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Eve of the Dead
The world as we know it has fallen into a state of chaos. The dead are rising, and are attacking the last remaining living people. Businesses and residences that have not yet been overrun by the hordes of ghouls are being ransacked by looters. A small group of survivors from the countryside seek shelter and supplies at a large superstore just outside the city limits. They must use every resource available to be able to survive against marauders...the living and the dead.
200 pages, Paperback
First published October 16, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 20, 2019
There's giving a nod to your favorite piece of fiction in your own work, there's ripping something off, and then there's downright plagiarizing someone else's work. Nathan Tucker falls into the category of flat out plagiarizing, and his sights were obviously set on the works of George A. Romero, more specifically Dawn of the Dead.
Let's start with the two basic categories, what I liked and what I didn't like.
What I liked:
Officer Brent Mathers - This is the best character in the entire book. He has an actual back story, character motivation, morals, values, and is actual memorable. When the other officers are shooting looters on sight, Brent still remembers his duty to serve and protect and will not shoot on sight unless his life is in danger. However this actually interesting character is not introduced until page 144 of this 199 page book.
Accurate information about firearms - The author seems to know enough about guns to write about them intelligently and in this day and age of Pulp Fiction style books, that is a rarity.
The book also had very few grammar or spelling mistakes. Lately most zombie books I've read have been rife with horrible spelling and miserable grammar. This wasn't too bad, and that made it much easier to read without pulling my hair out in frustration.
No explanation of why the zombies are here. Good, I hate when books get too bogged down in technical details of why the zombies are rising from the dead it just takes away from the story.
Headshots kill the zombies. My personal favorite ;-)
What I didn't like:
Samantha - At the very beginning of this book we are introduced to Samantha, a very intelligent young woman studying human psychology at Florida State University. Yet she suffers from what I like to call "Damsel in Distress Syndrome." As soon as the situation turns dangerous, she instantly drops about 60 IQ points and forgets simple things such as how to operate a car door, and how to recognize people who are trying to kill her, etc.
Flat Characters - Every character in this book with the exception of Brent have nothing about them that makes them stand out. They have no personality, no defining characteristics, nothing. Nathan might as well have just named the 5 male characters in this book, Character 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5. When the author does introduce them the only real way he differentiates between the characters is by giving them different hair color and styles. There are times that Nathan tries to give his characters defining characteristics, but then he seems to forget about them. Mark is a "big man," and another character has tattoos. Yet I forget which one because it's only mentioned once in the first 5 pages and is never mentioned again.
Describing characters - The author constantly is describing his characters to us instead of just using their names to tell us who is talking or doing something. Here are some examples. "The big man said," or "The agile young men," "The tiny woman cried." If that's not bad enough, Nathan seems to have like 10 of these terms he uses to describe his characters and he uses them over and over and over and over and over again. I counted, and he uses the phrase "Big Man" 52 times in this book! Sometimes it's used like 3 or 4 times on one page!
This book is constantly plagiarizing Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, and once or twice, Land of the Dead, and Day of the Dead. I'll point this out as we come across them in the book.
Now onto the nit picking -
Page 8 The 5 20-somethings are in a "shed" playing music, and one of them is laying on a couch. I don't know many "Sheds" that can hold 5 grown men, 2 holding guitars, both of which have their own amplifiers, a drummer and his drum set, and a couch.
Page 9 Sean and Mark get into a van to go get pizza. However I'm a little confused about this van. It's a "1985 Toyota van with power windows, power locks, a sunroof, and a mini-fridge." First of all, instead of describing all the bells and whistles of the van, why doesn't the author just say that it's a Toyota MasterAce? I mean that's what it is. Second of all, these vehicles are very rare in North America, how did this group of garage band wannabes get their hands on one? Third of all, what van in 1985 came with it's own mini-fridge?
Page 13 A police officer is bitten by a zombie and dies seconds later and re-animates as a zombie. Yet Scott takes almost 100 pages to die from his bite and re-animate. Why is this difference in time never explained or even asked about?
Page 16 Scott sees a person walking towards them in the distance and asks him a question. Ummm, don't think he can hear you bro. Then Sean exclaims "He's one of those people!" (Referring to the zombies he saw) How did he come to that conclusion? All he can see is one person in the distance who is walking slowly with a limp. Sean said himself that it looks like an "old man." Old people walk slow, and some have limps. Are all old people zombies?
Page 17 Scott holds a gun sideways and shoots the zombie old man in the head. Ugh, holding a gun sideways is the most ineffective way you can hold and fire a gun. Why do people in books and on TV do this? It's just stupid.
Page 18 The men try to call for help on their cell phones but they all exclaim that they can't get a signal and that the TV's are only showing static. Yet the land line phone still works fine, the water's still running, the power's still on, and the radio stations are still broadcasting just fine. Sure, why not?
Page 20 "Let me hold the phone." Why? You just want to hold it? Not use it?
Page 21 Take a look at the radio broadcast that is on this page, and then go listen to Night of the Living Dead's (NotLD) emergency radio broadcast. It's almost identical.
Page 23 Scott says "Nobody f---`s with my house. Ummm, you mean your parents' house, don't you?
Page 23 (again) Luke is on the phone on hold with 911, and the others tell him to just hang up because he'll never get through and he's tying up the line, what if their families try to call them? Dude, it's 2007 in this book, Scott's parents don't have call waiting on their phone?
Page 24 Sean gets tired and "...lays his back on one of the pallets." Scott's parents keep wooden pallets in their living room?
Page 26 We are introduced to the blonde bimbo Samantha. We are told she is very intelligent, and is going to college and studying psychology. She sees her neighbor walking down the street and puts her car in neutral and gets out to offer her a ride. Why did she put the car in neutral instead of park?
Page 28 The zombie neighbor lady trips over a branch and falls down. Samantha is very nice and goes over and helps the zombie lady to her feet, walks her to her car, helps her into the car, closes the door, gets into the car, and starts driving, and THEN the zombie attacks her. Wow, talk about a delayed reaction!
Page 29 The zombie attacks Samantha and the car goes careening off the road and crashes into a ditch and the zombie goes flying through the windshield. After all this, including hearing the news report about the zombies, she STILL doesn't get it? She goes over to her fallen zombie neighbor and asks, "Are you okay?" I thought this girl was supposed to be smart?
Page 31 Then after this encounter with a zombie, she runs down the road to find another neighbor out by his mailbox. Instead of reflecting on what just happened, and the news report she heard and approaching this person with caution, Samantha waves her arms in the air, yelling at the top of her lungs for help. And it turns out this person is a zombie. It's official, she's an idiot.
Page 35 We cut back to our 5 young men in Scott's parent's house after a night of sleep. They are awakened to hear a loud banging on the kitchen door. To which Joe says "What the hell is that?" Moron, what do you think it is!?! Avon calling? Jehovah Witnesses? The UPS man!?!
Page 38 Mark decides he has had enough of this business and walks to the kitchen door and kicks it open. Great job moron, now the lock is broken and you have no way to keep the door shut. I hope you're happy.
Page 40 "Scott spotted a stack of plywood." I love how during a zombie apocalypse plywood, hammers and nails just magically appear out of nowhere for no reason. Also Mark "noticed a machete leaning against the wall." Why do Scott's parents have a machete just randomly laying around their house?
Page 40 (again) "Joe slammed the door shut and locked the bolt." Did the door magically fix itself after Mark kicked it open?
Page 42 "...the recently dead are returning to life and attacking the living." Wow, that sounds familiar, "...the bodies of the recently deceased are returning to life and attacking the living." -Dawn of the Dead.
Page 43 "How do you kill `em if they're already dead?" I don't know, why don't you ask the Undertaker, he used to say that all the time in the 90's. "You cannot kill what is already dead." -Undertaker from WWF, late 90's.
Page 44 The radio continues to broadcast emergency broadcasts. "...it is unsafe to remain in your home no matter how well armed or prepared you think you may be." Wow, that sounds kinda familiar... "No longer seek occupancy in private residences no matter how safe or well protected they may be." - Night of the Living Dead & Dawn of the Dead
Page 50 The magically appearing wood showed up in Charlie and Samantha's trailer too! With no explanation of why it's there.
Page 53 Scott's parents have enough food in the house to feed 5 grown men for 6 days? Yeah right.
Page 53 (again) The men had taken down the interior doors of the house and used them to re-enforce the doors and windows. Wow, just like they did in Tom Savini's remake of Night of the Living Dead (1990).
Page 56 The men decide they can't stay at Scott's house anymore and they need to get to a rescue station where they will be better protected. They open the door and run out to the parked cars. Wait a minute, on page 45 they said they boarded up the door, is it magically unboarded now?
Page 59 The cigarettes in a gas station they loot are all gone, so Scott takes a half full box of lighters. (Remember this for later).
Page 62 Enter the EVIL military!!! Good lord this cliché has been done to death, can we please get something different in zombie novels other than sadistic soldiers who like pushing civilians around like a bunch of schoolyard bullies?
Page 62 (again) The soldiers have their rifles "Dangling from their shoulders." I've already touched on this in my Dead End review, no soldier carries their weapon like this. The correct phrasing should read as follows: "The soldiers all had their rifles slung over their shoulders." There you go Nathan, I'll give you that one for free.
Page 71 Since when do soldiers carry "billy clubs"? Plus, in America they're called "nightsticks." Only in the UK are they called "billy clubs"
Page 72 Some soldiers rush past our heroes to break up a fight in the cafeteria, and one of them bumps into Scott, the two are enraged and the have a stare down. The soldier is intimidated by Scott and runs off. Yes, you heard me right, a soldier, wearing body armor, with an M-16 over his shoulder, martial arts training, and carrying a "billy club" is scared of a 20-something with a bad attitude. Sure, makes perfect sense.
Page 73 Scott wants to know what happens to the people who get into trouble, steal, start fights, etc. It turns out they are taken to the second floor and locked in locker rooms. Scott finds this out and is enraged by the injustice of this, yet he never does anything about it. Mr. Tucker might as well have just written, "Hi, here's a plot thread that goes nowhere and does nothing."
Page 79 The young men decide they've had enough of the rescue station and the EVIL soldiers and make an escape plan. Scott approaches two of the guards and asks one for a cigarette. One of them shoulders his weapon and pulls out a cigarette and gives it to him. Yes, you read that right. A soldier on guard duty, PUT AWAY HIS WEAPON to give a civilian a cigarette. Nathan, the correct response that any soldier who made it through basic training and isn't brain dead would have given is: "move along sir." If that's not bad enough, then Scott asks if they have a light. The other soldier on guard duty also puts away his weapon to look for a lighter, while his companion does the same, looking for a lighter. These have to be the stupidest soldiers on the planet earth. If any ranking officer came by and saw this, the two would have been in so much trouble they probably wouldn't see the light of day for a month. What's even worse is these two trained soldiers are easily overpowered by a couple of 20 yr olds. Sure, makes perfect sense. I guess they didn't have their side arms with them.
Page 81 You don't "leaf through" sets of keys. You only leaf through pieces of paper or pages of a book. If anything they should be "searching through sets of keys" or "looking through sets of keys."
Page 84 Mark: "We've got to go back to the sticks!" Wow that sounds like Roger's line in Dawn of the Dead, "We gotta stay in the sticks."
Page 90 Mark exclaims "Forget it!" after seeing a large group of zombies in front of the Super Wal-Mart. That sounds a lot like Steven's line in Dawn of the dead after seeing a lot of zombies in the mall parking lot. "No chance, forget it!"
Page 90 (again) Throughout the book every store that the men have come across have been looted and there is nothing left in them. Yet this Wal-Mart is totally unlooted, and the doors are unlocked. Oh right, since it's a half mile out of town I guess that means that everyone just forgot about it.
Page 94 The men come across boxes of bullets under glass in the sporting department and one asks "how do we get them out of there?" Scott replies by smashing the glass to pieces with the butt of his shotgun, Mark rolls his eyes. Again, let's compare this to Dawn of the Dead. Steven: "How do we get down there?" Roger: *Smashes glass with the butt of his rifle* Steven rolls his eyes. Noticing a pattern here?
Page 94 (again) Mark sees a zombie coming so he dumps a box of bullets onto the counter and frantically starts loading bullets into his pistol. Hmmm... just like Steven did in Dawn of the Dead when he saw the zombie pushing on the gate of the hunting store while he was inside.
Page 95 Joe: "Let's take what we can and get the hell out of here!" That sounds like Roger: "We can load up what we got and get the hell out of here!"
Page 95 Sean sees a power lever action rifle with a scope on it. Just like Peter did in the hunting store scene.
Page 97 We have Scott arguing to stay in the store, make it secure and have it as their own while Mark is arguing to get what they can and leave as fast as they can. This argument sounds familiar... Just how many times did Mr. Tucker watch Dawn of the Dead before he wrote this?
Page 97 (Again) Stacking a ton of cardboard boxes in front of a do
Let's start with the two basic categories, what I liked and what I didn't like.
What I liked:
Officer Brent Mathers - This is the best character in the entire book. He has an actual back story, character motivation, morals, values, and is actual memorable. When the other officers are shooting looters on sight, Brent still remembers his duty to serve and protect and will not shoot on sight unless his life is in danger. However this actually interesting character is not introduced until page 144 of this 199 page book.
Accurate information about firearms - The author seems to know enough about guns to write about them intelligently and in this day and age of Pulp Fiction style books, that is a rarity.
The book also had very few grammar or spelling mistakes. Lately most zombie books I've read have been rife with horrible spelling and miserable grammar. This wasn't too bad, and that made it much easier to read without pulling my hair out in frustration.
No explanation of why the zombies are here. Good, I hate when books get too bogged down in technical details of why the zombies are rising from the dead it just takes away from the story.
Headshots kill the zombies. My personal favorite ;-)
What I didn't like:
Samantha - At the very beginning of this book we are introduced to Samantha, a very intelligent young woman studying human psychology at Florida State University. Yet she suffers from what I like to call "Damsel in Distress Syndrome." As soon as the situation turns dangerous, she instantly drops about 60 IQ points and forgets simple things such as how to operate a car door, and how to recognize people who are trying to kill her, etc.
Flat Characters - Every character in this book with the exception of Brent have nothing about them that makes them stand out. They have no personality, no defining characteristics, nothing. Nathan might as well have just named the 5 male characters in this book, Character 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5. When the author does introduce them the only real way he differentiates between the characters is by giving them different hair color and styles. There are times that Nathan tries to give his characters defining characteristics, but then he seems to forget about them. Mark is a "big man," and another character has tattoos. Yet I forget which one because it's only mentioned once in the first 5 pages and is never mentioned again.
Describing characters - The author constantly is describing his characters to us instead of just using their names to tell us who is talking or doing something. Here are some examples. "The big man said," or "The agile young men," "The tiny woman cried." If that's not bad enough, Nathan seems to have like 10 of these terms he uses to describe his characters and he uses them over and over and over and over and over again. I counted, and he uses the phrase "Big Man" 52 times in this book! Sometimes it's used like 3 or 4 times on one page!
This book is constantly plagiarizing Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, and once or twice, Land of the Dead, and Day of the Dead. I'll point this out as we come across them in the book.
Now onto the nit picking -
Page 8 The 5 20-somethings are in a "shed" playing music, and one of them is laying on a couch. I don't know many "Sheds" that can hold 5 grown men, 2 holding guitars, both of which have their own amplifiers, a drummer and his drum set, and a couch.
Page 9 Sean and Mark get into a van to go get pizza. However I'm a little confused about this van. It's a "1985 Toyota van with power windows, power locks, a sunroof, and a mini-fridge." First of all, instead of describing all the bells and whistles of the van, why doesn't the author just say that it's a Toyota MasterAce? I mean that's what it is. Second of all, these vehicles are very rare in North America, how did this group of garage band wannabes get their hands on one? Third of all, what van in 1985 came with it's own mini-fridge?
Page 13 A police officer is bitten by a zombie and dies seconds later and re-animates as a zombie. Yet Scott takes almost 100 pages to die from his bite and re-animate. Why is this difference in time never explained or even asked about?
Page 16 Scott sees a person walking towards them in the distance and asks him a question. Ummm, don't think he can hear you bro. Then Sean exclaims "He's one of those people!" (Referring to the zombies he saw) How did he come to that conclusion? All he can see is one person in the distance who is walking slowly with a limp. Sean said himself that it looks like an "old man." Old people walk slow, and some have limps. Are all old people zombies?
Page 17 Scott holds a gun sideways and shoots the zombie old man in the head. Ugh, holding a gun sideways is the most ineffective way you can hold and fire a gun. Why do people in books and on TV do this? It's just stupid.
Page 18 The men try to call for help on their cell phones but they all exclaim that they can't get a signal and that the TV's are only showing static. Yet the land line phone still works fine, the water's still running, the power's still on, and the radio stations are still broadcasting just fine. Sure, why not?
Page 20 "Let me hold the phone." Why? You just want to hold it? Not use it?
Page 21 Take a look at the radio broadcast that is on this page, and then go listen to Night of the Living Dead's (NotLD) emergency radio broadcast. It's almost identical.
Page 23 Scott says "Nobody f---`s with my house. Ummm, you mean your parents' house, don't you?
Page 23 (again) Luke is on the phone on hold with 911, and the others tell him to just hang up because he'll never get through and he's tying up the line, what if their families try to call them? Dude, it's 2007 in this book, Scott's parents don't have call waiting on their phone?
Page 24 Sean gets tired and "...lays his back on one of the pallets." Scott's parents keep wooden pallets in their living room?
Page 26 We are introduced to the blonde bimbo Samantha. We are told she is very intelligent, and is going to college and studying psychology. She sees her neighbor walking down the street and puts her car in neutral and gets out to offer her a ride. Why did she put the car in neutral instead of park?
Page 28 The zombie neighbor lady trips over a branch and falls down. Samantha is very nice and goes over and helps the zombie lady to her feet, walks her to her car, helps her into the car, closes the door, gets into the car, and starts driving, and THEN the zombie attacks her. Wow, talk about a delayed reaction!
Page 29 The zombie attacks Samantha and the car goes careening off the road and crashes into a ditch and the zombie goes flying through the windshield. After all this, including hearing the news report about the zombies, she STILL doesn't get it? She goes over to her fallen zombie neighbor and asks, "Are you okay?" I thought this girl was supposed to be smart?
Page 31 Then after this encounter with a zombie, she runs down the road to find another neighbor out by his mailbox. Instead of reflecting on what just happened, and the news report she heard and approaching this person with caution, Samantha waves her arms in the air, yelling at the top of her lungs for help. And it turns out this person is a zombie. It's official, she's an idiot.
Page 35 We cut back to our 5 young men in Scott's parent's house after a night of sleep. They are awakened to hear a loud banging on the kitchen door. To which Joe says "What the hell is that?" Moron, what do you think it is!?! Avon calling? Jehovah Witnesses? The UPS man!?!
Page 38 Mark decides he has had enough of this business and walks to the kitchen door and kicks it open. Great job moron, now the lock is broken and you have no way to keep the door shut. I hope you're happy.
Page 40 "Scott spotted a stack of plywood." I love how during a zombie apocalypse plywood, hammers and nails just magically appear out of nowhere for no reason. Also Mark "noticed a machete leaning against the wall." Why do Scott's parents have a machete just randomly laying around their house?
Page 40 (again) "Joe slammed the door shut and locked the bolt." Did the door magically fix itself after Mark kicked it open?
Page 42 "...the recently dead are returning to life and attacking the living." Wow, that sounds familiar, "...the bodies of the recently deceased are returning to life and attacking the living." -Dawn of the Dead.
Page 43 "How do you kill `em if they're already dead?" I don't know, why don't you ask the Undertaker, he used to say that all the time in the 90's. "You cannot kill what is already dead." -Undertaker from WWF, late 90's.
Page 44 The radio continues to broadcast emergency broadcasts. "...it is unsafe to remain in your home no matter how well armed or prepared you think you may be." Wow, that sounds kinda familiar... "No longer seek occupancy in private residences no matter how safe or well protected they may be." - Night of the Living Dead & Dawn of the Dead
Page 50 The magically appearing wood showed up in Charlie and Samantha's trailer too! With no explanation of why it's there.
Page 53 Scott's parents have enough food in the house to feed 5 grown men for 6 days? Yeah right.
Page 53 (again) The men had taken down the interior doors of the house and used them to re-enforce the doors and windows. Wow, just like they did in Tom Savini's remake of Night of the Living Dead (1990).
Page 56 The men decide they can't stay at Scott's house anymore and they need to get to a rescue station where they will be better protected. They open the door and run out to the parked cars. Wait a minute, on page 45 they said they boarded up the door, is it magically unboarded now?
Page 59 The cigarettes in a gas station they loot are all gone, so Scott takes a half full box of lighters. (Remember this for later).
Page 62 Enter the EVIL military!!! Good lord this cliché has been done to death, can we please get something different in zombie novels other than sadistic soldiers who like pushing civilians around like a bunch of schoolyard bullies?
Page 62 (again) The soldiers have their rifles "Dangling from their shoulders." I've already touched on this in my Dead End review, no soldier carries their weapon like this. The correct phrasing should read as follows: "The soldiers all had their rifles slung over their shoulders." There you go Nathan, I'll give you that one for free.
Page 71 Since when do soldiers carry "billy clubs"? Plus, in America they're called "nightsticks." Only in the UK are they called "billy clubs"
Page 72 Some soldiers rush past our heroes to break up a fight in the cafeteria, and one of them bumps into Scott, the two are enraged and the have a stare down. The soldier is intimidated by Scott and runs off. Yes, you heard me right, a soldier, wearing body armor, with an M-16 over his shoulder, martial arts training, and carrying a "billy club" is scared of a 20-something with a bad attitude. Sure, makes perfect sense.
Page 73 Scott wants to know what happens to the people who get into trouble, steal, start fights, etc. It turns out they are taken to the second floor and locked in locker rooms. Scott finds this out and is enraged by the injustice of this, yet he never does anything about it. Mr. Tucker might as well have just written, "Hi, here's a plot thread that goes nowhere and does nothing."
Page 79 The young men decide they've had enough of the rescue station and the EVIL soldiers and make an escape plan. Scott approaches two of the guards and asks one for a cigarette. One of them shoulders his weapon and pulls out a cigarette and gives it to him. Yes, you read that right. A soldier on guard duty, PUT AWAY HIS WEAPON to give a civilian a cigarette. Nathan, the correct response that any soldier who made it through basic training and isn't brain dead would have given is: "move along sir." If that's not bad enough, then Scott asks if they have a light. The other soldier on guard duty also puts away his weapon to look for a lighter, while his companion does the same, looking for a lighter. These have to be the stupidest soldiers on the planet earth. If any ranking officer came by and saw this, the two would have been in so much trouble they probably wouldn't see the light of day for a month. What's even worse is these two trained soldiers are easily overpowered by a couple of 20 yr olds. Sure, makes perfect sense. I guess they didn't have their side arms with them.
Page 81 You don't "leaf through" sets of keys. You only leaf through pieces of paper or pages of a book. If anything they should be "searching through sets of keys" or "looking through sets of keys."
Page 84 Mark: "We've got to go back to the sticks!" Wow that sounds like Roger's line in Dawn of the Dead, "We gotta stay in the sticks."
Page 90 Mark exclaims "Forget it!" after seeing a large group of zombies in front of the Super Wal-Mart. That sounds a lot like Steven's line in Dawn of the dead after seeing a lot of zombies in the mall parking lot. "No chance, forget it!"
Page 90 (again) Throughout the book every store that the men have come across have been looted and there is nothing left in them. Yet this Wal-Mart is totally unlooted, and the doors are unlocked. Oh right, since it's a half mile out of town I guess that means that everyone just forgot about it.
Page 94 The men come across boxes of bullets under glass in the sporting department and one asks "how do we get them out of there?" Scott replies by smashing the glass to pieces with the butt of his shotgun, Mark rolls his eyes. Again, let's compare this to Dawn of the Dead. Steven: "How do we get down there?" Roger: *Smashes glass with the butt of his rifle* Steven rolls his eyes. Noticing a pattern here?
Page 94 (again) Mark sees a zombie coming so he dumps a box of bullets onto the counter and frantically starts loading bullets into his pistol. Hmmm... just like Steven did in Dawn of the Dead when he saw the zombie pushing on the gate of the hunting store while he was inside.
Page 95 Joe: "Let's take what we can and get the hell out of here!" That sounds like Roger: "We can load up what we got and get the hell out of here!"
Page 95 Sean sees a power lever action rifle with a scope on it. Just like Peter did in the hunting store scene.
Page 97 We have Scott arguing to stay in the store, make it secure and have it as their own while Mark is arguing to get what they can and leave as fast as they can. This argument sounds familiar... Just how many times did Mr. Tucker watch Dawn of the Dead before he wrote this?
Page 97 (Again) Stacking a ton of cardboard boxes in front of a do
November 5, 2010
Eve of the Dead is a tale of zombie apocalypse, as anyone could surmise by the name of the book. It takes place in northern Florida around the time the dead have begun to walk and tells the story of a group of five friends who are trying desperately to survive the ever increasing swarm of ghouls that are trying to wipe out humanity. Thrown in to the story's mix is a young couple who are also trying to survive in their small trailer out in the sticks as the government imposes Martial law and the National Guard and Police try to maintain control of the populous but are failing miserably.
To say that this story pays homage to the works of Romero would be inaccurate. Instead, this is closer to a carbon copy of one his most famous films: Dawn of the Dead. I would say that this work is a combination of both the original and the remake, with some elements of both poking through.
The young men take flight from their barricaded home and pull into one of the rescue stations as they begin to run out of food and hope. They flee the station when they realize it is a chaotic mess with the National Guard and civilians clashing constantly. They end up at a Wal-Mart Super Store (or Mall, for all intents and purposes), which is where any attempts to present a different story than "Dawn" is ditched entirely. Some of the identical traits to the one or the other of the "Dawn" movies:
-One of the characters ruminates why the zombies want in to the store so badly and comes up with this: perhaps because it was such an important place to them when they were alive.
-There is a character who is bitten and whose bandaged wound is squeezed mercilessly by another zombie later.
-There is a truck that is viewed by the characters bashing through the parking lot of the giant store via closed circuit televisions.
-For a brief time the characters all have fun frolicking in the store before everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
-The store is invaded by other human interlopers near the end and one character grows enraged, stating "This is our place now" before he starts firing at them.
Now I realize that some of these are minor details, but if you have ever seen either Dawn movie all of the above probably sounds familiar to you. I can understand wanting to pay tribute to the man who started it all but unfortunately Nathan Tucker has done so by making his story so similar to THE movie that is, along with "Night of the Living Dead", the foundation upon which all other zombie stories are built (at least in modern film and books). The characters were not tremendously well fleshed out or detailed in ways that make them memorable or unique and so my mind had a tendency to wander back to the movie this book mirrors so closely, which probably made it even easier for me to see all the glaring similarities.
A lot of the book is taken up with battle scenes with the undead. I am a fan of gore and enjoy its liberal usage in most of the books that populate this genre but I have never needed a shot by shot, blow by blow account of every bullet fired and every punch thrown especially when a good part of that particular book is about the main characters clearing and re-clearing out a giant superstore filled with the dead buggers. This is a prime example of where less would have truly been more. Pick out a few choice morsels of destruction to run with along with some of the more interesting attacks/kills and leave the rest to our imagination.
Now I come to the editing problems this book had. Overall, I give the author credit for making sure his grammar and punctuation were correct...for the most part. But though he succeeded in that regard he failed badly when it came to creative description of his characters. A thesaurus may have helped. As the previous reviewer pointed out quite accurately the author has about one or two ways of describing each person in the book; especially anyone who is physically larger than average. On one page alone the same character was described as "the big man" virtually every time he does or says anything, with "large" sprinkled in on occasion to perhaps break up the monotony. There are at least three "big men" in this book with the prerequisite "huge hands" and "large arms". There are other repeats and most either describe someone's size (thin, big, small, etc.) or their hair color (the young black haired man, the red headed man, etc.). To a certain extent it is reasonable to sprinkle that throughout a book but not in paragraph after paragraph ad nauseum.
So, you may be asking why two stars vs. one with all the negatives I have brought up. Well, the answer is that I do believe that this author does have some talent. Whether it will be realized in a future work remains to be seen but he CAN write and that shined through here every now and then. He desperately needs to make an effort to further develop his characters, get more creative with his descriptions of them, and avoid copying a grand master of the genre he is tackling. If he can manage all of that, Nathan Tucker might be able to pull off something interesting to read. Besides, I have to reserve one star for the truly horrid, which for me is "Aftermath of the Dead", which I could argue is one of the worst books ever written, let alone the worst zombie book ever put to paper. That this book has twice as many stars means it is something you can actually read with out your brains melting inside your skull and blood shooting out of your eye sockets. I cannot say the same for "Aftermath".
I would be willing to read another book produced by Mr. Tucker, but I sincerely hope he works hard to hone his craft before he gets published again.
To say that this story pays homage to the works of Romero would be inaccurate. Instead, this is closer to a carbon copy of one his most famous films: Dawn of the Dead. I would say that this work is a combination of both the original and the remake, with some elements of both poking through.
The young men take flight from their barricaded home and pull into one of the rescue stations as they begin to run out of food and hope. They flee the station when they realize it is a chaotic mess with the National Guard and civilians clashing constantly. They end up at a Wal-Mart Super Store (or Mall, for all intents and purposes), which is where any attempts to present a different story than "Dawn" is ditched entirely. Some of the identical traits to the one or the other of the "Dawn" movies:
-One of the characters ruminates why the zombies want in to the store so badly and comes up with this: perhaps because it was such an important place to them when they were alive.
-There is a character who is bitten and whose bandaged wound is squeezed mercilessly by another zombie later.
-There is a truck that is viewed by the characters bashing through the parking lot of the giant store via closed circuit televisions.
-For a brief time the characters all have fun frolicking in the store before everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
-The store is invaded by other human interlopers near the end and one character grows enraged, stating "This is our place now" before he starts firing at them.
Now I realize that some of these are minor details, but if you have ever seen either Dawn movie all of the above probably sounds familiar to you. I can understand wanting to pay tribute to the man who started it all but unfortunately Nathan Tucker has done so by making his story so similar to THE movie that is, along with "Night of the Living Dead", the foundation upon which all other zombie stories are built (at least in modern film and books). The characters were not tremendously well fleshed out or detailed in ways that make them memorable or unique and so my mind had a tendency to wander back to the movie this book mirrors so closely, which probably made it even easier for me to see all the glaring similarities.
A lot of the book is taken up with battle scenes with the undead. I am a fan of gore and enjoy its liberal usage in most of the books that populate this genre but I have never needed a shot by shot, blow by blow account of every bullet fired and every punch thrown especially when a good part of that particular book is about the main characters clearing and re-clearing out a giant superstore filled with the dead buggers. This is a prime example of where less would have truly been more. Pick out a few choice morsels of destruction to run with along with some of the more interesting attacks/kills and leave the rest to our imagination.
Now I come to the editing problems this book had. Overall, I give the author credit for making sure his grammar and punctuation were correct...for the most part. But though he succeeded in that regard he failed badly when it came to creative description of his characters. A thesaurus may have helped. As the previous reviewer pointed out quite accurately the author has about one or two ways of describing each person in the book; especially anyone who is physically larger than average. On one page alone the same character was described as "the big man" virtually every time he does or says anything, with "large" sprinkled in on occasion to perhaps break up the monotony. There are at least three "big men" in this book with the prerequisite "huge hands" and "large arms". There are other repeats and most either describe someone's size (thin, big, small, etc.) or their hair color (the young black haired man, the red headed man, etc.). To a certain extent it is reasonable to sprinkle that throughout a book but not in paragraph after paragraph ad nauseum.
So, you may be asking why two stars vs. one with all the negatives I have brought up. Well, the answer is that I do believe that this author does have some talent. Whether it will be realized in a future work remains to be seen but he CAN write and that shined through here every now and then. He desperately needs to make an effort to further develop his characters, get more creative with his descriptions of them, and avoid copying a grand master of the genre he is tackling. If he can manage all of that, Nathan Tucker might be able to pull off something interesting to read. Besides, I have to reserve one star for the truly horrid, which for me is "Aftermath of the Dead", which I could argue is one of the worst books ever written, let alone the worst zombie book ever put to paper. That this book has twice as many stars means it is something you can actually read with out your brains melting inside your skull and blood shooting out of your eye sockets. I cannot say the same for "Aftermath".
I would be willing to read another book produced by Mr. Tucker, but I sincerely hope he works hard to hone his craft before he gets published again.
October 3, 2014
This is a fairly typical zombie fiction book, with nothing unusual and no clever twists or additions to the genre. However, that might be considered a good thing as it sticks to the slow lumbering "Pittsburgh" style zombies that seems to be unfashionable in most recent zombie novels, and it provides enough action for most fans.
The story centres around five young men in a rock band as they struggle to survive as the dead walk the Earth. There's no real explanation given for the zombie epidemic and it follows the usual path of unexplained acts of violence etc on the news, with victims joining the ranks of the dead until they outnumber the living. We follow the band as they carry out the usual process of boarding themselves into a house, and then try to make their way to safety elsewhere. I won't spoil the details, but you've probably seen or read most this before somewhere.
There are a few other minor characters along the way although they don't really add much to the story. Additionally, it's hard to tell the five men apart sometimes as they don't really have unique personalities or attributes, and at times I felt that their actions were stupid and illogical and I hoped that they would get eaten. The book also shows the authorities in quite a bad light, probably unfairly in my opinion. There are also a few mistakes and inconsistencies that should have been picked up by a decent editor, but it doesn't really detract from the story. However, the book is slightly open-ended and leaves a couple of unresolved story lines, but don't care about the characters enough to be too sad if a sequel is never written.
All in all, an action and gore-filled novel for fans of zombie fiction, but don't expect anything amazing.
The story centres around five young men in a rock band as they struggle to survive as the dead walk the Earth. There's no real explanation given for the zombie epidemic and it follows the usual path of unexplained acts of violence etc on the news, with victims joining the ranks of the dead until they outnumber the living. We follow the band as they carry out the usual process of boarding themselves into a house, and then try to make their way to safety elsewhere. I won't spoil the details, but you've probably seen or read most this before somewhere.
There are a few other minor characters along the way although they don't really add much to the story. Additionally, it's hard to tell the five men apart sometimes as they don't really have unique personalities or attributes, and at times I felt that their actions were stupid and illogical and I hoped that they would get eaten. The book also shows the authorities in quite a bad light, probably unfairly in my opinion. There are also a few mistakes and inconsistencies that should have been picked up by a decent editor, but it doesn't really detract from the story. However, the book is slightly open-ended and leaves a couple of unresolved story lines, but don't care about the characters enough to be too sad if a sequel is never written.
All in all, an action and gore-filled novel for fans of zombie fiction, but don't expect anything amazing.
November 20, 2010
I'm giving this book 3 stars on the basis that this is the author's first published work and it reminds me of NaNoWriMo work. And hey, he's been published and I haven't. I found my copy on the zombie shelf at The Book Barn in Niantic, CT.
The book was short and rushed. There was little character development. Out of the five guys, if you asked me who was who, I'd only be able to tell you Scott was the one that was the drunk pill popper. The author states he was inspired by Romero's work and I'd have to say that he was more than inspired since the survivors held up in a WalMart Supercenter as opposed to a mall.
But kudos to the author for a good first work. I don't think mine would be much better. Since the book has been out for a few years, I'd be considering a rewrite. But that is me.
The book was short and rushed. There was little character development. Out of the five guys, if you asked me who was who, I'd only be able to tell you Scott was the one that was the drunk pill popper. The author states he was inspired by Romero's work and I'd have to say that he was more than inspired since the survivors held up in a WalMart Supercenter as opposed to a mall.
But kudos to the author for a good first work. I don't think mine would be much better. Since the book has been out for a few years, I'd be considering a rewrite. But that is me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 24, 2026
I am a big fan of zombie movies. So I decided to give a book about zombies a try. Well, I wasn't disappointed! I thought this book captured the spirit of all the best zombie films. It reminded me a lot of Dawn of the Dead (the one from the 70's), but hey, that's great-Dawn of the Dead is my favorite movie. The book had a few errors and was kind of short. But as a horror fan, I have to give it 4/5. Check it out.
April 20, 2019
1.5 stars and I'm rounding up because it's his first novel and zombies. You can tell it's his first work and there's potential but it's a bit hard to choke down.
the good: the zombies are classic Romero zombies. the horror/apocalypse aspect/gore is on par with what I expect in a zombie novel.
the bad: repetitive and limited vocabulary, every other time a certain character is mentioned it's "the big man" or "his massive arms" or "the five friends" like that's their defining characteristic and it hurts the character development. it's like reading fanfic of a combo of the dawn of the dead movies. None of the characters were very interesting or came off as stupid. little things like Scott saying that a police handgun has 17 rounds in the clip and maybe I'm wrong but the standard police Glock has a 15 round clip so maybe that cop deserved to die for breaking regulations.
the ugly: the scene where "the five friends" are attacked by a zombie and Scott shoots it in the chest (it unlives obviously) then shoots it in the head. there's much yelling and exclamation points and accusations of murder. they run inside listen to a radio report claiming mass cannibalism then immediately lay out blankets and take naps, one guy calming saying he had too much beer. Scott calmly tells them all to sleep while he takes watch. in the morning they wake up to the smell of bacon and eggs that Scott made who then asks them if they heard the radio report while they were sleeping. Now maybe it's just me but if I had no idea what a zombie is, thought my friend just murdered someone and the news is spouting cannibals, I think I'd want to talk about it before calmly going to sleep or maybe not sleep at all or casual breakfast afterwards. I'm impressed they were able to jump from day one to day 100 in the zombie survival response level in just a few hours!
overall it had potential but that scene killed it for me.
the good: the zombies are classic Romero zombies. the horror/apocalypse aspect/gore is on par with what I expect in a zombie novel.
the bad: repetitive and limited vocabulary, every other time a certain character is mentioned it's "the big man" or "his massive arms" or "the five friends" like that's their defining characteristic and it hurts the character development. it's like reading fanfic of a combo of the dawn of the dead movies. None of the characters were very interesting or came off as stupid. little things like Scott saying that a police handgun has 17 rounds in the clip and maybe I'm wrong but the standard police Glock has a 15 round clip so maybe that cop deserved to die for breaking regulations.
the ugly: the scene where "the five friends" are attacked by a zombie and Scott shoots it in the chest (it unlives obviously) then shoots it in the head. there's much yelling and exclamation points and accusations of murder. they run inside listen to a radio report claiming mass cannibalism then immediately lay out blankets and take naps, one guy calming saying he had too much beer. Scott calmly tells them all to sleep while he takes watch. in the morning they wake up to the smell of bacon and eggs that Scott made who then asks them if they heard the radio report while they were sleeping. Now maybe it's just me but if I had no idea what a zombie is, thought my friend just murdered someone and the news is spouting cannibals, I think I'd want to talk about it before calmly going to sleep or maybe not sleep at all or casual breakfast afterwards. I'm impressed they were able to jump from day one to day 100 in the zombie survival response level in just a few hours!
overall it had potential but that scene killed it for me.
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