Zombie Park

The Z-Day Trilogy, Book 1

By: Mark Cusco Ailes

Narrated by: Persephone Rose

Ben Cutler just wants an honest way to make a lot of money! Unemployed and on the short end of the employment stick, he knows his chances of getting a traditional job is slim to never. Ever resourceful and always a forward thinker, Ben comes up with a brilliant idea - Zombie Park! Create a park with zombies, sell tickets and people will come by the hundreds. To his surprise, one of the richest men in the world backs his project and makes Ben an instant millionaire!

Scientists Nicholas and Kathy Hollman have been commissioned by General Wilbur Poe to create "smart zombies" to be used on the battlefield instead of live soldiers. With glory in his eyes, Nicholas is determined to not only create the formula, but cut his wife out of the equation and take all the credit himself. Unfortunately for Nicholas, Kathy is the brain behind everything they do. Robert Forenstein has found the perfect cover for the smart zombie project in Ben Cutler's Zombie Park. He and General Poe will make America the first country to use zombies as weapons of mass destruction and make billions in the process! As with all plans, everyone has their own agenda and the Zombie Park project is no different. The plan rapidly unravels as Nicholas botches the experiments and is inadvertently creating an army of out of control zombies. With a trail of bodies in their wake, neither the Hollmans nor Forenstein realize the true motives behind General Poe's zombie army...and it ain't to save the world!

©2015 Mark Cusco Ailes (P)2017 Derek Ailes

The Title says it all

Zombie Park, it is exactly what you picture it to be. First start with the main character, there doesn't seem to be one. You'd think it'd be Ben Cutler who came up with the idea but he vanishes for long stretches of the novel. Most of the time is between the millionaire Forenstein funding the park and General Po but even then its a coin flip who is the "main" character. Then there are random perspective characters who you aren't sure why they are there if Ben isn't important enough. Second is the plot, a zombie park run by the military to hide secret military experiments. Not suspicious at all. This book really is as cartoony as you can imagine but that could be the point with a zombie park. They mention jurassic park, a lot. As well as describing food and who is eating it, a lot. Being called zombie park the park isn't built until three quarters of the way through the story. I think there could have been more about the zombies than there is, but part 2 is coming. Beware of some long stretches of exposition that could have been done in character.

Despite my criticisms there are bones of a good story. its a B film in novel format but still good with popcorn and enjoying it for what it is. There actually is very little cursing and so that was a plus in my book. So overall the rule is what you see is what you get. Looking to throw all of reality out for a while and just enjoy it for all its cartoonyness.

I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.

Zombie Park

Any additional comments?

A unique twist on a zombie story!! This book was good and I enjoyed its twist on the zombie genre. The narrator did a great job.

I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.

Jurassic park zombie style

What do you get when you take a couple of mad scientists, a power hungry general, a down on his luck dreamer, and a crap ton of money? A zombie filled amusement park. The military wants weaponized zombies, the scientist wants fame, the dreamer just wants to create a cool park make money and be happy. The zombies just want flesh to eat. Get ready for a wild and crazy amusement park
That would make George Romero happy to see. I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.

Awesome

Think of Jurassic park only with zombies. They would make them, display them, have shows with them (like with the dolphins), you could feed some like you do at the zoo, only one rule, no zombie birds - to hard to contain. But really??? It seems the military really just needs a front for their smart zombie project and this sounds good, bit is it good?

This is a very interesting book, with very interesting issues (not to mention the author set it in my backdoor, I don't live that far away from that part of Indiana), the author has everything very well thought out, and his characters are awesome and work so well together, it is hard to say much else without giving the good parts away. If you like audiobooks this one is narrated by Persephone Rose is not to be missed, it is really good, I can not wait for the next two parts.

Enjoyable and Fascinating Listen.

What made the experience of listening to Zombie Park the most enjoyable?

The narration was good and the unique plot made for a great listening experience. I wanted more and I got it.

Any additional comments?

This review copy audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost."

Kind of like a B Zombie movie.

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Yes. I was originally attracted to this book because of its original concept--a partnership between a business man and the government to start a zombie zoo used to house accidents gone awry from creating a zombie military. Good concept. Sadly the execution was poor.

First there is the ridiculous beginning where a rich business man offers money for good business ideas. Then he proceeds both to fund the idea, make the creator a partner in the business. Sure, that happens. This book has very basic sentence structure reminiscent of "Dick and Jane" books. The dialogue is odd in places. For instance, when Ben is asking his girlfriend to marry him, he "looks at her eyes." Then he proceeds to ask her if she will "take his hand in marriage."

The author tells rather than shows through the entire book. His characters are based off of stereo-types, and sadly he cannot even keep his stereo-types straight. Donny is a liberal, animal rights protester in the beginning. At the end of the book, he is some kind of fundamentalist religious survivalist freak. Yeah, not even a psychotic break can explain that change.

If you can get past this stuff, the book is entertaining. The concept remains original and the ending is satisfying. The narrator is pretty good.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

In addition to the things discussed above,the addition of one likable character would have helped immensely. There is no clear hero or anti-hero. The story is about a group of characters--none of them particularly likable. The video game playing fast-food worker who comes to the defense of his co-worker while under attack is maybe the closest thing to a likable character in this story.

Have you listened to any of Persephone Rose’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, I haven't heard any other Persephone Rose's other works. The narrator does a descent job. He has a little trouble maintaining Janice's voice and Billy's voice (toward the end). This is not super noticeable. Otherwise this narrator brings life to what could have been a dull story.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

If this were a movie on Netflix, I would definitely watch it. It has an original take on the zombie theme. I would not pay theater prices to see it, though.

Any additional comments?

I received this book for free from AudioBook Boom in exchange for an honest review from the publisher, narrator, or author.

A fun, tongue-in-cheek zombie ride! Pun intended

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

I took a chance on this book, granted it wasn't a BIG chance because it was free. That being said, I actually really enjoyed it. It's not the best audiobook I've ever experienced, but it did really entertain me, which is what audiobooks are intended to do. I am a huge fan of the zombie genre and this fit the bill.

Persephone Rose, was a great narrator. He seems to go all in on the voices, sometimes very silly ones, but I thought his narration fit the tone of the book pretty well. Subtle this book is not. I mean, it's a book about some crazy people creating (smart?) zombies, and opening a zombie theme park. I loved how the author has both bleeding heart protesters and staunch military mad science types going at it. The Jurassic Park references were a great touch.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book and will definitely go for the next one too. It's not your Walking Dead or World War Z style of zombie book, but people who enjoyed Zombieland or Z-nation will LOVE this book.

Zombie Park

I am a recent convert to the whole Zombie fad and have read some great books, some that were serious and some full of LOL laughter. I was looking forward to giving this one a try. I mean, who wouldn't love a combination of zombies with Jurassic Park?

This book fell flat in so many ways, it's hard for me to truly write a review. I agree that the premise is ludicrous. Who in the world would think that having an amusement park full of zombies would be a good idea? And, zombie sharks and other predators? This is all an accident waiting to happen! But, I also think that this is the whole idea behind this book.

There were certain parts of the book that were great and made a mediocre book tolerable. PETZ? I will be laughing at that one for a long, long time. I have to say that I didn't care for any of the characters, not even the annoying little boy named Billy. It seemed like the author really dragged out the story with minute, repetitive details of this kid's everyday life to the point that I was almost glad he got eaten by a zombie alligator!

The two scientists were horrible to the point that when the wife turns into a zombie, her awful husband is happy. YUCK! The few characters that had some redeeming qualities never really got a chance to grow on the reader IMHO.

It seemed like that author couldn't decide if he was writing a humorous B-movie type zombie book or a bad government/military people wrecking world havoc tirade. Then, you have the mad activist that decides that the way to treat zombies ethically is to set them free and start a Zompoc? Unbelievable!

Then, after humorous, plodding details of Billy's breakfasts for chapter after chapter, at the end of the book, the author decides to describe the zombie attacks in excruciating detail. And, some of this is laughable in how horrible it really is written. Since I was listening instead of seeing the words on a page, I can't give specific examples, but some of the wording was cringeworthy.

The narrator, Persephone Rose, doesn't seem to be able to decide how to treat this book, either. Part of the time, it seems like he is doing a voiceover for a cartoon, and part of the time reading a dramatic treatise. I am sure this is mostly because of the material and I will give more books narrated by him a go if given a chance.

All in all, it's a hard book to review because I found it to be a hard book to finish. The humor is all that makes me give it a 3 star rating. I have the rest of the books in this series on my Kindle, so I guess I will be reading them to see what happens next. I just hope that the author figures out what he is trying to write by then.

I was given the opportunity to listen to the Audible version of this book by Audiobook BOOM! and chose to review it.

Unique and interesting storyline

It wasn't your typical zombie story, but there were tons of zombies! Think of the most fun you've had at a zoo, and and an aquarium.....and then imagine all of the exhibits were zombified.....
Fun read / listen 😊

Thouroughly Enjoyed

Any additional comments?

This was a really fun listen! "Zombie Park" takes place in some future world where being in your 30's makes you too old to be employable and where things are just a little bit... off. The government attempts to create new weapons of mass destruction (as governments are known to do) in the form of 'smart zombies.' Unemployable, average Ben Cutler gets swept up in the mayhem as a scapegoat for the whole plan if it goes awry as the government secretly creates their monstrosities.

This is a story of the silly/fun variety. If you're looking for serious horror, this isn't where you should land. If you're looking for a fun, bizarre, futuristic zombie story, "Zombie Park" is perfect! I like a story that doesn't take itself too seriously. Both the author and the voice narrator greatly contributed to the success of this audio book.

I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.