Z1N1: The Zombie Pandemic: 2012 Was Just the Beginning

by Mitchell Layne Cook

As humankind races headlong towards possibly the most infamous date in recent history, a resurgence of the H1N1 flu virus begins to take a foothold around the world.

Government agencies form partnerships with the private sector to begin mass production of the life-saving vaccines.

However, something strange begins to happen to the people that were vaccinated around the winter solstice of 2012.

The treated individuals do not get any better. In fact, they begin dying in massive numbers...only to return as the living dead!

Genres: Zombies, Horror, Post Apocalyptic, Fiction, Ebooks, Apocalyptic

Nook

First published August 18, 2010

About the author

I've lived in Arkansas my entire life. Right now (and for the past 12 or so years) I've been doing the whole corporate America thing. Not sure what the scenery flying by me looks like since I'm a cubicle cadet and spend most of my time coding.

However, growing up - I was a big video game fan. I guess I still am, just don't have the same amount of time. Two of my favorite games of all time - Resident Evil and Silent Hill - allowed me to actually "live" in that post-apocalyptic world of horror and zombies.

In 2009, I was laid off from my job and while not looking for gainful employment, I decided to write my first zombie novel.

I have a new job now and I was able to publish my Z1N1 novel in August of 2010 through small press (Outskirts Press). I continue to write; I have a few more things to tell in my Z1N1 world and then will try my hand at writing some non-zombie books!

Right now, I'm spending time with my new favorite toy, My Kindle. :)

Reviews

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

If I could give this book 0 out of 5 stars I would. There is so much wrong with this book that it's hard to know where to begin. There were some major flaws in the writing. The author attempted to jump back and forth in time and between groups. It didn't work at all. It was a distraction and I felt that I had to constantly keep track of the date to know what I was reading. I feel like the author was trying to create tension with all that jumping around but it didn't. If anything it made the book more anti-climatic. The characters were also another huge problem. I didn't care about any of them. I can deal with unlikeable characters but I just didn't care if these people lived or died or became zombies. They were so one dimensional cliches and stupid. Not "don't go into the basement" stupid but showed no common sense. The author made them into every generic zombie survivor archetype but didn't give them the intelligence of a box of rocks. And some of the mistakes the author had them make were so bad and only for shock value. Like one of the worst that I won't spell out since it's a spoiler but no way would that would have happened with the bird. They would have prevented it because it was so out of character not too. There were other little mistakes as well. The author must not be familiar with NE winters because no way would frozen ground be able to be dug with a hub cap by an ill man. Same as that one sheet of plastic would not keep a garden warm enough to keep producing at a summer like level. Finally the ending was predictable and dull.

[chucklesthescot · Rating 1 out of 5]

Anyone who knows me knows that I cannot resist grabbing zombie books, even if the book itself has had mixed reviews. I like to try things for myself and make up my own mind. After trying this one, I found myself agreeing with the negative reviews I'd previously read.

I found it slow, a bit silly in places and lacking in cohesion. We start with a group of survivors which include a military vet and his sniper sister, yet the group of them cannot deal with ten zombies or manage to shoot them either in the head or disable them to finish off later. A military vet and a sniper can't kill ten shambling zombies? Right.

We then jump back to the end of 2011 and follow the long and dull story of a group of lab workers who are working with new flu viruses. We follow their work through the whole of 2012, focusing on how the world did not end as predicted, and we follow them into another year. It seems there is an agreement that countries can sign up to in order to have vaccines sent out to them should an outbreak occur but corrupt employees are stockpiling some of the virus vaccine to sell to countries not covered by the agreement. This is all about corrupt officials stealing from stockpiles to make money for themselves and we don't even see another zombie until March 2013!!! So that was 30% of the book read before we see the slow start of a zombie outbreak! Even then it is focused on the bad guys trying to cover up the fact that their stupid vaccine is causing the zombie side effects and trying to make sure that nobody survives to tell about it!

Ugh. I like my zombie books to be focused on the zombies and the survivors. This was so far removed from a traditional zombie book that it frankly bored me senseless. I didn't like the characters, I wasn't interested in following the story of how corrupt officials covered their tracks and who they did business with. I just wanted the zombie outbreak and by the time we actually got to it I was no longer interested in reading it. It is all conspiracy and no zombie!

I didn't finish it and if you like fast paced zombie action, you should probably give it a miss.

[Martin Streetman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Z1N1: The Zombie Pandemic: 2012 Was Just the Beginning
By Mitchell Layne Cook
Now there seem to be an ever increasing number of Zombie books over the last few years and I almost consider it my fault. Now by that I just mean that I like to read them, you know a supply and demand thing. Now Z1N1 took me a little while to get into building up the back-story and creating the bad guys, greedy capitalist pigs. I don’t have much to criticize about the story though. Once I got into it I finished it in a day. I liked how they went into a bit more detail with the how, and even the how the powers that be might choose to deal with it. Cook’s zombies are faster and smarter than the average Z, therefore scarier to me. I also liked showing how it wasn’t just the Zombie’s you had to worry about but the remaining humans as well, both the people on the road and the crazy religious people at the end. Its ending is a good set up for part II. Overall I enjoyed it and if you like this genre I think you will as well. I resisted spoilers but there are a few very realistic (in Z world) anyway things that happen that produce strong visuals, mental note stay away from schools.

[R. · Rating 1 out of 5]

This ebook was pretty much horrible. I made it about 275 pages into the 1,250 page behemoth before I had to call it quits. The characters are flat with poorly developed personalities and they all sort of blur together so that even that far in I couldn't remember who was who and what it was that distinguished individual people.

Lets not even get started on the fact that I was 275 pages into a Zombie story and the Zombies hadn't even really made an appearance yet. Or how the story started with one particular group of people and then switched to another group of people with no mention of the first group for like 200 pages. 200 pages of what was apparently back story for people who weren't even mentioned in the first group.

It seems to me that there are plenty of comments on both Goodreads and Barnes and Noble that include constructive criticism. I'm no Stephen King, but this should be rewritten based on some of the comments people have provided. Or the writer should check out the website elance.com and look into getting someone to edit the manuscript.

[Ellen Maze · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this novel on a lark and it is the first zombie book I have ever tried to read. On the other hand, I have seen plenty of zombie movies and I must say--this novel tops them all.

As an author myself, I am amazed at the detail in this novel, the background on the way the government works when dealing with world-wide virus outbreak, and the peek inside what might really happen if a virus mutated into a zombie pandemic. So realistic!

I particularly enjoyed the way the author executed the book, his writing style and use of the zombie genre. He knows his stuff.

Anyone who enjoys zombies should enjoy this book.

Rated R for language and zombie violence. (of course!)

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very enjoyable book, a lot better than most of the zombie fiction I have read recently and is one of the rare ones available in ebook format with no spelling or punctuation errors - yes its petty but for a publish book, even just a published ebook I expect no/minimal spelling errors not constant ones.

I would love to read more about the characters in this book, the descriptions/descriptive language used is brilliant - makes you feel you are there and its all real.

[Faye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really loved this book, grabs you by the throat ( if you pardon the pun) from page 1 & doesn't let go. There is enough detail to get your teeth into & leaves you gasping for air on a cliffhanger at the end. Hopefully not too long before the next book, can highly recommend to anyone who loves apocalyptic fiction with an unhealthy dose of zombies :-)

[Robert burke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Way above average zombie now. Hope there is more coming.

[Karen Field · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't a bad book, but the head hopping agitated me. The story starts in the midst of action, but then goes off to other characters and a zombie or those first set of characters are not seen again for more than 80 pages, which was a let down. Having said that, I got acquainted with the second set off characters and that storyline was cut off to finally go back to the original characters. Staying with one or the other would have been better. And would have allowed the author to write another book with the other storyline. Parts of the prose was excellent and captivating, but other parts felt stilted and awkward. As I said, it wasn't a bad book. I finished it and, believe me, that says a lot.

[Cj · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read. The author has some great ideas about the how it started, sans the actual science behind it. The story moves along and the author in Kingesqe style doesn't become to attached to any characters. The story just seems to need a little bit of polish. I honestly believe that if Mr Cook gets to write a second novel he will step it up a notch.

[Nelson Mays · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book! I couldn't put it down. I love every aspect of the story line and following the characters through their struggles. I highly recommend this book to any Zombie loving reader. I can't wait to see what Mr. Cook does with the follow up.

[Cheryl Landmark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review to come soon.

[Jim · Rating 1 out of 5]

Includes spoilers:


Wow, this book was a bit of an ordeal to read. The concept was interesting at the beginning and while there are definitely issues with the plot, what earned this a 1 star rating was how bad the writing mechanics were. It made it rather painful to read. Where to start???

First, the novel begins in late 2013 with a group of survivors fighting off a group of zombies on a farm. The book focuses on them for the first chapter. Then, those people disappear for the next 200 pages as the book goes back to 2011 and a group of researchers trying to create a vaccine for the H1N1 flu. What follows next are a continuous series of inane conversations between a small group of co-workers for the next 200 pages. It began to appear as the author didn't know how to write dialogue in an active setting as almost all the dialogue is either in an office meeting or phone call. Most of the dialogue is just meant to serve as a timeline update before the writer switches over to exposition that tells you what the characters are doing for the rest of the day, week, etc. Very passive storytelling.

Additionally, the perspective of the narrator changes from paragraph (or sometimes line) to paragraph. The author gives details about an event from one character POV, then the next paragraph switches to the thoughts of another character, and then back. The author likes to use this time to tell you all sorts of extraneous detail that you don't need to know and isn't relevant to the storytelling. For instance, he tells the reader that the lady pushes the dull red button on her phone to put it into speaker mode. Do I care what color the button is? The author speeds several lines telling you details you don't need rather than a few words to keep the story moving along.

Oh, by the way, once that group of zombie survivors reappears around page 200, then the researchers disappear for about the next 100 pages or so only to randomly reappear in the last quarter of the book.

My most significant gripe of this book was the forced, ridiculous dialogue and the fact the author preferred to tell you want happened through boring exposition rather than showing it through dynamic story telling.

That being said, the book isn't all bad. In fact, it can be pretty entertaining. Entertaining in the way watching a bad movie with a group of smart ass friends can be. If you get a group of friends together and take turns reading the book aloud in overly dramatic/mocking movie trailer voice, the book is downright hilarious.

[Patti · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this book really had potential. But it just didn't quite make it. The premise was good. The characterizations sucked. Random people thrust into the story that never came back. At least as far as I read. I gave up about a quarter way into it. My son warned me that it sucked, but I thought I'd try anyway. Lesson learned .

Do the random bold AND italic words bother you? Well they bothered me when they were on every freaking page of the book. Every. Freaking. Page.

[Mere Hruby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd read something else by them. Characters were interesting and I wanted to know what happened next, though did not become overly attached to any of the characters. It was entertaining for what it was. I did appreciate the good length sample before being asked to purchase the book, 15 page samples where 10 are title pages/pictures and tables of contents are annoying.

[April · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was so disappointed with this book. I hated that the author began the story with one group of survivors, then jumped back to the beginning and followed a different group of survivors for practically half the book before ever getting back to the original group. I think maybe he was going for a WWZ feel, but it failed miserably at that. I also didn't really care about many of the characters at all. There was very little character development and the writing was atrocious and filled with cliches. It was also very predictable in that there were the typical "I'm going to throw in this shocking event just for pure shock value!" story lines that were totally separate and not important to the main storyline. Honestly, this book read like something one of my high school senior students would have written.

[Marcy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this as a recommendation following the Newsflesh trilogy. The story was generally good; I liked the variety of characters. It felt a little disjointed to start with one group of people for just a short while, then spend many, many chapters a year in the past with entirely different people, only to come back to the original group, and then try to merge the groups. I did like how they came together eventually, but I felt the pay-off would have been better to just start with the 2012 story-line, then jump to a new group in 2014. Being able to be exclusively attached to one group at a time would have made me more invested in the characters that died, when they died. Also could have benefited from a little bit more editing, but for the most part the story flowed all right. It was a decent enough read; I'd definitely recommend it to anyone interested in zombie fiction.

[Tai Truong · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is fast-paced with plenty of action, "scary moments," and the more-than-gruesome moments mixed in with some ordinary, silly moments to the more mundane. Even though it's nearly 300 pages long, I found it really hard to just read one chapter at a time. Every chapter, I felt the overwhelming urge to find out what happens next to one band of survivors in the post apocalyptic world as well as what happens within the safer confines of the pharmaceutical giant corporation that was practically ground zero for the transmission and evolution of the zombie virus. While the theme may be a bit cliched, I found this work of fiction moving, touching, and dark at the same time. I recommend this to zombie fans and non-zombie fans alike.

[Tom Boshell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Goes a bit in-depth on how it came about and a bit of tension on the corporate mentality, with a twist at the end. I do like the interaction with the sun as a character.
Has a bit of jumping around from the people traveling across America, background on the scientists, and then bring together with the people who are at the target area. Has alot on how gruesome we as humans can be, and just how twisted it all really is with the creation of the virus.
The outcome is messed-up! Not a happy end, but I don't want to spoil it too much.

[Nathan Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise had a lot of promise. The author isn't afraid to kill off characters, even to the point that he kept me guessing about who would die and who might make it. I thought most of the proverbial tight spots worked well enough. But not only did he miss a plethora of opportunities, the way he assembled the narrative structure didn't work well, and he erred on a couple of salient technical details that threatened to throw me out of the story. And the end...well, I won't spoil it for you, and while it probably qualified as surprising-yet-inevitable, I found it dissatisfying.

[Camille · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a hard one to rate. All my updates show how much this book annoyed me. But at the same time, the fact that I finished it says a lot. The book wasn't great and I probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone simply because the story telling and the organization of it all, was bad. I was interested in finding out what happened so that should count for something.

People wrote in reviews that it ended in a cliffhanger. I wouldn't really say that. But it did end similarly to The Passage.

[Bernadette · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book. The problem i had with it was that the first couple of pages started out great then in became very slow and tedious. It took a long time to explain things and then got good again. I would probably try and read another one if it becomes a series. I figure the next one would be better because they got all of the mumbo jumbo out of the way.

[Bobby newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really good read. The ending was sad in the fact it did not show a possibility for a sequal. The book follows two scientist trying to find a cure for the flue, but instead create the zombie stain. Taking a real life approach to a virus causing to outbreak, the virus mutates to infect more hosts as possible. I really liked it, because there was not a fairy tale ending.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved this book! If you are zombie fan then this is a must read. The story was great, the characters were great and it ended with me hoping for more! Can't say much more other than I LOVED this book!

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started out pretty long winded with a lot of character development for characters that had no real connection to the plot. That being said, I did check to see if there was another book in the series.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! Although it kept shifting scenes from one time to another with one group of people to another, it was clearly marked at chapter headings so it was easier to track. I read this book in one sitting and enjoyed it entirely.

[Patricia Kaniasty · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was by far one of the best zombie books that I have ever read. It kept me on the edge of my seat constantly. There was a balanced mixture of civilian, military, and scientific storylines that kept the story flowing nicely. WOW!!! What an ending!!!!!

[Beverly perry · Rating 3 out of 5]

if you like zombies it would be real good..but they are just a little too gruesome for my taste.

[Alexis Winning · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flu shots are how zombie movies start! Or books for that matter

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

currently a buck on Amazon!