Under a Graveyard Sky

Black Tide Rising #1

by John Ringo, Tristan Morris (Narrator)

A family of survivors who fight back against a zombie plague that has brought down civilization.Zombies are real. And we made them. Are you prepared for the zombie apocalypse? The Smith family is, with the help of a few marines.

When an airborne “zombie” plague is released, bringing civilization to a grinding halt, the Smith family, Steven, Stacey, Sophia and Faith, take to the Atlantic to avoid the chaos. The plan is to find a safe haven from the anarchy of infected humanity. What they discover, instead, is a sea composed of the tears of survivors and a passion for bringing hope.

For it is up to the Smiths and a small band of Marines to somehow create the refuge that survivors seek in a world of darkness and terror. Now with every continent a holocaust and every ship an abattoir, life is lived beneath a graveyard sky.

Genres: Science Fiction, Zombies, Horror, Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Fantasy, Audiobook

Audible Audio

First published August 15, 2013

About the author

John Ringo is a prolific author who has written in a wide variety of genres. His early life included a great deal of travel. He visited 23 foreign countries, and attended fourteen different schools. After graduation Ringo enlisted in the US military for four years, after which he studied marine biology.

In 1999 he wrote and published his first novel "A Hymn Before Battle", which proved successful. Since 2000 Ringo has been a full time author.

He has written science fiction, military fiction, and fantasy.


Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[PirateSteve · Rating 4 out of 5]

So when I came across this zombie apocalypse story that was set on the seas, I thought maybe I could give it a go.
Turned out to be good choice for me... I enjoyed it.
The story begins with an Aussie family(the Smiths, mom, dad, 2 teen daughters) living in the U.S.. They are preppers.
Prepped for nuclear war or military invasion the Smiths did better than most when the zombie virus strikes.
They fight their way through the beginning of the apocalypse long enough to get the family inoculated but quickly decide the zombie numbers are just to high on land.
So off we go on a seafaring zombie battling adventure.

Now I've not read any other zombie books to compare this with but I have seen some movies/tv.
For me this story brings the speed action of World War Z, the kinship of The Walking Dead and the humor of Zombieland.

((( Zombie readers, Hoist yer Sails! )))

[Jen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Under a Graveyard Sky by John Ringo is another post-apocalyptic zombie adventure. Weak characters in an action-filled plot.

Biggest problem: a thirteen-year-old girl with no previous combat experience out-doing adult men with lots of experience in special forces and the marines, carting around 40-60 lbs. of equipment and being the best zombie killer. EVER. Hard to swallow that scenario.

Oh, and the fact that the conclusion of Part I is like an inadvertent farce with adults going to dinner and a concert (and taking Faith (13) and Sophia (15) into a zombie-filled city where people are being killed and eaten with zest. Yes, New York dining at its best. Duh. Go parents and Uncle Tommy!
Naturally, they escape, make it to their boat and head for the high seas. Part II all action. Conclusion...none, to be continued. Nope.

NetGalley/Baen Books.

Post-apocalyptic. Sept. 2013. Print version: 384 pages.
ISBN-10: 1451639198

[Mr. Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book starts with a decent premise. There is a viral plague spreading like wildfire. The first symptoms are a bad cold or flu. Then there's recovery. Then the second phase hits. Infected are transformed into blood thirsty savages. Basically zombies. And that's awesome, because I love a good zombie apocalypse story.

The book follows the Smith family as they respond to the plague. Fortunately for them, they are preppers. They are super-duper prepared, and after only a bit of trouble they wind up on a boat out in the Atlantic as civilization begins to crumble. So far, so good.

The story breaks down quickly. The family's connections and skills are just ridiculous. They manage to get involved with a semi-secretive organization that is cooking their own vaccine, so, of course, they all get inoculated. Further, the family's teenage daughters quickly find themselves not only fighting and killing infected but being very good at it. Crazy.

Two stars out of five. I actually went on to read book two thinking surely it can't be that bad.

[Colleen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wouldn't say I am a particularly picky person. I actually liked all the serialized novels to the Resident Evil game and just spent two weeks raving about those black oil books to anyone who would listen...

But there's still a line. There were times I even thought about just putting it down somewhere and running away and let the book fend for itself. There are things that it attempts to do right. Some terrorist figures out how to manipulate the flu and rabies and spikes bathroom sanitizers across the country. Mass outbreaks everywhere, although never really resolved who was behind it, but I guess it doesn't matter. In these horror and apocalyptic novels, much like a portion of the audience of these books and perhaps some of the writers themselves, there is a subset of folks who cannot WAIT for worldwide Armageddon. There's even a reality TV show and more how-to TV shows on the prepper lifestyle. I guess everyone asks themselves the question of "What would I do if The Stand scenario really happened?"--the answer hopefully being "Try to dream about cornfields"--or "How long would I make it if zombies did rise up?"--but hopefully not gleefully, with longing of ruined cities.

The book quotes Zombieland a few times, and I couldn't help but think of Woody Harrelson's character. Having a ball killing zombies! But also nursing tragic secret. In this book, the whole family is having the time of their lives killing zombies and witnessing thousands die, but like no tragic secret. They've been planning this for years. Safe boat, tons of supplies, been all training with weapons and survival, so this is just dream come true really, after a moment of insincere silence speculating on the impending death of all their friends. They even know that the zombies are happening days before the police and rest of the public get wind, because one brother tips him off, since he's in charge of security for Bank of America executives, so planning their safe getaway to walled off luxury.

Okay so the family and all their associates are a little on the loathsome side but they're smart right? Dad's an Aussie paratrooper, now history professor. Wife is a chemical & mechanical engineer. Seems like they're both spies too. There's 15 year old smarty pants daughter and 13 year old tomboy. They get on a boat since in an airborne & bloodborn zombie crisis, seems good idea, and they all bicker and be obnoxious while things get progressively worse in the cities. Turns out there is a vaccine, but to make it, requires a spinal cord of fresh zombie--which shouldn't be a problem since they're running all over town naked (also to explain how zombies aren't totally encrusted with shit, the zombies in this universe immediately strip--so it's clue #1 that someone just turned). I guess it's new to read the adventures of the team of sociopaths put together to collect zombies to keep BoA board of directors immune and I guess sure, first real sign of worldwide trouble, those would be the jerks who'd be off on the first Ark, but you don't necessarily root for anyone in this book. Even the cop is a homophobic asshole (I got a vibe on that angle in this book too).

But the old cranky doctor in the employ of BoA who is making the cure for the execs doesn't like lab work so they need to bring someone in--oh yeah the 15 year old niece on the boat will do the trick. And yeah, since the little one is annoying and the formerly UBER concerned parents are now wanting alone time, the kid can go too--Head of Security uncle will take care of her. Makes sense, super important vaccine secret should be kept in the steady hands of a 15 year old wielding that pipette filled with virus.

It's about here that the book enters the point of no return.

Faith. I can't think of a child in literature I hated more than her. Maybe the brat in the Secret Garden? But she eventually matures and had reason to be spoiled, so no that kid was way better. Rhoda had good penmanship at least. Faith is basically a cartoon character. While hanging out in BofA HQ, she battles zombies in the basement, in an elevator, and across the city. She kills hundreds, maybe thousand in the book, snapping necks like it ain't no thing, in a series of increasingly implausible giant battles. All the soldiers are super in awe of her skills, and what's left of the government of the US are making plans to have her be the highest ranked and youngest in the Marines. So many comments on how they can't wait to marry her, and how 14 is legal in West Virginia so soon, and Faith is all "tee hee. See how I ricocheted that shot off of the cabin into that gross fucker's eye socket?! Motherfucking dinky scrum!" Because that's how she talks. A mixture of obscenities, veiled threats, bitching about how come her sister gets to be a boat captain, and "dinky scrum."

Unfortunately, at the quarter point, most of the book is Faith doing incredibly dangerous things while her parents wave her off. Clearing out entire cruise ships of zombies. Why the rush to the "last concert in New York" if they were so concerned about the boat and quarantining themselves to begin with? And I know people are stupid, but I refuse to believe that many people are dumb or that New Yorkers are so callous in general. There was a few odd things I picked up here and there, and maybe it's the taint of Werewolf Cop--but take where they come across the yacht of (a very obvious) Mark Zuckerberg, who is naturally a silly "intelligent liberal" and therefore hires a bunch of rape happy Lord’s Resistance Army fighters and "might as well put a steak around your neck and go jump in a tiger pit."

Also, all the pregnancies in the book--he talks about how it's just like Germany after World War 2, where all the women got pregnant to replace the dead men. And I thought to myself..."not sure if that was why they got pregnant" but I was curious and could not finding anything online about the theories the author was citing. If anything, it seems from what I'm am reading Germany's birth rate took a lot longer to join the other Western countries in the post-war baby boom and was still in decline until the 1950s. But then that sort of fits with the rest of my suspicions.

The one submarine in area hears them talking about the vaccine (the Swiss Family Sociopaths still have bunches, don't worry) and gets the remainder of the government to talk to them about it, because naturally the Bank of America execs didn't share the recipe with the rest of the world. They still demand indemnity for their role in making vaccine earlier--and I do not get EVERYONE in the book preoccupation with the morality of it. Yes, when we're blowing up bridges to keep back zombie hordes and using nuclear weapons and there's no cure once you are a zombie--so yeah, might as well collect their life saving spinal cords since you are killing them anyways. But somehow, this is super bad, after 400 pages of "wheeee" attitude to killing (except for infants & children, but still plenty of those scenes but they're "sad").

Anyways, once they get the "out of jail card" for knowing how to save the remainder of human race, turns out it's super easy to make and the 15 year old now captain can totally do it with a blender and an x-ray machine because of the time spent in the lab. And then it ends on mid-story, so I guess I would have to read more to find out.

[Rusty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh boy. Where do I begin?

When I’m reading a story, or, in this case, listening to one, at some point I go beyond giving the tale a chance to grow on me and have to decide that it is, or isn’t, working.

This one, it did not work. I’m at a loss to explain how much this did not work for me. And I think it’s a genre thing. I look around on goodreads and see four and five star reviews all over the place. Clearly, there is a disconnect here somewhere. This book isn’t written for me. I’m not the target audience, and me even attempting to rate it is folly.

Except, this isn’t about anything objective, it’s just my experience with that tale being told.

And how much I hated it.

John Ringo is a big-time writer, I think. This is the first book of his that I’ve been exposed to, but I’ve seen his name on the spine of assorted books at the bookstore for years. He’s all over the place. I think he’s a military SF writer for the most part. I believe I’ve heard he does the military part superbly well. Good for him. Good for those that enjoy that sort of thing.

As far as my enjoyment of this novel, I have to say, honestly, I’m not really sure that the author is even TRYING to tell a story here. This is 367 pages (or, in my case, 14 hours of audio) of things happening, one right after another, with no attempts at moving forward a plot, or having character arcs, or otherwise attempting to have a beginning, middle, or end.

It’s just more and more stuff.

The story, from what I can gather, is this. A family survives the zombie apocalypse by living on a sail boat. Then, they kill every zombie on the high seas, getting slightly better boats along the way. Also, they rescue non-zombie people.

A few thoughts I had as I went through this novel:

· It’s necessary to use dialog attribution sometimes, especially when multiple people are engaged in conversation. The common wisdom on this is that using, ‘he said’ or ‘she said’ is invisible. That might be the case for the written word, but most certainly is not when it comes to listening. There are so many two and three word snippets of dialog that end with that attribution that it was ready to trash my expensive earphones. It was nearly unlistenable. He said she said Steve said Sophie said Faith said Tom said ARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

· Speaking of dialog. This might be the most dialog heavy book I’ve ever read (or listened to) in my life. There is almost no narration AT ALL. Especially once the action moves to the high seas. Even the many (and repetitive) zombie killing scenes are almost all dialog. Truly, it was bizarre.

· Did I mention repetitive? There were some cases when I was almost positive that chunks of dialog were being copied from earlier portions of the book and pasted later. Every time a new human was found, they got the same speech. That means I had to listen to the same speech. WTF?

· And speaking of dialog. Most of it was random stuff. Not really advancing the plot, or developing character. It’s just like… well, true story, I once decided to read the transcripts of the communiques between astronauts and ground control during the Apollo missions and found almost everything was highly formal, and used lots of acronyms and shorthand. Lots of things like "Copy that,' and 'We're go' and 'Engaging throttle.' No context, just quick sentences. Well, that’s what the dialog is like in this book. Ugh.


I know I mentioned the lack of coherent story before, but I really want to rehash that. THERE IS NO STORY. You can certainly argue that there is a premise here. I’d agree with that. But I’ll be damned if I can be convinced that here is any sort of story being told. I was dumbfounded that there was so little momentum to the story. Eventually, it just stopped. No climax or anything. Just killed some zombies and it was over. So strange.

One more thing. This novel is so devoid of emotion, that at one point I thought the best description for it might be to explain it as a detailed outline an author might use to write a story from. Except the author’s final version was lost and the outline was published instead. Yes, that's it. This is an outline of a story that an author might choose to write someday. Maybe.

And one more last thing. Faith is the character on the cover, I think (a cover, btw, I think lied to me as a reader as to what sort of story I was getting myself into). She is a tactical genius warrior woman who can kill zombies as easy as swatting flies. She takes them on by the handful, by the dozens, even hundreds towards the end. She shakes them off and laughs at their feeble attempts to bring her down. She’s an expert in guns and close quarters fighting. She’s the envy of every man, even the special forces guys that show up eventually. She’s also damned sexy and knockout gorgeous. The catch? She’s 13.

I repeat. SHE IS A 13 YEAR OLD CHILD.

I don’t have words for how incredulous I was. I could buy a zombie apocalypse. I can buy surviving on the high seas and all that. But that the elite warrior is a child. That’s pretty tough. Nothing in my experience has prepared me for that. I can’t jump on board. There are certain types of stories that lend themselves to super kids, but this tries to present itself as a realistic tale. Not thrilled.

Oh, one more thing, for the third time: This book is in two parts. Part one is nominally interesting, as is the second. But part one is so disconnected from part two that they could have been released as entirely separate novellas and it would have made more sense.

Really, the more I’m thinking about this, the more I could go on complaining. As it is though, I honestly think this is a genre thing. I love SF, but I’m not a huge fan of military SF. If this is typical for the genre, it might be the sort of thing that some folks would eat up. I’ve got my blinders on to my first love, Hard SF, which might overlap with military sometimes, but it’s seems like a long stretch from Greg Egan to Jon Ringo.

I just can’t recommend anyone read this book. It’s not very good. I’m glad it’s over and I have no desire to ever read any more of this.

[Daniel Eggert · Rating 1 out of 5]

An Insult to Professional (& Amateur) Authors, the English Language, and the Common Decency of Humanity

My book club owes me for making me spend time and money on this. I live blogged my reactions for my book club and it's a 70+ post list of poor writing decisions or inaccuracies in facts. 10 have finished so far and the average rating is ONE STAR.

The writing is elementary, the plot is a straight line (continually descending in quality & ingenuity), a significant percentage of the copy is continually repeated phrases, and that's not even beginning on the repeated, skin-crawling, disgusting digressions into ways that sex with underaged/young teen girls might be justifiable in an apocalyptic scenario.

Don't get me started on the terrible shoehorning of esoteric, unrelated military history, pointless excess description of firearms, grossly inaccurate, inconsistent & incorrect tactical terminology, or... I can't get past "the hammer of the Glock" to even complete that list.

This was the worst book we've read in several years. Take a hard pass.

[Mike (the Paladin) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read finished this some time ago, but am just now getting around to reviewing it...sorry.

First on the whole I'm not a fan of "zombie apocalypse" books (or movies or TV series). So the fact I like this one might (I say might) make it stand out a little.

First this is another on of the stories/books/movie/etc.,etc. that may bring on a debate about what constitutes a zombie. These are "not really dead zombies", more like (but not exactly like) the ones in 28 Days Later. Personally I lean toward the "these aren't really zombies" side of the argument as I think of "zombies" as a form of undead or animated (or reanimated) corpse. However at some point (possibly after the video games Alone in the Dark or Resident Evil) we included virus caused dead or in some cases almost dead "zombies".

Anyway...ready for another plague of zombies? Good, grab your "bug-out bag and let's go.

What we get here is the story from the point of view of a family who were ready for "some kind of civilization/world ending apocalypse.

And, it comes.

The book opens with a code word phone call, and a bug-out. we then follow the story that many of you will have read before of the unraveling of "the world". Our "heroes" set out to rescue as many people (that is healthy people) as they attempt to save human life.

Not a new story, not even an unusual one now as there have been a plethora of these stories. However I like this one and will go so far as to recommend it. I plan to follow it up.

Enjoy.

[Beau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hey, who wants to read Swiss Family Robinson and the zombie apocalypse? Me! Clearly there will be more books, and the story will continue. Come on! Write it already!

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know why I read so many zombie novels. Zombies aren't even really my thing, but I do like apocalypses. Under a Graveyard Sky is your basic zombie apocalypse, with genre-savvy main characters. As soon as the virus begins spreading, Steven Smith, an Australian naturalized U.S. citizen and former soldier with a wife and two daughters who are just as l33t and Heinleinian as he is, jump onto a sailing yacht and head to sea to try to ride out the zombie apocalypse. With a little detour for the last open air concert in New York City.

This was the first ebook I read entirely on my phone, and it seems appropriate - it's a pulp-fiction sort of novel with a lot of shooting and one-liners and not a lot of depth. I haven't read John Ringo before, but he definitely goes all-in on the gun porn and larger-than-life protagonists. The most absurd of these, of course, is Faith, Steven's thirteen-year-old daughter. Yes, thirteen. This thirteen-year-old is built like an Amazon warrior, carries more heat than a commando company, and at one point literally fights her way through a mob of zombies dog-piling her, like a hot blonde Conan crossed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Yes, the author makes BtVS jokes in the book. And Dungeons & Dragons jokes, and many, many zombie jokes.)

Faith seems written as an over-the-top satire of the Action Girl trope. Ringo's got your "Strong Female Character" right here - Faith guns down zombies like a first-person shooter on cheat mode, only occasionally pausing to let us know that this shit is actually getting to her because she compartmentalizes the horrors she's witnessing by talking to her teddy bear, Trixie. Her mother and father are curiously unconcerned about Faith becoming a casualty, such is their... faith in her.

Steven's other daughter, Sophie, is the smart one. As Steve ends up gathering a rag-tag fleet of ocean-going vessels searching the high seas for other survivors, fifteen-year-old Sophie winds up in command of a ship of her own.

That is pretty much the plot: the Smiths end up in command of a fleet, go from ship to ship shooting up zombies and rescuing survivors, and end the book having teamed up with what's left of the U.S. Navy on a mission to go rescue a Marine transport. Obviously the first book in a serial, it literally ends with "TO BE CONTINUED."

Will I continue? Well, it was fun, especially if you like guns. Faith and Sophie (especially Faith) are too gonzo to take seriously, and one suspects that John Ringo (who also takes a few shots at liberals) had his tongue planted firmly in cheek. The writing comes in short snippets of scenes, almost like the author was trying to write not so much a movie script, but a comic book script, with images that would be far more impressive illustrated.

So, if the idea of a zombie apocalypse on the high seas, with a gun-crazy thirteen-year-old girl mowing down zombies like a marine clearing out an alien base, appeals to you, the second book in the series has already been published. 4 stars for fun, 3 stars for mediocre writing and strained suspension of disbelief, so 3.5 stars.

[Elisabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Ringo schafft es in diesem Buch, das doch etwas abgenutzte Zombie-Thema wieder salonfähig und spannend zu machen. Der Stil hat mir gut gefallen, ebenso viele starke Frauenfiguren. Allerdings besteht das Buch aus zwei Teilen, von denen ich den ersten überragend fand und den zweiten eher mittelmäßig, sodass dabei gerade noch 4 Sterne heraus kommen, sehr schade eigentlich. Ich hoffe, dass das Potential in Band 2 mehr ausgeschöpft wird.

[Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book Info: Genre: Post-apocalyptic (zombies)
Reading Level: Adult
Recommended for: People who like lots of action without all that distracting character development
Trigger Warnings: killing, rape (reported)

My Thoughts: I have been a fan of John Ringo for several years, and have quite enjoyed most of the books he has written. This was, unfortunately, not one of his better books. There is a lot of action and 'splodies, which is cool, but I would have liked to have seen more character development. The Smith family is just too perfect, the girls are just too good at everything, and we hardly ever even see Stacy. Most of the focus is on Faith, but that's actually good, because she is awesome. She reminds me of a foul-mouthed Buffy.

I was surprised, since this book was put out by Baen, that the editing wasn't better. I noticed a lot of editing errors throughout the book.

Don't misunderstand, I did enjoy the book for what it was. But I know John Ringo can do better than this. Nonetheless, I'll definitely be waiting for the next book in the series, if for no other reason than to see if it is ever disclosed who released the virus. If you like high-action stories, definitely check this one out.

Series Information: Black Tide Rising
Book 1: Under a Graveyard Sky
Book 2: To Sail a Darkling Sea, expected publication 2/4/2014

Disclosure: The author gave me this book when I ran into him at Dragon*Con. All opinions are my own.

Synopsis: A family of survivors who fight back against a zombie plague that has brought down civilization. Zombies are real. And we made them. Are you prepared for the zombie apocalypse? The Smith family is, with the help of a few marines.

When an airborne “zombie” plague is released, bringing civilization to a grinding halt, the Smith family—Steven, Stacey, Sophia and Faith—take to the Atlantic to avoid the chaos. The plan is to find a safe haven from the anarchy of infected humanity. What they discover, instead, is a sea composed of the tears of survivors and a passion for bringing hope.

For it is up to the Smiths and a small band of Marines to somehow create the refuge that survivors seek in a world of darkness and terror. Now with every continent a holocaust and every ship an abattoir, life is lived beneath a graveyard sky.

[Jared · Rating 1 out of 5]

I expected to like this book, but I just couldn't. Every aspect of it annoyed me.

The treatment of firearms was immature and often incorrect, which I would normally expect and gloss over, but I'd been assured that Ringo really knows his stuff. He doesn't, or if he does, then he must have worked really hard to hide it with this book.

The repeated instances of people sexualizing the 13-year old girl were gross, and completely unnecessary. She's closer to 10 than she is to 18. Good guys in their 20s and 30s shouldn't be making jokes about wanting to get on her without a peep of disapproval from her father, at least, or from the author at worst. It's just nasty.

I also got really sick of the pedantry from all characters. When almost everyone in your book has a moment where they throw out useless facts in a superior manner or say "Actually, that's a common misconception..." then it's the author who is a pedant. I get it. I was that guy when I was 14, too. It was annoying as hell to everyone around me then, and it's annoying as hell to read about a flotilla of people who are like that now. If these are the people repopulating the world, I think I'm rooting for the zombies.

I finished the book because I run a book club, and was rooting for it to win based on wanting to read more of Ringo's work (having read Ghost and Kildar, and thinking that maybe this one would ease off on the debauchery throttle) and thinking the premise sounded interesting. If not for that, I would have stopped reading less than halfway through. The fact that the book doesn't actually end was just adding insult to injury. No resolution at all. Just "Hey read the next book and thanks for your money." Bah. I'm done.

[Timothy Ward · Rating 2 out of 5]

For some, this could be their kind of zombie story. A long portion in the beginning is spent explaining the progression of the zombie virus and how hard it will be to make a vaccine. A husband, wife and two daughters (age 15 and 13) have the inside track on getting out to sea, but first, the daughters must help with the vaccine production. The zombie action didn't excite me and the way the story was told bored me. I liked the second part when they were out to sea and had to come up with a pirate kind of government, as well as their important role in saving humanity in the fight against the zombie apocalypse, but I don't care much for the characters (the daughters, Faith and Sophia are hot, smart, and zombie assassins like none other--and really, guys are hitting on them? They're 15 and 13... that never strayed far from being creepy), and from what I've seen in how this one was paced and plotted, I don't have much hope for the rest of the books being my kind of zombie fiction. It feels more like an action writer using zombies to set up his adventure than it feels like a horror writer who has a talent for creating empathetic characters and horrific scenarios.

If you're looking for my kind of zombie fiction, check out

Fiend by Peter Stenson

I listened to the audiobook version. Solid job by the narrator. The accents were believable, though not very distinct. Nothing special, but he didn't ruin the experience.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never read anything by John Ringo... I loved the cover. Read the blurb; checked the book out of the local library. QUITE ENJOYED IT. As other reviewers have mentioned, the editing can be jarring, but the only thing I really really didn't like was all the military jargon with no footnotes for those of us who have NO FRIGGIN' idea was a lot of those acronyms and jargon terms MEAN.

I adored the character Faith, even tho thinking that your 13-year old daughter is a "hottie" and considering that it's a good thing she's so smart she likely won't be one of the many pregnant women is... kinda icky.

I'd like more focus on Stacy and Sophie, too.... why have 3 kick-ass women and make one a sketch (the wife/mom) then basically dump the older daughter in the second half of the book?


Then there's the cover... does she LOOK 13!?! NO

and can you imagine trying to DO anything in those boots? Did Kurt Miller READ the book? It seems so, she has silver/white hair, and Trixie in her pack, but after all the emphasis on her gearing up, why is she practically "naked" (no protective gear/body armor) ... I know, it's just a cover

[Debrac2014 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful zombie apocalypse story! Lots of gore and zombie feces!

Re-read 9/21/18
re-read 2019 I love this series!
2021 re-read! Just right for the Covid pandemic!
2025 reread! I was in the mood for Shewolf!

[Yzabel Ginsberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

(I received an ebook ARC of this novel through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

This is an oddball to review, and I still don't know what to think of it.

On the one hand, I liked the ideas developed in it. A family already having a plan in case of a zombie apocalypse? Well, why not. They have the right connections to be informed of such things first-hand, and it's not harder to believe in that than in, say, a family during the early Cold War living in fear of, and preparing for, a potential nuclear war. I found it interesting to see them go from "save ourselves" to "let's try to save as many people as they can", with all the problems stemming from organising a whole flotilla: fuel, food, who's going to give the orders, potential dissenters who could become real trouble... Fortunately, the main characters weren't stupid, and I appreciated seeing them not giving weapons to just anyone, and remaining just the right shade of paranoid in that regard.

On the other hand, the pacing of the book really puzzled me. I was expecting it to be more about the survival part, but the first half went much more slowly compared to the second one (the one about gathering survivors and organising a new society at sea). Some of the decisions taken by highers up seemed too crazy to be believable (for instance, who they enlisted to help create a vaccine...), and there were moments when things went like a breeze, not giving much sense of urgency. The concert at the end of part one was another mind-boggling element: fun to read on the moment, but not making that much sense in hindsight. And then we switch to part two, without having actually seen the full unfolding of the apocalypse, going from some zombies in the streets to full already-wiped-out civilisation. I guess I'd have liked to see more of that, and earlier in the story. The transition was too abrupt.

Also, the pacing in that second part felt really weird. It was more a slice-of-life (well, slice-of-killing-zombies-spree) kind of story, with lots of switching between the various characters involved, and after a while, this made the book difficult to go on with, in that it lacked smoothness in its transitions. On top of this, Faith above all was a puzzling character. When and where exactly did she get the training that allowed her to kick ass the way she did? How come she didn't get crazy (there are some bits about that towards the end, but not as well-exploited as they could have been)?

"Under a Graveyard Sky" has a lot of potential, but in the end, it didn't cut it for me. Too bad, because I wish it had.

[Shelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Generally, I love John Ringo. I know some people have issues with his portrayal of men, women and sex, asserting that his books are degrading to women, but I feel like he offsets that with strong, powerful women who are just as much warriors as their men are. This book is the beginning of Ringo's take on the zombie apocalypse. I generally am not so into zombies, but, hey, it's Ringo. This first book takes a high school history teacher, his wife, and their two daughters from a normal (prepper) life and dumps them in the middle of a biological attack. A virus has been released that turns people into zombies. Eventually, the family has to fall back on the escape-by-boat plan and finds themselves in the ocean and running out of supplies. At that time, the find the Tina's Toy floating unmanned and decide to see if they can scrounge some supplies. While doing that, they kill a zombie and find a survivor, and thus embark on an epic boat-by-boat rescue mission.

These rescues, and the experiences of the individuals, put the children, Sophia and Faith, in some excruciating situations that we hope no teenager should ever have to face, and the book does a very good job of showing not only the strengths of the characters, but also their vulnerabilities. I can't say enough good about this book. If you love "disaster" type fiction, this one is for you.

[Glen Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book series is a cross-pollination of two disciplines I’ve been reading a lot of: military science fiction and dystopian fiction. Technically, it’s considered horror/sci-fi, but I would probably describe it thusly. The first part is a lot like the first season of The Walking Dead, and the second half, which all takes place on the high seas, is a combination of Fear the Walking Dead, The Poseidon Adventure, and Water World.

And yes, it’s about zombies. Technically, a strain of flu is airborne, with about 20 percent of those getting the flu ending up turning into zombies. Then they start biting people, and 100 percent of those bitten become zombies. The story follows the Smith family. Two brothers are immigrants from Australia to the U.S. with military background down under. One is hired to do security for a New York bank; the other is a history teacher. The one working for the bank is the first to find out about the danger with the flu, and being the prepared preppers that they are, the history professor brother and his wife get their two daughters and flee the city.

Because it’s the first book in a series, Ringo has taken a lot of time building the infrastructure for this story, and there are lot of subplots to keep hold of–at least initially. When one gets to the second part of the book, it becomes more of a straight out, let’s-just-survive type of story, with the history professor brother taking it upon himself to try and rescue as many others on boats as possible who are stranded between New York and Bermuda. Eventually the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard–what’s left of it–gets involved, and it’s a good thing they do, because they end up trying to rescue several hundred emaciated survivors on a cruise ship full of zombies.

What’s one of the most entertaining portions is also one of the most implausible. The 13-year-old daughter Faith turns out to be a cross between Rambo and Laura Croft. As the Navy listens in as she takes on scores of zombies at the same time, they are trying to figure out how they can offer a 13-year-old a commission in the United States Navy, perhaps even as a Navy Seal. It’s unbelievable, but it’s also a lot of fun, and she has wit to go with her skill with a shotgun.

What I do have a major problem with when it comes to John Ringo is a fixation he has with sexualizing underaged girls and then trying to connect them with military men. I saw this in the last series I reviewed, and I see it in this. It’s one thing to talk about a sexy 16, 17 or 18 and have them attractive to someone of their own age, but for the girl to be 13 and attractive to a 25 or 30 year old man gives me the creeps. I don’t know why Ringo does this, but I have problems with it.

That’s the biggest complaint I have with the series. It’s somewhat preposterous, but it’s fun, and once you get past the suspension of disbelief, it’s enjoyable.

[Kribu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a surprisingly difficult book for me to rate and review.

The problem is that ... there were problems. I'm not talking about problems with the writing (copy editing, mostly) as such, although there were quite a few of those, as I read an eARC and I trust at least most of those have been sorted out for the actual release.

I'm talking about deeper issues. Things I would, under other circumstances - and do, and did - feel uncomfortable with. Things like our young heroine throwing around statements such as "stupid Liberals", the entire heroic Smith family being, basically, a group of gun-adoring paranoid semi-sociopaths, one specific incident that felt rather too close to casual racism... Basically, things that don't, usually, sit that well with me.

On the other hand, once I decided to just check brain out and go with the flow... Well. It's a book about the zombie apocalypse. While the Smith family is not a bunch of people I'd want as friends in real life (well, Stacey and Sophia seemed more or less normal, really), in a zombie apocalypse a family of trigger-happy paranoid - which means very well prepared - gun-adoring semi-sociopaths who delight in slaughter is a very useful group of people to hang around with.

Anyway. The first part of the book, when the Smiths were still in New York, was a bit slow and a little rough. The book didn't really grab me until the second part, in which the Smiths had left New York behind in their little sort-of-stolen yacht and embarked on what turns out to be a massive search and rescue mission for survivors that it did grab me. Lots of action. Lots, and I mean lots of zombie slaughter. Faith, the 13-year-old main, um, "clearance specialist" (a.k.a. zombie hunter), the fearless Amazon who'd like nothing better than gun down zombies all day long, effortlessly carrying a hundred pounds of gear and about a dozen weapons at any time, the girl grown men drool over, was just so over the top that at some point I stopped shaking my head and just, well, went with the flow.

If you want a kickass heroine, Faith's your girl. (Mind, she's not very good at much else.)

To give credit where credit is due, Faith's so over the top that people in the book do, in fact, wonder if she's actually all there or losing it.

Also, to give credit where credit is due, one thing I really appreciated about the book that while it's all gun-toting American military heroism (even if Steve, the protagonist and father of the Smith family, is originally Australian and a naturalised American citizen), at least in the first part there's a clear effort to show that the zombie apocalypse is a worldwide problem. We actually see research teams from various countries discuss vaccines and how the virus works, with scientists from countries all over the world (and not just Western countries) participating. Even later on, when the focus shifts clearly to Steve's group's rescue efforts, which are concentrated near the US coast, for natural reasons (as they were there and started from there), the rest of the world isn't completely forgotten about.

So, in spite of the issues I did have, I ended up really enjoying the book. It's something one has to be in the mood for, but it's not a bad zombie apocalypse book at all. I also appreciated that a lot of it actually felt quite realistic, and it did end up to have a relatively varied cast of characters.

I'm definitely interested in reading more - especially as this first book ends in a point where one might really want to keep reading. Not exactly a cliffhanger, but certainly an open ending, presumably leading straight on to the next book.

* ARC of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review. Thanks!

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The zombie apocalypse has finally happened, but not in the way we might have expected. For one thing, the virus is airborne, which means that many were infected before they even realized that the plague had begun. And when the terror started to spread, these unknowingly infected fled with the uninfected.

And once a zombie, their bite is terribly infectious. These zombies are still living, but deadly--hungry, violent, and single-minded in their desire for flesh.

The Smith family--Steven, Stacey, and their daughters Sophia and Faith--set to sea in a boat with supplies, so they survived the outbreak. But can they sit alone while less prepared people starve to death on boats around them? With the help of a few surviving soldiers, and anyone else who can shoot a gun, they seek to take back the sea, one boat at a time. They want to do more than survive. They want to win.

Watching the zombie outbreak spread is terrifying and fascinating, and the willpower of the characters to survive it is amazing. There's a dark humor in it, too, especially in the Smith family, who are kick butt indeed. You don't usually expect to laugh about a zombie apocalypse, but I did.

[Chris Philbrook · Rating 4 out of 5]

John's a buddy of mine who helped me get my break in the book writing business so I had to give this book a read/listen.

I got it on Audible for a booktour, and wasn't disappointed, right down to the shout-out he gave my books most of the way in. (It's the halligan talk, if you're curious)

My chief complaint with the book is the time he spends early on talking about the biology of his outbreak. It's VERY technical and I'm sure accurate, but in my mind it threw the pacing off. I also found the Faith character to be a bit over-done, but it is a book, and she was still fun to read.

John's action and military aspects are spot-on and fun to read, ad as always his dialogue is hoot. I'll be picking up the rest of the series to see where the Circus goes.

Recommended.

[Carolyn F. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audiobook

This is a great start to this series. It starts from when the virus is first determined and then goes on to months later when the survivors are trying to save people. It ends with a ship full of infected (zombies) and people barely surviving. I'm going to listen to the entire series. Tristan Morris does a pretty good job although I think his Australian accents are a little heavy-handed but then I'm from California so what do I know.

[Kris Hasenfratz Ten-Eyck · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVED this book. And I don't even like the zombie genre. It made me laugh, it made me think, overall it gave me hours of enjoyment. I have re-read the book multiple times, and have only had it a month. Can I say any more about the fun factor of this book? "....still looking for a chainsaw." ROFLMAO!

[Coyora Dokusho · Rating 5 out of 5]

read 3 times

10/4/2013 read it again today, it was excellent!!!

08/07/2016 third read today, still reeeeeeeally like it~~~~~

[Ian Borchardt · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ringo writes some of the best comedies around.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptional. I am not big on Zombie stories.But this series is awesome.

[Shepherd Walker · Rating 1 out of 5]

My dad has a habit of recommending books that I do not read. We both love sci-fi, I also love fantasy and he patiently listens (and occasionally accepts!) my recommendations. His tastes lean more hard and military sci-fi, and I come in more fantastical. But every year, the push of his recommendations coupled with the pull of my guilt for constantly rebuffing his recommendations breaks me down and I end up picking one up.

This year I decided to give "Under a Graveyard Sky" a shot. Oh boy.

The best way I can summarize is Ringo's writing is "a series of soldier's after action reports" coupled with a (hopefully) terrible recreation of soldier watercooler talk.

Before I go into the many, many reasons this book is bad, let me give it a few props. 1) I kinda dug the cynical take of inter-governmental rivalries, especially when it comes to criticisms of War on Terror federal law enforcement. 2) It was a page turner! I'll begrudgingly admit that.

The plot itself is run-of-the-mill zombie apocalypse. Our heroes are a family of preppers who get word ahead of time that shit is going down, pack up their elaborate supply of gear, and escape to the ocean.

First, a quick 'woke' paragraph to get it out of the way. After I was done reading the book, I hit up Ringo's wikipedia page and learned that he coined the term "get woke, go broke" as a pedestrian-pithy way of saying that focus on social justice issues will chase away readership. Uh, cool. Also completely unsurprising given reading this book. His militant disdain for urban liberals (especially young ones) absolutely drips from his writing. At one point our protagonists are shocked to learn that New York's hipster youth are having a concert in the hopes of being zombified because zombies are care free and lack pretensions. Everyone else they meet in New York is either a) hard, working class folk, b) soldiers/LEO doing the Lord's work or c) uesless yuppies. The one gay character in the book gets infected by a zombie, asks him police partner to put him out of his misery. The straight partner squeemishly enters the bedroom where his near-zombified partner is tied up in bondage gear, spread eagle on the bed (hot). Before asking his buddy to kill him, he asks him to try and protect his husband too, which he refuses because it's "every man for himself" and proceeds to kill him. Cool cool cool...

The characters themselves are all one dimensional, internally inconsistent and shown as clear favorites. The character Ringo seems to adore the most is Faith, the 13 year old daughter of the chief protagonist who's built like a line backer and has an incredible blood lust for zombies (but we know she's a Real Person because when she sees real dead people and it makes her sad :( ). I don't want to reread this book to count "page time" by character but Faith gets a huge amount because she's an overpowered killer at 13. Sophia, her more responsible sister gets a little bit of love but is boring. Steven, the dad and chief protagnist is Mr. Responsible ex-soldier guy, who shows Very Responsible Leadership consistently and is respected by all reasonable people. And his wife, Stacey, is a badass engineer who has like... 10 lines... in the whole book.

There's an entire sidequest where the family goes to New York to help make a vaccine and pretty much every step is inconsistent with the narrative built up by the characters. They go from being super cautious to being wildly wreckless because they want Italian food and to wander around New York, a point of comic irresponsibility they seem to joke about every 20 fucking pages for the rest of the book. "Hey remember that time we did something completely, nonsensically out of character and almost got killed? hahaha".

Half of the side characters we meet are either former soldiers, active soldiers, or active law enforcement, and Ringo absolutely adores throwing in a ton of casual military lexicon - referring to Afghanistan as the "sandbox", casually throwing around MOSs, etc etc. This enables Ringo to repeat at least twice something he must firmly believe - that the US military is pussified because they don't use higher caliber ammunition. Quote:
"The United States started to go downhill when it changed from a round designed to kill the enemies of our glorious republic to one designed to piss them off."
This quote is, of course, said by the 13 year old Turbo-Badass.

So, the characters are garbage, the plot is garbage with little sprinkles of offensiveness. So, how's the writing? Oof. The dialogue is so muddled and the characters' names so generically bleh, its hard to keep track of who's talking. The words themselves, I'll leave you with one anecedote: this book has characters saying the phrase "hell in a handbasket" no less than 3 times, twice within like... 3 pages of each other (completely unironically). Ringo is almost completely undescriptive in his locales. Like, they're sailing around Bermuda noticing all these zombified shipwrecks, but he takes zero time to talk to the juxtaposition of a beautiful tropical landscape and the death/decay of a fallen world. The two times he does opt for descriptive language is seeing some spooky clouds (very literal foreshadowing) which the character's father has heard it called a "Graveyard Sky" (PeterGriffinLovesHearingTheNameOfTheMovieInTheMovie.gif) and when he comments on how expansive the ocean is before they set out (very "Old Man and the Sea"). His characters have little-to-no introspection, with the only outward sign of the emotional toll being super-badass-13-year-old talking to her teddy bear creepily for a couple of pages, and she talks to her dad about it next page and she's like "sorry, that's weird", and he's like "yup". And then she's better. Look, maybe my standards are high here because I read this literally the day after reading the Pulitzer prize-winning novel "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr, which is a masterwork of, among other things, descriptive narrative. But I don't think Ringo even gets close to the bar.

Quick side rant: the very beginning of this book takes places in Richmond, and then Williamsburg Virginia. A) He mentions that his characters being preppers doesn't look suspicious because of how prone Richmond is to hurricanes (lol, its not). B) If these fuckers actually lived in Richmond, they would not have been phased by New York's hipsters and C) The description of the Williamsburg police force sounded super aggrandized for a colonial college/tourism town that has like, 40 cops. As a former Williamsburg resident, I would have forgiven 100% of this book's liturgy of failures if there'd been a scene where a zombified colonial reenactor got blown to bits (I have nothing against reenactors, its just a hilarious mental image).

On top of this, the book has zero dramatic tension. There's no point where I'm like "oh shit are they gonna make it out??" There are tons and tons of HINTS at dramatic tension everywhere that Ringo just decides "nah, that's not fun". Ie, piracy, or having to steal a boat to get out of town, or getting detained by the police. All of these get solved on easy-mode instead of... you know... adding drama?

It's also clear that Ringo has three ideas he's super proud of: zombies need to shit, democratic organizational structures among "companeres" mercenaries in Italy during the middle ages, and that post disaster, people want to fuck more. So these points are hammered on **frequently**.

Long story short, this book sucks and I suspect John Ringo also sucks. Don't read it.

Now, back to Christmas with my dad where I'll continue feeding him sci-fi that eschews traditional gender binaries. Lol.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's the usual zombie outbreak. A family of preppers believes the best way to survive is wait the whole thing out by sailing the Caribbean for a while.

There's no escape, even in Paradise.

A good example of the genre.

[S.B. (Beauty in Ruins) · Rating 4 out of 5]

All things considered - and it definitely did have its flaws - Under a Graveyard Sky was probably one of the better apocalyptic tales I've read in a long time, and certainly one of the best zombie tales in recent memory. Rather weak and unbelievable in terms of characters, but very strong in terms of action and plot, John Ringo has pulled together a novel that is sure to please his fans, and potentially win him some new ones.

The book starts on an awkward note, plunging us right into the action, without so much as an introduction to the characters involved. It was so disconcerting that I nearly abandoned it, but the way in which Ringo approached the situation intrigued me. He puts the fate of the world not in the hands of the military or the authorities, but in an investment bank and a well-connected family of 'preppers'. I'm sure there's a socio-political statement there for Ringo, and the bank's resources stretch the bounds of credibility somewhat, but it's an interesting approach that actually makes a lot of sense, once the shock factor wears off.

It's that family which introduces the primary weakness, however, particularly thirteen-year-old Faith the Zombie Slayer. Seriously, you might as well call this girl the next chosen one, except she's all about the high-powered assault weapons instead of the stakes and crossbows. It's ludicrous how well prepared she is, and the ease with which she wades into danger and so gleefully delivers death to the infected is over-the-top and then some. There's actually a point where another character is shot down when he assumes her dad must have been a Buffy fan. She's a likable enough character, and could definitely work in a supernatural setting, this is a book that's deliberately grounded in realism - so much so that Ringo constantly reminds us that the zombies are dangerous, incurable, infected human beings . . . not the living dead.

The zombies themselves are part of what I really liked about the book. There's no supernatural or mystical element here. The zombies are the product of a man-made virus, deliberately designed to be both air-borne and blood-borne for maximum dispersal. It turns its victims into raging, mindless, homicidal maniacs with a hunger for human flesh. There's no cure, and no halting its spread. Although the bank has managed to develop a vaccine by harvesting the spinal cords of living zombies, they are only good for about a dozen doses each.

The first half of the book details the initial spread of the zombie outbreak, with life struggling to continue as normal for as long as possible. We see the police struggle to deal with a situation using tasers and batons, when deadly force is the only real option, while the government limits itself to identifying the source of the plague, rather than curing it. It's a slow descent into madness for civilization, with the first half of the book ending in a brutal bloodbath at a drug-fueled endless rave in Washington Square Park. It's so surreal that it seems plausible, and it makes for fantastic transition to the second, post-apocalyptic half of the novel.

The second half of the book has a far slower pace, and really lacks the sense of urgency that comes from trying to escape impending doom, but it's where the story really develops. Faith and family set out to sea, where they search for other boats and ships to cleanse, rescue, and recover. As if battling zombies weren't tough enough, imagine doing so in the dark, claustrophobic depths of strange ships, adrift at sea. It makes for some great reading, and evolution of their makeshift civilian navy is really interesting to watch develop. Here's where the book is its most political, in discussing how to best organize and implement a new regime, with a lot of dialogue about historical precedent that comes close to being tedious, but is smartly resolved just in time.

That brings us to the final flaw of the novel - basically that it just stops. There is a climactic set-piece to rival the rave in Washington Square Park, appropriately described by one of the characters as Resident Evil: The Cruise Ship, but it doesn't actually resolve anything. The reluctant arrival of the remnants of the US navy is a nice twist, particularly with them unable to do anything more than watch and advise, but all that really does is plant some seeds for the second book - nothing has been accomplished or resolved. There's no cliffhanger either (Ringo manages to avoid that source of reader wrath), but it does feel very much like an unfinished tale.

All things considered, Under a Graveyard Sky was an enjoyable take on the zombie apocalypse. So long as the second book makes some attempt to deal with Faith's impending breakdown, delivers on the promise of multinational intrigue, resolves the 'lost' storyline of Steve's brother and the exodus of investment bankers, and doesn't jump the shark on the zombie infestation, we could be in for a good series.


Originally reviewed at Beauty in Ruins

[Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've never been a big fan of the zombie genre, but Ringo makes it work through excellent character development and a coherent biological scenario.