Deadite Press
Review by: Rob Walter
Review posted 3/12/2012
Don’t let the title throw you as this story is “Running Man” meets “Night of the Living Dead”. The zombie apocalypse happened 50 years ago and the survivors now live in enclaves. The largest of these is Neo-New York. The island is divided into three classes, Platinum, Silver and Copper. Platinum is for all the higher muckety mucks, silver is the middle class workers and Copper is for all the rest of society. Television is finally returning and the hottest show (only available in platinum you understand) is Zombie Survival! Twenty “contestants are taken from the copper area and deposited in the middle of the zombie dead zone (mainland) otherwise known as the “Red Zone”. There can only be one survivor who must make it to a designated spot on the other side of town to be picked up by a remote control helicopter.
The story is well written and the characters have more depth than your average zombie stories. This is amazing when you remember the number of characters in this book. The twenty contestants, Zippo, Scavy, Popcorn, Brick, Haroon, Xiu, Gogo, Heinz, Alanzo, Nemesis, Oro, Junko, Wendy, Bosco, Adriana, Vine, Lee, Rainbow Cat, Laurence and Charlie are a wide sample of people. Punks, Writers, prostitutes etc. Some of the people are contestants to have them disappear. There are many twists and turns to the story not only in the red zone but also back in Neo-New York.
A unique touch is at the start of each chapter there is a table with pictures (program)of all of the contestants. Can’t tell the players without your program. As they are killed or turned to zombies, their pictures get blacked out in the following chapters.
I really enjoyed this story as it was a fresh take on the zombie story in a world of zombie stories. I strongly recommend it to anyone who loves a good zombie story especially if you have gotten tired of the “standard” zombie stories out there.
