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Afflicted Dawn
Their new world hums with life, but Dylan and his niece Aurellia are more alone than ever before. When the Affliction struck, it claimed the lives of their family. Now, they only have each other. Aurellia is Dylan's only priority. She is all that remains of his old world, all that matters anymore. She deserves better than living under the constant threat of death, and Dylan has made it his final goal to assure her safety. Food has become scarce and jeopardizes their survival, but beyond their temporary shelters lurks the real danger: the Afflicted-murderous creatures roaming the land as if they were lost.
Now, two years after the Affliction, those creatures are undergoing a rapid evolution. Everything that had been learned is void and the dangers are, once again, unknown. Dylan and Aurellia must put their faith in fellow survivors if they want to live, but not everyone can be trusted. There are those that have their own agenda, even in the last days of humanity. Dylan is faced with the ultimate test and a defining decision. Will he make the right choices for Aurellia's sake?
Now, two years after the Affliction, those creatures are undergoing a rapid evolution. Everything that had been learned is void and the dangers are, once again, unknown. Dylan and Aurellia must put their faith in fellow survivors if they want to live, but not everyone can be trusted. There are those that have their own agenda, even in the last days of humanity. Dylan is faced with the ultimate test and a defining decision. Will he make the right choices for Aurellia's sake?
344 pages, Paperback
First published March 16, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 26, 2014
Of all the horror genres to still remain true to their classic incarnation, the zombie genre is one of the most overplayed today. With DayZ, The Walking Dead and countless other releases attempting to capitalise on the idea of a zombie infested post-apocalyptic planet, the genre has become over-saturated with a single idea. Afflicted Dawn is an attempt to put a new spin on the genre with a variation of the traditional zombie, treating them more like a rabid plague with horde instincts.
Following a potential cure for cancer having some unexpected side effects, much of the world has been left in ruins. Thanks to injections creating half a billion potential carriers long before anyone has the opportunity to react, the infection soon spreads like wildfire, cutting down everything in its path. It takes barely any time at all for society to collapse and humanity’s remnants are minor factions of survivors. Among those we see are an uncle and niece attempting to avoid the fighting, a dwindling band of US soldiers, and a woman who has witnessed the worst of humanity in this dark era. More horrifying of all is that the Afflicted are not mindless, they are gradually learning, adapting and becoming far more effective at hunting down the few uninfected left alive.
On paper, no pun intended, this does work. The book offers a variety of different viewpoint characters with varying backgrounds, a slightly different spin on the usual zombie apocalypse setting, and has a potential message which would be worked into the story a-la Romero. As with so many things however, the problems lie with the book’s execution of these points.
Foremost among these is lies with how the book sets up events and the characters themselves. There’s no gradual pace or build up to events, and readers are far too quickly thrust into the moment. While this can work with certain books, here it fails as it offers you no time to really connect with the characters. We know nothing about them beyond their names and some inkling of their relationships, and even that is tentative. It’s so focused upon the action and rapid pace that there is no opportunity to really get to know these individuals, and it never really lets up enough to let the reader truly care about them.
The relationship between Dylan and Aurie (the uncle and niece) is a good starting point, but they’re never really fleshed out enough as individual characters to matter beyond that. The same really goes with the soldiers’ comradeship, which is a running theme within the book but it’s not enough to individually flesh them all out. The few times the book does try to explore the characters or add moments of humanity, it sadly comes across as melodramatic. Something which is not helped by the fact the characters are barely introduced and the first of these moments happens three chapters in.
Just as one quick example one soldier, Kevin, is infected following fighting and mercy killed, but the event is done with tears, overwrought dialogue and hammed up to the Nth degree. Parts of it might have worked, but because the book barely established who he or any of the others are, the reader is given no reason to why they should be invested in his character. It’s supposed to highlight how many they had lost, but a better way of doing that would have been to have one of the soldiers internally reflecting upon this, rather than conveying it almost exclusively through dialogue. A problem the book suffers from extensively.
The dialogue itself ranges from fairly decent to painfully bad, the latter frequently being associated with the occupants of the Citadel such as Tank, Whip and Zeus; all of who are introduced as thugs of the worst kinda-la Mad Max. Their presence also introduces two more problems for the book. The foremost is that it disrupts what little world building the book had featured up to their introduction. What little there had been up until the Citadel was introduced seemed to be aiming for a largely realistic presentation of a zombie apocalypse for the most part. With the introduction of this lot, hammy language and all, it destroys any semblance of a theme within the setting and feels wildly incoherent.
The other problem which emerges from their presence is a certain subject I continually advise books to veer away from unless they have an extremely good reason for it to be there: Namely rape. It’s an extremely cheap way to try and make the bad guys more evil, and it’s rarely depicted with any shadow of realism. We’re told within a paragraph that Carmen, one of the book’s only two prominent female characters, has this repeatedly happen to her within a few short hours, yet it never seems to have any impact. This is quite frankly disgusting treatment of the subject, failing to approach it with any kind of severity or true seriousness, and it’s easily the book’s biggest failing.
Despite all of this, Napier does show a degree of competence with his prose and characters. There are occasional sparks of quality here and there, with some good moments of helping to flesh out the environments. Some depictions of scenes such as Dylan’s collapse or the latter stages of the initial outbreak (shown via flashback) do have emotional impact and there are clear moments where the story presents a few decent ideas with the Afflicted. As it stands however, this is not a good book and I would hope the author uses this as a learning experience. He has definite talent, but he needs to desperately focus upon improving his presentation and the quality of his work.
Following a potential cure for cancer having some unexpected side effects, much of the world has been left in ruins. Thanks to injections creating half a billion potential carriers long before anyone has the opportunity to react, the infection soon spreads like wildfire, cutting down everything in its path. It takes barely any time at all for society to collapse and humanity’s remnants are minor factions of survivors. Among those we see are an uncle and niece attempting to avoid the fighting, a dwindling band of US soldiers, and a woman who has witnessed the worst of humanity in this dark era. More horrifying of all is that the Afflicted are not mindless, they are gradually learning, adapting and becoming far more effective at hunting down the few uninfected left alive.
On paper, no pun intended, this does work. The book offers a variety of different viewpoint characters with varying backgrounds, a slightly different spin on the usual zombie apocalypse setting, and has a potential message which would be worked into the story a-la Romero. As with so many things however, the problems lie with the book’s execution of these points.
Foremost among these is lies with how the book sets up events and the characters themselves. There’s no gradual pace or build up to events, and readers are far too quickly thrust into the moment. While this can work with certain books, here it fails as it offers you no time to really connect with the characters. We know nothing about them beyond their names and some inkling of their relationships, and even that is tentative. It’s so focused upon the action and rapid pace that there is no opportunity to really get to know these individuals, and it never really lets up enough to let the reader truly care about them.
The relationship between Dylan and Aurie (the uncle and niece) is a good starting point, but they’re never really fleshed out enough as individual characters to matter beyond that. The same really goes with the soldiers’ comradeship, which is a running theme within the book but it’s not enough to individually flesh them all out. The few times the book does try to explore the characters or add moments of humanity, it sadly comes across as melodramatic. Something which is not helped by the fact the characters are barely introduced and the first of these moments happens three chapters in.
Just as one quick example one soldier, Kevin, is infected following fighting and mercy killed, but the event is done with tears, overwrought dialogue and hammed up to the Nth degree. Parts of it might have worked, but because the book barely established who he or any of the others are, the reader is given no reason to why they should be invested in his character. It’s supposed to highlight how many they had lost, but a better way of doing that would have been to have one of the soldiers internally reflecting upon this, rather than conveying it almost exclusively through dialogue. A problem the book suffers from extensively.
The dialogue itself ranges from fairly decent to painfully bad, the latter frequently being associated with the occupants of the Citadel such as Tank, Whip and Zeus; all of who are introduced as thugs of the worst kinda-la Mad Max. Their presence also introduces two more problems for the book. The foremost is that it disrupts what little world building the book had featured up to their introduction. What little there had been up until the Citadel was introduced seemed to be aiming for a largely realistic presentation of a zombie apocalypse for the most part. With the introduction of this lot, hammy language and all, it destroys any semblance of a theme within the setting and feels wildly incoherent.
The other problem which emerges from their presence is a certain subject I continually advise books to veer away from unless they have an extremely good reason for it to be there: Namely rape. It’s an extremely cheap way to try and make the bad guys more evil, and it’s rarely depicted with any shadow of realism. We’re told within a paragraph that Carmen, one of the book’s only two prominent female characters, has this repeatedly happen to her within a few short hours, yet it never seems to have any impact. This is quite frankly disgusting treatment of the subject, failing to approach it with any kind of severity or true seriousness, and it’s easily the book’s biggest failing.
Despite all of this, Napier does show a degree of competence with his prose and characters. There are occasional sparks of quality here and there, with some good moments of helping to flesh out the environments. Some depictions of scenes such as Dylan’s collapse or the latter stages of the initial outbreak (shown via flashback) do have emotional impact and there are clear moments where the story presents a few decent ideas with the Afflicted. As it stands however, this is not a good book and I would hope the author uses this as a learning experience. He has definite talent, but he needs to desperately focus upon improving his presentation and the quality of his work.
July 29, 2016
There are some rules that you apply to zombies on a general basis.
1. They aren't smart.
2. They aren't fast.
3. They don't really work together.
At the beginning of Afflicted Dawn, we see that these rules are nicely applied in a bleak post-apocalyptic landscape. Dylan is on his own with his niece, Aurie (Aurellia). Dylan isn't doing so well, physically, and he's trying to get Aurie to a city so that he can hopefully find someone to take her in before he (theoretically) dies. But not long after the story begins, we see the Afflicted (the zombies) start to exhibit behaviors they've never had before. They don't so much stumble as run now. They work together. They plot, even going so far as to lay traps. It's a horrifying start to a story that covers not only the dark side of the Afflicted, but the darkness that will overtake humanity when forced to fight for their survival.
Let's tick off some of the requirements for a good book.
Characters you can care about. Check. Dylan was a responsible uncle and a relatively decent human being. But he's also human. He makes mistakes, has the occasional selfish thought, but overall, he's a good guy and he loves his niece and will do anything for her. Aurie is a cute kid who's had to grow up way too fast in this new world they are all living in. Despite her young age, she doesn't harbor delusions that everything is going to be okay, yet she occasionally asks the most innocent questions-questions you'd expect from an 8 year old.
Suspense. Check. The majority of the suspense didn't come from the Afflicted. Certainly the afflicted made for some suspenseful scenes. I won't deny that. But it was the humans who were the real evil doers and scourge on humanity in this book. We learn a lot about what they are capable of in the first 15% of the book. There are some very dark events that some of the characters go through. This is not at all a book that should be read by sensitive readers.
Twists and turns. Check. While much of the book was, in many ways, telegraphed (after all, when you have evil parts of humanity and zombies, there are certain things that you just have to have happen), I never felt like I really knew what was going to happen next. I had suspicions here and there. Sometimes my suspicions were right and sometimes they weren't. My favorite books are the ones that let me be right sometimes, but not all the time. I want to be surprised and shocked, but not have major events fly at me from left field.
Excellent writing and editing. Check. I'm an editor by trade and so I tend to notice the pesky little editing mistakes that creep in and stay in without a good editor or good editing process. Afflicted Dawn was very well written and the editing was nearly flawless.
All in all, a thrilling post-apocalyptic novel that will keep you reading and guessing. It will occasionally make you cheer and quite often horrify you. Highly recommended.
**This review originally appeared on Author Alliance.**
1. They aren't smart.
2. They aren't fast.
3. They don't really work together.
At the beginning of Afflicted Dawn, we see that these rules are nicely applied in a bleak post-apocalyptic landscape. Dylan is on his own with his niece, Aurie (Aurellia). Dylan isn't doing so well, physically, and he's trying to get Aurie to a city so that he can hopefully find someone to take her in before he (theoretically) dies. But not long after the story begins, we see the Afflicted (the zombies) start to exhibit behaviors they've never had before. They don't so much stumble as run now. They work together. They plot, even going so far as to lay traps. It's a horrifying start to a story that covers not only the dark side of the Afflicted, but the darkness that will overtake humanity when forced to fight for their survival.
Let's tick off some of the requirements for a good book.
Characters you can care about. Check. Dylan was a responsible uncle and a relatively decent human being. But he's also human. He makes mistakes, has the occasional selfish thought, but overall, he's a good guy and he loves his niece and will do anything for her. Aurie is a cute kid who's had to grow up way too fast in this new world they are all living in. Despite her young age, she doesn't harbor delusions that everything is going to be okay, yet she occasionally asks the most innocent questions-questions you'd expect from an 8 year old.
Suspense. Check. The majority of the suspense didn't come from the Afflicted. Certainly the afflicted made for some suspenseful scenes. I won't deny that. But it was the humans who were the real evil doers and scourge on humanity in this book. We learn a lot about what they are capable of in the first 15% of the book. There are some very dark events that some of the characters go through. This is not at all a book that should be read by sensitive readers.
Twists and turns. Check. While much of the book was, in many ways, telegraphed (after all, when you have evil parts of humanity and zombies, there are certain things that you just have to have happen), I never felt like I really knew what was going to happen next. I had suspicions here and there. Sometimes my suspicions were right and sometimes they weren't. My favorite books are the ones that let me be right sometimes, but not all the time. I want to be surprised and shocked, but not have major events fly at me from left field.
Excellent writing and editing. Check. I'm an editor by trade and so I tend to notice the pesky little editing mistakes that creep in and stay in without a good editor or good editing process. Afflicted Dawn was very well written and the editing was nearly flawless.
All in all, a thrilling post-apocalyptic novel that will keep you reading and guessing. It will occasionally make you cheer and quite often horrify you. Highly recommended.
**This review originally appeared on Author Alliance.**
April 15, 2014
I absolutely loved it and I think anyone who reads it will have to agree with me.
The characters are diverse and realistic and thrown into a world they know nothing about. The non-afflicted know that they have to be on guard every minute to stay alive. Just when you think that it's the afflicted they should be fearing most... another threat rears it's ugly head.
You will quickly fall in love with little Aurie and her uncle Dylan. Some characters are easy to cheer for while others may make you think of words like evil, creepy, slimy, nasty, heartless and I am not talking about the afflicted ones. One of them may or may not ride a motor cycle.
It is fast paced, heart pulsing reading! I can't wait for the sequel.
The characters are diverse and realistic and thrown into a world they know nothing about. The non-afflicted know that they have to be on guard every minute to stay alive. Just when you think that it's the afflicted they should be fearing most... another threat rears it's ugly head.
You will quickly fall in love with little Aurie and her uncle Dylan. Some characters are easy to cheer for while others may make you think of words like evil, creepy, slimy, nasty, heartless and I am not talking about the afflicted ones. One of them may or may not ride a motor cycle.
It is fast paced, heart pulsing reading! I can't wait for the sequel.
April 21, 2014
Really good job of building suspense and keeping me on my toes. I found myself holding my breath in chapters. Interesting concept. Good first book, excited to read more from this author.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews