Brian Dowrick

The force is Female.

Revisado: 06-21-20

If they really wanted to make an all female Star Wars, this would have been the way to do it.
The characters are not so cartoonly flat, that they are unbelievable, and it still fits in the Star Wars
universe.
It’s a good listen, good story, and well read by the reader.
Leia is Leia, and she is written as Leia. She is the same person we see in the original 3 movies.
The issue is that all the strong characters she meets in this book are also female… and strong… and clever… and beautiful… and….. you get the idea.

Minor Spoilers: <-------------
The top pilot she runs into: female
The captain of the opposing ship: female
Her second in command: Female
The leader of all the pirates: female
The clever smuggler: Female (basically a female han Solo)
All the evil, weak, traitors, are guys. Except Han (of course).

there are no ‘clever’ lines like “I’d like to see a man do that.” or “Us girls have to stick together.” and the girls
all have a touch (small touch) of depth to their character (about as much as you’d expect for a character
in say… Stargate Atlantis single episode person). but that is more that what they did in the movies.

Good story. Good listen. Not disappointed at all, but I do like a little Balance in the Force.

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This is Full cast production, not a reading.

Revisado: 12-15-19

If you are in to full cat productions, like a radio drama, then you may like this.
I'm not, and even if I was, it did not feel like Star Wars. It felt like the writer has just finished a Harry Potter book, and used that as a template. The banter, the division of students into 'houses', the 'magic' to open doors to get to cursed relics, Student sneaking around, students infighting, bullies, etc. All lend this to a HP feel, not Star Wars.
Yoda comes off a lot less of a grand master, and more like an out of touch politician, then I'd like.
Not a terrible story, but not the style I like, and not the feeling I've come to expect form Star Wars.

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Just passing through another year of Mike's Life

Revisado: 07-08-14

Again with the short stories…..
The end has another one of those 60 minute short stories about Mike’s life.
If you can call 60 minutes "short". More like a Novella.
Creating new villains and adding a whole new element to the zombie apocalypse is a daunting task, but Mark Tufo is up for it.
Again, a great book.
The only issue I have, is now Mark knows this is his meal ticket.
Starting around ZF3 he stops giving us “endings”.
This book is more so, then the others.
I feel like I just watched a season of Walking Dead.
The past few books have been more-and-more like this. Like you were dropped into the middle of something, and then leave before it ends.
I guess we have to wait for ZF8-20 to find out.
Keep writing these, but try to keep the short stories to under 15 minutes... or under 50 pages. We got enough of Mikes Past life in ZF 1-6. Adding filler is not super interesting.
I'm just surprised we have not gotten a 60 minute story of the night his kid were each born, or BT's Childhood stories, yet. Or miss Denno's first date. Not that any of these things are interesting, I just know there are tons of options for a million more non-important stories to intrude on ZF8+.
I'm just hoping they don't intrude too much.

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Great writing but full of non-sequiters

Revisado: 07-08-14

Mark Tufo’s writing is always full of non-sequiters, (more then any Family Guy episode).
If you’ve made it to Zombie Fallout 6, then you know this.
I want to first say, this is one of his best books. The stuff that happens is more exciting then the other stories.
That said, he has far too many side tracks in this one.
And 2 really long ones, that are either Filler (to hit his editor’s demand for 500 pages), or for his own amusement because he likes to write short stories.
If you got this far, then you remember the story of the the boats at the end of one of the other books, or the story of Mike fire-bombing a car, and how he got into the military.
This one has 3 of those.
1) is a 15 minute bla-bla about how difficult the Marines are, and how much they didn’t eat, all to say that MREs are difficult to open, and taste bad.
2) is 40 minutes of him waring (by pulling pranks) with the RA in collage. This has absolutely zero context in the story.
3) is another 40 minutes.. maybe 60… of him going to a concert and getting drunk with his friends. Best time of his life.
Skipping any of these takes NOTHING away from the main story.
They are all told well, but take you out of the story for SO long, that you forget that there is something to get back to.
There is a 4th….. It’s not quite a story. At the end, we start going through Mike’s mind while in a dream-state.
This goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on… yeah… and on.
The last 10 minutes of this, are important.

aside from these 4 issues, I think this is one of the best ZF books to date.

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HEY Pimsleur! Try Editing this better.

Revisado: 09-04-12

Overall a good course, but frustrating sometimes. It seems they recorded Learn Chinese, and Learn English (for Chinese) at the same time, and got their editing confused.
MANY MANY times in here, you will hear "Listen and Repeat.... what time is it?"... then you will hear the Chinese speaker say (in Chinese) "Listen and Repeat..... what time is it?", instead of just saying "What time is it?"
It gets very distracting.
The earlier chapters (1-10) do not have this problem... often (maybe 2x).
But 11-15, is almost EVERY dialogue.

Please fix this, so I can give you a 5 star rating.

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great listen, and moves fairly quickly

Revisado: 05-08-12

The style is light and fast, and has a fresh new idea for the zombie question.
We follow 4 young teens through an outbreak in their home town. It's got the feeling of a pre-teen TV show, but with lots of death and sexuality added in.
The only part I would change is about 2/3rds the way through, when they have this group therapy session, and get out all their inner demons. Skip that, and you don't loose anything, but you gain some time back in your life.
Other then that, it's a great book, and well worth the listen.
Another book to add to my favorites.

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Strange mix, but still fun.

Revisado: 05-08-12

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

yes

Any additional comments?

I am a big Zombie fan, and this book fits in with most good zombie books.
The main character is like a combination of Alan Alda (from MASH), Bruce Willis (from Die Hard), and Snake Pliskin (escape From New York).
Then The story is like Deep Rising, any Steven King book, add Zombies, mixed with Family Guy.
The only part I don't really like, is the Steven King part. I love SK's books, but with Zombies.... not so much. This part comes in the "magic" of psychic Retards, and possible alternate universes. This becomes a lot more so, near the end (as in Steven King books), and much more so in the Second Book in this series.
Personally, I prefer more grounded parameters. As soon as you introduce magic, or Psychics, any situation can be overcome.
The Family guy element gets a little distracting, as it pulls you out of the moment, but it also adds to the style of the book, as well as all the outright laughs. This is the Random non-sequiters that abound in this book.
This is a great book, and the reader does a fantastic job.
This made my driving from West Coast to East Coast a bit more of a pleasurable.

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4 Short Stories, I wish were longer

Revisado: 02-10-12

Would you listen to The Junkie Quatrain again? Why?

Yes. To get more detail. It moves fast, and certain things I may have overlooked. It was a fun, fast read.

Which scene was your favorite?

I don't want to give out spoilers

Any additional comments?

This is 4 short stories that overlap in some way. I was actually surprised, and a little upset when the first story ended so soon. The characters in the following stories all interact in some way with each other, but I was hoping for some sort of resolve.
The stories pace, and flow worked very well, but even after it was over, I wanted more. Many questions are unanswered, and there is no real resolve at the end. It's a bunch of stuff that happens in one day to different people.
If you think of Pulp Fiction..... it's like that,..... but with Zombies (the 28 days later kind).
They really should change the title, I would have never bought this if I had not read another Peter Cliens book, and part of this book was attached at the end, as a sample.

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Awesome Writing, Awesome Reading

Revisado: 02-07-12

Would you listen to Ex-Patriots again? Why?

It has a comic-book feel, and flows really nicely. There is only detail where it needs to be, so there is no overly flowery language. Since the reading is light, it has replay value.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

I really DO hope they make a film from this, it's such a unique concept done well.

Any additional comments?

If there were 10 of these books, I'd buy all of them right now. I only hope Clines continues to maintain the quality and pace of the first two books.
Who would have ever thought of putting Comicbook heroes against zombies, and it actually working? Honestly, I thought it was a dumb idea, until I saw all the reviews. I'm SO glad I gave the first book a chance. I bought the second, after listening to only 30 minutes of the first.

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For people with a lot of time on their hands

Revisado: 05-29-09

If there was an abridged version, I should have gotten that. The story is good, and interesting, but way to flowery. You can tell it was written by a girl (maybe FOR girls). Overly-detailed is the best way to describe this book.
It's got the feel of a romance novel, where everyone is always on the edge of having sex, and whenever they get close to fooling around, time stops, and every little tiny thing is described in even more detail then the rest of the book.
If you ever read Lord of The Rings, where it takes 5 pages to walk across a road, you'll understand. One love scene in here takes the reader 20 minutes to get through.
Literally, you could remove every other sentence in the whole book, and not loose anything.
Good story though.

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