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The Romero Strain: A Zombie Novel
A group of New Yorkers survive a zombie outbreak by navigating the city’s utility and transportation tunnels, only to discover a terrifying threat below.
T.S. ALAN
THE ROMERO STRAIN
For J.D. Nichols and his dog Max the day started out like any other, with a walk along the streets of the Lower East Side. The morning was not uneventful. It was the day J.D. needed his skills as a paramedic and his extensive knowledge of New York’s underground to survive a zombie outbreak.
Coming to the aid of a young girl, they flee to a nearby power facility and are chased into the city’s underground by a zombie horde. Along their subterranean journey, they gather survivors while traveling to Grand Central Terminal, where J.D. believes help will be found. Their hopes quickly end when they discover that Grand Central has been overrun with the undead.
J.D., bitten, knows he has limited time as he struggles to find a safe haven for his companions. In their search they stumble upon an enigmatic scientist who divulges a most ominous secret––a secret that forces J.D. to confront an adversary born from a lab deep below.
“The Romero Strain. Best zombie book I’ve ever read. It should be a movie... or a mini series... or a game, or all of the above!” ~ Punchline Dvd OZ & NZ
T.S. ALAN
THE ROMERO STRAIN
For J.D. Nichols and his dog Max the day started out like any other, with a walk along the streets of the Lower East Side. The morning was not uneventful. It was the day J.D. needed his skills as a paramedic and his extensive knowledge of New York’s underground to survive a zombie outbreak.
Coming to the aid of a young girl, they flee to a nearby power facility and are chased into the city’s underground by a zombie horde. Along their subterranean journey, they gather survivors while traveling to Grand Central Terminal, where J.D. believes help will be found. Their hopes quickly end when they discover that Grand Central has been overrun with the undead.
J.D., bitten, knows he has limited time as he struggles to find a safe haven for his companions. In their search they stumble upon an enigmatic scientist who divulges a most ominous secret––a secret that forces J.D. to confront an adversary born from a lab deep below.
“The Romero Strain. Best zombie book I’ve ever read. It should be a movie... or a mini series... or a game, or all of the above!” ~ Punchline Dvd OZ & NZ
- GenresHorror
248 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 8, 2014
1 person is currently reading
23 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 28, 2020
#Popsugar2020 A Bk with 3 word Title
I’m lost..
What kind of ending was that? I love the idea of the transmutes human + animal mix. I think it was a little dry for my taste though. It’s not a “story” but more like a diary and I think that sometimes it gets so detailed (like when JC describes body parts he uses medical terms and I have no idea what they mean). A story should have a beginning, a middle, an end.. a conflict and something like a resolution, or answer to a mystery. Or a hero’s journey for example. I felt like this was a running commentary of a brief period of time, and although there were lots of movie quotes (Lots I didn’t get either.. ) I felt like.. why did this happen? What was the reason? There are many zombie novels now, and really I say this one I’ll probably forget unfortunately.
I’m lost..
What kind of ending was that? I love the idea of the transmutes human + animal mix. I think it was a little dry for my taste though. It’s not a “story” but more like a diary and I think that sometimes it gets so detailed (like when JC describes body parts he uses medical terms and I have no idea what they mean). A story should have a beginning, a middle, an end.. a conflict and something like a resolution, or answer to a mystery. Or a hero’s journey for example. I felt like this was a running commentary of a brief period of time, and although there were lots of movie quotes (Lots I didn’t get either.. ) I felt like.. why did this happen? What was the reason? There are many zombie novels now, and really I say this one I’ll probably forget unfortunately.
March 14, 2014
There is the seed of something very original and quite intriguing at the heart of T.S. Alan's The Romero Strain. Wrapped in what looks like a very run-of-the-mill zombie apocalyptic thriller is the concept that what caused the dead to rise might affect certain people in a very different way - something that the protagonist of the Romero Strain learns first-hand.
It's a pity then that I had such trouble relating to him.
I'm not sure if Alan was trying to make his main character edgy, or just different to the usual hero that populates this type of read. Well, he certainly succeeded, but not in a way that endeared J.D. Nichols to me. At the beginning of the novel, J.D is taking his dog for a walk when the zombies begin running amok. Within 30 pages, he has managed to act entitled, stuck up, sexist, and creepy - all while putting down barely a handful of zombies. This made for a tricky read, as the entire novel is told from his first-person perspective. He does seem less off-putting by the end of the novel, but not before becoming uber-creepy .
Troublesome main character aside, Alan does create some better minor characters for J.D. to riff off, though his habit of quoting movies with another survivor stopped being quaint by the end of Part One.
The other main issue I had with The Romero Strain typifies that found in first-time novels: namely, the pacing was wildly inconsistent. After a frenetic beginning, Alan slows things to a crawl, detailing buildings and structures that no-one other than a native New Yorker could possibly care about. Things then meander through the middle part of the novel, before building nicely toward the end, only for the action to completely stop when J.D. has one of his many selfish moments and decides to go visit his old neighbourhood - dragging the reader for a stroll down a memory lane that had zero impact on the overall plot.
The ending would seem to leave things wide open enough for a sequel, and despite the above issues, I suspect many will be interested to see where Alan intends on taking his characters. Hopefully, he'll dedicate more of that sequel's run time to fleshing out the idea of what else other than zombies people are becoming in his version of the apocalypse.
2 Hyper-Extensive Necks for The Romero Strain.
*I was given a ARC in exchange for an honest review*
Check out Horror After Dark for more reviews and news.
It's a pity then that I had such trouble relating to him.
I'm not sure if Alan was trying to make his main character edgy, or just different to the usual hero that populates this type of read. Well, he certainly succeeded, but not in a way that endeared J.D. Nichols to me. At the beginning of the novel, J.D is taking his dog for a walk when the zombies begin running amok. Within 30 pages, he has managed to act entitled, stuck up, sexist, and creepy - all while putting down barely a handful of zombies. This made for a tricky read, as the entire novel is told from his first-person perspective. He does seem less off-putting by the end of the novel, but not before becoming uber-creepy .
Troublesome main character aside, Alan does create some better minor characters for J.D. to riff off, though his habit of quoting movies with another survivor stopped being quaint by the end of Part One.
The other main issue I had with The Romero Strain typifies that found in first-time novels: namely, the pacing was wildly inconsistent. After a frenetic beginning, Alan slows things to a crawl, detailing buildings and structures that no-one other than a native New Yorker could possibly care about. Things then meander through the middle part of the novel, before building nicely toward the end, only for the action to completely stop when J.D. has one of his many selfish moments and decides to go visit his old neighbourhood - dragging the reader for a stroll down a memory lane that had zero impact on the overall plot.
The ending would seem to leave things wide open enough for a sequel, and despite the above issues, I suspect many will be interested to see where Alan intends on taking his characters. Hopefully, he'll dedicate more of that sequel's run time to fleshing out the idea of what else other than zombies people are becoming in his version of the apocalypse.
2 Hyper-Extensive Necks for The Romero Strain.
*I was given a ARC in exchange for an honest review*
Check out Horror After Dark for more reviews and news.
August 6, 2016
What a story
My son and I love this story. It is very different. We hope a second book is coming. The characters and story were easy to follow and easily drew us In.
My son and I love this story. It is very different. We hope a second book is coming. The characters and story were easy to follow and easily drew us In.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews