Voyage of the Dead Sovereign Spirit Saga: Book 1 of the saga by David Forsyth is very entertaining. The book opens with an outbreak at an airport and then moves to a veritable dream come true scenario. Scott Allen, the primary character and mega millions lottery winner has converted an ocean going car ferry into a luxury expedition mega yacht, Sovereign Spirit.
What better place to wait out a zombie apocalypse then in a lap of floating comfort?
The storyline makes more sense than trying to fortify a mall ala the original Dawn of the Dead and the remake. Sure, malls are cool but they’re stationary and have way too many points of entry. A ship, one as fully outfitted as Sovereign Spirit, has got to be the most original concept I’ve read in this genre.
Forsythe’s writing is crisp and rich in detail. The action scenes are enthralling and heart pounding. His description of events puts you into the scene right along with the characters.
But, and you know this was coming.
In every one of the action scenes, everything works out in favor of the survivors. What I mean is that every single time they embark on an operation not one of the primary or supporting characters has anything bad happen to them. As an example, Allen and his two best friends land on the roof of another friend’s apartment complex to rescue them. The worse thing that happens is that the zombies pile out the roof door and are decimated by the firepower the trio has with them. No one got into H2H with an infected? Very possible that could have happened but it didn’t. The worse thing was that two of them got bloody hands from moving the bodies out of the stairwells. Even that could have been avoided. Granted the group didn’t quite latch onto the fact that blood is one of the forms of viral transference but, Allen did caution them about not touching their eyes, faces or mouths with bloody hands. That kind of made me think that maybe the boys should have worn gloves. With Coast Guard involvement, maybe the Coasties could have offered them some MOPP gear to wear? They would have it on board. Sure MOPP is not at all comfortable to wear for any length of time but it would prove to be fairly bite resistant and does offer protection from blood splatter.
The point I’m trying to make is that there was minimal conflict between the infected and the survivors. Everything seemed to work out in the survivor’s favor no matter who they were. Case in point, Carl Stiller, the man we are introduced to at the very beginning. He loses his wife to the infection yet doesn’t seem to be all that bothered by it. Later when he makes it to a refinery, he just happens to be an engineer and wa-la, he makes the vehicles zombie proof. At no time did he have any issues about losing his wife or have problems grasping that civilization as he knew it has now changed.
Same issue applies to Scott Allen. Did winning a mega million lottery change his outlook on life in regard to zombies? No one has a mental moment where they have a hard time accepting that people are now eating each other.
One other issue I had was with Allen’s wife Michelle. She’s mentioned a few times, briefly described as being model material, a natural artist and later a world class chef. What did she do prior to Allen winning the lottery? Sure, the plotline revolved more around Allen, the Sovereign Spirit and Carl Stiller but Allen’s son and his friends have more dialogue and ‘screen time’ than Michelle. Where was she at when all this was happening? Apparently, she was painting, modeling or cooking while her husband and his prior service buddies were off running and gunning while they searched for survivors to rescue. Where were her arguments that he didn’t need to try to save the world? The only time she has an emotional response with her husband is when their son wants to go along on a rescue op.
Overall, the Sovereign Spirit saga shows promise by including an aspect that has been, for the most part, overlooked within the zombie genre. Being mobile in a well equipped ocean going vessel is always an option, if available, than trying to fortify a building.
I’m looking forward to the rest of the series to see how it turns out.
Available at Amazon
