This fourteen book series is thrill, after gut-punching thrill, and provided me with over one-hundred-thirty-four hours of listening pleasure. I laughed, cried and had several "Heck Yeah," moments. Most of the characters are explained in-depthly, offering a flashback into their flaws and their warped perspectives, as the zombies evolve and eat up the world. But I really do get sick of Anglo-Saxon authors describing Africa and other countries in less than flattering terms, despite the fact that it has been Europeans who ruined most of these locations. I mean, if you're going to call a country and all it's people bad names, at least acknowledge how they got that way - I digress!

The story begins a few years into the apocalypse, thus, we are thrown into the action of tier-one, special-ops, trying, and often failing to carry out a series of last-ditch efforts to save the last pocket of humanity, even as that slice of civilization is being gobbled-up, by a new breed of dead-heads that can think, and possess super-human abilities.

I appreciate the consistency of all the books being narrated by the same gentleman, with his soothing, animated voice (I hate when publishers switch narrators, mid-series). I would have liked more books that dive into the rebuilding process, but I am more than satisfied with the kindness of the author, of not leaving us hanging, and wondering how things turned out, as he took us all the way to the end of the fight for their very existence...SMILE!!!

PS:
If you dig strong females, you will love this series! ( )

ABR's original Arisen Omnibus audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

This review refers to the first three volumes of the Arisen Omnibus series, (books 1-3).

The world has been overrun by zombies, the only exception is the large island of Great Britain, or now called Fortress Britain. This was a fortunate accident of timing; a foiled terrorist attack caused Great Britain to close its borders to air traffic at exactly the time when the zombie virus was spreading. There were and are pockets of infection, but awareness and warning allowed the British to move quickly to protect themselves, even going so far as to destroy the Chunnel (the tunnel linking England to France). As far as anyone knows, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas are completely overrun by the walking dead.

If they were just lumbering flesh eating zombies, protection wouldn’t be so difficult. But there are several different kinds; the first is the standard slow flesh eating zombie, referred to as Zulus in military parlance, and a quicker version called runners or Romeos; and now the recently emerging strain that are lightning quick, with no other goal but to infect the living. This new one is called Tango Foxtrot November, or “The F**king Nightmare.”

Arisen Omnibus is nonstop action. From the moment you start listening, zombie brain-stems are being pulverized by bullets, grenades, hatchets, clubs and swords. The story mostly follows the military elite group called Alpha Team, who are masterful at all things staying alive. They are perfect soldiers, brave, loyal, dedicated and lucky. Perhaps they are too perfect, but hey, they’re killing dead people who walk and eat flesh; you’d better have heroes up to the task.

The audiobook is performed by R.C. Bray, who gives a flawless performance. His deep resonant baritone vibrates in your ear giving just the right energy at just the right time. The accents and characters are easily discerned and sound right for each. You may want to listen to other books performed by Bray just to hear his performance.

If you enjoy military and/or zombie stories, Arisen Omnibus is a must listen. It is exciting, inventive, suspenseful and just plain gory fun. You will definitely look forward to the next installment of the Arisen Omnibus series.

Audiobook provided for review by the publisher. ( )

First thing to note is that this is an omnibus edition, which means that there are 3 "books" in here which were originally published (and presumably sold) separately. If you were to get book 1 only, you'd be very annoyed at where it stopped and where book 2 started as it just ends in the middle of the story (i.e. the transition to book 2 in this omnibus is invisible - if you weren't told it was a new book, you'd never know from the story itself). The transition from book 2 to book 3 is a little more noticeable (the tone of the story changes a bit too) so I could see how book 3 is legitimately separate from 1+2.

Now, to the story... it's actually an above average pseudo-military post-apocalyptic zombie novel. It's not an action novel - too many characters for that - but it's a decently fleshed-out zombie apocalypse with just enough shooting, zombie gore, and people being killed to keep you reading. No, there is no big twist here, no unexpected source of or behaviour by the zombies, but for a standardly plotted zombie novel, it's at least a 4 star... mainly due to the characters behaving normally and the scenarios being realistic.

I will be reading more by this author since it's nice to have a decent quality zombie novel minus the gun porn and women as mere rape objects. ( )