Review copy provided by the author in exchange for an honest review
Storm Orphans is a great take on the zombie apocalypse. The government has developed a chemical and put it in the water to supply to keep the people complacent. Income inequality was on the rise and quickly becoming out of control, and the lower class needs to kept in check. Unfortunately the side effect is that people are die or becoming a blubbering incoherent zombie. Tyler’s father Roger worked for Biomech, the company who engineered the chemical. Roger said something bad gone wrong with the chemical he helped develop after he left the company. The side effects of the chemical had been an unfortunate consequence.
Jenny and her family are running out of the medicine she needs for her seizures. After much deliberation they all leave the safety of home in search for the pills she needs. They decide to walk the short mile to the pharmacy hoping there is something left after the looting. Her family is attacked, her parents killed by the zombie population, and she narrowly escaped with her life. Now Tyler and Jenny are left to find safety without the security of their family. Two young teens left to wonder the country with more dangers than they can imagine.
Sawyer has been living in is home behind the safety of his electric fence. His supplies are running low and it’s time to move on. He comes across a church and a horde of zombies attempting to break down the door. After removing the threat he meets father Lynch and he decides to join Sawyer in search of answers to the plague. At the local gun store they add another to the group, a young woman named Angel. Before long Sawyer and the group come to a hotel for a night’s rest and find Jenny hiding in a dryer. They are still a day away from the southcom military command post where they hope to find out what happened. More questions than answers are the only thing they find after nearly being killed by another military experiment gone wrong. With no answers and only more questions the next destination is Biomech located at the CDC.
Storm Orphans is my kind of end of the world book filled with a steady dose of destruction and characters I really connected with. Matt Handle explored a scary but plausible action by the government to keep the citizens mindless rubes. Then turned the world on its side with a side effect no one saw coming. The book is filled with action and the story never slows down. As Sawyer and the group search for justice and suffer losses along the way. The technology along with the cause of the apocalypse is very well done. The military man/machine is like Robocop gone wrong. I hated to say goodbye to the characters and loved the adventure through the waste land. The individuals at Biotech who were responsible will make you hate them with their actions. Our group of survivors will have you pulling for them to make it through each battle. Technology, government conspiracy and zombies are here for our enjoyment.
Book Info
Length: 236 Pages
Release date: June 20th, 2014
To Purchase Storm Orphans Click Here
In 2011, a television reporter inexplicably started spouting gibberish in the middle of her on-air report. Five years later, what’s become known as the Babylonian Plague has killed 99% of the world’s population and turned virtually all the remainder of humanity into raving cannibals that are more blood-thirsty zombie than man. These monsters are now simply called the Afflicted.
Sawyer Bell is a scarred and reclusive veteran of the war in Afghanistan. All he wanted was to live the rest of his life in the peaceful confines of his southern-Florida trailer, but now he finds himself the leader of a ragtag band of survivors of this plague that are in search of answers and ultimately, revenge.
Author Matt Handle delivers a heart-bounding adventure into a dark future that feels all-too possible in his debut novel, Storm Orphans.
Matt Handle, biography
Atlanta-based author Matt Handle writes in the horror, sci-fi, and crime genres. His debut novel Storm Orphans provides a new twist on the zombie apocalypse and is available in both paperback and eBook formats. You can hunt down some of his short stories in magazines such as Devolution Z and Blank Fiction, as well as on websites including 365 Tomorrows, Verbicide, Flash Fiction Magazine, Freeze Frame Fiction, and his blog riff.
Filed under: Apocalypse, Thriller Tagged: Matt Handle, Storm Orphans
