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Estuary, The
Journalist John Pender has returned to his home town of Whiteshead to rekindle his marriage. Ex-British Intelligence Officer Dave Johnson has arrived to isolate himself after his fiancé is murdered during a mission that went terribly wrong. But excavations for the new shopping centre unearth a mysterious contagion that threatens to throw their lives into chaos. Now the residents of Whiteshead are trapped within a quarantine zone with the military on one side and ravenous hordes on the other. Escape is no longer an option. Far out in the mouth of the estuary a small keep sits forlornly surrounded by an apron of jagged rocks. This refuge has always been unassailable, a place of myth and legend that has grown in folklore through the years. Now, it's the survivors' only hope of sanctuary. But there are thousands of flesh-eating infected between them and the keep and time is running out…
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First published June 1, 2009
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About the author
Derek Gunn
33 books83 followersDerek Gunn is the author of the critically acclaimed bestseller, Vampire Apocalypse: A World Torn Asunder - the eBook alone has had over 100,000 downloads and has been described as “a Summer Blockbuster..” ~Gorezone, “An incredibly original piece of fiction “ ~Horror-Web, and “a terrific tale.” ~Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest.
Three more books have been published in this series, Descent into Chaos and Fallout and a fourth instalment in April 2014, Vampire Apocalypse, Trail of Tears.
In August 2012, Derek self published in eBook editions two novellas (The Diabolical Plan and The Island) and a novel (Crimson Seas) in his historical naval horror fiction series, The HMS Swift Adventures. These have been picked up by his publisher Permuted Press for reissue in 2014 as a single volume in print and eBook.
Derek also has a number of other stand alone novels published, The Estuary (Zombie fiction), The Gatekeeper (Apocalyptic Irish mythology thriller) and Gemini (Espionage thriller).
Derek’s short stories have been included in many anthologies including, from Signet Classics, Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves and Ghosts: 25 Tales of the Supernatural. The inclusion of his short story “The Third Option” fulfils a his childhood ambition to have a story of his included in an anthology with some of his literary heroes, as this collection also features works by Bram Stoker, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Ann Rice, Woody Allen, Charles Dickens, Henry James, Joe Hill, Yvonne Navarro, Rudyard Kipling, Angela Carter and many more.
Derek works as a specialist consultant for a global telecommunications company. He holds a degree in Marketing. He is a member of and a contributing editor for The International Thriller Writers Association and an active member of The Horror Writers Association.
Derek Gunn was born in 1964. He is married with three children and lives in Dublin, Ireland.
Three more books have been published in this series, Descent into Chaos and Fallout and a fourth instalment in April 2014, Vampire Apocalypse, Trail of Tears.
In August 2012, Derek self published in eBook editions two novellas (The Diabolical Plan and The Island) and a novel (Crimson Seas) in his historical naval horror fiction series, The HMS Swift Adventures. These have been picked up by his publisher Permuted Press for reissue in 2014 as a single volume in print and eBook.
Derek also has a number of other stand alone novels published, The Estuary (Zombie fiction), The Gatekeeper (Apocalyptic Irish mythology thriller) and Gemini (Espionage thriller).
Derek’s short stories have been included in many anthologies including, from Signet Classics, Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves and Ghosts: 25 Tales of the Supernatural. The inclusion of his short story “The Third Option” fulfils a his childhood ambition to have a story of his included in an anthology with some of his literary heroes, as this collection also features works by Bram Stoker, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Ann Rice, Woody Allen, Charles Dickens, Henry James, Joe Hill, Yvonne Navarro, Rudyard Kipling, Angela Carter and many more.
Derek works as a specialist consultant for a global telecommunications company. He holds a degree in Marketing. He is a member of and a contributing editor for The International Thriller Writers Association and an active member of The Horror Writers Association.
Derek Gunn was born in 1964. He is married with three children and lives in Dublin, Ireland.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
July 23, 2009
Great zombie book with a very cool set-up. Long forgotten secret Nazi weapons, a trapped population and flesh-eating zombies. Great fun!
September 11, 2009
A 65 year old Nazi plot, a selfish developer, and a little boy's accident combine to unleash a waking nightmare on a small Irish town. Trapped between the military the legions of the walking dead, the survivors only chance is a small, almost impossible to reach keep far out in mouth of the estuary. Journalist John Pender & Ex-British Intelligence OfficerDave Johnson attempt to lead the few remaining living to their only hope of refuge.
Okey-Dokey. I LOVED the story, of course. Huge Romero fan, liked the Resident Evil movies, have the book The Zombie Survival guide. Obviously, I was up for this. And the Nazi thing is new to me; I like it.
The writing was very fast-paced, with a sort of breathless style. Perfect for this kind of book.
However, there were too many technical errors. Yes, I am that picky. It is very distracting to be reading a book & come across apostrophes where there shouldn't be, a run-on sentence that really should be separated by a comma, etc, etc. It's more an editorial issue than a lack of writing talent, but I just can't get over it. If subsequent issues of this book are cleaned up, I'm sure it would make a much better read.
Okey-Dokey. I LOVED the story, of course. Huge Romero fan, liked the Resident Evil movies, have the book The Zombie Survival guide. Obviously, I was up for this. And the Nazi thing is new to me; I like it.
The writing was very fast-paced, with a sort of breathless style. Perfect for this kind of book.
However, there were too many technical errors. Yes, I am that picky. It is very distracting to be reading a book & come across apostrophes where there shouldn't be, a run-on sentence that really should be separated by a comma, etc, etc. It's more an editorial issue than a lack of writing talent, but I just can't get over it. If subsequent issues of this book are cleaned up, I'm sure it would make a much better read.
September 23, 2009
This is pretty good. I certainly felt, if not frightened then certainly uncomfortable reading parts of this. Like a lot of good movies, you can see what's coming, you know you don't want it to happen, you don't want to watch it happen, but you can't look away. Seriously, who doesn't like secret nazi zombies?
All in all a good read. I know it shoudln't matter, but I'm not thrilled about the cover of this book though. It doesn't seems to be related to the book itself, just a random zombie picture.
All in all a good read. I know it shoudln't matter, but I'm not thrilled about the cover of this book though. It doesn't seems to be related to the book itself, just a random zombie picture.
July 18, 2009
Awesome addition to the genre! Well worth checking out if you are a hardcore zombie-lit fan or if it's you're first foray into the world of zombie books.
November 5, 2010
The Estuary takes place in a small Irish town, where we are introduced to quite a few different characters going through their normal lives, including a journalist who has moved away from the city to rekindle his relationship with both his wife and his writing, a ex-British secret agent with a haunted past, a doctor, a police officer, and a delivery driver. There are plenty of other characters we get introduced to as one of the sons of the journalist, playing out on the dried out estuary, stumbles over a jagged pieces of metal sticking out of the sand. Not much later a group of men are digging up a World War 2 German mini-sub that has been buried for over sixty years and contains a poisonous gas the Nazi's intended on deploying against the allies.
Essentially what ensues is zombie mayhem as the military gets called in to cordon off the town and the people inside of it are struggling to come to grips with the fact that many of their neighbors are turning into the flesh eating undead.
Derek Gunn moves this tale along quickly, letting us get a clear picture of how the gas released from the canisters on board the sub quickly turns the men who unearthed it and then turns the almost the rest of the population of the small town into flesh eaters. As the action gets rolling we start shifting through multiple perspectives and see the town quickly devolve into chaos as people discover they are sealed off from the rest of the world by a merciless military and have to somehow find a way to survive the onslaught of their undead neighbors.
The action is fast and the atmosphere is intriguing. I definitely enjoyed the story and the multitude of characters we are given the chance to get to know and wonder whether or not they will survive until the end. The author did a excellent job of providing a scientifically based explanation of how the infection has turned those it touches into the undead which lends a touch of realism to the tale I liked. Derek Gunn also adds an element to his monsters I found interesting: they make no sounds, which makes them incredibly eerie to say the least. In addition to this, as time goes on these creatures seem to become more fluid and flexible-shifting from the classic slow rotter to a swifter moving form. The panic we get to see amongst the townsfolk as they crowd together and are surrounded by the living dead really resonates. More so than most other books of this type, we get to see how people crammed together under dire circumstances tend to act without an ounce of rationality as fear and madness grips them.
If I am to find criticism with this work, perhaps it lies in the fact that there are so many different characters and so many different perspectives we are subjected to. The author switches from one person to the next rather rapidly especially when the story kicks into high gear as the zombie assault commences. Don't get me wrong, this is not a strong complaint because the author does a great job of fleshing out most of his characters and giving us a reason to pay attention to them, but I guess I just prefer a smaller circle of main characters being focused on more in a story like this-I would like to have gotten to know a few of them a bit better than I did, to form a stronger attachment. Still, he kept things tight and we get to understand how everything fits together quite well.
Overall, this is a highly entertaining tale that keeps things moving at a fast clip and gets us to the conclusion in a breathless fashion that I found to be fun and exciting. This author definitely created a fun zombie story that kept me intrigued on virtually every page.
Essentially what ensues is zombie mayhem as the military gets called in to cordon off the town and the people inside of it are struggling to come to grips with the fact that many of their neighbors are turning into the flesh eating undead.
Derek Gunn moves this tale along quickly, letting us get a clear picture of how the gas released from the canisters on board the sub quickly turns the men who unearthed it and then turns the almost the rest of the population of the small town into flesh eaters. As the action gets rolling we start shifting through multiple perspectives and see the town quickly devolve into chaos as people discover they are sealed off from the rest of the world by a merciless military and have to somehow find a way to survive the onslaught of their undead neighbors.
The action is fast and the atmosphere is intriguing. I definitely enjoyed the story and the multitude of characters we are given the chance to get to know and wonder whether or not they will survive until the end. The author did a excellent job of providing a scientifically based explanation of how the infection has turned those it touches into the undead which lends a touch of realism to the tale I liked. Derek Gunn also adds an element to his monsters I found interesting: they make no sounds, which makes them incredibly eerie to say the least. In addition to this, as time goes on these creatures seem to become more fluid and flexible-shifting from the classic slow rotter to a swifter moving form. The panic we get to see amongst the townsfolk as they crowd together and are surrounded by the living dead really resonates. More so than most other books of this type, we get to see how people crammed together under dire circumstances tend to act without an ounce of rationality as fear and madness grips them.
If I am to find criticism with this work, perhaps it lies in the fact that there are so many different characters and so many different perspectives we are subjected to. The author switches from one person to the next rather rapidly especially when the story kicks into high gear as the zombie assault commences. Don't get me wrong, this is not a strong complaint because the author does a great job of fleshing out most of his characters and giving us a reason to pay attention to them, but I guess I just prefer a smaller circle of main characters being focused on more in a story like this-I would like to have gotten to know a few of them a bit better than I did, to form a stronger attachment. Still, he kept things tight and we get to understand how everything fits together quite well.
Overall, this is a highly entertaining tale that keeps things moving at a fast clip and gets us to the conclusion in a breathless fashion that I found to be fun and exciting. This author definitely created a fun zombie story that kept me intrigued on virtually every page.
January 18, 2016
Vampire Apocalypse series' author Derek Gunn’s The Estuary is a novel that is both easy and difficult to describe. Effectively, if you were to say it was a Stephen King-esque novel set in Ireland with zombies you would have a fairly good estimate of what exactly the story is about. There’s a lot more to it but the fundamental premise is the same. Derek Gunn takes a bunch of small town residents, examine their lives in detail, insert a supernatural predator of some kind, and hit 'frape.'
The crisis, in this respect, is an experimental Nazi biological agent was created in the last days of World War 2. An experimental biological agent which, apparently, creates zombies. You have to wonder if the Nazis would have won the war in fiction if they'd spent half of what they spent on occult weirdness on tanks. Still, Alfred Hitchcock was correct that Maguffins are ultimately unimportant. It doesn't matter how th zombies are created, the important part of the book is how their attack affects the town that our protagonists are from.
Derek Gunn does an excellent job in setting up a large ensemble cast for the duration of the book. There's the Businessman, the Writer, the Wife, the Spy, the Prostitute, and so on. All of them have interactions before the zombie attack and plenty of them go through some pretty staggering changes once the action starts. As quoted by Shepard Book in Firefly, you never really know a man until you dangle him over a volcano.
The start of the book is a bit slow for those expecting wall-to-wall zombie action from the get go. It's a much slower paced book than Derek Gunn's Vampire Apocalypse books. Really, they're two different genres and should each be taken on their own merits. I will say, however, the book reminds me more of Night of the Living Dead than Dawn of the Dead.
The heart of the matter is that the zombies here are treated perfectly straight. They're not a metaphor for social change or something self-referential. No, they're actually monsters and their purpose is to drive the plot. In a way, if they're a metaphor for anything, it's a natural disaster that everyone has to struggle against.
If I have a bizarre complaint, it's The Estuary is actually a little too short for its premise. It's a fairly typical sized book and not nearly the kind of door-stopper Stephen King is prone to writing. A lot of questions are raised in the book like, 'why is X doing Y when they don't know Z' which you know the author has an answer for but gets glossed over in the narrative. Bluntly, there's just not enough space to address everything. While it's a self-contained novel, I'd really appreciate either a sequel or some form of short story epilogue. I suppose it's a testament to the characterization that I care enough about the survivors to want to know what happens to them.
Overall, The Estuary is a heart-filled tale of survival horror and an excellent entry into the whole 'Zombie Genre' of stories. I salute Derek Gunn for his work and hope he'll continue to write for many years to come.
9/10
The crisis, in this respect, is an experimental Nazi biological agent was created in the last days of World War 2. An experimental biological agent which, apparently, creates zombies. You have to wonder if the Nazis would have won the war in fiction if they'd spent half of what they spent on occult weirdness on tanks. Still, Alfred Hitchcock was correct that Maguffins are ultimately unimportant. It doesn't matter how th zombies are created, the important part of the book is how their attack affects the town that our protagonists are from.
Derek Gunn does an excellent job in setting up a large ensemble cast for the duration of the book. There's the Businessman, the Writer, the Wife, the Spy, the Prostitute, and so on. All of them have interactions before the zombie attack and plenty of them go through some pretty staggering changes once the action starts. As quoted by Shepard Book in Firefly, you never really know a man until you dangle him over a volcano.
The start of the book is a bit slow for those expecting wall-to-wall zombie action from the get go. It's a much slower paced book than Derek Gunn's Vampire Apocalypse books. Really, they're two different genres and should each be taken on their own merits. I will say, however, the book reminds me more of Night of the Living Dead than Dawn of the Dead.
The heart of the matter is that the zombies here are treated perfectly straight. They're not a metaphor for social change or something self-referential. No, they're actually monsters and their purpose is to drive the plot. In a way, if they're a metaphor for anything, it's a natural disaster that everyone has to struggle against.
If I have a bizarre complaint, it's The Estuary is actually a little too short for its premise. It's a fairly typical sized book and not nearly the kind of door-stopper Stephen King is prone to writing. A lot of questions are raised in the book like, 'why is X doing Y when they don't know Z' which you know the author has an answer for but gets glossed over in the narrative. Bluntly, there's just not enough space to address everything. While it's a self-contained novel, I'd really appreciate either a sequel or some form of short story epilogue. I suppose it's a testament to the characterization that I care enough about the survivors to want to know what happens to them.
Overall, The Estuary is a heart-filled tale of survival horror and an excellent entry into the whole 'Zombie Genre' of stories. I salute Derek Gunn for his work and hope he'll continue to write for many years to come.
9/10
September 21, 2013
Picking up The Estuary, a 2009 novel from Irish author Derek Gunn, was a no-brainer for me. For those who are familiar with my love of the zombie sub-genre and all things apocalyptic, it surely came as no surprise that I'd enjoy this book!
The synopsis provided is a fairly succinct assessment of the plot of The Estuary. However, it fails to take account of the first chapter which was the real baited hook for me: a secret Nazi mission in 1944 to turn the tide of the war in their favour...
There's nothing particularly new to the zombie sub-genre in The Estuary which features many horror tropes that horror fans will know and love; and although the characters seem familiar, they don't feel tired or indeed clichéd. Gunn takes his time in establishing the zombie threat, slowly bringing proceedings to boiling point and then unleashing all hell on the inhabitants of Whiteshead.
Where this title sets itself apart is in the town that Gunn has created and the various avenues and scenes of peril he explores with his characters and the fact that he isn't shy about sacrificing a few of them for the sake of the story! On that note, the literary gorehounds out there won't be left disappointed. Gunn has his walking dead ripping out throats, dining on viscera and rending flesh from bone on a regular basis.
Within The Estuary, there are some particularly nice flourishes which further distinguish it from its contemporaries: the historical foundation for proceedings and a healthy, but not overly technical, scientific explanation for the walking dead being two aspects that are worthy of mention.
The author's prose is strong, drawing the reader in to the story easily and I certainly found myself empathising with the plight of many of the characters; however, as it stands at the moment, The Estuary is a bit of a diamond in the rough, requiring a great degree of polishing. Unfortunately, I felt like I was reading something that was not quite the finished article. This book was riddled with typos and spelling mistakes. I know these are spelling mistakes as some words are consistently incorrectly spelt throughout the novel. Moreover, as compelling as the story was, it felt like it could be a lot tighter at some points and would benefit from an editorial snip here and there. Also, and this may seem like I am trying to find fault with the book, but the cover is incredibly misleading. As attractive as the cover art is, the walking dead depicted there bear little resemblance to the flesh-hungry cadavers conjured up by Gunn's words in my mind's eye.
In the grand scheme of things, the criticisms I have made of this title are insignificant and should not dissuade you from picking The Estuary up. At its heart, this book is a robust, entertaining horror that ramps up the body count and definitely has me curious about the author's other works too!
The synopsis provided is a fairly succinct assessment of the plot of The Estuary. However, it fails to take account of the first chapter which was the real baited hook for me: a secret Nazi mission in 1944 to turn the tide of the war in their favour...
There's nothing particularly new to the zombie sub-genre in The Estuary which features many horror tropes that horror fans will know and love; and although the characters seem familiar, they don't feel tired or indeed clichéd. Gunn takes his time in establishing the zombie threat, slowly bringing proceedings to boiling point and then unleashing all hell on the inhabitants of Whiteshead.
Where this title sets itself apart is in the town that Gunn has created and the various avenues and scenes of peril he explores with his characters and the fact that he isn't shy about sacrificing a few of them for the sake of the story! On that note, the literary gorehounds out there won't be left disappointed. Gunn has his walking dead ripping out throats, dining on viscera and rending flesh from bone on a regular basis.
Within The Estuary, there are some particularly nice flourishes which further distinguish it from its contemporaries: the historical foundation for proceedings and a healthy, but not overly technical, scientific explanation for the walking dead being two aspects that are worthy of mention.
The author's prose is strong, drawing the reader in to the story easily and I certainly found myself empathising with the plight of many of the characters; however, as it stands at the moment, The Estuary is a bit of a diamond in the rough, requiring a great degree of polishing. Unfortunately, I felt like I was reading something that was not quite the finished article. This book was riddled with typos and spelling mistakes. I know these are spelling mistakes as some words are consistently incorrectly spelt throughout the novel. Moreover, as compelling as the story was, it felt like it could be a lot tighter at some points and would benefit from an editorial snip here and there. Also, and this may seem like I am trying to find fault with the book, but the cover is incredibly misleading. As attractive as the cover art is, the walking dead depicted there bear little resemblance to the flesh-hungry cadavers conjured up by Gunn's words in my mind's eye.
In the grand scheme of things, the criticisms I have made of this title are insignificant and should not dissuade you from picking The Estuary up. At its heart, this book is a robust, entertaining horror that ramps up the body count and definitely has me curious about the author's other works too!
June 14, 2012
"Zombie lit" is very big these days, and as a fan of the theme overall, I've actually been hesitant to spend too much time reading books from this genre. It's just too trendy, the market is glutted, and I've read a couple of pretty bad zombie books (I wouldn't count this book among the bad ones) - enough to put me off of them for a while, but I'm giving them another try.
Overall, I liked the book (which is, I know, a purely subjective statement). The author chose a great location for the story: a small town, isolated geographically, is easily cut off and quarantined when a strange illness breaks out among its citizens. Most of them are just regular folk, faced with overwhelming odds. Some become unlikely heroes, some - like regular folk - do not.
This book really needed one more edit. There are some punctuation and spelling errors* that distracted me, plus an absence of details about some of the major characters. The core characters are a family of five: parents and three children, but every once in a while, it's as if one of the kids doesn't exist.
The parts of the story that I liked were what kept me reading: the little things, like the curse of wearing impractical shoes (why I always wear flats)...well, that's all I can share without sending this behind the spoiler curtain. I wasn't thrilled with the ending, but I'm usually not when it comes to this kind of thing, so it's not the end of the world.
*Actual errors, not US vs. UK English.
Overall, I liked the book (which is, I know, a purely subjective statement). The author chose a great location for the story: a small town, isolated geographically, is easily cut off and quarantined when a strange illness breaks out among its citizens. Most of them are just regular folk, faced with overwhelming odds. Some become unlikely heroes, some - like regular folk - do not.
This book really needed one more edit. There are some punctuation and spelling errors* that distracted me, plus an absence of details about some of the major characters. The core characters are a family of five: parents and three children, but every once in a while, it's as if one of the kids doesn't exist.
The parts of the story that I liked were what kept me reading: the little things, like the curse of wearing impractical shoes (why I always wear flats)...well, that's all I can share without sending this behind the spoiler curtain. I wasn't thrilled with the ending, but I'm usually not when it comes to this kind of thing, so it's not the end of the world.
*Actual errors, not US vs. UK English.
August 2, 2013
This is a very well conceived and good story. However, it's in desperate need of a good proof-reader/editor given all the mistakes I came across which made the flow of the story stumble. I'm not talking about spelling since I realize that the author is writing in proper English rather than American English. And I'm not even referring to grammatical errors either. Just simple mistakes any writer can make when you're banging out a good piece of work and lose your train of thought. Ex: words or partial sentences repeated in succession, etc. These are minor things but if you're an unforgiving reader they are the very things which may cause you to give a bad rating to an otherwise great story so this is your fair warning. For me, the story seemed slow in some spots but I found myself rooting for the survivors (for once) and truly saddened by the loss of any who gave their lives for the others to continue surviving. This is the only zombie story that has ever made me root for the humans! There isn't much blood, gore or horror (the way many American zombie novels and movies portray) but even for someone like me who enjoys the hardcore horror of a zombie invasion, I truly enjoyed this story.
May 22, 2015
This is a good fast paced zombie story set in a small Irish village that becomes over-run by a Nazi made zombie plague released from a lost submarine left over from the War. The story begins innocently enough as the submarine is uncovered but things quickly escalate as a few local men disturb some of the canisters on board the sub. As the virus spreads through the village we follow various members of the community as they try and come to terms with events while trying not to get bitten, eaten or turned. This is an exciting read with well written characters with a good flowing story although this doesn't offer anything new to the genre. Still it is a good book and worth giving a go.
July 6, 2010
This is a great, traditional zombie survivial story. Small town + zom,bie infection almost always equals an interesting, character driven story. The characters are interesting and when the military gets mixed up in the town's efforts to survive chaos ensues. I especially liked some of the imagery - one scene in which a group of survivors fights together to make it through the town square overrun with zombies really sticks in my head.
October 21, 2009
An enjoyable zombie book
February 19, 2010
Very raw, but I enjoyed it...
April 28, 2012
Not a bad read...a bit like a movie with a cheesy happy ending, but the action was non-stop and hell, it has zombies!
August 5, 2009
I've had a couple of terrific reader reviews for my latest release posted at Amazon.com and .co.uk and Goodreads but this is the first "official" review from [url:]http://www.horrornews.net/[/url:]
A brief taster -
" The Estuary is a complex tale that had me turning pages non-stop ...Mr. Gunn twists history in a believable and original way...The scares here are realistic and human, so to me the feeling of terror is more prolonged never wavering till the last page...Mr. Gunn uses science (Ala Michael Crichton) to explain the cause of the sudden zombie outbreak...The story is tight and quick never easing up on the beautiful bleakness of the setting and the dangers surrounding them but the characters always have a strength that never lets them give up hope even as the odds of surviving grow smaller and smaller.
The scares here are realistic and human, so to me the feeling of terror is more prolonged never wavering till the last page. The Estuary is a zombie novel but it’s not just for zombie fans."
Check it out at their site under "book reviews"
D
A brief taster -
" The Estuary is a complex tale that had me turning pages non-stop ...Mr. Gunn twists history in a believable and original way...The scares here are realistic and human, so to me the feeling of terror is more prolonged never wavering till the last page...Mr. Gunn uses science (Ala Michael Crichton) to explain the cause of the sudden zombie outbreak...The story is tight and quick never easing up on the beautiful bleakness of the setting and the dangers surrounding them but the characters always have a strength that never lets them give up hope even as the odds of surviving grow smaller and smaller.
The scares here are realistic and human, so to me the feeling of terror is more prolonged never wavering till the last page. The Estuary is a zombie novel but it’s not just for zombie fans."
Check it out at their site under "book reviews"
D
October 3, 2014
This example of zombie fiction is set in a small town in Ireland, where a recently discovered German submarine from World War II leads to a whole heap of trouble for the residents. The setting is interesting, but to be honest it could be a town pretty much anywhere.
This is a pretty average zombie story in my opinion. It's certainly not the worst story as it's pretty well written, is exciting in parts and has some well described characters that I actually cared about. However, I found that there wasn't anything particularly new and that I got a bit bored with the usual progress of the zombie plague as it began to spread.
There are quite a lot of typos and grammatical errors, but less than in a lot of zombie fiction. I don't know why, but the genre seems to attract self-published and poorly edited books, and this one is better than most of those.
Overall, not the best zombie book out there, but if you're a fan it's worth a look.
This is a pretty average zombie story in my opinion. It's certainly not the worst story as it's pretty well written, is exciting in parts and has some well described characters that I actually cared about. However, I found that there wasn't anything particularly new and that I got a bit bored with the usual progress of the zombie plague as it began to spread.
There are quite a lot of typos and grammatical errors, but less than in a lot of zombie fiction. I don't know why, but the genre seems to attract self-published and poorly edited books, and this one is better than most of those.
Overall, not the best zombie book out there, but if you're a fan it's worth a look.
January 18, 2015
I enjoyed reading the book, however the book has many errors in it. I like when the zombies do not have any human attributes and it sticks with what zombies really are. I generally am not of fan of books from a different country but the visuals help. Although I can't imagine Ireland to be decimated by zombies it works well here.
September 4, 2014
The story was pretty good, the typical zombie scenario with a old world war twist I guess. But to be completely honest it got hard to read at times because of all the typos and errors, this guy did not pick the best editor, or editing company that's for sure.
January 9, 2018
He needs a much better copy editor. I didn’t care for the inner monologues and there is a super major plot hole about the timing of moving locations, but it wasn’t bad
December 6, 2009
I am a huge fan of the Vampire Apocalypse series, and I was curious to read what story Mr. Gunn created in the zombie genre.
Unfortunately I found the Estuary not as inventive and original as the author's vampire books. The plot follows the usual scheme, where a handful of people tries to escape the arising zombie plague, some showing heroic action, others falling along the way. While the book is ok to read, it is not outstanding and will be forgotten soon after.
Reading the Estuary I got the impression this is an early work of Mr. Gunn, as his other novels show much better developed writing skills. A minor annoyance with this book was the poor proof-reading, which also suggests a first novel.
Unfortunately I found the Estuary not as inventive and original as the author's vampire books. The plot follows the usual scheme, where a handful of people tries to escape the arising zombie plague, some showing heroic action, others falling along the way. While the book is ok to read, it is not outstanding and will be forgotten soon after.
Reading the Estuary I got the impression this is an early work of Mr. Gunn, as his other novels show much better developed writing skills. A minor annoyance with this book was the poor proof-reading, which also suggests a first novel.
August 4, 2012
Mildly entertaining light horror marred by some pretty ridiculous turns of phrase, and pretty thin characterization. I got very tired of the floods of bodies, surges of bodies, and people fighting against the tides of bodies. Also, the children. Lots of wearying blather about the children. At least it was a fast read.
July 14, 2011
An average story spoiled by some of the worst proof-reading I've seen since the old TSR products.
September 12, 2016
another Gem from Mr. Gunn!
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