I wanted to like this book. But the driving force of the main character is just so ridiculous, I ending up not caring if he lived or died. Otherwise, I did like the apocalypse-related part of the story and the action scenes. But without a character to care about, it's just wasted. ( )

I really enjoy Wellington's writing and his books. His earlier books (MONSTER ISLAND and the other Monster books) were delivered as part of a regular blog. A chapter a week type of thing. It kept the chapters pretty short and centered on one piece of action. PLAGUE ZONE keeps that same pattern of short chapters focused on a small piece of the story. For me, it made it hard to stop: five chapters of "Just one more chapter."

For this story, Wellington goes back to zombies but a different zombie than the Monster books. Tim Kempfer was on a business trip to Chicago when the outbreak of Russian Flu first hit the U.S., specifically Tim's hometown of Seattle. The early news reports and videos that came out showed not just his hometown but his neighborhood. In fact, it showed Tim's neighbor attacking Tim's wife and son. With that, Tim started his mission to get back.

As I mentioned earlier, the short chapters make it very easy to become absorbed into the story. In reality though, it's the characters that drive that absorption, that fascination with what are they going to experience next. Is that drive going to lead to success? Does success matter if Tim loses his humanity in the process? These type of questions about decisions made and motivations make the story interesting. There were a couple of events near the end that I didn't like and seemed like easy outs by Wellington. But then another five pages later, I looked back and thought "Oh, that didn't turn out like I thought it would." and I realized it wasn't an easy out. In all, a solidly entertaining book and one that makes me look forward to reading more of his books. ( )