By Shaun Jeffrey
Published by Deshca Press 2012
£0.97 Kindle edition
Shaun Jeffrey has written an enjoyable romp through a post
Apocalyptic world years after a zombie holocaust has devastated civilisation.
Anna and her husband Isaiah live with their children in a tightly controlled
community inside a former prison, safe from the undead that prowl around the
outside world. Through a twisted theology the undead are regarded as gods
because they are seen as immortal and any attempt to destroy them is regarded
as heresy. Impoverished, living off what scraps of food can be produced inside
their dreary concrete world, strict controls are maintained on numbers. For
every birth there must be a counterbalancing loss in numbers. This is carried
out through the use of a lottery; the names included normally being those
amongst the elderly. The winner is honoured by being ejected into the outside
world to become one of the gods.
Anna has begun a guilt-ridden affair with Roman, a leading
priest. When she tries to end it Roman takes his revenge by falsely reading out
the name of one of her children as the winner of the next lottery. Even though
her young daughter believes she is being honoured, that she will become a god,
Anna is distraught. Roman lets her know what he has done, intending to use this
as leverage against her to resume their affair. This sets off a train of events
that result in catastrophe for most of the people in the community and
revelations about what has really happened as Anna escapes from their community
with her children in tow, and Roman, her husband and a band of enforcers set
out in pursuit.
This is a tense read, with plenty of action and credible
characters. And a world in which it is often hard to decide who the real
monsters are. Some humans have descended to cannibalism while others have
succumbed to greed, enslaving others or selling them off as food. It is a
harsh, cruel, merciless world in which there is little to hope other than to
live through another day.
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