Zombies. Not my normal reading fare—and perhaps with that single word I’ve already turned the casual reader off.

This boxset was definitely a guilty pleasure read for me, started at a time when I had 30 minutes and only my Kindle on hand. For whatever flaws it might have, though, this set of four books at least scratched my (very weird) itch for, yes, the zombie apocalypse.

I figured this collection would be a series of short works, but each of the four installments was far shorter than I’d expected. Too short actually, like shorter than even most kids novels are. For this reason alone, I’d argue that Piperbrook should have just sold the collection as a single novel with four parts instead of as individual books which were later combined into this box-set thing. Granted, he (I assume “he”) probably put each up for sale as he finished them in attempts to garner a following, so he may have found this to be a more lucrative option.

Still, like I commented with Bobby Akart’s Yellowstone series, I’m really not a fan of this “new” method of book sales, where readers almost have to pay a subscription to keep reading what’s essentially a single novel. I say “new” because that’s sort of how serial-novels were sold long ago when published incrementally in magazines, and that’s how virtually all comic books series are still sold today. I just don’t think it’s fair to readers of novels. One man’s opinion, I guess.

Contamination Zero

This book may have been published as a prequel, but I think it gets the story off the ground quickly and well, as a man recently arrested goes berserk inside his jail cell. The scenes are intense, the gore is everywhere, and the language is R-rated. Piperbrook doesn’t use the “Z” word to describe what’s going on until (I think) Book Three, though he implies it throughout, as the characters experience events “just like in the movies.”

The main characters in this prequel are Dan and his daughter Quinn, forced into experiences they’d never imagined possible—a first wave of contamination—and forced to run for the lives before they’re consumed by the virus or by the already-consumed. The subplot that these events might not have been accidental kept me reading and wanting to know more.

Contamination One: The Onset

Because I’m reading these as a set, I’m genuinely unsure which book was written first, Zero or One, but I like how they’re positioned here. The lead-in to the story that we find in Contamination Zero was much more believable that the lead-in we have here. The outbreak is sudden in both, but the arrival of the zombies makes much more sense in the middle of town than it does in this hot, out of the way desert gas station.

The characters in this one include a gas station owner mourning the loss of his wife and daughter, two friends on a cross-country drive, and a girl trying to rectify her family’s sordid past. The shortness of the book makes it hard to fall in love with any of the characters, but that what the follow-ups are for.

Book Two: Crossroads

Halfway through the series already, I’ve began approaching these not as books but as parts to a single novel (as mentioned above). The teacher in me also shows up, as I start noting discrepancies (i.e. there’s a red-eyed monster in Book One, though their otherwise telltale sign elsewhere is pure black eyes) and asking questions. Here are just a few:

• Why didn’t they shoot the tires of the white SUVs when they passed?
• Why don’t they discuss how the heck Kendall got infected and what’s going to happen to Sam now that he’s been scratched?
• And since this is 100% a zombie book, why not just call them that?

By this point too, I was longing for some real-deal discussion about their plight, not simply their running from the monsters and recollecting their pasts. Piperbrook could have easily added some weight and meat to the story by having his characters interact with each other in real, heart-to-heart conversation about all the craziness going on!

The characters do learn a little bit about the contamination by the end of this one, as they move from one distinct location to the next. I was hopeful that we might get some answers ourselves, if not an all-out resolution. Not yet.

Book Three: Wasteland

This was the best installment yet, as it answers many questions that have been running through my brain—questions about how the contamination occurs, about immunities, about why some people are imprisoned and some hunted, etc. It all sort of makes sense by the end.

The villain-fighting was a little unbelievable—not that believability is what I’m looking for in a zombie novel. I also would have liked to see a more masterful plan in the works than what we have here, mainly because the new world that the villain was hoping to achieve wasn’t apparently supposed to include any females!

Dan and Quinn are also nowhere in this final book, which at first made the prequel fall a little flat. But then I saw that there’s a Book Four that promises to provide a continuation of their story, so that works for me. There’s also apparently book Five, Six, and Seven, so even more answers await.

Conclusion

Overall, I felt these short books were an exciting, quick escape into the what-if?s of a zombie apocalypse. While they really feel like storyboards for a much more massive undertaking, I realize that Piperbrook’s goal wasn’t to write an epic.

Sure they contain a few too many gaps in logic to be a serious contender against, say, The Walking Dead, but they do scratch the zombie itch much faster than that whole series could. Plus, they have a semblance of a conclusion, which TWD can’t offer, and this fact alone makes them special.

I’m not making a broad recommendation for this series, simply because I’m not one to push gore a hardcore language. But if you happen to get an embarrassing craving for zombies, this boxset might be a quick fix for you.

©2024 E.T.

Read More Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Novels:

• The Last New Yorkers by George Allen England (1911)
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)
• The Last Ship by William Brinkley (1988)
• Minority Report and Other Stories by Philip K. Dick (2004)
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)
• The Hunger Games (series) by Suzanne Collins (2008)
• Son of Heaven (series) by David Wingrove (2011)
• Contamination (series) by T.W. Piperbrook (2013)
• Yellowstone (series) by Bobby Akart (2018)
• The Giver by Lois Lowry, adapted by P. Craig Russell (2019)
• Fairy Godparents: Raising a Fairy Child by Indahari Setyo (2020)