Outpost
You hate humanity. You take a job at an arctic oil rig with the rest of the rejects in the world. Then the zombie apocalypse happens and you are stuck stranded on the sidelines waiting to starve or freeze to death.I hate it when that happens.
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your viewpoint of zombie novels, the zombies do catch up with our unlucky oil rig residents. But before that happens, Adam Baker, in his debut novel Outpost, sets up a different kind of zombie novel in which the personalities of our survivors takes center stage. Jane and the other characters are basically losers. Even as they try to decipher why they are cut off from the world, they are ambivalent about reentering whatever is left of society. But that is better than dying. They think.
They think wrong. About a third of the way through, the zombies appear. Suffice to say, these are some of the most grotesque zombies I have encountered in these novels. The author successfully weaves a mix of psychological suspense, survival book, and straight out hack-and-slash zombie tale. It's a nice balancing act that kept my attention way longer then most of the books of this type. One of the most interesting things is that Baker manages to make the idea of arctic survival and its perils as terrifying as being devoured by zombies.
All-in-all one of the better books of this type. Recommended for anyone who has tired of the "Urrgh Arrgh" variety of zombies.
