Thunder and Ashes

A LOT CAN CHANGE IN THREE MONTHS: Wars can be decided, nations can be forged . . . or entire species can be brought to the brink of annihilation. The Morningstar virus has swept the face of the planet, infecting billions. Its hosts rampage; its victims don’t die, but are reborn as cannibalistic shamblers.

SCATTERED ACROSS THE WORLD, EMBATTLED GROUPS HAVE PERSEVERED. For some, survival is the pinnacle of achievement. Others hoard goods and weapons. And still others leverage power over the remnants of humanity with a mysterious cure. Francis Sherman and Anna Demilio want only a vaccine, but to find it they must cross a ravaged landscape of the infected and the lawless living.

THE BULK OF THE STORM HAS PASSED, leaving echoing thunder and softly drifting ashes. But for the survivors, the peril remains, and the search for a cure is just beginning. . . .

Returning to the terrifying vision of his “awesome zombie novel” (David Moody) Plague of the Dead, Z.A. Recht “will once again make you turn your lights on” (J.L. Bourne) with this chilling apocalyptic thriller.

The second volume in Recht’s zombie-apocalypse series (after the well-received Plague of the Dead, 2009) at first looks like a typical post-apocalyptic-war story. After a conflict that nearly destroys humanity, two groups of survivors, led by Anna Demilio and Francis Sherman (introduced in Plague), try to find a safe place through enemy territory. Of course, this is no ordinary post-apocalyptic odyssey. The global conflict resulted from the spread of the Morningstar virus, which turns those it infects into zombies, either quick-moving sprinters or slow-moving shamblers but all frightening and deadly. Recht writes a raw, brutal style perfect for the story’s raw brutality, and it’s impossible to read the novel and not get caught up in its characters and their seemingly futile quest to reach safety before they are killed by the infected or, for that matter, by roaming gangs of human raiders, rogue government agents, or other predators. Sadly, Recht died in 2009 at age 26, while working on the third volume in the series, which gives this book a bittersweet aura. It’s a compelling story told in a captivating voice that was prematurely silenced. --David Pitt