After Twilight: Walking with the Dead [Paperback]

Travis Adkins (Author), Andre Duza (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2008

At the start of the apocalypse, a small resort town on the coast of Rhode Island fortified itself to withstand the millions of flesh-eating zombies conquering the world. With its high walls and self-contained power plant, Eastpointe was a safe haven for the lucky few who managed to arrive. Trained specifically to outmaneuver the undead, Black Berets performed scavenging missions in outlying towns in order to stock Eastpointe with materials vital for long-term survival. But the town leaders took the Black Berets for granted, on a whim sending them out into the cannibalistic wilderness. Most did not survive. Now the most cunning, most brutal, most efficient Black Beret will return to Eastpointe after narrowly surviving the doomed mission and unleash his anger upon the town in one bloody night of retribution. After twilight, when the morning comes and the sun rises, will anyone be left alive?

Editorial Reviews

Review

Travis Adkins' AFTER TWILIGHT may be the first docudrama zombie novel ever. It's grim, unnerving and compelling. Adkins has a knack for raw storytelling that shocks and entertains. Great stuff! -- Jonathan Maberry, Multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author of ZOMBIE CSU and PATIENT ZERO

Product Details

• Paperback: 284 pages
• Publisher: Permuted Press (December 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934861030
• ISBN-13: 978-1934861035
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #925,666 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Action-packed Sequel, January 24, 2009

By 

Ursula K. Raphael "AstraDaemon, The Zombiephiles" (USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: After Twilight: Walking with the Dead (Paperback)

In addition to Leon and Courtney surviving the Black Beret massacre in Twilight of the Dead, we find out that Vaughn survived as well. Unlike the other two, he doesn't have any lucky breaks (ex: they drive back to Eastpointe in a humvee, Vaughn has to trek back on foot - severely injured). Since he's walking, thousands of zombies followed him back. Then Vaughn loses his mind, wreaks havoc upon the other citizens of Eastpointe, and it's revealed that a group, known as the Odd Fellows, have been manipulating everyone for the past five years.

I loved the first book, but I think this sequel is a thousand times better. I was thrilled to find out there will be a third installment: The Exodus. I will be waiting for it on the edge of my seat, speculating what will happen to the survivors of Eastpointe. (I couldn't help but wonder if the Odd Fellows got the idea for the greyhound buses from the Dawn of the Dead remake.)

Another good book from Permuted Press is The Rage Plague.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Twilight shifts to darkness, October 16, 2008

By 

Patrick S. Dorazio "Author of The Dark Trilogy" (Cincinnati, Ohio) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: After Twilight: Walking with the Dead (Paperback)

Travis Adkins continues the saga of the Black Berets that inhabit Eastpointe, one of the last human outposts in America after the undead apocalypse of five years previous. The story carries forward from where it left off, with Courtney and Leon stuck on top of a building in a town nearby after dealing with Dr. Aaron Dane, who had created a group of uber zombies encased in armor. With most of their fellow Black Berets dead back on the cruise ship that Dr. Dane had been floating around on and creating his army of super zombies, they need to return to Eastpointe. They do not realize that another one of the Berets, Vaughn Winters, the most instable of the lot, has also survived, and has returned to Eastpointe, dragging an entire city of the dead behind him as he escapes.
The plot here is pretty straight forward: we discover that Vaughn has been working for the Odd Fellows, the group of old men in Eastpointe who run things behind the scenes. They have worked hard to insure that no one knows of the other human settlements still out there, believing that the populous will be more manageable if they believe they are the last living souls on the planet. Vaughn, who was unstable to begin with, becomes unhinged after facing off against Dr. Dane and his metal misfits and when he returns to Eastpointe and deals with the obsessive Odd Fellows, who crave control over the cure Dr. Dane claims he had in his possession on the ship, quickly unravels and decides that Eastpointe and everyone who has lived in relative comfort for five years needs to suffer and die. With thousands of zombies now scratching at the walls, he has the tools he needs to cause their distruction.

Travis Adkins has produced a solid follow up to his first book, Twilight of the Dead. The writing style is even and he does a good job of describing the gore and violence that we zombie fans crave. While this story does not really spend much time with our main character of the first book, Courtney, it does develop a good deal more depth with the characters Leon and Tyrell, both introduced but not detailed extensively in the first book. The pace of the action is quick here, with the story covering a little over a day. We are given a few flashbacks to provide us with a background on Vaughn, the disgruntled and disturbed Black Beret who wants to see the whole world burn and eaten.

Overall, the story is entertaining but our villain lacks quite a bit in my humble estimation. It is only my opinion and perhaps others will feel differently but I felt that Vaughn was not too impressive as the bad guy. His efforts at smug superiority to everyone around him comes off as trite and insignificant. He is a wanna be metal head who was on track to becoming the next big thing in music when the apocalypse hit. He lost his sister, who he has, shall we say, a very personal relationship with, and has felt like he has been walking with the dead ever since. When he fails to outwit or outsmart someone he instead tries to menace and threaten them but he comes off as just a self absorbed goth with a chip on his shoulder.
Somehow, he is the one Black Beret who the Odd Fellows, the secretive leaders of Eastpointe, choose to be their primary connection amongst those that go out and procure needed supplies. So when they go out on procurement runs, he secretely collects things for them and more importantly, keeps other things hidden that they do not want the community to find. It just struck me as odd that he would be the choice of such a group of old men-the "devil worshipping" rocker with the vampiric complextion and long black hair with the worst attitude of anyone in Eastpointe. To me it felt like a stretch that they would trust someone like that with anything, let alone all their closely held secrets.

But enough of my criticism of Vaughn. While I did not buy into the menace and smug superiority of this bad guy, I could appreciate the development of the rest of the characters here. Vaughn's descent into darkness moves the plot along, carrying things forward and getting us to the meat of the story, with the undead once again clashing with the living as more and more of the human race is diminished and devoured.

I do enjoy the writing style that Travis Adkins has and though I might feel that his villains in both his previous book (Dr. Dane) and in this novel lacked something, I think he has done a solid job with these two novels. If you enjoy zombie fiction then this is certainly one to take a look at, along with its predecessor. I look forward to the third installment, Exodus, when it comes out next. Courtney, Leon, and Tyrell are characters I have grown interested in and I am curious where their journey will take them next.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars not as good as the first, February 5, 2009

By 

J. Ploeger - See all my reviews
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This review is from: After Twilight: Walking with the Dead (Paperback)

it wasnt as good as the first book, it took a little while for me to figure out what was going on and such. but when it got going it got going good it was a decent sequel, once it got going some holes were filled that were left empty from the original i look forward to reading the 3rd book..james...