the overly deep and polished voice, he does not rely solely on the the written book to carry you mind through the torment. The Undead Situation was my first experience listening to Collins, he had me hooked, and I hate to say it but this is only my second time giving him a listen and almost regret it. Collins, in my opinion, did over half of the work making Cyrus successful, sure there was a great foundation to start with from Knapp but Collins pushed it over the edge. He has a way of jarring you with his ability, that make every instance within the audiobook knock the wind right out of you.

After listening to the first audiobook in this series, Zom-B, I was hooked and I had to know more. With the somewhat surprising ending I was at a loss of how the storyline was going to continue. I mean where else could it go? A thinking remembering militarily trained group of zombies!? Sounds awesome to me.

Zom-B: Underground takes place what we would think is only days or weeks after the somewhat tragic ending to Zom-B, we later find that it is now one year later. But B is now a zombie herself but she can think and talk and move around at her own will. B and a group of other were trained by the military to be, in essence, zombie exterminators. The underlying theme of racism that was prevalent in Zom-B was still present in Zom-B: Underground but much different and I think it was much more powerful and tasteful than the somewhat disturbing abuse and acting out that happened in the first audiobook. Instead of persecuting a race or class of people B and the others are forced to treat the mindless zombies almost as a form of cattle, just because they are they way they are. I will, without a doubt be following this series, especially now, as I have to know what happens next.

Again I cannot say enough good things about Emma Galvin, somehow she had gotten herself into many of my previous listens and I have loved her every performance. One of her best qualities is that while she is a female narrator she does not bring any of the stereotypical quirks that many female narrators have. Such as Galvin as a great voice that is not overly juvenile sounding nor is it the childish soprano screeching that I have run into many times before. Her voice can be soft and velvety while also being strong and commanding. I will always get exited when I see Galvin narrating one of my upcoming titles.

Beautiful Disaster is pretty much what I thought it would be, an overly juvenile love story that had many good places to end the story but McGuire chose not to. It all takes place in a college campus where Abby Abernathy and Travis Maddox meet up. Those two seemed to me much more of the middle to high school mentality, as far as relationships and the thinking in their heads goes. Even with that I found myself sucked in to the drama and needing to know more and actually picking sides at times. Everything was going along just fine, storyline wise, a little over half way through McGuire could have ended everything, but didn’t and kept going and all of a sudden the story took this absurd turn to Las Vegas, where things happened that didn’t fit with what I thought the characters were. I don’t think that this added anything, other than a more than necessarily convoluted storyline. But it was the the dysfunctional love between Abby and Travis that makes the story interesting and McGuire did a great job making their relationship believable, sympathizable and relatable. I have to admit that I am a tad embarrassed that I enjoyed this audiobook.

Again another wonderful performance by Emma Galvin, I have come to expect greatness from her narrations and have yet to be disappointed. Galvin was able to convey all the love, hatred, angst, sarcasm and many other tones of ones voice to truly make Beautiful Disaster everything it could.

Planet Out of the Past is a futuristic look on what life was like in prehistoric times on Earth, except it wasn’t Earth and modern people were there to explore and to catalog everything they came into contact with. One thing I could not get past was how in the world could the same exact species of humanoids exist on another plant 100′s of light years away from Earth. This was a decent sci-fi story, I could definitely not tell that the story was written 30 years ago and that’s a plus. I will be listening to more titles from James Lincoln Collier in the future.

This was my first experience with a narration by Charlie Thurston, and I wasn’t really impressed at all. But on the brighter side, there was nothing memorable, nothing that stood out as particularly bad or good. Thurston’s narration style reminded me more of a robot with little to no emotions backing up anything he said. This will not turn me away from his narrations in the future at all as I like to believe that no one is perfect.

Unfortunately I came down with a sickness and couldn’t enjoy anything but just laying there, so it took me longer to listen to this than I would have liked. However that did give me more distraction free listening time, much more than I am used to. Extinction Machine starts off strong with an immediate action/espionage sequence that sets the tone for most of the book. Which is an action packed adrenaline pumping in your face thrill ride on meth and doesn’t stop until the very end. Ledger and the DMS have faced Zombies, WMDs’, clones and mutants, vampires and now aliens, this seemed like a natural progression of what the team will have to deal with, not sure what Maberry will com up with next.The main problem with the whole Joe Ledger series is that there are only 5 books in total and it seems to take about 1 year for the next to appear. If this is what it takes for Maberry to continue to create fresh and exciting adventures for Ledger and the rest of the DMS, so be it.

After my gushing for Jay Snyder in a previous review, I realized how absolutely incredible Ray Porter is. The Joe Ledger series would be incredibly hindered if he ever stopped doing the narrations and I think if that happened there isn’t anyone alive (that I know of) that would be able to fill the shoes of Porter and Ledger. Porter is so good because he goes the extra mile, that many audiobook narrators do not seem to go, and the he then takes it up a few notches and you end up with complete masterful ear candy.

Now I had no idea that this was book three of a series, for some reason the first is not an audiobook, happily though there is no need to listen to the first two audiobooks as Dead Earth: Sanctuary stood alone just fine. To me that is the way all book in a squeal should be, great stories independent of all others in the series. Dead Earth: Sanctuary is about the aftermath of the Earth being attacked by aliens that could control the dead, and one group of survivors trying to make it to a town called Sanctuary, a place safe from the walking dead. In this action packed gruesome zombie tale you will find interesting characters with a solid plot and that there is always something worst around the corner.

Take a helping of Walking Dead, stir in a dollop of Falling Skies, season well with a few ground up bits of The Wizard of Oz, even a shake or two of Reign of Fire, and you have the broad-strokes start-up for Dead Earth: Sanctuary. – HellBound Times

Jay Snyder is quickly becoming one of my favorite narrators. You wouldn’t think that with such a deep and polished normal voice that he would have the range to evoke the voices of the characters in this or any book. Snyder commands each and every aspect of the story and mesmerizes my imagination with crisp clear enunciation that seems second nature to him.