Recent zombie books -- Patient Zero, World War Z, Unholy Ghosts, Boneshaker, Feed

OK, it is summer, so of course I am reading zombie books. There are enough of these to probably dedicate a blog just to the category.

* “Patient Zero”:amazon by Jonathan Maberry. Terrorists and their greedy western sponsors create a zombie virus to bring the USA to its knees. Joe Ledger, supercop, leads the fight against the zombie plot. Typical escapist action fare. Amazon says 4 stars, “goodreads”:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3993839.Patient_Zero_A_Joe_Ledger_Novel 3.91, this is high, but an entertaining airplane read. * “World War Z”:amazon by Max Brooks. A grittier look at an imagined future zombie war. Of course the humans win but massive deaths, and no one left alive is untouched. Nicely structured as a series of interviews with survivors. Amazon says 4.5 stars, “goodreads”:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8908.World_War_Z_An_Oral_History_of_the_Zombie_War says 4.17, that might be rich, but this was entertaining with some emotional depth. * “Unholy Ghosts”:amazon by Stacia Kane. No zombies, just hordes of ghosts that won’t go away in the near future. Magic has been rediscovered to control them, and our heroine finds herself in the middle of multiple intersecting plots. An attempt to kickstart a franchise, but ultimately the attempt to create a flawed heroine just didn’t do it for me. Amazon says 4.5 stars, “goodreads”:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6261189-unholy-ghosts says 4.09, but I was left a little bored. * “Boneshaker”:amazon by Cherie Priest. In an 1880s steampunk alterna-Seattle, a manmade disaster has unleashed a toxic cloud of zombification. The zombies are not really the main protagonist, rather it is all the humans scrabbling to live in the transformed city. Really quite good, Amazon says 4 stars, “goodreads”:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1137215.Boneshaker says 3.7, this is fair, the setting and characters are good. * “Feed”:amazon by Mira Grant. A group of bloggers cover a presidential campaign and uncover a treasonous plot, against the backdrop of a world dealing with a virus which is pervasive in its dormant state and breaks out occasionally in its active zombie-inducing state. I like an author who isn’t afraid to kill off central characters, some real pathos in this tale. I’d like to read the next in the series. Maybe the most interesting science of any of the books. Amazon says 4.5 stars, “goodreads”:http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7094569-feed says 4.24, this was probably the best of the set for me.