Dead End [Paperback]

Anthony Giangregorio (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 30, 2009

The suburb where Adam, Paul, and Josey live has transformed into a wasteland of empty houses and slow, shambling dead. In this new world where a deadly virus transforms its victims into living dead things hungering for human flesh, this small band of survivors must do anything and everything they can to survive from one day to the next. In the city, a small haven has appeared in the form of a fortified church building... but the good Reverend in charge isn't everything he seems. The 'holy place' is quickly becoming a madhouse surrounded by the dead and led by the insane. Adam and his friends trek unknowingly across this mysterious and dangerous post-apocalyptic world on a collision course with the vicious church dwellers in the city. Will there be a way out for the survivors, or are they all headed for a Dead End?

Product Details

• Paperback: 252 pages
• Publisher: Permuted Press (May 30, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934861189
• ISBN-13: 978-1934861189
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,139,656 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Another Disappointment From Anthony, July 4, 2010

By 

zombie phreak - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dead End: A Zombie Novel (Paperback)

I bought this book hoping for a new zombie apocalypse type of story, and I was once again disappointed. This book is just another rehash of the standard zombie story. The dead come back to life, chaos ensues, society as we know it collapses, and a small number of people try to make their way through the mess while staying alive. Not really a lot of wiggle room there for alterations, but I always hope that I'll find what I'm looking for.

Now Permuted Press really isn't my favorite publishing house to buy from because of Anthony Giangregario's childish antics and his poor editing and writing skills. But I decided to be fair and give him a chance.

I wasn't expecting anything great, and I wasn't disappointed. However instead of just complain, I'm going to list things I liked and things I didn't like, just to keep it fair. So let's dive right in!

What I Liked:

No explanation of why the dead started to rise. This may be just my personal preference, but when stories try to explain why there are zombies walking around eating people, it takes something away from the story and slows down the action. It's always been my opinion that if the dead began to rise and you were running and fighting for your life, you wouldn't really care where the zombies came from or why they rose from the dead. You'd be too busy trying to just to keep yourself and your loved ones alive, getting food and finding a safe place to sleep.

Slow zombies. I HATE running zombies, or "the infected," or whatever those things from 28 Days Later were. Again, just a personal preference.

Head shots kill the zombies. Romero type zombies that die when you destroy the brain, again, always my favorite type of zombies.

Now for the other side of the argument, which sadly is much longer than what I did like about this book. And I hope you're in for the long haul because I've got a lot to say.

What I Didn't Like:

The constant raping of women. Need I say more?

Timmy - We find out very early in the story that this character is 8 or 9 years old, and later on page 166 the author confirms that Timmy's age is 9. However the actions of the character are more like that of a 4 year old. I have several nieces and nephews and not one of them was this naïve, stupid and uncoordinated when they were 9.

Eve - When we are first introduced to Eve she is portrayed as a smart driven young woman who graduated at the top of her high school class with a scholarship and she was bound for college when the zombie apocalypse began. Yet as soon as the drek hits the fan she turns into the typical damsel in distress simply because there's a couple of big strong men who tell her she has to stay and be their sex slave. Never once does it cross her mind to simply steal a few days worth of food (Which she has round the clock access to), stash it somewhere, then sneak out during the middle of the night and strike out on her own. What happened to the smart, resourceful, opinionated young woman we were introduced to? Did all that just vanish because there are a few big strong men around and she has a uterus?

Paul - In the beginning this character is supposed to be our smart survivalist gun guy. Yet he continually says and does some pretty dumb things that no survivalist in his right mind would do or say. Not bringing extra ammo? No generator at his basement/bunker? Etc.

Now on to the nit picking -

Page 2, Zombies begin rising from the grave. I call B.S. on this one. First of all, in the USA, all graves by law have to be at LEAST 6 feet deep, the lid is either nailed, screwed or latched shut, and there are 6 feet of dirt on top of the coffin. I don't care if you're Arnold Schwarzenegger, you're not gonna bust through a coffin, and then push through that much dirt. It's just physically impossible.

Page 4, Adam's parents die and he buries them in his back yard. Yes the whole world is dying, the dead are devouring the living everywhere, looters are running rampant, the dead are roaming the streets, it's not safe to go outside... yet he had time to dig two graves. Yep, makes perfect sense.

Page 5, Adam picks up the phone and realizes he has no family to call. Wait, you just said on page 4 that you had "extended family that lived out of state." I'm not a genius but I'm pretty sure that counts as someone to call to tell them that their brother/sister/in-laws are dead.

Page 10, The president of the US comes on TV and Paul says, "What do you think he's going to say?" WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK HE'S GOING TO TALK ABOUT!?! Gas prices!?! Trade relations with China!?! His stance on stem cell research!?! He's going to talk about the zombies and what the authorities plan to do about it! I thought this guy was supposed to be smart, what smart guy looks out his window, sees a bunch of flesh-eating zombies walking around, then wonders what the special report interrupting daytime television is going to be about!?!

Page 11, The president says "keep posted to your television..." ummm, don't you mean "stay tuned?"

Page 13, The phrase "State police," is used, in that exact way. State is capitalized and police is not. State AND police should both be capitalized, it's the name of a branch of state government. Did anyone edit this thing?

Page 15, The word "China" is capitalized when it's being used to refer to wedding china, not the country. It's official, no one edited this at all.

Page 15 (again), "The zombies merged to form one entity..." Were they combining to form Voltron?

Page 16, A van crashes into a building across the street and Adam and Paul just watch as a man and a woman are dragged screaming from the wreckage and are eaten alive. Then they hear the crying of a child, and suddenly they spring into action! Adam states, "I can't let a kid get slaughtered!" But he'll sit and watch the kid's parents get slaughtered and not bat an eye? Nice guy huh?

Page 16 (again), Josey (Paul's wife) sees the men tooling up for battle to go save the crying child and says "Will you two hurry!" So what is she? Chopped liver? What's stopping her from grabbing a gun and running to help the child too? Just a few pages ago Adam stated what a "strong efficient woman" she was. Plus later we find out on page 94 that she's an even better shot with a gun than her husband is. So remind me again why she can't leave the shelter to go help? Is the fact that she has two X chromosomes stopping her?

Page 17, Paul and Adam leave the shelter to go save the child. Paul says to Adam, "Make sure the safety is off or this is gonna be a short trip." Ummm, I'll admit it's important to take the safety off your weapon before you fire it, but if he forgets that means the whole mission has to be aborted? It takes less than a heartbeat to take the safety off a pistol. The author obviously doesn't know much about firearms. (More on this later).

Page 20, This is where the moronic Timmy is introduced. The 9 yr old whose parents were just slaughtered in front of his eyes, yet he asks, "Where's my mom and dad?" Moron, did you not see them just being ripped from the car and being devoured by the living dead not 10 feet in front of you!?! Did you not hear them screaming as their flesh was being ripped from their bodies?!

Page 20 (again) Paul states now that they have Timmy that they have to get moving because they have "depleted their ammo." First of all, Adam has his revolver (6 rounds), plus a Browning pistol (which has a 10-13 round clip depending on the model), and Paul has a hunting rifle, (5-10 rounds depending on what kind it is) A possible maximum total of 29 rounds, and a minimum of 21 rounds. On the same page it says there are only 12 zombies around, how exactly did they deplete their ammo? Plus I thought Paul was a "Smart survivalist," what kind of "smart survivalist" forgets to put a few extra clips/shells into his pockets when he's going into a combat situation?

Page 20 (yet again) Adam is carrying Timmy on his back and states that Timmy is "50 pounds of dead weight." Are Timmy's legs broken? He can't walk/run himself? What kinda 9 year old can't run 100 feet from one house, across the street, to the back yard of another house and into the basement?

Page 22, The lights go out because the power grid has finally failed, plunging the basement into darkness. Paul responds with a very colorful curse which I won't repeat here. So they're screwed? What kind of "smart survivalist" doesn't have his own generator? Heck I have one in my house, it's just enough to keep the fridge, lights and hot water heater running when the lights go out during an emergency. They're cheap and easy to get. So if a schmuck like me can get/afford one, why can't this "smart survivalist" have one?

Later we go on to meet the Reverend, our medicated schizophrenic man of God. His medication has run out and instantly he begins hallucinating that a statue of Jesus is talking to him. First of all, the man is very intelligent. He knows he has been medically diagnosed as a schizophrenic. He states that he has been taking his medication for 10 years and has been a normal fully functional member of society. Yet as soon as he sees a statue talking to him he instantly believes it's real? He doesn't question this? He doesn't think, okay I knew this was coming? As someone who worked with actual schizophrenics I can tell you that the change from medicated to unmedicated does not go this quickly, and most of them are able to understand what is real and what isn't as the medicine is being removed from their system due to withdrawal. The author... Read more ›

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poorly written, definitely not the best Permuted Press has to offer, November 16, 2009

By 

Andrew Baye (FL, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dead End (Paperback)

I am a big fan of zombie and apocalyptic horror and have enjoyed every other title I've read from Permuted Press, however this book is so poorly written and the story so flat I couldn't force myself to read more than a few chapters, despite wanting to give it a chance since I paid full price for it at a local brick & mortar book store.

I usually have to force myself to stop reading similar books and couldn't put down Day by Day Armageddon, Dying to Live, and Thunder and Ashes, all from the same publisher. If you love the genre, Permuted Press has a lot of incredible titles, but this is not one of them.

12 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Took a chance on a new zombie author, June 20, 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: Dead End: A Zombie Novel (Paperback)

Giangregorio seems to have a whole slew of zombie novels here on Amazon, none of which had any reviews before the first reviewer took a chance on this one. I was a little leery with numerous titles and no reviews, worried that somehow I was not privy to some sort of self publishing joke. There are plenty of bad zombie novels out there and I have read quite a few. I am not one to avoid anything with a zombie in it, so I was bound to try this author out. I am just glad to have had someone else take the leap before I did.

This is definitely a self published work (I have not heard of the company Xlibris before, but I am guessing that they are much like I Universe and others giving an author a chance to print their own stuff). There are definitely typos in this story, a lot of too for to and vice versa, some misplaced " marks, etc. but really one of the better self published efforts. A good editor could have really sharpened this story up and tightened the errors and a few awkward phrases here and there but the author has done a good job of creating a vivid story with characters you can appreciate as real and grow attached to through the story.

Our main character is Adam, who is coping with the death of his parents at the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. He is taken in by his neighbors, Paul and Josey, who are hiding out in their cellar as the world around them crumbles. After a few weeks stuck underground they begin to run out of food and start to search for other survivors.

Don't expect any major twists on the Romero zombie formula. For me that is not a problem, as I enjoy the traditional stuff as well as the variations that are out there. For me, zombie stories are about the scares and the character development. Give me the gore and the emotions that go along with a worldwide apocalypse where the dead have come back to eat the living. We get a healthy dose of slimy humans reminding us of how much worse we are than the undead who cannot help being what they are. The depravity of mankind is fully on display in this tale.

Again, nothing shocking here but a solid story by an author I am certain I will be checking out again. If you like your zombie stories traditional, with a side order of wretched humanity thrown in, this is a good book to pick up.