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The Weird Zone #1
Zombie Surf Commandos from Mars
Visiting the beach at Lake Lake, Liz, Jeff, and Holly are forced to save the world when a huge tidal wave sweeps a band of gray, flaking alien zombies to the shore. Original.
97 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1996
3 people are currently reading
45 people want to read
About the author
Tony Abbott
212 books402 followersTony Abbott (born 1952) is an American author of children's books. His most popular work is the book series The Secrets of Droon, which includes over 40 books. He has sold over 12 million copies of his books and they have been translated into several other languages, including Italian, Spanish, Korean, French, Japanese, Polish, Turkish, and Russian. He has also written the bestseller Firegirl.
Abbott was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1952. His father was a university professor and had an extensive library of books which became one of Abbott's first sources of literature. When he was eight years old, his family moved to Connecticut where he went through elementary school and high school.
Abbott attended the University of Connecticut, and after studying both music and psychology, decided to study English and graduated from the University of Connecticut with a bachelor's degree in English literature. He attended the workshops of Patricia Reilly Giff to further develop his writing after college.
Abbott currently lives in Trumbull, Connecticut, with his wife, two daughters, and two dogs. Tony had one brother and two sisters.
Abbott was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1952. His father was a university professor and had an extensive library of books which became one of Abbott's first sources of literature. When he was eight years old, his family moved to Connecticut where he went through elementary school and high school.
Abbott attended the University of Connecticut, and after studying both music and psychology, decided to study English and graduated from the University of Connecticut with a bachelor's degree in English literature. He attended the workshops of Patricia Reilly Giff to further develop his writing after college.
Abbott currently lives in Trumbull, Connecticut, with his wife, two daughters, and two dogs. Tony had one brother and two sisters.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 31, 2020
This was a fun book to read! It goes quickly, because it is so fascinating!
August 29, 2014
First I have yet to read anything by Tony Abbott that I did not really enjoy. Second it is great to see his earlier series coming back into print in eBook formats by Open Road Integrated Media. They are bringing back to life three of Tony's series, The Danger Guys, The Weird Zone and Cracked Classics. They have already made 20 of Tony Abbott's out of print books available and I think that is awesome.
This was the second series written by Tony Abbott, and it was originally published in the mid 90's. These books are set in Grover's Mill and it is a town known to be more than a little strange. It focuses around friendship, like many of Tony's series, and our key characters are Liz, Holly, Sean, Jeff and Mike. They consider themselves normal, and most of the residents of the town are Zoners. Even the paper in town, Grover's Mill Gazette, is weird and the headlines need deciphering for example - What was in the paper: "Exports at the Wells Lavatory discoed around stringy spit on the sour face of Mars a few dogs ago." And the translation by Liz was "Experts at the Welles Observatory discovered a strange spot on the surface of Mars a few days ago?". Maybe Grover's Mill is so weird because the town lake is called lake lake. Or maybe it is because it sits in the center of a triangle made up of a secret government UFO testing base, a dinosaur graveyard, and Humongous Horror Movie Studios, where the cheapest, cheesiest, horror movies ever made. This group of friends have nicknamed their town 'the weird zone' and to be honest a day would not be normal there unless if something really weird happened. But this one might be one for the record books.
The day the Zombie Surf Commandos from Mars invaded Grover's Mill. Holly, Liz and Jeff were heading to spend the day at the beach at Lake Lake. When all of a sudden the teenages had their surf boards stolen from under the water, then as the water started boiling and roiling they appeared, each surf board had 5 or 6 figures and they were good surfers, but they were: "horrible and gray. They had bald scalps with stringy wisps of white hair flying back in the breeze and ears that drooped and sagged to their shoulders. And their foreheads bulged. Some had big gaping holes instead of noses!" The wanted brains, nice fresh brains. But Liz and the gang were going to do whatever it took to save Grover's Mill's no matter how weird it is, it is still home.
This book was a great fun read. In many ways it is like the earlier series Danger Guys, or later series Goodballs. It is a good fun read that children will enjoy. It is geared for a younger audience than some of his books, but he writes from 4-16 but as an adult I have enjoyed all of his books to date. I highly recommend this title. And look forward to reading more in the series.
Read the review and reviews of other books by Tony Abbott on my blogBook Reviews and More. Also an interview with Tony.
This was the second series written by Tony Abbott, and it was originally published in the mid 90's. These books are set in Grover's Mill and it is a town known to be more than a little strange. It focuses around friendship, like many of Tony's series, and our key characters are Liz, Holly, Sean, Jeff and Mike. They consider themselves normal, and most of the residents of the town are Zoners. Even the paper in town, Grover's Mill Gazette, is weird and the headlines need deciphering for example - What was in the paper: "Exports at the Wells Lavatory discoed around stringy spit on the sour face of Mars a few dogs ago." And the translation by Liz was "Experts at the Welles Observatory discovered a strange spot on the surface of Mars a few days ago?". Maybe Grover's Mill is so weird because the town lake is called lake lake. Or maybe it is because it sits in the center of a triangle made up of a secret government UFO testing base, a dinosaur graveyard, and Humongous Horror Movie Studios, where the cheapest, cheesiest, horror movies ever made. This group of friends have nicknamed their town 'the weird zone' and to be honest a day would not be normal there unless if something really weird happened. But this one might be one for the record books.
The day the Zombie Surf Commandos from Mars invaded Grover's Mill. Holly, Liz and Jeff were heading to spend the day at the beach at Lake Lake. When all of a sudden the teenages had their surf boards stolen from under the water, then as the water started boiling and roiling they appeared, each surf board had 5 or 6 figures and they were good surfers, but they were: "horrible and gray. They had bald scalps with stringy wisps of white hair flying back in the breeze and ears that drooped and sagged to their shoulders. And their foreheads bulged. Some had big gaping holes instead of noses!" The wanted brains, nice fresh brains. But Liz and the gang were going to do whatever it took to save Grover's Mill's no matter how weird it is, it is still home.
This book was a great fun read. In many ways it is like the earlier series Danger Guys, or later series Goodballs. It is a good fun read that children will enjoy. It is geared for a younger audience than some of his books, but he writes from 4-16 but as an adult I have enjoyed all of his books to date. I highly recommend this title. And look forward to reading more in the series.
Read the review and reviews of other books by Tony Abbott on my blogBook Reviews and More. Also an interview with Tony.
January 16, 2025
It was kind of fun, and I expect for some might be a little bit of a scare but nothing bad.
It just didn’t feel very fleshed out (excuse the pun) and as a third of the book was a preview of the next one it felt like it could have given a little bit more about each character.
It just didn’t feel very fleshed out (excuse the pun) and as a third of the book was a preview of the next one it felt like it could have given a little bit more about each character.
January 1, 2025
This was so dumb, lol.
January 5, 2013
This is a weird book. I mean, obviously. But I mean, I'm a big fan of R.L. Stine, king of the slightly cheesy horror books for kids. And I found this book too cheesy.
Liz, Holly, and Jeff are hanging out at the beach, when suddenly, zombie surf commandos from Mars come surfing out of the lake onto the beach, and start looking for brains! They're both zombies and from Mars because they were normal Martians, and were made zombie-like by something about Earth. Anywho, the kids have to come up with a clever plan to get the zombie surf commandos to go back to Mars.
What else can I say? It was just really weird, and really cheesy.
2 stars. That's what I gave it in the heat of the moment. I can no longer remember why it got 2 stars instead of 1. I must have liked something.
This review is copied from my blog, The Towering Pile. It was originally published here.
Liz, Holly, and Jeff are hanging out at the beach, when suddenly, zombie surf commandos from Mars come surfing out of the lake onto the beach, and start looking for brains! They're both zombies and from Mars because they were normal Martians, and were made zombie-like by something about Earth. Anywho, the kids have to come up with a clever plan to get the zombie surf commandos to go back to Mars.
What else can I say? It was just really weird, and really cheesy.
2 stars. That's what I gave it in the heat of the moment. I can no longer remember why it got 2 stars instead of 1. I must have liked something.
This review is copied from my blog, The Towering Pile. It was originally published here.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews