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The Zed Files Trilogy #1
The Hanging Tree: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller
It's hard to go it alone. Especially in a world filled with zombies. A recluse even before civilization's collapse, Billy is trekking westward after surviving the impact, the tsunami, and the infection. On his own, fighting to stay ahead of the undead Wave, Billy is forced to hunker down with a group of two strippers, a lesbian couple, a stoner redneck, a tech geek, an orphaned boy, and a one-eyed man. And Chuck—the guy with the mullet. Billy's scarred past might be the key to their unlikely survival. Or quite possibly the death of them all.
204 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 6, 2013
15 people are currently reading
67 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 18, 2013
I’m going to write an unapologetic review for an unapologetic novel. A story that’s not afraid to show you what people might resort to when all hope is lost; how do people cope? How does it change people? Zombie novels aren’t supposed to be about zombies… it’s about people coping with personal crisis. This is a book about people who aren’t spectacular—these are flawed people. They’re human beings. You won’t find Iron Man in the pages of The Hanging Tree—it’s as if we’re all waiting for someone to save us, someone else to do something about our plight…
The Hanging Tree starts off a bit slowly, with the deranged ramblings of a man who’s clearly not in tune with today’s sense of morality, because that world is gone. That’s an important concept in apocalyptic fiction—the world is over, so what’re people really like? What can they become? Our story begins with the man who represents a moral apocalypse and a subconscious search for its rebirth. The protagonist in this story is supposed to look for a glimmer of hope, of humanity, because he’s been isolated from society; how many people shut down when they decide they don’t want to be part of something they dedicated their identity to? Here’s a character who has nothing, and is barely human because he’s forgotten what it means. The purpose behind this novel should be clear from the first chapter: this is a book in which a man so damaged by his loss that he’s become a monster to rationalize why he destroy monsters, until he encounters others who aren’t any different than him.
This book has romance, and it has guns. In fact, the author provides a neat display of the weapons involved at the end of the book as if they were the cast on stage for a final ovation; the book makes jest of our “carefully-ordered world” and its procedures, so I think the guns could be moved to the front of the book. Everyone seems to enjoy talking about the gun controversy; are they villains or heroes? Do they save or do they kill? The reader is supposed to explore, and decide. There is some political satire if you’re interested, but it’s not pushed to the forefront.
The author wasn’t trying to use his book to get across a point. I was able to reflect upon what I learned about our world from reading this book. When a book teaches me something new, I decide that it’s worth sharing with the world.
There are moments of humanity and humor, so bright in the middle of the mire that surrounds these people. As fruitless as their situation might seem, the characters aren’t interested in giving up. They have different methods of coping. I hate to think our PG-13 world would be offended by drug use in a book, considering that you can turn on Fox or any other television station and see it; Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill appear in a lot of films that feature marijuana, and their movies do quite well. I mention this because I think the author did a great job of showcasing how individual people might handle a situation, rather than a bunch of walking video game archetypes shooting things. Drugs exist, and so does alcohol. The characters in this novel are homeless; they’ve been displaced and they’re looking for a place to fight the oncoming threat, the inevitable confrontation that provides the backdrop for *SEMI-SPOILER* an intense action scene. The things that once defined these people are dead, and many of them feel dead. You get the picture.
Once the cast is introduced, the book moves swiftly and leaves you wanting more. The ending is conclusive; I didn’t feel cheated because the story was finished, but I can see a sequel providing an opportunity to explore how much more the author can reveal; the world he creates seems surreal but very close, proof that the author used the isolation concept to its fullest. The Hanging Tree is a story about personal survival horror; you’ll get your fair share of gore, bullet, and kills. Some of the zombie kills in this book were humorous and creative. For anyone needing an explosion to occur within a story, you’re rewarded. Amongst the characters, there’s catharsis. There’s change.
The characters in this book don’t seem redeemable, or even worth cheering for, on the surface. The author introduces them and allows you to make your own judgments. You care about these characters because they’re trying to survive together in a way that makes more sense than anything I’ve seen this side of The Walking Dead. These characters weren’t necessarily rich or poor in their previous lives; they have only souls—they want to give each other a chance. There’s certainly a lot of paranoia in this book, but I didn’t need the “traitor” concept or the “rape” idea thrown in, because these people tried. It was all they had. The author’s positive message about people who’re willing to trust one another contrasts neatly with its grim reality.
Recommend.
The Hanging Tree starts off a bit slowly, with the deranged ramblings of a man who’s clearly not in tune with today’s sense of morality, because that world is gone. That’s an important concept in apocalyptic fiction—the world is over, so what’re people really like? What can they become? Our story begins with the man who represents a moral apocalypse and a subconscious search for its rebirth. The protagonist in this story is supposed to look for a glimmer of hope, of humanity, because he’s been isolated from society; how many people shut down when they decide they don’t want to be part of something they dedicated their identity to? Here’s a character who has nothing, and is barely human because he’s forgotten what it means. The purpose behind this novel should be clear from the first chapter: this is a book in which a man so damaged by his loss that he’s become a monster to rationalize why he destroy monsters, until he encounters others who aren’t any different than him.
This book has romance, and it has guns. In fact, the author provides a neat display of the weapons involved at the end of the book as if they were the cast on stage for a final ovation; the book makes jest of our “carefully-ordered world” and its procedures, so I think the guns could be moved to the front of the book. Everyone seems to enjoy talking about the gun controversy; are they villains or heroes? Do they save or do they kill? The reader is supposed to explore, and decide. There is some political satire if you’re interested, but it’s not pushed to the forefront.
The author wasn’t trying to use his book to get across a point. I was able to reflect upon what I learned about our world from reading this book. When a book teaches me something new, I decide that it’s worth sharing with the world.
There are moments of humanity and humor, so bright in the middle of the mire that surrounds these people. As fruitless as their situation might seem, the characters aren’t interested in giving up. They have different methods of coping. I hate to think our PG-13 world would be offended by drug use in a book, considering that you can turn on Fox or any other television station and see it; Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill appear in a lot of films that feature marijuana, and their movies do quite well. I mention this because I think the author did a great job of showcasing how individual people might handle a situation, rather than a bunch of walking video game archetypes shooting things. Drugs exist, and so does alcohol. The characters in this novel are homeless; they’ve been displaced and they’re looking for a place to fight the oncoming threat, the inevitable confrontation that provides the backdrop for *SEMI-SPOILER* an intense action scene. The things that once defined these people are dead, and many of them feel dead. You get the picture.
Once the cast is introduced, the book moves swiftly and leaves you wanting more. The ending is conclusive; I didn’t feel cheated because the story was finished, but I can see a sequel providing an opportunity to explore how much more the author can reveal; the world he creates seems surreal but very close, proof that the author used the isolation concept to its fullest. The Hanging Tree is a story about personal survival horror; you’ll get your fair share of gore, bullet, and kills. Some of the zombie kills in this book were humorous and creative. For anyone needing an explosion to occur within a story, you’re rewarded. Amongst the characters, there’s catharsis. There’s change.
The characters in this book don’t seem redeemable, or even worth cheering for, on the surface. The author introduces them and allows you to make your own judgments. You care about these characters because they’re trying to survive together in a way that makes more sense than anything I’ve seen this side of The Walking Dead. These characters weren’t necessarily rich or poor in their previous lives; they have only souls—they want to give each other a chance. There’s certainly a lot of paranoia in this book, but I didn’t need the “traitor” concept or the “rape” idea thrown in, because these people tried. It was all they had. The author’s positive message about people who’re willing to trust one another contrasts neatly with its grim reality.
Recommend.
April 17, 2017
Superb ZA Thriller
I've not heard of the author before and downloaded the book because it was free. But I'd certainly pay for a book written by David Andrew Wright if this is the standard. Top notch drama, with superb characters and some original touches, which help set it apart from other ZA books. Thoroughly enjoyable, gritty, and brutal in places.
I've not heard of the author before and downloaded the book because it was free. But I'd certainly pay for a book written by David Andrew Wright if this is the standard. Top notch drama, with superb characters and some original touches, which help set it apart from other ZA books. Thoroughly enjoyable, gritty, and brutal in places.
August 19, 2013
Welcome to the real zombie apocalypse, where the survivors aren’t Rambo and Riddick, but folks just like you and me. They are flawed. They have issues. One of them even has a mullet. One of my pet peeves with a lot of apocalyptic literature is the superhero main character. You know the guy. He’s like Jason Bourne with a firefighter’s sense of civic duty. Well, if you like that guy, sorry, but he’s not in this book.
From the opening paragraph, The Hanging Tree tells the story of a bleak future. The planet has been irrevocably damaged, almost everyone is dead, and, to top it all off, most of those dead folks are still walking around and trying to eat the few survivors. This is where we find Billy, moving westward through a world where life hardly seems worth living. There is a zombie-tsunami heading in the same direction, and he’s trying to stay ahead of the wave. Billy comes across as a little nutty and you get the sense that traveling alone through a dying world isn’t a huge lifestyle change for him. Of course, while he may have been a bit of a loner to begin with, the new world has turned him into something beyond that, something with a lesser sense of humanity.
Billy soon meets up with a small group of survivors who are also just regular folks trying to make it through another day. A lot of this book’s focus is on the things they do to make life in the post-apocalypse a little more bearable. They drink, do drugs, have sex, and a few of them even hang the undead from a tree, just to watch them squirm. You can judge them if you want, but I choose to put myself in their shoes. Everyone has coping mechanisms. I make odd jokes at inappropriate times. I’m not trying to be a dick, that’s just how I deal with emotional turmoil. If the world basically died, along with the few people that I really care about, I have to wonder what I would do to handle such a harsh reality.
There were a few reviewers on Amazon who beat this book up a little because the characters were “unlikable” and “hard to root for.” I wouldn’t use the word unlikable, but they are real people with flaws. I guess for some folks, that makes you hard to root for. Unless you have a big S on your chest, they would prefer to see you eaten by zombies. I hope I don’t run into any of them during the apocalypse. Believe it or not, some people find me kind of unlikable.
Don’t think that this book is all introspection and sociology. There is a good amount of carnage and action. The story moves quickly and before you know it, you’re at an end that I did not see coming at all. This book is the first in a series and, while it does set up the next book, it doesn’t leave you hanging (pun intended). There is a finite conclusion to the story being told. After that, you’ll find some very cool illustrations of the weapons used in the book and a little information on each one.
I enjoyed this novel immensely. It was well-written, gritty, and descriptive. The author does a great job of putting you inside the heads of realistic survivors. The story looks like it will be heading in a very different and interesting direction. As a writer, I hate to feel rushed, so I won’t tell David Andrew Wright to hurry up and get the sequel out, but I am looking at my watch right now and shaking my head.
From the opening paragraph, The Hanging Tree tells the story of a bleak future. The planet has been irrevocably damaged, almost everyone is dead, and, to top it all off, most of those dead folks are still walking around and trying to eat the few survivors. This is where we find Billy, moving westward through a world where life hardly seems worth living. There is a zombie-tsunami heading in the same direction, and he’s trying to stay ahead of the wave. Billy comes across as a little nutty and you get the sense that traveling alone through a dying world isn’t a huge lifestyle change for him. Of course, while he may have been a bit of a loner to begin with, the new world has turned him into something beyond that, something with a lesser sense of humanity.
Billy soon meets up with a small group of survivors who are also just regular folks trying to make it through another day. A lot of this book’s focus is on the things they do to make life in the post-apocalypse a little more bearable. They drink, do drugs, have sex, and a few of them even hang the undead from a tree, just to watch them squirm. You can judge them if you want, but I choose to put myself in their shoes. Everyone has coping mechanisms. I make odd jokes at inappropriate times. I’m not trying to be a dick, that’s just how I deal with emotional turmoil. If the world basically died, along with the few people that I really care about, I have to wonder what I would do to handle such a harsh reality.
There were a few reviewers on Amazon who beat this book up a little because the characters were “unlikable” and “hard to root for.” I wouldn’t use the word unlikable, but they are real people with flaws. I guess for some folks, that makes you hard to root for. Unless you have a big S on your chest, they would prefer to see you eaten by zombies. I hope I don’t run into any of them during the apocalypse. Believe it or not, some people find me kind of unlikable.
Don’t think that this book is all introspection and sociology. There is a good amount of carnage and action. The story moves quickly and before you know it, you’re at an end that I did not see coming at all. This book is the first in a series and, while it does set up the next book, it doesn’t leave you hanging (pun intended). There is a finite conclusion to the story being told. After that, you’ll find some very cool illustrations of the weapons used in the book and a little information on each one.
I enjoyed this novel immensely. It was well-written, gritty, and descriptive. The author does a great job of putting you inside the heads of realistic survivors. The story looks like it will be heading in a very different and interesting direction. As a writer, I hate to feel rushed, so I won’t tell David Andrew Wright to hurry up and get the sequel out, but I am looking at my watch right now and shaking my head.
September 9, 2017
I picked up this book tentatively, not usually being interested in zombie fiction, but I soon forgot what genre I was reading as I became too interested in the the characters and the narrative completely caught me up. I finished this book when the rest of the trilogy had not yet been published and I can remember the moment I finished it and the intense need to get my hands on the next book. I urge everyone to read this without confining it to small time zombie fiction - as it is so much more! It is unapologetic in the best way.
February 13, 2015
I got this free from Amazon, one of two free monthly books. It was short, proofreading and editing could have been better, but it was a decent story. Interesting take on getting zombie blood splashed onto an open wound and surviving - kinda like the character on Z Nation who survived a bite and is viewed as a potential cure or vaccine for the zombie virus.
The book showed potential, and if it turns into a series I'd check it out.
The book showed potential, and if it turns into a series I'd check it out.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews