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A review by maxturner
Eve Brenner: Zombie Agent by A. Giacomi, A. Giacomi
2.0
Book two of this series – Eve Brenner: Zombie Agent starts where the main story of book one left us, before the “Two Years Later” epilogue, so there is instant intrigue as to how these two intervening years play out, good and bad.
The story itself progresses through Eve being kept at the CSIS’s secret installation and eventually training to become an agent for them. We watch a budding romance unfold between her and Agent Williams before we begin to uncover a secret agenda of the CSIS that could mean the end of the world. Much zombie fiction features the end of the world, and now in book two we find a connection with Eve and her story – I really liked how this was done and found it intriguing.
The format is still first person, jumping to a different character each chapter and unfortunately it still doesn’t work for me. The author has a little more success in varying their internal voices than the previous book but even so fails to really capture three (later five) separate and well defined characters, and struggles with writing from a male perspective. This is especially true in the case of Agent Williams – I also found it quite disconnecting not to discover his first name until almost half way through the book despite having chapters from his point of view.
The book is unfortunately let down by several weaknesses which unfortunately made me really struggle with it – from gaps in logic to contradictions and a lack of knowledge/research (the Terracotta Warriors are clay Tomb Guardians they do not have people inside them). The reintroduction of friends from the first book, Cam and Alex, in their own chapters feels less about furthering the story and more about allowing the circumstances for Cam to move on so the reader is ok with a romance between Eve and Williams. Again, as with the first book the ending is strong and action packed, but it feels contradictory – surely the rock should have had some reaction in the oven given that it has previously been affected by fire?
I am a bit disappointed that I didn’t enjoy this book more. As with the first in the series, I love the premise and there are some really great ideas here and there. The writing feels a little improved from the first book and there are occasionally some great sentences and turns of phrase throughout but these are outweighed by some weak writing in other parts. Overall it feels superficial – lacking in detail and depth in both story and characters. There are some really great ideas and set ups, like the links to ancient/dead civilisations but they are let down by the weaknesses above.
The story itself progresses through Eve being kept at the CSIS’s secret installation and eventually training to become an agent for them. We watch a budding romance unfold between her and Agent Williams before we begin to uncover a secret agenda of the CSIS that could mean the end of the world. Much zombie fiction features the end of the world, and now in book two we find a connection with Eve and her story – I really liked how this was done and found it intriguing.
The format is still first person, jumping to a different character each chapter and unfortunately it still doesn’t work for me. The author has a little more success in varying their internal voices than the previous book but even so fails to really capture three (later five) separate and well defined characters, and struggles with writing from a male perspective. This is especially true in the case of Agent Williams – I also found it quite disconnecting not to discover his first name until almost half way through the book despite having chapters from his point of view.
The book is unfortunately let down by several weaknesses which unfortunately made me really struggle with it – from gaps in logic to contradictions and a lack of knowledge/research (the Terracotta Warriors are clay Tomb Guardians they do not have people inside them). The reintroduction of friends from the first book, Cam and Alex, in their own chapters feels less about furthering the story and more about allowing the circumstances for Cam to move on so the reader is ok with a romance between Eve and Williams. Again, as with the first book the ending is strong and action packed, but it feels contradictory – surely the rock should have had some reaction in the oven given that it has previously been affected by fire?
I am a bit disappointed that I didn’t enjoy this book more. As with the first in the series, I love the premise and there are some really great ideas here and there. The writing feels a little improved from the first book and there are occasionally some great sentences and turns of phrase throughout but these are outweighed by some weak writing in other parts. Overall it feels superficial – lacking in detail and depth in both story and characters. There are some really great ideas and set ups, like the links to ancient/dead civilisations but they are let down by the weaknesses above.