REVIEW: Down The Road by: Bowie Ibarra
A bizarre plague of the walking dead.
A nation desperate for survival.
It could be the end of the world
Around the globe, the dead are rising to devour the living. Hospitals are overrun, and martial law has been declared. The streets are in chaos. Society is disintegrating.
George Zaragosa is a young school teacher living in the shadow of his fiancée’s unsolved murder. Now he just wants to go home to his family. He has made his journey before, traveling from Austin to San Uvalde. It is a usually short drive. But he knows this time is going to be different.
Along the way, George must negotiate military roadblocks, FEMA camps, and street thugs, not to mention hordes of the living dead. He is determined to make it home, but only one thing is certain: his trip down the road will be a journey like no other.
Plot: The plot of this story is excellent! The idea of the FEMA camps is fresh and it separates it from a lot of other zombie novels out there. There aren’t very many zombie novels out there that focus on the camps established during the heights of the zombie apocalypse. I have read plenty of stories that mentioned Rescue Stations ( which according to Travis Adkins was a term coined by George A Romero) and a lot of those stories mention the inevitable downfall of all those stations, but none of them took that extra step and showed you the anarchy within the walls of a ‘Rescue Station’. His vision of what would happen is quite frightening and plausible, which makes it even more terrifying. The story about George traveling ‘down the road’ is dark. This is a dark story and that’s what I admire most about it. I wont say too much about how dark this story is because I don’t want to spoil anything for future readers of this book. The tone of the story will make you quiver a bit; it’s a good scary read. Putting the title as ‘Down the road: a zombie horror story’ is very appropriate!
There is just one thing I have to make point in this story and that’s the little bit of erotica in there. Is it necessary? I wouldn’t think so considering that this is a horror story, but! I do have to say that just about everything in this zombie story is different from that of a lot of other novels out there, and I think the author wanted to incorporate the erotica bits to further supplement the unique qualities of the story that set it apart from everything else. So I would consider the erotica necessary purely for the fact that it made this story stand apart from everything else, which is a very important aspect to writing anything. Make your story stand out from everything else, make it different.
The writing: I like his descriptive writing. It was very well composed and technically it worked in every way. He also projected the dark tone of the story with a great touch while maintaining great visuals that stay in your head. The writing itself didn’t have very many faults and I didn’t have any problems with pace, pace can be an issue with authors who have a descriptive style of writing, but he managed to keep this story charging forward.
Characters: The characters weren’t bad. I really enjoyed some of the characters in the story, and he showcased these characters well, but I had a few issues with the character of George. It was hard to tell where the character was at emotionally because it is clearly present that he feels distraught over the death of his wife, yet he seems to be the central character in some erotic escapades. Its nothing too major, its just a little bit of an emotional contradiction and hurt my look on the character. Like if he felt that bad about his wife, why would he be doing that kind of thing so intimately and frequently? I understand some of the points to include the erotica bits in the story in the first place, but it just wasn’t that integral to that specific character. I felt he could have kept the erotica in, but I thought he should have done the erotica scenes without George.
Gore and Action: The gore and action within this novel is another notable quality. There isn’t that much to say about the gore and action besides that it was entertaining and well done.
Overall: This is a dark fast paced read with great visuals. I enjoy all the elements to this story that made it unique, and the writing itself was good. I would recommend this read for those who aren’t afraid of a tale that’s dark, because this is certainly a dark tale that you won’t soon forget.
Available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
