So anyone that knows me knows that I am a huge geek for NRP and in my frequent listening I heard a story about what hopefully would turned out to be an awesome read. I was so interested in fact that I immediately went online and ordered the book for pick up from Barnes & Noble.
Sadly due to work obligations it has taken me a length of times to read it. The book is initially presented as being a found diary from a zombie researcher, then released publicly for us to read and gain an understanding of what he set out to learn. Now I'm not going to give away any details about this book in the event that you want to read for your own.
In fact there has been no bigger lie then the lead up to how interesting this book would be. I would have to say half to less then half of this book is actual "diary". The remainder of the book is "documentation, cliff notes, appendixes, etc" from an international agency set up to study and hopefully eradicate the zombie plague. These little inserts also pop up periodically in the diary section asking or directing how you pay attention to the reading material being presented before you.
The diary portion is interesting enough and at times your mind and imagination can get caught up into, visualising the creatures, the state of the research facility and the autopsies being done however it often falls short by the author's attempt and often over use of medical terms. In post review it appears that the author, Steven C. Schlozman, MD has little imagination and was unable to complete what he set out to do, write an engaging and creative diary from a scientist completing autopsies on zombies. I think the visualization that the reader creates is based mostly on the "drawing" our good doctor left behind with his diary and that an attempt to cover up lack of imagination filled the context with ob secure and made up terms to cause us to read through appendixes to understand him.
I am not familiarly with how many books Steven C. Scholzman has written, or if he's ever written fiction at all however he has sadly fallen far from a well written book and I have been coaxed into giving my hard earned money to him and his publisher.
Had he focused less on the medical terms and over use of that knowledge and taken the steps to build an environment that the reader could visualize, had he taken the steps to build a story for the reader to follow this could have been an enjoyable read. Sadly he did not.
