The Myth and the Dead

By: Edward Teach

Narrated by: John R. Crosthwaite

Buckle up for the ultimate zombie apocalypse road trip! When the dead rise, two biker prophets leave their compound to pursue an undead messiah across the post-apocalyptic wastelands of the American Southwest. Meanwhile a squad of archangels manifest on Earth as an elite SWAT team, armed to the teeth for an assault on the New Orleans zombie fortress of the demon Ahrimane. Through it all, a psychotic road warrior shaman driving a tow truck is searching for the Dying God, aided in this endgame quest by his captive, the Bogeyman. Prepare yourself for gods, zombies, werewolves, vampires, tentacles, and the book of Revelations with a side of blood and bullets.

©2015 Edward Teach (P)2016 Edward Teach

Good narration and story.

Mr. Crosthwaite does a good job with the reading. He captures the flavor and style of the writing well. His reading matches the author's mytho-poetic narrative voice. I read portions of the book, listened to others, and read while listening to the majority of the book because I had been asked to review the audiobook (I know the narrator). Technically the book is well written and the narrator matched the writing style well.

My problem with the book stems from the passive tone of the writing which is part of the mytho-poetic atmosphere the author intended. The story line was good, but I found myself too distanced from it. I prefer a more first person narrative that brings me close into the action and the characters' emotions/actions.

Despite my personal reading preferences I give this audio book 4 stars because I almost never give out 5 stars. 3 stars would have unfairly given too much weight to my personal style preferences. While Mr Crostwaite attempted to give me a free copy of the audio book, the code didn't work and I used one of my monthly audible credits and my kindle unlimited account to read, listen and review.

Eh.

Made it to chapter 10. Not the worst book, but i couldn't finish it. There was too many repatative "Jesus said" crap that was really annoying. No character development. Just zombie killing. Might be okay for other people.

Fun Idea, but show don't tell.

Show don't tell. This is a common criticism in visual media, but it can apply to books as well.

Sure, with books, you are always in a way telling a story. However, there is a difference between growing a setting through characters interacting with each other and the world and having a book that is nothing but narrative exposition.

I kind of expected the exposition to end and the characters to start engaging each other in dialog and their personalities to be revealed through this. This did not happen. Instead, the narrative exposition continued, and continued, and so on. You are told that characters had a conversation and what the result of it was, but you never hear a line of dialog from it. Sometimes a character does say something, but it isn't speech. It's sermon or exposition directed at a character, and often broadcast supernaturally directly into the character's mind. It isn't more than a couple of lines and never an exchange.

The story itself is exactly what the title offers. Various mythologies are presented, splintered, brought together, and mixed with zombies as part of the setting. There are a lot of ideas in this book, some of them could even be good. The book is divided roughly into three parts and it's clear that there is the framework for a series here, if dialog and character drama had been added. Even as strange as some of the ideas are, compelling characters can add a suspension of disbelief to nearly anything, and even flourish in the realm of the strange. However, without character drama to add flesh to the story, you get huge shifts in the story happening in a single line of text. As an example: reborn Zombie Jesus teams up with the Valhallan psychopathic werewolves to take on the King in Yellow is a brief moment of the story. Why can they set aside their differences to fight this common enemy? Don't know, it's never explored.

A big reason I made it to the end is I started playing with the listening timer. I kept increasing it, and could still follow what was going on at x2.5. x3 was just a little too fast, as that resulted in words being chopped apart. However, with no dialog to process, it wasn't a problem to follow even at this high speed.

It is in the last few pages that we are shifted into a character driven a narrative, and the characters engage in conversations, and it is finally entertaining and not just exposition told to us. They are interesting, and quirky, and had the rest of the book been like this, my review would read far different.

Now, if I was to pick a narrator for a post-apocalyptic prophecy, Crosthwaite would be a great choice. He has the voice for it. In the end, when he has characters to perform, he does a good job there as well. His performance adds a lot to the work.

Great listen and a great read

What made the experience of listening to The Myth and the Dead the most enjoyable?

I enjoyed how the reader was able to modulate his voice between characters. He got better at it as he made it further thru the story.

What did you like best about this story?

It had a little bit of all the religions of the world and cultures. It also had some fantasy characters in it that I did not expect.

Which scene was your favorite?

The telling the zombie Jesus death as well as following the angels stories was great. Honestly I liked how each story had its own and it changed. I was caught off guard a few times when a particular fantasy came in too.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

A little of both but nothing over the top where I'm hyperventilating.

Any additional comments?

I look forward to more.

Uhm??

Started of a little strange but got good enough to continue. Descent until chapter twelve and then just shot out into space like I was on drugs! A fee minutes later, I was done! Great zombie action, loads if them with good action until it went sideways!!