Smith’s new novel takes an often-tired genre and turns it on its head giving a truly individual story that landmarks the zombie novel and claims it as his very own.

The book starts out with the Russian special ops team located in the Middle East on a special operation and establishes its characters before getting into the meat of the story and driving it forward. This is an interesting feel and makes it truly individual as we are dealing with a group of people who are incredibly unique and should be the villians of the piece and makes them the anti-heroes. This is an impossible feat to accomplish but Smith does this and my hat is off to him because you end up caring for this team of people who on the surface are not very likeable, but you root for them until the end.

The plot is very well thought out and drives itself forward with a total understanding on the mechanics of weaponry, armed forces and technical understanding on how this world works. Smith has done his research and he ensures that the reader does not for once get lost in the jargon. This is an accomplishment as some authors tend to get caught up with these technicalities getting lost in juxtaposition causing the reader’s brain to fall asleep due to the text book stance they choose to take. Smith doesn’t do this; he folds this into the plot educating the reader but keeping them involved with the plot.

The plot does world travelling very well and takes the reader from place to place adding an interesting flavour to the proceedings. The book is densely written with context and he never once drops the ball to ensure that reader never gets lost along the way.

The characters are very professionally written and personality traits are true from the beginning to the very end. We have fully formed cast of characters whose faults are truly human whilst mixing their understanding and determination.

Overall, this is an excellent read that takes the zombie genre and makes it an individual experience and turns it on its head. This is an excellent read and one that keeps the reader involved. Smith has shown how with talent and know how you can take a genre and make it your own which is a real accomplishment. The only drawback is personally, I wish it was not set in 1987 as it would have more beneficial to set the story in the near future but this is a very minor.

This was definitely a different take on the zombie genre. It did take me till about the 15% mark to get into the story but once I was in I was IN! In this zombie story, that takes place in the 60s, a group of Spetsnaz are sent to the states for an unknown mission. A mission that starts the zombie apocalypse. Instead of dying, or straight up turning into flesh-eating zombies, the group of Russians are able to retain their personalities and end up fighting the flesh-eating plague that is trying to consume them. The story revolves around the different people they meet and the circumstances they encounter as they attempt to make it back to Russia to take vengeance on those that have turned them into monsters.

I would definitely recommend it to anyone that enjoys the zombie genre and character-based works, as well as anyone who want to see something different in a genre that is so diluted.

Received via Netgalley

(Review)

Continuing my run of reading books i wouldn’t normally pick up….

I have to admit i love a good Zombie TV show, its post apocalyptic escapism at its best. So i thought i’d give a book a go. I have to admit i was really surprised at how much fun i had reading this book, and ripped through it in 2 days.

While the book contains the requisite amount of blood and violence that you must expect and need with a decent Zombie tale, this one also has more.

Its main characters, members of a Spetznaz Squad who are as tight knit as can be, having fought in some of the worst places on earth at the time… The author lays all the ground work for investing you in the characters who should be the bad guys in this tale, but who are really as used and betrayed as anyone in the book. Then not only do we have a squad of heavily armed soldiers surviving the Zombie apocalypse we have most of them trying to hold on to themselves after they have become Zombies, with no idea how or why they retain their minds, the team want revenge against their former masters, but along the way their retained humanity forces them to help the people they were sent to destroy.

Fast Paced, high octane, full of flat out action and surprising emotion.

I really enjoyed the book and really am looking forward to another book following Scorlenski and his squad.

(Parm)

Stars: 2 out of 5 for the novelty of the idea.

DNFed at 85%. Yes, I know, I was so close to the finish… I really tried to power through, I promise.

It had a fun beginning and an interesting premise. It was fast paced and fun during their attack on NY and their escape from Manhattan afterwards.

It got boring and yawn inducing during the time on the boat. Too much drama and blatant insubordination. I'm not sure about the author's background, but spetsnaz are ELITE forces, a bit like Navy SEALS. The shit Gulag was pulling in this book would have gotten him shot back in Afghanistan already… and to add insult to injury, Vadim is an idiot incapable of leading a pack of 5 year old's, least of all a squad of elite soldiers. He has no authority, no personal charisma, and he doesn't command respect. He is a joke. Fraulein was a more believable commander than him. Come on, author, you could do better than this.

But even the more than subpar protagonist would have been okay. I was looking for gruesome zombie fun, after all… only we didn't really get much of it after the escape from NY. Mostly it's people vs. people with the walking dead as a distraction.

Also, the author seems to forget his protagonists are zombies half the time, only remembering their "condition" when it's convenient. They go from barely being able to keep their sanity every time they are in proximity of human beings to spending weeks with over 100 live humans on a boat. Not to mention that Princess is still alive and by the end, it didn't seem to bother the rest of them anymore.

Not to mention that being zombies doesn't make them superpowered. They are dead. They should start decomposing by now. And there is only so much punishment a dead body can take before it isn't functional anymore. Yet they walk, talk, shoot, etc. without any problems even over a week after turning... after being shot at, beaten, etc. Yeah, my disbelief meter was slowly reaching boiling point.

At this point, I was still resolved to drag myself painfully across the finish line. But then the author introduced fake (and not so fake) Nazis... in 1980s England. Yeah, no. The level of stupid just overwhelmed my desire to finish the book. Welcome to the DNF graveyard.

Spec Ops Z is one of those actions books that check all the boxes - motivated and authentic characters, vivid action scenes, and an overall sensation and ambience that makes you feel like you're accompanying the narrator throughout the story. Gavin Smith's characters seem plucked out of 1980's Cold War pulp stories at first glance, but he masterfully dives into their personalities and passions, forcing the reader to understand their motivations and desires, placing them as the (sort-of) heroes of the story. Smith writes action as well as anyone; the combat feels visceral (as it should, in a zombie-filled story) and he's willing to put his protagonists into dire situations that they aren't guaranteed to survive. His word and language choice left me with a sensation of gloom and hope throughout the story, perfect for a zombie novel. All in all, this is one that I could see myself coming back to whenever I got the itch for more than just another zombie novel.

Zombies I associate with the 80s for a very easy reason as at a very young age my slightly laissez-faire uncle thought it would be useful to show me a VHS copy of the Dawn of the Dead. I wasn’t terrified but it was weird, strange and compelling. I definitely don’t recommend it for children at all and it has more impact I think as an adult where the themes on consumerism have more meaning. But for me I associate 80s zombies with the time of excess. It was therefore appropriate that Gavin G Smith pulls together a tale of an alternate 1980s where the end of the world is actually the beginning of a blood drenched revenge quest for one of the most unique army squads you’ll meet.

Come with me to 1987 – the Wall still stands; the Cold War was only just thawing, and a heartless conservative government was in charge of the UK (wow so different). In Afghanistan, a Russian special forces company known as the Spetsnaz is fighting a gruelling war with local Afghan groups. But the group led by Captain Vadim Scorlenski has a reputation for being both very good at what it does but also not quite following orders as the mysterious vanishing of various bossy KGB agents they may have last seen suggests. After another mission where the team lost one of their own Vadim is worried to hear President Gorbechev has been deposed, hard-liners are back in power and Vadim’s team is ordered to immediately leave Afghanistan and travel to the US by submarine for a new mission. Told very little about the new mission the group is involved in New York’s Central station for the release of a strange biological agent just as the police and army arrive and at the same time nuclear bombs fall on the US. World War 3 has arrived and to prevent any counterattacks the dead are swiftly re-animated and hungry. Several of Vadim’s team are also gunned down but find death now isn’t stopping them and unusually compared to other zombies they seem to still have their mental awareness of who they are. Vadim wants revenge on the leadership who set him up so slowly the group try to evade zombie hordes, armed police and even new nazis to get back home. It will not be easy.

It is already quite unusual that we are effectively on the side of the ‘bad guys’ fortunately Smith is at pains to show that Vadim’s team are not indoctrinated soldiers they are here for a job that they do well but they don’t glorify violence or make political statements in favour of a hard line regime. In the form of Vadim, a Stalingrad survivor we have a leader used to war but taking no pleasure in it just dangerously good at it. Honourable with a dark sense of humour we warm to him and feel his loyalty to his team and disgust at finding they are involved in what he feels is an insane and dishonourable attack on the US. We get to know the team from the Muslim sniper Skull, ex-weightlifter and second in command The Fraulein and also the belligerent Gulag who doesn’t like to do what he is told and often fights Gulag. They create that typical group of certain tensions that when weird events start to apply hard pressure to them, they become truly awesome in battle and rarely give up. This puts us in an interesting place when they’re up against both western forces and zombies to escape and you’re still willing them to get free!

Rarely in zombie stories do things ever go right and in this case Smith adds a fascinating piece of new zombie lore. The idea that Vadim and his teammates survive death is because that they are so good at what they do; so competent that they can keep a sense of self beyond death and re-animation. Imagine elite soldiers who cannot easily be killed. Patching the undead with the few surviving members of Vadmin’s living team we then go through several gripping set pieces as they start to make their way back to Russia. Unlike say those zombie dramas where everyone is confined to one set per season here, we get a brilliant set of set pieces – escaping hordes in New York, gunfights and betrayals on a ship and a gripping finale where a group of armed neo-nazis try to take on our crew. Smith mixes it up and gives the team challenges that are not just physical but often mental and sometimes even moral ones. Can Vadim and his team keep hold of their humanity or does their desire to feed take control.

One feeling that came out here which I think is often a hall mark of zombie tales is that this is a moral pressure cooker of a story. Our leads may have accidentally helped start WW3 and can you ever really atone for that. We see the stresses on Vadim and his crew plus those they meet or take hostage. Despite that there is still a little bit of hope – people will still try to survive and help others. Humanity versus monsters may not just mean the undead and the final set-piece as the team arrive in the UK really gives us a chance to see what this team is capable of. It has an open ending that could pave the way for more adventures in this world and I would be very happy to see more with such a unique crew.

This is a lean tight action focused thriller that delivers gun battle set-pieces, rivals building tensions and unexpected left turns in a often dark, grim and bleak tale of revenge. If we took out the zombie element, we would have a WW3 thriller that is tense, well-plotted and character focused. But add in zombies it becomes the kind of cinematic story that you could see Romero enjoy putting on screen. Strongly recommended if you enjoy action, horror and battles for survival. Entertaining but also asks some interesting moral questions about what would you do? Highly recommended

When a Soviet special forces team is told to retrieve an unspecified WMD from a locker in NYC’s Grand Central Station, they don’t think much of the idea. Years of conflicts in places like Afghanistan have left them as soulless bastards, sure, but isn’t there a line you shouldn’t cross? Not to mention that this looks very much like a suicide mission.

What they can’t imagine is that dying won’t be their biggest problem. Soon they find themselves at ground zero for a dual assault on America with nuclear bombs bursting over New Jersey, and a Zombie virus spreading over Manhatten. Of the original team, only Princess and New Boy escape infection, but unlike almost everyone else, their Spetnatz toughness, or maybe the fact that they lost their humanity long ago, lets them keep enough sanity to be really pissed at their leaders.

Abandoned and turned into weaponized viral vectors, nobody expected them to find their humanity and take on a new mission; to kill whoever dreamed this all up. Now all they’ve got to do is escape from a zombie-infested New York, cross an ocean, and not eat the still-living members of their team.

Spec Ops Z is a re-issue, having originally come out as Special Purposes: First Strike Weapon in 2017, but it’s got a new name, a great new cover, and it turns out that a zombie thriller is a perfect read for a pandemic. Ironically, the characters here are anything but mindless, and the mix of action and interplay within the team makes for riveting reading. Not only is it a different experience reading the story from the Zombie point of view, but you’ll find you’re drawn o the squad members and their plight. Rebellion is doing the re-issue in the hopes of drumming up enough interest to finish a trilogy, and I’m hoping they got to do it.

A really good story that blends the worlds of military fiction and zombie apocalypse. I really liked the fact that some of the MC's became zombies but retained their own intelligence which gave them a unique view on the situation plus a unique POV when dealing with normal people.

I feel like every time I turn around, some nickel-plated idiot announces that the zombie genre is dead, har har. And while I don’t have a lot of time for this notion, I will grudgingly admit that we’re definitely out of the flurry of excellent zombie narratives that were published about a decade ago. Every time has its monster, and I think the zombie in the Obama years largely stood in for some pretty nasty undemocratic and racist stuff seething under the surface. I want to be clear that when I say this, I am not smearing all zombie narratives of this time period as right wing agitprop or whatever — that would be stupid and reductive.

But there are also certain inescapable through-lines to this era of zombie narrative. So many zombie narratives of the early 21st century position a white dude, often with a military or police background, and his capacity for targeted violence as the savior of domesticity and the world. World War Z (movie version), Walking Dead (both versions), Zombieland, etc. (Zombieland especially hasn’t held up so great: the character Cleveland, played by Mark Zuckerberg, ends up reading as an incel, and his murder of his hot neighbor after describing what a bitch she is for not noticing him is, as the saying goes, problematic.) It’s the old line: “You’ll be begging me to use my guns when the mob comes,” where the mob is generally coded as not-white, not-us, the ultimate dehumanized them.

Obviously, there are a lot of zombie narratives from this period which invert or subvert this trope. Take something like 28 Days Later, which turns the white military savior into anything but, the Mister Kurtz of his own sterile fiefdom. But 28 Days Later, no matter what it does with the trope, is still in dialogue with it. It’s just kind of baked into the premise: a small group end up having to organize their society balancing individual autonomy with group safety, in the most extreme environment possible. This era of the zombie narrative tended to pit the Spartan encampment against the Athenian mob, and violent expedience was the name of the game.

Since Trump’s election, Brexit, and most certainly since the Time of Covid, these tropes have become confused and messy, the coherence of the metaphor rotten. It’s just not mapping right anymore. Observe this, from a viral photo of Covid-deniers storming the Michigan capitol:

[embedded Tweet]

[Image description: A photo taken from inside a building looking out through windows. Several people press against the glass, most with their mouths open mid-shout. American flags, a red Trump hat, and the Guy Fawkes mask are visible. The image is captioned “World War Q”.]

Here we have a mob ostensibly fighting for personal freedom. The party of law and order tacitly condones the attack on the capitol and the murder of a policeman, if not explicitly. Authoritarianism rides to power on populism. This is ultimately what many zombie novels were presaging, but we’ve lost our taste for the fictional meat of it. I don’t know what the next monster will be, but zombies aren’t quite the zeitgeist anymore.

Which brings me rather long-windedly to Spec Ops Z by Gavin G. Smith. When I came across it in the Netgalley catalog, it struck me how long it’s been since I read a zombie novel. I think probably the last was Last Ones Left Alive, a musing, elegiac novel set in Ireland. (Oh, I also reread World War Z at the beginning of the pandemic, and that book was so accurate in its depiction of the societal and governmental responses to a global pandemic it ended up kind of hurting my feelings. ‘Sure didn’t get a laugh out of it like when I re-watched Contagion, boy howdy. ) I’ve been watching tons of zombie movies still — their low budgets all but ensure zombie movies will be cranked out forever — but the publication of zombie novels seems to be thinning.

It’s clear from the description that Spec Ops Z is more on the hardware nerd side, a kind of military sf that’s constructed like WW2 band of brothers movies starring John Wayne. In the interests of full disclosure, this isn’t particularly my bag, but I can be up for a bit of rowdy. True to form, Spec Ops Z is fast paced — except for a beginning which drags — and includes the kind of mayhem and gore I prefer in my zombie smash and grabs. The action isn’t always clearly blocked, but mostly it’s credible. Maybe most importantly, Smith doesn’t slip into pretentious philosophizing about the Nature of Man and Probably Evil Too, something I tend to find in these soldierly stories.

Spec Ops Z follows a group of Soviet Spetsnaz commandos from their posting in Afghanistan to a secret mission in NYC. It’s set in 1989 (if I remember correctly), when the Soviets were in the Afghani quagmire, not the US. (The Soviet-Afghan conflict is often called the Soviet Union’s Vietnam War, fwiw.) The members of the team all have pilot-style nicknames — Gulag, Mongol, Princess, etc — which I found somewhat precious: they were all walking around labeled with their single character trait. I couldn’t decide if this was lazy or brilliant, because it’s not like I’m reading this sort of thing for the articles, and I didn’t have to try to keep straight a dozen people with similar-sounding Russian names and patronymics. I’m leaning toward brilliant.

I was perked up at this beginning part because I actually was in the USSR in 1991, just a few months before the August coup attempt which lead to Yeltsin’s rise. Spec Ops Z appears to be a mild alt-history, in that a hard line KGB guy has deposed the reformist Gorbachev in the very recent past of the novel. As a consequence, relations are much shittier with the rest of the world. (Like, I kind of can’t imagine what might have happened if they had a hard-liner in when Reagan delivered his evil empire Star Wars nonsense. They were apparently pretty close to first striking us at that point as it was.)

The Spetsnaz team are pulled from combat in Afghanistan and sent on a secret-even-to-them mission to NY, where they set off a bioagent in Grand Central Station, one that turns everyone into zombies. Most of the team are killed, but miraculously reanimate with their reasoning intact, though the gnawing hunger to savage the living is always present. The pov character theorizes that this is because they’re all so hardened and have such great discipline and iron will from being Spetznaz soldiers. This I thought was the kind of self-aggrandizing BS a commando unit would tell themselves, so didn’t credit it overmuch. Unfortunately, later, when another character reanimates, it’s made clear this is the actual in-world reason, which, whoo boy.

The Spetsnaz are pretty pissed they ended up unwittingly bringing about the end of the world — the US retaliated with nukes, so there’s that to worry about too — and decide to go back to the USSR and revenge murder all the people involved, if they are not already shambling corpses. From then on it’s set pieces — through NY, onto a ship, etc — and largely what one expects from this sort of thing. What I really want to talk about happens in the last quarter of the novel, and therefore constitutes a spoiler according to most people. Fair warned.

SPOILERS BELOW

Like seriously I’m not kidding.

Not even a little.

When the Spetsnaz arrive in England, they come across a bunch of people dressed in Nazi uniforms. This is seriously fucking upsetting for most of the team — the leader grew up in Stalingrad during the Siege (which was fucking horrible), and others had their brushes with Nazis. It’s sometimes hard to remember now, but the USSR, the UK, and the US were all on the same side of WWII; what the hell are Nazis doing on British soil?

Turns out, these Nazis are a bunch of reenactors who started cosplaying a little too hard once the zombie apocalypse happened. They’ve set up their own little Reich in Zombieton-on-Wye, complete with a Joy Division (not just a band name) and cage matches between brown people and zombies. (I am completely tired by the zombie cage match trope, but it’s not lingered on overmuch, more’s the better.) (Also, I was fully expecting to have to grit my way through some sadistically detailed description of sexual assault, but Smith doesn’t go there, to his credit.)

I don’t think such a thing could happen in England in 1989, the scars of the War being what they were. Maybe in the States where we didn’t have to deal with the Blitz and … all the rest of it. But I legitimately don’t mean to nitpick plausibility here. For one, it’s a book about physics-defying cannibal corpses; I think I can allow a little latitude in the British national character. (Which, also, I’m not British, so.) This book was not written by someone living in 1989, and it is not being read by people in 1989 (barring time travel or whatnot.) Not even a month ago, Americans wearing the signs and emblems of both Nazis and Confederates stormed the capitol of the United States of America. Seeing Nazi cosplayers pop up in zombie fiction is pretty relevant to our times, considerably moreso when you consider that the Russians unleashed the zombie plague in both the US and UK in the book. What is zombiism but the ultimate DDOS attack?

I have occasionally been accused of overthinking pulp fiction, and it’s possible that’s what I’m doing here. However, I get the impression that Smith is really not messing around with his historical research. Much of it was spent being a total nerd about 1980s era Soviet & American weaponry — the firearms and armaments all lovingly described and detailed — but for sure he also has a detailed alt-history of the USSR. He goes so far as to name the hard-liner in charge of the country, and I suspect if my Soviet history were better, I could point to when exactly the timeline diverges. So I’ll assume Smith isn’t just writing pulp nonsense with no meaning, themes, or goals. It’s set when it is, with these specific people as protagonist, for a reason.

Given that this is a retitled reprint of a novel first published in 2017, there’s no way it’s directly addressing the Capitol Insurrection, but the rise of militant white supremacy has very much been a thing in this here age of Trumpism. But because of its placement at the very end of the novel, and the relative ease by which the ersatz Nazis are dispatched, I do kind of wonder what that sequence is trying to say. The Soviets riding in to save the British (and their America captives) from both the zombie plague they themselves unleashed AND white supremacy is also a little odd, and I’m not sure what to make of it.

I started this essay blathering about how zombies fit into a certain Obama-era ethos — before Brexit, before Trump — both anticipating and, in some cases, justifying both Trumpism and the Brexiteers. Just cut the bridges and retreat to your island in order to keep the shambling horde from overrunning those who really matter. I think Spec Ops Z ends up kinda perfectly encapsulating the ambivalent and shifting sense of meaning in zombie tropes in an America where violent white supremacy is ascendant. I’m not sure what exactly to take out of Spec Ops Z, but that could be said about every single aspect of my life at the moment: we’re all groping our ways forward.

So. An enjoyable novel with enough gory set pieces to keep me reading, and also deliberate enough to allow me to sharpen some of my favorite pet theories on it. Класс.

I got my copy from Netgalley. Spec Ops Z goes on sale February 2.

I'm not one for zombie media, but this one seemed really interesting. I really liked the main characters, their different personalities and how they all interacted with one another. There was one point closer to the end where I was confused what was happening because there wasn't enough description or information given, but otherwise I found myself enjoying this book. The story took a sudden turn closer about 3/5 of the way through the book and I didn't enjoy it as much as I did the rest. However, the climax was very climactic, though the ending of the book itself was extremely sudden. I think I'd actually read the sequel, if there is one.

A heads-up: I love SFF and post-apocalyptic fiction. Zombies often fall into the post-apocalyptic genre, but I'm kind of fussy about them. I don't read a lot of horror (and even then I read more than I watch - I'm a wimp), or alt-history, WW3 or military fic. This book ticks most of those boxes so on paper I shouldn't really be the right reader for it.

However, I really enjoyed it!

Vadim and his elite Russian Spetznaz squad are sent to New York during the Cold War. They inadvertently unleash a terrible chemical weapon that quickly turns people into zombies - including themselves... somehow, his squad (perhaps because of their military training) retains some humanity. As nuclear weapons are detonated across the globe, the team ends up on a ship with a bunch of terrified civilians heading towards the UK. But who know what they'll find when they get there - or if they'll even get there.

I got a bit skimmy over the super military/action scenes, but I enjoyed exploring the tensions between the team (some living, some not), and the idea of how do you know what the right thing to do is when a) you started this thing and b) you're a little bit dead.

A thought-provoking action-packed zombie apocalypse book.

I’m the wrong audience for this book, I think. That isn’t to say zombie books aren’t my bag; they are. And actually, this particular book stands quite apart from others I’ve read of a similar nature in that it’s more “The Last of Us” than it is “The Walking Dead” in its liberal use of gore and fast pacing.

Despite these positives, I found the narrative to be quite dry and quite difficult to connect with. I can only attribute this to my limited military knowledge, limited grasp on weaponry and genuine need to be driven by characters rather than plot. I can absolutely see how this novel will really work for some, but for me it was hard work from start to finish.

ARC provided from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I feel like this was a very different take on zombies than you think of at first, and I think that preconception kind of threw me off. I was really excited to request and read this book, but the end result was different than I expected, and maybe it's better suited for a different audience.

Russian Zombie Special Forces

I really shouldn't need to say more.

But...I will.

Set during the Cold War in an alternate timeline, the USSR decides to go nuclear on the world...with a twist. Chemical warfare that makes the dead zombies.

Captain Vadim leads a group of Spetznaz into New York, unaware of his country's plans. As he is caught up in the fallout, he weighs his loyalty to his nation and the living.


I want more...like, now.

After reading the description I got excited and requested the book immediately. I love books about zombies so I was pretty sure I would love this too. Spec Ops Z is full of action and zombies. But still...I didn’t like it as much as I feel I should have and I don’t even know why. It’s frustrating, really.

I think this book was written to a male audiance.

Thank younto NetGalley and the publisher for my copy.

A fun, alt-history romp; with zombies.

I'm not always a fan of the introduction chapter that raises questions then a multiple chapter flashback to get back to that point, but this was not horribly egregious. It certainly helped that the plot was moving along fairly quickly, so you don't get too bogged down in mindless world building.

Taken for what it is, it was an enjoyable read that I zipped through in two settings. I do feel the plot was building towards something else, then took a sharp detour about 2/3rds of the way through the book. I wasn't displeased, but I also wasn't quite as satisfied with the ending as I would have liked.

I am unsure if this will be a standalone, or if there would ever be a follow-on, as it was left pretty open ended, but I would definitely be interested in checking it out if there were.

I am grateful to the publisher for providing me with an ARC of Gavin G. Smith's "Spec Ops Z." I occasionally enjoy venturing into the subgenre of zombie fiction, and this book is a good example of some of the more off the wall stuff out there. The central conceit revolves around a Russian Spetsnaz unit sent to New York City to release a deadly virus. Unbeknownst to them, their mission is intended to be a one way trip, but in a supreme irony, those of them exposed to the effects of the weapon they have released remain sentient and really ticked off at the fools in Moscow who sent them into the midst of a nuclear battleground stocked with bloodthirsty zombies. It just sort of goes downhill from there. Expect Neo Nazis, Tiger Tanks, and very strained relations between the undead Spetznaz operators and the civilians they encounter and often help to save in the aftermath of their mission. Now, obviously, all of this is a really big stretch, but if you are willing to suspend your disbelief for a bit, it is a genuine page turner. Set in 1987, in the last days of the Soviet Union, it depicts the horrors that the world only just missed when cooler heads prevailed on both sides. While shaking my head at the outrageousness of it all, I enjoyed every minute of it.

Well, that was a wild ride! I have read a lot of zombie books and this one is quite different from all the others I have read. Lots of violence and gore with a touch of compassion and unexpected friendships.

Vadim Scorlenski is the leader of a group of hard edged soldiers. They all have a special skill set that makes them perfect to be zombie hunters. But there is more to that story than just killing the zombies....

All in all, a quick zombie book that satisfies the need for a new zombie book that is not redundant like all the others.

This was a very different take on the Zombie apocalypse.. In this version we are still in the cold war and the Russians are to blame for the release of the virus being released. They do so on American soil. Bye Bye USA. This team of Russian ops are turned into zombies and crave humans as food, but these guys are mentally "strong" enough to hold back the hunger and their mission is to get back to Russia. They all want to get back for various reasons. Oh, by the way, two of the team are still alive and that makes the others hunger even more harrowing. TI love ZA books and this new take was quite intriguing. I am giving this a 3.5 star review as it just was not one of my favorite ZA reads. Maybe this would appeal more to a more to males who enjoy the genre.

It's been a long time since I read a zombie book or to be honest have even wanted to as I feel they have been quite literally done to death so I was extremely surprised to read this book and really enjoy it, it has all the right ingredients mixed in the just right way