THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT HAS CHANGED FOREVER
THE REASON IS COLDBROOK
The facility lay deep in Appalachian Mountains, a secret laboratory called Coldbrook. Its scientists had achieved the impossible: a gateway to a new world. Theirs was to be the greatest discovery in the history of mankind, but they had no idea what they were unleashing.
With their breakthrough comes disease and now it is out and ravaging the human population. The only hope is a cure and the only cure and the only cure is genetic resistance: an uninfected person amongst the billions dead.
In the chaos of destruction there is only one person that can save the human race.
But will they find her in time?
Dark bleatings, my shambling tribe! Here I am, raving about another Tim Lebbon book (I know, absolute shocker!). I’ve read so many zombie books that I did need to take a bit of a break from them for a while. I can’t tell you how delighted I am that this is the book I decided to delve back into them with. Holy crap, what an amazing novel!
I was intimidated by how massive it is for a while but once I eventually picked it up, I couldn’t put it down. Those many pages just flew by and I am happy to report that of all zombie novels I have ever read, this is – hands down – my favourite. It’s soooo good!
On Earth, we have a group of scientists working in a facility, where they have created a breach between dimensions. One day, something comes shambling towards said breach…. something that is impervious to their failsafe measures… something that gets through and changes the course of our history forever!
In the best way possible, the opening of this reminded me of my favourite ever book opening – Stephen King’s The Stand. That panic when the virus escapes the lab is palpable, and it was horrific here too. I might have been screaming at some of the characters, especially our main protagonist, but I understood their decisions (even when I didn’t agree with them).
The threat just keeps expanding and expanding, and just when you think it can’t possibly get any bigger or worse or more catastrophic, it blows everything it had already done out of the water. And then there’s the matter of what’s actually on the other side of the breach. Our second protagonist had to slip through to escape the carnage, so we also get a POV on a parallel Earth.
One of the things I absolutely LOVE about this story that I have never seen elsewhere in a zombie novel is that we get both versions of zombies – slow and shambling, and sprinty and crazed. On the parallel Earth, the zombie apocalypse happened several years ago, so all of the zombies are decaying, barely moving. You know… tired. Been wandering around for quite some time. Hit their 10,000 steps years ago. On our Earth, once the disease is out, all of the zombies are new and fresh, and quite a big problem because they’re sprinting and tackling people and munching all the bits off.
I didn’t mean “bits” like bits. Although, sometimes with zombie fiction, I do wonder… never mind, I’m digressing.
Another thing I loved is that we get two main perspectives and one is the woman through the breach – a brave problem solver, someone who is ever the scientist, still learning and gathering information and trying to work out how to fix everything despite her personal dire predicament. Our other perspective is that of a man who panicked and, thinking of his family, breached all of the facility’s safety protocols, basically damning humanity to becoming the shambling undead.
And the last thing I’ll rave about here is that if you think the stakes can’t get higher than a worldwide zombie apocalypse, think again. I won’t spoil how, but things can actually be much worse. It’s absolutely crazy but in a sci-fi horror way, and it’s awesome.
I would highly recommend this to zombie fans, it’s bloody brilliant! If you’d like to pick up a copy or check out the author, I’ve popped the links below for you:
Bleeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
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