Audiobook Review: Apocalypse Z by Manel Loureiro, Narrated by Nick Podehl

At first, I really gobbled this one up. I’m a sucker for the onset of zombie apocalypses and how a small group or close narrator perspective will survive. This reminds me of one of my favorite zombie books, Day by Day Armageddon, in its journalistic format, prepping to bunker against the oncoming horde. In Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End, by Manel Loureiro, we have a guy gradually building up supplies at his home while he hears and sees the world falling apart around him and the dead find his doorstep.

I recently picked up the audiobook, and in a second pass through, I picked up on some character sympathy that I may have missed, such as how the main character had to leave the boxes of clothes from his recently deceased wife. I had originally given up around the 60% mark when the main character simply didn’t have enough character conflict to keep me engaged. It was pretty much him and some bad guys for a long enough stretch that I stopped caring. Listening for the second time through, I found that within a few journal entries from where I had given up, there is a secondary character development worth reading about. The characters never get real deep, but there is finally some interaction. By the end, this small gang could be a good buy gabapentin for dogs supporting cast for future books.

The narrator does an excellent job bringing out the tension, and his voices made the read more realistic. It isn’t easy to include the occasional Ukrainian dialect, but he switched over very easily and effectively.

That character stuff is really my biggest problem. The writing is excellent. It’s hard to write about zombies these days without sounding cliche, but he does a good job of description and creating tense scenarios. Nice cinematic conclusion. There is plenty left to explore in this story universe, and I will definitely be along for the next installment, Dark Days (Apocalypse Z). I’m excited because the third book is going to be translated and available in just a few months! If you are a Spanish reader, you can get his books now. Here’s his Goodreads page for details on those and where to buy.
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Timothy C. Ward
Executive Producer

Timothy C. Ward has been podcasting since 2010, first as AudioTim, and now with AISFP. His first publication, Cornhusker: Demon Gene (A Short Story), is available on Kindle for $.99. His novel in progress, Kaimerus, is described as “Firefly crashes on Avatar and wakes up 28 Days Later.” Sign up to his author newsletter for updates on new releases.

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