Anthony Rapino’s Soundtrack to the end of the World starts out a little slow as we’re introduced to two friends, Marty and Corey. The initial first few chapters are more about their friendship and Corey’s not so good stand-up comic routine. Marty plays Corey’s stage manager and security for his gigs and his services as security/bouncer are needed more than manager.

Wrapped up between Marty in his own little worlds via earbuds and Corey’s bad jokes, there’s strange happenings going on. On the list but not in the top 10 strange events happening is the Phantom Shitter. Someone is leaving calling cards in Corey’s apartment complex via the issuance of night worms. Then there are the random encounters with people who seem to know both Marty and Corey yet neither of the two has ever met them.

Let’s not forget Dr. Pepper, no shit, a real character in the story tagged with that name that hands out advice to Marty that is as abstract as Chinese Confucius proverbs or what you get inside a fortune cookie. Following up on one strange event, Marty meets Naomi, a spiritual reader who specializes in reading a person’s aura.

The weirdness needle really hits the peg when Marty and Corey go to a nightclub/rave where the musical group plays something that makes a person leave their body like transcendental meditation. Shortly after experiencing this rave, both of the main characters discover that there is even more strange shit going down and its not being delivered by the Phantom Shitter.

Reminiscent of the B-movie Lifeforce, Soundtrack to the end of the World pits our fearless friends, Naomi included, against something sapping the lifeforce, soul, energy or whatever you want to call it out of people then turning them into screaming zombies. With Naomi somewhat directing them and being hampered with earplugs, they must now find a way to shut off whatever it is causing this problem, fight off zombies who have lost their aura/lifeforce and save the world.

Rapino’s novel is an interesting read. I admit it was a little slow starting out but looking back it was that way to establish the connection between the two main characters and lull the reader into a false sense of complacency. Once the zombies show up, and these are not like any other zombies, the action kicks in and continues as the group tries to locate the source, evade roving screaming zombies, bypass panicked civilians and do the complete opposite of what everyone else is doing, head towards the source of the zombies not head for the hills.

Overall, the storyline is a bit drawn out but stills holds integrity. The characters are believable and not high speed zombie killers. The premise is different from other books within the genre but not different in a bad way. Soundtrack at the end of the World is entertaining but there was a small formatting issue with the MOBI copy I received that bled over the header into the middle of the chapter. Not a big issue but for the first few pages it was a bit distracting. One other minor issue, yes I had to bring this up, in the latter part of the story, Naomi is using a rifle and inspects its chambers. Hate to say this; a rifle has a chamber only as in singular not plural. Outside of that there were no other technical issues with the book unless you count the formatting error.

Available at Amazon.