Collected here are the final four novels in the Adrian's Undead Diary epic.
Book Five: Wrath Good and evil play their game to determine whether humanity gets a second chance, and their pawns are the living and the dead.
Book Six: In the Arms of Family Adrian Ring and evil don't get along. When he can't be corrupted, turned, or forced to give up, evil targets those around him, including the family he had thought was dead.
Book Seven: The Trinity A full year of blood and tears has passed for Adrian Ring. As the dead remain hateful, the living are more desperate than ever: winter approaches and supplies are dwindling. Meanwhile, the conflict with the monsters at the Factory is reaching a boiling point.
Book Eight: Cassie One last test.
One last quest.
Adrian and the men and women who love him head deep into the city in search of the one thing that may save Adrian's soul, and the entire world.
"Well-rounded and intriguing story arcs, three dimensional characters, and the perfect blend of humor and horror create the exquisite amalgam that is Adrian's Undead Diary. Philbrook earns his place in The Bookie Monster's hall of fame best reads." SHANA FESTA, THE BOOKIE MONSTER & AUTHOR OF TIME OF DEATH
"A realistic account of the zombie apocalypse that sucks you right in. A great series!" T.W. Piperbrook, author of the Contamination series.
"Walking Dead < Adrian's Undead Diary. The End." J.C. Fiske, author of The Renegade Series
Adrian's Undead Diary series is a must have for your zompoc collection. The only time I only put it down was when the battery on my Kindle died. Adrian is the kind of hero I want on my zompoc team. Ben S Reeder, author of The Zompoc Survivor Series
I am the creator and author of Tesser: A Dragon Among Us as well as Elmoryn's The Kinless Trilogy, Colony Lost, Adrian's Undead Diary and the Darkness of Diggory Finch.
I've gone to a LOT of college. I've got a Business degree as well as a Psychology degree, and I've done the full program at the school of hard knocks. I've been a printing press operator, bouncer, purchasing agent, bodyguard, customer service representative, mental health counselor, and more. I can write about weird shit because I've done weird shit. Trust me.
I call the wonderful state of New Hampshire my home, but I love to travel. I love to read, write, play role playing games, miniatures games, video games, and Magic: The Gathering. When I find the time to be active, I like to hike, play basketball, and play football. I am married to a wonderful woman, and together we have two wonderful daughters.
Epic! I have finally got my life back and made a start on tackling some of the other books on my “to be read” list, after finishing the first eight books in the epic zombie apocalypse series Adrian’s Undead Diary. I came across the author, Chris Philbrook, through the various zombie apocalypse social media groups I am a member of, and decided to give the books a go after being impressed by him when he was the guest speaker on a live Facebook writer’s event I took part in. The books are largely written in a journalistic style and, as you might expect, tell the story of how a man called Adrian survives and thrives after a global zombie apocalypse. At first glance, Adrian appears to be an outwardly calm and capable, but otherwise remarkably ordinary, ex-military bloke who works nights as a sort of caretaker in a private residential school and lives with his long-term girlfriend, Cassie. It turns out that our hero is not as “ordinary” as he seems. Not only is he extraordinarily resourceful and resilient, with a remarkable knowledge of guns and ammunition and a, bordering on unhealthy, obsession with recording every minute detail of his daily life during the apocalypse, but he turns out to be a central figure in the battle between good and evil and the survival of what is left of the entire (living) human race itself. What I liked: The addictive nature of the story. I literally could not put this down, reading for hours in the early mornings on my kindle in the dark before my husband was awake, and again at night while he was asleep. It disrupted my sleep patterns, my work patterns, my reading patterns, and my life in general. Thank goodness I started reading it in late November on a short holiday to celebrate my birthday, and that the couple of months it took me to get through all eight books included a couple of weeks over the Christmas holidays and a 10-day period of isolation due to Covid. The journalistic style. The journalistic style was a big part of what made the book so compelling. When Adrian and his people were building up to a big event it was more than I could bear to read the start of each diary entry to find out how it went. Equally, the opening few words of each entry were the first indication of whether anything awful had occurred or not, and I always felt the need to read “just one more” to see how the group were progressing. Adrian. I really liked (or should I say “like” as his story continues) Adrian. He was (is) a complex but likeable character. He does what has to be done to ensure his own survival, but also tries to help others when he can. He is strong and brave but not without fear. He constantly doubts himself and his decisions and beats himself up over his perceived mistakes. He is funny and irreverent and doesn’t take himself too seriously. He is not ashamed or embarrassed to talk about his sexual needs and desires and even about his bowel habits, however disgusting. The other characters. For a very long time Adrian was the only person in his world. However, other characters are gradually introduced, and we slowly get to know and love them as we see them through Adrian’s eyes. I loved the way they develop and change as they get to grips with their new reality. I particularly liked Abby and Gilbert. I love the patient way that the number of survivors in Bastion and the extended community slowly builds at first from one, to two, and then a small handful, Then, in the last few books, how it increases exponentially to around one hundred people by the end. The surprises. I liked some of the unexpected plot twists and turns. I actually don’t want to mention them specifically here because, if you do go on to read the books after reading this review, they would be spoilers of monumental proportions. Suffice to say, there were some things that happened and some things that were revealed that I would never have expected in a million years. The non-journal chapters. The books are peppered with chapters that are not part of Adrian’s diary. While the first one took me by surprise, I came to enjoy them immensely as they provided insight into some of the other characters and their back stories and the plot in general, sometimes giving the reader forewarning of things to come. This contributed to the addictive nature of the read. Once you have read a chapter where something occurs that Adrian does not yet know about, you find yourself rushing through the next few journal entries until the unsuspecting hero catches up. The fact that throughout the books there are things that the reader knows that Adrian does not, is a very effective page-turning and tension building technique. The level of detail. I was undecided at first whether I liked the excessive amount of tedious and monotonous detail in the books or not. I have come down on the side of “liked” as this is a key component of Adrian’s character and his role in the “Trinity” and the books would not be the same without it. It plays a key part in the complex world building process which enhances reader engagement and immersion and makes the books come alive. Nevertheless, I’m not going to lie and pretend that I didn’t skim over some of the endless accounts of everything they scavenged from all the buildings they raided, and the pages and pages of stocktaking of food and fuel, and don’t even get me started on the guns. Pages and pages and pages devoted to descriptions and pros and cons of different guns and their ammunition, all of which meant absolutely nothing to me. The big spiritual good versus evil plot element. Somewhere along the road the book gets very spiritual, verging close to religious. At first, I wasn’t sure I liked this, as it is an usual and controversial explanation for the zombie apocalypse. However, it was managed well in my opinion. It didn’t go too far beyond the realms of plausibility – after all, how plausible is a zombie apocalypse in the first place? It was different, interesting, and original and gave the book a very Stephen Kingesque feel at times, almost reminiscent of The Stand. What I didn’t like. Repetition. There is not very much that I didn’t like about these books but sometimes the amount of repetition irritated me a little. When something happened in a non-journal chapter, it was often repeated by Adrian in his corresponding journal entry. When I was desperate to find out what happened next in the story, I found myself skimming these sections in frustration. This was linked to the fact that the books are very long. Well, the individual books are probably not very long, but reading all of them in two omnibuses took a long time and there were a lot of pages which involved the detailed accounts of stocktaking and scavenging mentioned above, as well as a fair bit of repetition. Typos. There were few typos and missing or incorrect words which was a minor irritation and distraction. The end! I loved the end but was a little dismayed when I realised that Adrian’s story is still not over, and that Chris Philbrook is still writing books about what happens to him next. Much as I’d like to, I am reluctant to read any more of them at the moment as there are other things I need to do and other books I want to read! Adrian’s Undead Diary is at the top of the pile in the independently published zombie apocalypse category, and I would definitely recommend.
First, let me start off with I'm sick as hell of authors chosing Africa as the birthplace of tons of different horrors. I think it illuminates a huge flaw in the way some people still feel about black people. In spite of that flaw, I did enjoy the story. The plot was engaging. The only things that I didn't like was there was way too much revisitation of prior happenings for my taste. I felt like it just extended the story needlessly. I also found and noted waaaaay too many typos. That was very irritating. It was still a good story that I don't regret reading.
Best series I’ve read and that’s saying something because I go through a lot of books in a week I have read/listened to the whole series over and over in fact I put it on my iPad at night before I got to sleep (don’t judge some folk listen to music I list to AUD) I love the fact that other authors have sideline story from the series I also love the Carl Mathers books because Lockey & Nate are awesome and since I’m English it reminds me of home. I want more I am hoping since we don’t have the full story yet (see last book) there will be more to come I hope so because I will devour it when it comes out) So if you’re looking to get lost for several days in a brilliant book series try these you won’t be disappointed!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Honesty compels me to say the first four books are better. Don't misunderstand, the story is still great. I just didn't like the entire good vs. evil tangent the book went to. I am not a strongly religious person, this half of the series felt to me super religiously. I also found the ending to be super cheesy. I still recommend this entire series though as it is well done, other than my personal dislikes. Zombie lovers should have this in their collections. If they don't, they aren't a true zombie fan!
This was an excellent ending to the series. Like i sad in my review of the first omnibus I found the website that these stories were posted on while working overnights and got engrossed in them.
I was really excited to find the Kindle versions of the stories as the writings on the website had been moved behind a paywall.
The way Chris finished the series was much more gratifying in the books. There was finally a sense of closure.
So, I've read this entire series. I have to say, I've enjoyed every minute of it. These books are a zombie fans delight. The characters are charming and are given great back stories and development. The only thing that would of made it better is if there were more of them. Lol. There were some grammar and wording mistakes, but for me, that just added to the imperfection of the main character.
Woah. This is as good as a collection can come!! Chris Philbrook is a genius and had my heart racing in every single book!! But the final one, Jesus……..gonna grab a drink now….
I loved this story from the very beginning. It's scary but funny. My only criticism is the author needs a proofreader. There are many errors and missing words. Unless they are on purpose because it's a journal. But I think they're just mistakes.
A trinity, the three who will save the world. One who makes his living protecting. One who studied faith. And one who was always trying to be a better person in a harsh world. So many layers to go through. A good read. It has a lot if typos though.
Unique approach to the classic zombie genre. Really refreshing to read, and I lost a few nights’ sleep powering through some of the chapters so I could see what was coming out the other side.
Wow. Just finished these books and felt like I was taken on quite a journey. Great story and characters, lots of humor with bits of sadness mixed in. Highly recommend.
Great shootemup, with a nice spiritual and thoughtful underlying theme. Zombie Apocalypse with a hip twist. Wish a few more black folks could have made it through but Great Job, Mr Philbrook! Gonna try you again!
i enjoyed Volume One and Volume Two. The story was long but made a person feel like they were there. I was sad to see some favorites go but I guess no-one could survive this mad world. There were quite a few spelling mistakes, but didn't really take away from the overall story. I'm looking forward to the next books by Chris. Maybe not so much on bedtime theatrics and cursing. I just ignore that and continue past it.
I read a TON of Zompoc. This is absolutely the best series I have ever read. Trust me when I say these books are worse than Pringles. Once you pop the top, there's no stopping until you hit the bottom of the can (or the last page of book 8 in this case).
Adrian is an amazingly complex character that you will grow amazingly close to - along with many other characters - as his journey unfolds. As with many zompoc novels, it isn't really about the dead. It's about the living, the bonds they form with other survivors and the lengths they will go to keep themselves and those they grow to love in the wake of unthinkable circumstances safe and alive. What makes this different is what lays beneath the surface. There is much more going on here which separates this series from all the others and the most original origin story to date is just the beginning.
This is books 4-8 so if you haven't grabbed the first one, do it now! Clear your schedule and hold on...Philbrook has his foot firmly on the gas and isn't slowing down. You aren't going to want to put this one down for even a second!