As The World Dies: The First Days: A Zombie Trilogy [Paperback]

Rhiannon Frater (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 14, 2008

Two very different women flee into the Texas Hill Country on the first day of the zombie rising. Together they struggle to rescue loved ones, find other survivors, and avoid the hungry undead.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Rhiannon Frater lives in Austin, Texas with her husband. She has previously written two different columns for Central Texas magazines covering the underground music and film scene. She loves zombies and Texas.

Product Details

• Paperback: 298 pages
• Publisher: CreateSpace (August 14, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1438250800
• ISBN-13: 978-1438250809
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (169 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #360,578 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm the author of the AS THE WORLD DIES ZOMBIE TRILOGY. The first novel in the series, THE FIRST DAYS, won the 2008 Dead Letter Award for Best Book (Fiction). The second book, FIGHTING TO SURVIVE won the 2009 Dead Letter Award in the same category.

Originally self-published, the As The World Dies books were purchased by Tor. The first book will be released July 5, 2011.

Also, the series is optioned to become a possible TV show in the future. You can also check out my vampire novel Pretty When She Dies, which has been optioned for a possible film. My book for the younger zombie fans, The Living Dead Boy and the Zombie Hunters, has been optioned for film and the director hopes to start filming soon.

I previously wrote for The Edge Magazine and Rank & Revue (renamed Reloaded Monthly) in the mid-00s, before dedicating myself to my fiction writing.

I am represented by Hannah Gordon of the Foundry Literary + Media agency.


Contact me at rhiannonfrater at gmail.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Thelma and Louise meets The Walking Dead...ruined for me by infuriating characterizations, June 17, 2011

By 

All Things Urban Fantasy (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The First Days: As the World Dies (Paperback)

(What's this?)

I'm so torn as to how to review this book because it had several things going for it that I flat out loved, but...it also had one thing that made me want to chuck it across the room several times while reading.

THE FIRST DAYS is basically Thelma and Louise meets The Walking Dead. Jenni is a young battered wife who is about to be eaten by her husband, son, and baby when Katie, a stranger, pulls up in a truck and rescues her. The women quickly bond over their respective losses. Katie lost her wife, and Jenni nearly her whole family. They meet several interesting characters on their escape from Houston including the reluctant leader of a band of survivors they join named Travis. *WARNING* The first scene is one of the most upsetting things I have ever read. Mothers are especially cautioned. *Spoiler* It involves a woman watching her zombie husband eat their baby out of a crib and later what is left of the baby, now a zombie too, tries to get to the mother. Later a different zombie baby, this one an infant, has it's skull bashed in. *End of Spoiler*

The story is so good. It was initially written as an online serial, so every scene is packed with action, conflict, and zombie killing goodness. And I couldn't ask for more from a zombie infested world than I got in THE FIRST DAYS. It's terrifying, chaotic, and full of misinformation and seemingly insurmountable odds. All the secondary characters Jenni and Katie encountered from the husband and wife survivalists holed up in their gun store methodically sniping their infected neighbors, to the Reverend who saves Katie's life and his dog's at the expense of his own, were fantastic.

I wish I could just stop there and give this book a glowing recommendation, but I can't, and it's mostly because of Jenni. She has the maturity and decision making skills of a thirteen year old. She starts out as one of the most tragic character ever, but quickly shifts into an entirely different person who I wanted to strangle in every scene. The day after her husband eats her baby in front of her, she decided to give lesbianism a try. The day after that, she starts flirting with Travis, smirking when she catches him watching her, getting jealous when she thinks he might like someone else. A character who lived through what she lived through should be barely functioning, not worrying about landing a new boyfriend or giggling about a jerk getting eaten by zombies. Every scene she was in (and as a main character we're talking half the book if not more) was more ludicrous than the last. Her thoughts, actions, dialog, and facial expressions became a new form of torture to me.

I don't believe Jenni or Katie would be anywhere near the realm of even beginning to have the slightest inkling of a romantic awareness with anyone yet both women respond the second they meet Travis which is less than two days after surviving an unimaginably horrific loss. Like I said, Jenni should have been catatonic, but Katie's response was almost more shocking because, up until this point, she had repeatedly proclaimed herself to be a lesbian. Turns out she's bisexual which is convenient revelation so both women can test the the bonds of their new friendship when a guy comes between them. I'm getting angry again just writing about this.

Overall, certain aspects of THE FIRST DAYS like the worldbuilding and plot, were amazing, while others, like the characterizations, were infuriating to point of ruining the book for me. The second book in the As The World Dies: A Zombie Trilogy series is called FIGHTING TO SURVIVE and will be published on November 8th 2011.

Sexual Content:
Kissing. References to homosexuality and a discussion of bisexuality. References to gang rape. A brief sex scene.

56 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Zombie apocalypse with a twist: a women's perspective, October 7, 2008

By 

Patrick S. Dorazio "Author of The Dark Trilogy" (Cincinnati, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: As The World Dies: The First Days: A Zombie Trilogy (Paperback)

I guess I should apologize. This is the tenth review of this book and the first one that is not giving this book 5 stars. Nine in a row with all five star reviews is a pretty solid streak and my four star review should not put a damper on things that much. It is just that I cannot provide a review that is filled with as much overabundant praise as the previous reviewers.
Rhiannon Frater has gone where...well, many men have gone before, but very few women. In fact, as I scan my bookshelf that is filled with all sorts of zombie stories I can't really see another female author that pops up there. A few short stories, for certain. When I look at vampire titles there are plenty of women involved in the mix, but as far as the walking dead are concerned, it has been pretty much the boy's club up to this point.
The author provides a fresh, female perspective to the zombie apocalypse. No worries, zombie fans, this is no "girl power" feminine manifesto, though going into this story I had my concerns. The two main characters are certainly two characters that could have fallen into that realm: an abused housewife who is set free by both the advent of the zombie apocalypse and by a ultra confident lesbian attorney who hits the road with her in a desperate attempt to escape the mass slaughter going on around them.
The author does a good job of taking two characters that could have easily been turned into stereotypical archetypes and fleshing them out into real people. Beyond those two characters we also are provided with a variety of strong male and female secondary characters as well. These two fit into this mixed up world of zombie apocalypse, yet they don't overpower it. They grow stronger and there is a bit of a Thelma and Louise-ish quality to their story but they are certain much more than that.
Yes, I freely admit that it is my own fault that I might have jump to some conclusions in advance of getting very far into this book but I also never hesitated to dive into it. I must say I was pleased I did.
The author has a solid writing style and given that this is an inpendent book there is surprisingly few typos throughout. A few but if you have ever read any other independent zombie fiction you certainly will appreciate the level of quality that went into the editing of this novel.

The overall story here runs parallel to many other zombie novels, with the author's own variation on the theme. We land in this story as Jenni, one of our main characters, has just seen her family wiped out by her abusive husband, who was bitten by some bum the night before. Turns out he was infected and overnight has turned into a zombie, killing everyone but his wife, who escapes with Katie, another woman who just witnessed her wife, Lydia, turned into a zombie as well. They escape into the Texas hill country and meet up with other survivors until they come upon a town that is being turned into a fortress. The story is filled with a lot of high powered action and fast moving zombies. There are romantic undertones that are nicely done (something that rarely seems to be the case in most zombie novels...most authors who write this style of book don't do a very good job on that level). In this, the first of a trilogy, we get to see the characters evolve and get to meet several other solid characters. It is a book well worth reading if you are into the zombie genre.

So, with all that said I can comment on why I did not give this book five stars, like so many other reviewers before me. It has nothing to do with the fundamentals of the story. It is solid, well told, and I am looking forward to the second and third installments.
It would be served well to go through a round of professional editing even as solid as it is. I give high praise to anyone who can write and do not get me wrong, but this story could be pushed into something far greater with another person taking a look at it.
The introduction to Travis, one of the main characters in the book, was a bit overwhelming. The author makes it abundantly clear that is is the protypical handsome hero with some of the more fervent discriptions of him. Both of our tough females, who up to this point have been rock stars in dealing with all sorts of adversity, melt in his presence. It was a real "all men fear him, all women adore him" type moment. After the initial introduction the author does a good job of making him more real throughout the story but I thought the initial introduction was a tad bit over done.
A minor gripe I have with this book is when the author inserts references to the zombie survival guide written by Max Brooks in the story a few times. One of the characters is respected as a expert on the subject of zombies because he has read the guide several times and provides others with survival tips based on what the guide has said, although he gripes that the zombies in this story are somewhat different than the ones in Brook's book. Maybe it is just me, but the reference seemed a bit too obvious. That said, I do appreciate, as many zombie fans will, the effort the author went to in attempting to create a safe haven away from the zombies as the residents of the town our two main characters end up in attempt to build a fortress to live in safely as the zombies scratch at them at the outside walls. Envisioning how you would survive a zombie apocalypse long term certainly comes into play with some of her ideas.
I did like how the author dealt with the challenges people would face in dealing with having to kill the infected before they rise from the dead. I am not sure how easy it would be to declare that anyone bitten must immediately be put down but that is addressed here in this story. I think all of us would want to believe we could easily take someone out who has been bitten and has no chance to survive, no way to avoid becoming something that is no longer human, but there is something to be said for giving someone every last minute of humanity they can get before pulling the trigger and snuffing out their lives. Perhaps the author, who does a fine job of exploring this topic in this book, will continue to develop the topic in the second and third book.

In using the rating system that Amazon has, I liked this book. I liked it a lot and encourage other fans of zombie fiction to give it a shot. Is it perfect in my estimation? No, but nothing is. Does the overall trilogy have the potential to be tremendous? Yes, it does. I look forward to finding out what happens next in the second installment.

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Count the Sighs., July 27, 2010

By 

L. Clouser "lindsey" (NC, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: As The World Dies: The First Days: A Zombie Trilogy (Paperback)

It's an almost given in any zombie novel, that there's bound to be some quick reconcile to normal life that wouldn't be entirely realistic. Otherwise we'd be following around a bunch of characters moping about their dead family and friends. BUT. The turning point that made this book ridiculous, was when Jenni managed to utter that she was glad the world went to hell in a handbasket, because gosh darn it, she was stronger for it. She did manage to showcase a little bit of the required emotion for her two dead children with the constant reminder of seeing small fingers scrabbling under a rickity door without weather stripping, but otherwise.. Jenni seesawed violently from a tragic, broken woman to a spunky, carefree girl. The girl was so forlorn and beaten, she tried to smooch her lesbian comrade for some guaranteed protection, but when faced off with some manly construction men, she was diving head first into teasing relationships, and flirting carelessly. I just couldn't dig through all the character flaws to find her convincing.
The empty headed view of lesbians kind of threw me for a loop. The constant reminder that yes, Katie is gay, is aggravating. Jenni is a woman, and they show up together, so they must be a gay couple. It's really just a little over the top cluelessness for me. The fact that Katie can change from full bore lesbian to in the closet bisexual with the introduction of Travis, irritated me.
The story wasn't all bad, and I probably could have overlooked a lot of the characterization and silly plot twists. I just got hung up on the silly, awkward dialogue and the lack of any humanity. It's one thing to kill something trying to maul you or chase you down, but to wish the living dead were nearby so you'd have something to shoot is another. Another Jenni dilemma. Everyone was quick to turn mushy over their own lost, but they were just as quick to forget that the zombies used to be people. At least the majority. I recommend Mira Grant's Feed. I picked As the World Dies on a zombie high because of the cover. I wasn't surprised to learn it was self published. A little peeve, you'll eventually start to count how many times someone sighs in this book. It's as irritating as a public speakers "um's".