The Dog Is Good

I have been wanting to get a TW book for sometime. His stuff never goes on sale. I went ahead and wasted a credit. Brown seems to write exclusively in the Zombie genre and I like good zombie books. I was also impressed that he is a reviewer. A reviewer that does not always give five stars to his writing buddies. Card is a reviewer, but he only gives five stars. So, I that this guy must be gutsy.

I only got through close to five hours. I thought the story was weak and had too many unbelievable things happen. In no particular order, 1. A music teacher who was a construction worker? I have never meet a music teacher who could lift a hammer. 2. The main character goes out of his way to not watch the news, even after weird stuff starts happening? 3. Why are all these people running around in a pick up truck? In a Zombie apocalypse, there are lots of abandoned cars. Any town with a school has a least one car lot. Didn't these other teachers have cars? Why put all your eggs in one basket?

Other annoying things
Get a professional narrator. The majority of your men sound like women. Too much introspective thinking. That is not they way it happens in the movies. If I heard that once I heard it ten times. First, it is very cliché and second, who cares. Why don't you say this is not the way it happens in books? Writers seem to think it adds authenticity to their writing to say that. There is zero science in this. One of the great things about a Zombie book, is the writer coming up with a unique or clever way this happened. Was it a government conspiracy? An experiment gone wrong, a mad scientist, some virus from South America, an alien invasion, What? How do your zombies differ from other zombies?

The book cover
Based on the Tim Burton style cover of the book, I thought maybe our main characters would be zombies themselves. The girlfriend became one early on, but was quickly forgotten. Tufo's Timothy series is cool, because it comes from the perspective of the zombie.

My favorite Zombie books are Cell, by King. These zombies gather together and form a sort of community, plus you become a zombie by using your phone. Joseph Duncan's Cattle, has zombies who are smart and they breed humans for food. Scott Sigler's Pandemic, has zombies that are part of an alien invasion theme.

Hey Audible
Why are there only 15 books in the zombie category and you can't browse to get there. You have to find a book that is specifically categorized as Zombie in order to go through the back door. It has been like three months.

47 people found this helpful

Volume 1

Any additional comments?

Great start to a new series! But this is a cliffhanger. If you like zombie, this audiobook is for you

5 people found this helpful

Welcomed slightly different take zombie apoc

Evan Berry loves music and is looking forward to his first day as a music teacher at the local school.  Too bad it is the day the world devolves into zombie chaos.  He is the ordinary man in an impossible situation, forced to accept the death/turning of his fiancé and loss of everything and everything he knows.  He has to rise to the situation or be eaten alive with everyone else.

Carl, the shop teacher is more than ready for the breakdown of civilization and helps Evan through his denial.  Together they protect an unlikely group, a cranky middle-aged teacher and two children against the hungry hordes of zombies and the evil living.

The slightly different take on the overcrowded zombie genre is welcome, though Even quickly evolves into the standard kill or be killed apocalypse hero.  Evan often thinks about and refers to the many zombie movies and how his zombie reality is so different.  The thing is, it isn’t that different, or at least not different enough to be noteworthy.  The story does keep a backdrop of humor and a doesn’t take-itself-too-seriously tone that is very welcome.  It softens the gruesome parts but also dulls the poignant scenes.  It may not ground breaking, but it is fun and entertaining.

The story is performed by the author.  His voice is pleasant enough, but is difficult at first to get into the story as he stumbles over phrases and doesn’t always differentiate the characters well.  His female and male characters sometimes morph into each other.  On the other hand, he lends a personal tone to the story.  No one knows a story better than the author and the listener gets just a little more depth from certain characters for it.  It is a personal taste and one can’t really say if his reading is a positive or negative, adding in some ways and detracting in others.

Onset Dead is a fun zombie story with enough humor and flawed humanity to give us just a little bit different take on the many zombie stories.  There is plenty of gruesome chomping and hapless, dirty survivors fighting for their lives.  If you are zombie lover, you will probably never get enough, so give this one a go.

Audiobook was provided for review by the author.

Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog

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4 people found this helpful

Find out how it begins

Onset Dead feels more like Fear the Walking Dead than The Walking Dead, only there's a quirky sense of humor in the main character. It's the beginning of the zombie apocalypse and people are running around trying to get help for their dying loved ones/or undying loved ones would probably be the better statement. I'm saddened by the loss of Evan's true love, which happens right at the beginning and teaches Evan a lot about the symptoms of tuning. The author does a good job with his narration, with a clear voice and good production quality. I love Chewie and hope to see more of him. There's a nice little group forming that doesn't always agree and tend to have a love/hate relationship. At least they try to watch each other's backs. If you listen to this book, you'd better plan to stay around for book 2!

2 people found this helpful

Onset: Dead Volume 1

So excited for a new zombie series, and super excited it's written by TW Brown....(Chris Philbrook and Mark Tufo are the only other "zombie" authors I also get this excited for!)

I enjoyed "Onset" and am really pleased this series is going to be focusing on one main character (and his group?) Evan is a relatable decent guy trying to survive a world full of zombies, and I felt myself really routing for him by the end of this book. Can't wait to see what the future holds for him!

The narrator.... none other than the author himself! Great job!

2 people found this helpful

Zombie Story at it's finest!

Following just one man on his journey and experiences of the zombie apocalypse, this is a spin off from the Dead series and i loved it as much as the original. TW Brown is a wonderful story teller. He gets truly in depth with his characters and those that Evan comes in contact with, making the reader believe in them...or hate them. Whichever the case may be.
Since TW Brown is also narrating his own book, I believe that he is able to put more emphasis to the story where other narrators might have missed the mark. I am a huge fan of TW Brown as both an author and narrator.

1 person found this helpful

Classic zombie action

Can you be a bad-ass? What if you didn’t have a choice? Would you survive?

Take an everyday ordinary man and put him in an adapt to survive situation and you have this book.

This follows classic zombie tropes with a few twists and maybe more to come.

Great read for any zombie fan

1 person found this helpful

Enjoyed this Zombie Story!

So I was given a chance to listen and review this zombie story, as it's not usually a genre I get into. I found myself pleasantly surprised! There are some negatives that I'll get into shortly. But overall the majority of this story was fun and exciting.

There are some moments in the story that I think could have been deeper explored and some storylines do get a little dropped or not mentioned as much as I think they should be. Such as the girlfriend becoming a zombie.

The narration is good. I like that the author performed it, they should know how all their characters should sound because they wrote it! :) I do think that there could have been a better differentiation between male and female voices though, as they kind of just ran into each other making some scenes difficult.

I did enjoy the read though and I think this can be a really exciting series!

1 person found this helpful

Exciting new adventure

I really love ALL of T.W.Brown's works that I have come in contact with. And now you can hear this amazing author narrate his work to you.....what else could you want?! This storyline is different than his other DEAD series, but you'll come in contact with some familiar characters. I really do like this Evan character, and I'm anxious to see what kinds of situations he will find himself involved in. I am a dog lover myself, and often prefer canine companionship to that of human.....so I truly understand where he is coming from on that front. just give this series a try and you'll be hooked!

1 person found this helpful

Love the tw brown dead books

So glad brown is writing a new dead series my only complaint is that while he is a great author not to big on him as a narrator. Not sure why maybe it's because I liked the cast of the last series so much but makes it a little harder to get into

1 person found this helpful