Day-by-Day Armageddon by J.L. Bourne

I am new to Zombiemania and, truthfully, still an outsider. But my education has begun. My textbooks? The first two seasons of The Walking Dead, and this book.

Well, I also saw Night of the Comet back at York theater many moons ago, as well as I Am Legend much more recently. Okay, technically IAL was about vampires, but they behaved enough like zombies for the movie to fit in the genre. I’ve also watched a variety of post-apocalyptic flicks wherein mutants behave pretty much like zombies, too. Seeing as how zombies originated in Voodoo, one could argue that even the zombies in “purist” zombie film/fiction aren’t exactly zombies, either.

Back to the book: (I listened to an advertised “unabridged” audible audio version via my kindle/car stereo.) Bourne has written it in journal fashion, from the perspective of a Navy aviator living in San Antonio. It has a familiar TEOTWAWKI feel to it–the hero survives the initial catastrophe only to face the struggle for survival in a new, far more dangerous world. Enemies are everywhere–mostly undead–but he collects friends along the way.

The collection of basically decent, moral people band together in an effort to survive, facing death no matter which way they turn. There are many suspenseful scenes, some interesting locations, and the implied promise that the narrative will take us on an epic journey…

Then the book ends without taking us anywhere.

Afraid that I must have bought a glitched version with the last 2/3rds missing, I checked good ol’ Amazon. My investigation turned up evidence that this book began as free zombie fan fiction on a blog. And now it makes perfect sense why there is no story arc or character development, and why it ended just when it had potential to get really interesting. Basically I paid money for some blogger’s writing experiment.

And now I will end this post similar to how Bourne ended this “book.” Good-bye.

The Two-Fisted Blogger is really mild-mannered bookworm Hank Brown, author of the military thriller Hell and Gone and the epic fantasy series Tales of the Honor Triad. He is columns editor at New Pulp Fiction, genius mastermind behind www.virtualpulppress.com, and aspiring wiseacre. Also a veteran, working stiff and family man