Review: Patient Zero

Patient Zero (Joe Ledger, #1) by Jonathan Maberry
Format: Audiobook read by Ray Porter
Source: Library
Buy It: Paperback | Kindle | Audiobook
★★★★☆

When you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week there's either something wrong with your world or something wrong with your skills... and there's nothing wrong with Joe Ledger's skills.  And that's both a good, and a bad thing.  It's good because he's a Baltimore detective that has just been secretly recruited by the government to lead a new taskforce created to deal with the problems that Homeland Security can't handle. This rapid response group is called the Department of Military Sciences or the DMS for short. It's bad because his first mission is to help stop a group of terrorists from releasing a dreadful bio-weapon that can turn ordinary people into zombies. The fate of the world hangs in the balance...

For those who haven’t read a book from this series, know that you are in for an action-packed, fast paced, thrill of a ride. This was my first experience with Jonathan Maberry’s writing and I have to admit… it’s pretty amazing. He writes action scenes so vividly that it was as if I was watching it happen right in front of me. Those scenes are what stood out the most to me. Maberry’s writing combined with Ray Porter’s narration took this story to an entirely new level. I’m so happy I opted for the audiobook version of this!!

It is very clear that Maberry did plenty of research on weapons, diseases, pathogens, and more to add to the consistency and authenticity of this book. It seemed so freakin’ real!  Joe Ledger’s character was so badass, sarcastic and funny. I couldn’t get enough of the guy! His personality was the perfect balance of rough and real.

This wasn’t one of those mindless “let’s kill zombies” adventures. The story was realistic and well thought out. It kept me one my toes the whole time! Oh and did I mention it has AMAZING fight scenes? Check this out if you are a fan of zombies, military, or action genre books. You most certainly will not be disappointed! If given the opportunity, I highly recommend trying this as an audiobook. Ray Porter is an excellent narrator!

Review: Embedded

Embedded by Dan Abnett
Publisher: Angry Robot
Format: Ebook
Pages:416
Source: NetGalley
Amazon | Goodreads
★★★☆☆

HE'D DO ANYTHING TO GET A STORY. When journalist Lex Falk gets himself chipped into the brain of a combat soldier, he thinks he has the ultimate scoop - a report from the forbidden front line of a distant planetary war, live to the living rooms of Earth. When the soldier is killed, however, Lex has to take over the body and somehow get himself back to safety once more... broadcasting all the way.

Heart-stopping combat science fiction from the million-selling Warhammer 40,000 author.

For this book, I'm jumping straight to the review portion. I am going to be totally honest with you: I did not finish this book.

Embedded was extremely hard for me to get into. Obviously, I never really did get into it. It seemed to me that all the characters were doing was talking... and quite frankly, I was bored. Knowing that this was a military sci-fi I expected lots of action. I had not reached the point where he takes over the soldier's body, but I just couldn't take any more of it. I found myself skipping parts and, to my knowledge, not really missing anything of interest!

This book has a great rating on goodreads so I'm assuming that it does pick up later in the book. Don't not read this book because I didn't enjoy it! It just wasn't for me.

I give it 3 stars for having an interesting concept, even if I couldn't hang around to see it all play out.