Sunday, April 17, 2011

Review: The Infection

Craig DiLouie, 2011, Permuted Press

Millions fall down, screaming, as a mysterious virus strikes across the globe. Three days later the victims awake with a single, psychotic purpose: spread the Infection. As civilisation crumbles, a small team of survivors fight their way towards a massive refugee camp, seeking protection. But cannibalistic zombies are not the worst things standing in their way; some of the Infected are beginning to change...

The Infection is a page-turner of the highest order, with a plot combining elements of 28 Days Later and The Mist. The prose is written in a dry, matter-of-fact manner, often in the present tense, and there's a resulting immediacy to the action that allows the reader to completely suspend disbelief and plunge into DiLouie's world of survival horror; the characters, also, are Everymen (and women), gloriously damaged and fallible, whose every misfortune hits the reader hard; all of which makes The Infection one of the most emotional, unsettling, and satisfying takes on the zompocalyse yet to see print.

On the back of The Infection, I'm hereby citing DiLouie as a must-read author. Here's hoping for an extremely short wait to his next published offering.