Contagion

Living Dead Series, Book 1

By: L. I. Albemont

Narrated by: Emily Beresford

Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

A small mountain town is isolated by a snowstorm as an ancient evil, gone pandemic, turns the residents into the living dead. Almost overnight the town becomes a snowy tomb of the roaming, hungry infected.

Stranded by the weather, hiding, a small group of survivors follows the progress of the disease as society around them and around the world begins to break down.

Determined to escape, they find that the normal rules of civilization don't apply anymore. Will they be able to adapt to this strange, hungry new world?

©2011 L. I. Albemont (P)2017 Tantor

Pretty good story

The story was typical zombie apocalypse but I do enjoy those. The narrator has a grating voice. She made it hard to listen. Hopefully this author will use someone else on the next one.

Fine as background listening when doing chores.

Decent characters and plot outline, but pacing was not great (both in the writting and the one note narration) and lack of detail at key moments made a lot of the action really confused.
The interludes where the 'history' of the infection was explored seemed completely pointless. It was like the author was told they had to give a reason for zombies so they just shoved one in. Added nothing to the story.

Ok story. WARNING, spoiler alert…I guess?

I always have a small issue when women readers make men’s voices and demeanor sound like a cheap perverted version of a vaudevillian villain hunched over curling their long creepy mustache. I’m not sure how many men Emily Beresford has heard in her life, but it’s sad that this is how she thinks we all sound, or how she portrays men’s voices.

As far as the story goes, it was an ok apocalypse story I guess. A little rough around the edges, with some hard to believe character reactions, like the one small child Daniel had when meeting Virginia for the first time in his barely lived life. She is covered in blood, holding a gun in his house, which is an absolute mess and also covered in gore. He has already watched his blood soaked pajama clade parents leave without him, but reacts like little Forrest Gump meeting his new bus driver for the first time, “Well, we’re not strangers anymore.” WHAT? Then it dawns on me, “WAIT, where are the still advancing zombies outside during this slow non-dramatically written moment?” If I remember right, the door was left open or broken open still leaving no barrier between these two calm people and the often forgotten zombie horde.

The story also seemed a bit choppy from scene to scene. Like the scene in the beginning where Virginia was leaving her neighbor’s house with their vehicle. The back and forth movement from the house to vehicle and back all while encountering her zombie neighbor, and I assume approaching zombies outside which the writer seems to forget about from time to time. With so much going on it is reasonable that a lot of details can be missed, but it makes for an incomplete story feeling by the end. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not a fan of having tons of questions like, “but wait, what happened to…”, or “wait wait, how did they get there from there, and where were all the zombies during all this?”

Overall, ok a somewhat entertaining but same ‘ole apocalyptic story. Not sure if I will continue with the series, but maybe if I really have nothing else to listen to or read. Maybe if I need an audiobook to play in the background that I already know the gist of the storyline, but don’t need to pay close attention to. That would solve the choppy story issue. It wouldn’t matter then. Maybe if Emily Woo Zeller read this series, it would have been a much better listen. Just sayin’.

I love zombies!

But, the narration was awful. I couldn't tell any of the male characters apart. They all sounded like Teeny Little Super Guy from Sesame St.
It really started to annoy me closer to the latter half of the book.
Other than that, it's a lovely, gory zombie story.

Fairly stock zombie tale

While I enjoyed this book, I do have to say that it's a fairly stock zombie tale. Both the characters and the story are good but not great.

I'll continue with the series in the hopes that it becomes a bit more unique as it progresses.

Meh. It was just ok

This book is ok for a newbie in the genre. I found myself zoning out from time to time. The storyline didn’t keep me engaged.

Terrible book

Dont waste your time. There are way better zombie books out there. This one is pootly written and has a subpar storyline at best. Not worth the time.

I liked it

I liked the narration as well as the story line and characters. When taking a break from listening, I wanted to listen again to find out what happened next. Moving on to book 2 of the series now.

Contagion

This book would have been so much more interesting and appealing if the author would have chosen a different narrator. If any other author used Emily Beresford as a narrator be prepare to not sell ANY audible books. I listened to the sample and I was hoping that she only read that way for that small bit, but no such luck. As she reads a sentence her pitch rises in the middle of the sentence when it's not suppose to, she also talks louder than necessary and speaks so fast. You will not have to use the speed enhancements Audible offers. It's completely maddening. When she speaks in other people voices it's horrid, plus her pitch rises at incorrect times in other people voices also. I couldn't even focus on the book because of her voice, I had to listen to complete chapters several times. I am not a narrator i have never claimed to be one but I know how to read a story, I have children I've read to and was a school teacher for many years. I'm not claiming to be a narrator specialist either but if Emily Beresford can be allowed to read maybe I should get a job as a narrator. Or people with speech impediment's. Sorry for my rant, I just was very excited to read this series. I still want to. I guess I will have to read it myself to enjoy it though.

amazing

loved it good story and characters heart pumping nonstop zombies highly recommend can't wait for part two