Fighting to Survive (As The World Dies, #2) in SOS: Serious Overload of Series

Sep 28, 2011 Regina rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorite-series, post-apocalyptic, favorites, favorite-authors, horror, zombie, bingo-r4, re-read

Rhiannon Frater has amazing talent to take a topic that has been written about a lot and turn it into something new, fresh and different. Fighting to Survive is the second in the As the World series and it delivers gory, scary zombie goodness with great survival drama.

Fighting to Survive continues to be told from the alternating point of views of both Katie and Jennie who were introduced in The First Days. The story takes off exactly where it left off at the end of First Days, the group of survi Rhiannon Frater has amazing talent to take a topic that has been written about a lot and turn it into something new, fresh and different. Fighting to Survive is the second in the As the World series and it delivers gory, scary zombie goodness with great survival drama.

Fighting to Survive continues to be told from the alternating point of views of both Katie and Jennie who were introduced in The First Days. The story takes off exactly where it left off at the end of First Days, the group of survivors is hiding behind an enforced wall and making plans to move into a nearby hotel. There is political and emotional drama as the group struggles to deal with the new zombie infested world, their losses and a different power structure in this post apocalyptic world. Sometimes stuff like this can be presented in a boring manner or an overly dramatic way -- Frater does neither. The story is rich and complex and like everyday human life, nothing is simple.

Fighting to Survive is funny. Jenni is called La Loca and her personality adds a lot of humor to the gory and scary world,

"Moving determinedly toward the kitchen, Jenni caught a faint whiff of decay. "Shit!" Jenni screamed, "Theyre' here!" Abruptly, the door to the kitchen was flung open and the waitstaff flooded into the room, ready for the breakfast."

Both Jenni and Katie suffered significant emotional losses in the first book and this fact is not glossed over. Both continue to be haunted by the pain. I really like how Frater makes her zombie books so real. Yes real in the the monsters are damned scary, gruesome and nonstop. But also, her characters are in emotional pain; they don't just rebound and move on. There are inner struggles and the characters act on these. In the first book, Jenni's children die -- how does a mother move past this? Can she? I was worried at first when I read the summary of this series that Ms. Frater wouldn't present a mother's pain realistically. Well, she does. Jenni is a complicated character to begin with and her losses only magnify this. But the twisted thing about Jenni, is that because of the way her life was prior to the zombie rising (she was an abused wife) and despite her horrific losses, her life now is freer than it ever was. Jenni recognizes the twistedness of this and she suffers for it.

Human beings can be ugly -- not just in the morning before a shower, but I mean dark souls and mean people who take advantage of the weak. And what better time for people like this to come to the surface than a zombie apocalypse? Dealing with the zombies in As the World Dies is pretty straightforward -- don't get bit, kill them and eliminate them. The human beings who want power and like to hurt people are less straight forward and this is where Fighting to Survive becomes really interesting. It is pure survival at its basic level -- food, shelter, fighting monsters and fighting human beings who want to assert their evil control.

Fighting to Survive is not all humor and drama though, it is filled with excellent gore and fight scenes,

"With a grunt, Katie shoved the zombie over with her foot. It landed hard on the steps, its head flopping to one side, its teeth still gnashing. LIfting the knife, Katie narrowed her eyes, aimed, and struck the zombie through the eyes as hard as she could. The knife hit bone and she twisted, pushing the blade further in. The jaws stilled. Katie braced her foot on the head and drew out her weapon. Cleaning it on the dead maid's dress, she looked up to see Roger and Travis watching her with stunned expressions. "What?" "Damn," Roger said. "You were like Alice in Resident Evil. That was hot.""

So, I read both the self-published version and the Tor version. Are there differences? Yes, in a subtle why the Tor version is smoother and tighter. The same substantive story is there, but I enjoyed the Tor version even more. This is a series that I inhaled and read within a week but then still went on to buy all of the Tor versions and read those as well. If you like zombie and survivalist themed books, I think you will love this series.

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Dec 31, 2011 Rachel-RN rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2013

The story continues and it doesn't disappoint. This book made me cringe, cry, and cackle. People are found and people die. I wonder who the vigilante is? I had my pick, but after this person reacted a certain way later, I no longer am sure it's them. ...more

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