Product Description

Courtney Colvin was nearing the end of her teenage years when the undead apocalypse began. She survived, forsaking her youth and innocence, and five years later she continues to exist--albeit lonely--in the fortified town of Eastpointe. Nightmares and the unwelcome advances of Leon Wolfe are the worst things she's dealing with now in her otherwise mundane life. But when a newcomer arrives in town and claims to know the location of the antidote to the zombie plague, it sends Eastpointe into an uproar. To retrieve this cure, she and a group of other survivors must venture outside the relative safety of the compound's walls and into a world ruled and dominated by the flesh-eating undead. Twilight of the Dead puts a new spin on the zombie genre, yet remains true to the classic rules that have already been set forth. A sure-fire reading pleasure for anyone who loves character-driven horror. This Special Edition contains an Introduction by David Moody and three bonus short stories detailing important moments in the lives of other survivors

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #79656 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-09
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 284 pages

Christine Filipak, Dark Realms Magazine
Adkins remains absolutely faithful to the zombie genre while offering an exciting new twist of horror and human perserverance.

Customer Reviews

Not bad, but definitely noit great
When reviewing zombie novels of course I am going to compare them to each other, and so after I read this I stacked it up against the David Wellington "Monster" trilogy, and Brian Keene's two part "The Rising" and "City of the Dead". I do not believe that "Twilight of the Dead" is on this level, but is certainly not a bad book. The pros of this story are the main character, the semi-fresh perspective on how humanity deals with the post-zombie apocalypse. Of course the military are a bunch of jerks, of course no one believes in the severity. However, the black beret concept was intriguing as well as the twist on the antagonist. Overall the major issue was Adkins description of the events that unfold. It doesn't hold a candle to Wellington or Keene and that is what makes their books highly readable and keep me coming back for more. I see great potential in Travis Adkins, and I hope for a sequel b/c in my mind it has the potential.

Z-book with a few twists
Okay, here are your survivors, locked up in a gated resort community. Okay, its a Z-book, I'll go with that, they've all got to start somewhere.

Wetsuit-clad, Wakazashi wielding, .22 sniper Zombie SpecOps teens/post teens? Okay, that's different, but I'll be honest, it was fun to read where the author was going with it.

Nifty little drawings and diagrams about how to fight a Z hand-to-hand. You have to love that part.

I was not expecting much from this, but picked it up anyway from the Amazon 'others who have purchased' list. At the end of the read, I was pleased to have purchased this book. The author took a stock 'end of the world' Z-book and added some twists (see wetsuits, supra) to the story, and throws in a mad scientist for fun. The main character actually has enough depth that you can't see light through her, and the story was interesting if very, very short. I'd certainly pick up another if the author decided on a sequel.

As with my reviews of the other Z-books, the 4 stars is in relation to the genre, not literature as a whole. Its a zombie thing. ;)

not good
In a nutshell my review of Twilight of the Dead by Travis Adkins goes like this: Twilight of the Dead by Travis Adkins is yet another book in the Permuted Press family that adheres faithfully to what has to be the company's mandate: good ideas told badly.

Because that is what Mr. Adkins does. And he does it very, very well.

The basic premise of this book is not all that unique. The Dead rise and Society crumbles before their relentless onslaught. The main character must somehow survive the horrifying horror of the End of the World and then, along with a disparate group of survivors, learn to their even greater horror that the true monster isn't just the rotting ghouls scratching away outside their walls, but the living, breathing people they're trapped inside with.

See? Nothing unusual or groundbreaking there, but then, it doesn't have to be, right? That description is exactly what gets us all excited, it's the story we want, the one we've been looking for and the reason we are all willing to slog through all of the sub-par "literature" found within this genre. And that nugget is what Mr. Adkins starts out with. Then he takes it up a notch and throws in one of the most loved protagonists in the sci-fi/comic-book/horror set: The snarky rocker chick. After that he adds in some ruin looting, a walled haven and a team of specially trained zombie fighters and what does that mean to you and me?

It means we got ourselves a possible slice of fried awesome, that's what.

But then Mr. Adkins fumbles, he stumbles, he trips and then he falls. In a word: he fails. In two words: He fails miserably.

To begin with, the time line makes no sense. 5 years ago the town filled up with all the supplies they were ever going to need so they just stopped going out? 5 years ago? So... they've just been hanging out then? Doing what? Partying? The noise from their many BBQs and Badminton matches didn't ever bring an army of the Dead down upon their heads? 5 years now, this magical cornucopia mall they have within this gated community has just been pumping out a never ending cascade of food and supplies while the people dance and sing and laugh, tra-la-la-la and go back to normal lives? 6 months, okay, maybe they might hunker down for six months, but 5 years? The World ends, Society is destroyed and then a bunch of spoiled First-World-living-the-leisurely-high-tech-lifestyle Americans build and are able to reasonably maintain the first ever completely contained and self-sustaining community WITH a coin based economy? Based on what? Gold? Air? What about medicine or chemicals for mixing gunpowder or more planting seeds or a million and a half other things? Five years? ugh... forget it... moving on...

Secondly, Courtney, the intended snarky, independently awesome and capable rocker chick, is instead consistently portrayed as naïve, stupid and ridiculously stubborn. She's a complete cartoon, so much so, you wonder if Mr. Adkins has ever actually MET a girl like this before. Once again... for 5 years she's lived here, not having to work due to her service as a scavenger, 5 years she's been in this town and all she's done is watch movies and read books and sneer at anyone who tries to talk to her? For five years? Once again... maybe for a month or two, but after five years wouldn't she be forced to grow up or maybe mature a little bit, if not from simple aging then from the nature of the world itself? And if you're willing to buy that, the fact that she hasn't just makes her all the more unlikeable. Also, wouldn't the townspeople grow concerned over this highly trained killer hermit with a bad attitude holed up all by herself at the far end of their town?

And the Gossip Girl/One Tree Hill type high school drama is so pervasive, so false and so completely without any emotional motivation to back it up, that it just becomes tedious and way, way too quickly at that, especially when you consider just how short a novel this is. None of the human interaction rings true, with the possible exception of Courtney leaving her Father in the very beginning, but other than that...

I mean, I understand what he's trying to do, because, as we all know, the real meat of a zombie story is the survivors and the emotional yoke they toil under, but you have to be able to make your characters and their inner turmoils real or the story just sinks hard and fast and unfortunately, Mr. Adkins can not make them real.

And then there's the oh-so-transparent Jock hate, (nerd...) but wait... apparently the Jock is actually one of the rare, kind of alright rich kid jocks (Just like She's All That... but reversed! With zombies!) And the Black Berets themselves? Their outfits are ludicrous. They're laughable. Coupled with the ninja swords, they just reminded me of my friend's home made "Surf Ninja" Halloween costume. It was silly, people, silly. Lets not even get into the uncomfortable, overt naïveté that rides shotgun with the mishandled and uneven sex scenes that go on between Courtney and her mentor, Sgt. Soontobedead.

Oh yeah, the zombies... forgot about those... How is that possible you ask? Oh, well, that's because they're kind of not really ever mentioned or that much of a threat to begin with, except of course when clichéd Mad-scientist-killer-type-guy inexplicably sends an army of them to attack the town. That's no big deal right? Eastpointe has high walls, right? Oh yeah? Well these zombies have on metal helmets (they're indestructible!) and knives tied to their hands (they're Wolverine!). Will Courtney and Leon (the Jock) stop the evil Lex Luthor's army of radio controlled zombies in time? Will the cure (cure for what? Being eaten?) miraculously save one of the main characters if they get bitten during the story's climax or is that too telegraphed and clichéd? And if so, why not just go all out and embrace the clichés and stage an end fight scene at that infamous Hollywood-action-movie-staple: the fire and steam factory?

I apologize, at this point I'm being too rough on Mr. Adkins, he does deserve kudos for even finishing a novel in the first place and then putting it out there to be snarked at by jerks like me. To be fair, I actually enjoyed the beginning of the story, especially the attack on the convoy and many other sporadic moments through out, which really only highlights the true problem with this book for me. Mr. Adkins has ability within him, he has ideas. He's not awful, he's not without hope. And while they may not be well executed, his stories are well grounded, thought out and, in the end, fun. He's got potential. Honestly, its not his story that fails here, its his details. So, yet again, the Permuted Press editorial staff, such as it is, has completely failed their authors and done them a huge disservice with their ridiculously poorly performed job. Right now Mr. Adkins is just another example of the only thing small internet presses have proven to me so far: Sometimes people don't get published for a reason.

Mr. Adkins' reason is because he is not yet ready. This story needs a lot of work, attention, critique and second and third drafts, TRUE second and third drafts.

My recommendation: Not yet. Almost, but not yet. Our quest for a great zombie book continues, dear readers, so slog on, because there's nothing to see here.