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Saturday, November 9, 2019

Alaskan Undead Apocalypse: Book 5

UNWILLING by Sean Schubert is the fifth book in the Alaskan Undead Apocalypse series. INFECTION, the first book, begins with three children discovering a "caveman" partially thawed in a glacier. One of the kids is infected, and rushed to the hospital. The child dies, reanimates, and begins to attack those around him. As the outbreak spreads into the rest of Anchorage, Alaska, the authorities incorrectly assume they are under attack from terrorists.

CONTAINMENT, book two, is a convergence of the survivors' storylines. The third installment, MITIGATION, takes place a few months after the initial outbreak with little Martin and returns to the very source of the infection, while tying up loose ends from the first two books. RESOLUTION, the best of the series, offers up multiple background stories and deeper connections between the survivors. (You can learn more about this series in my Schubert interview.)

UNWILLING picks up several weeks after the battle between Neil's group and the Colonel in Whittier. The survivor group has increased in number and finally found a place they can call home, but they are contacted by a government official requesting a rescue effort to extract a scientific group from Anchorage. This begs the question, why hasn't anyone attempted to rescue Neil's group yet?

Not only do readers find out what has happened in the lower 48 states, but they are given an additional storyline to follow. The pace is, while action-packed with many horde conflicts, very slow, and I had to read past the halfway mark before I had any genuine interest in the new group. I suppose I am feeling bitter over Neil's decision to rescue the scientists, and putting themselves in the middle of an undead hell, after how much they went through to escape to someplace relatively safe.

As a fan of the series, I am not happy with the way the fifth book ends. Sorry, Schubert, but I think most fans are going to need a sixth book, especially with the change in dynamics within Neil's group.

As always,
AstraDaemon

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