What’s Sunrise About? Aside from zombies of course
At sunrise, the dead began to walk the earth.
Our days were numbered.
The world was over.
One month after the virus took over the United States of America and turned its inhabitants into ravenous, flesh-eating monsters, Dakota Travis and his friend Steve Earnest have been barely surviving. Hiding out in an abandoned apartment building, they struggle to live in a world where danger lies around every corner and is not limited to only the threat of the walking dead. Their latest supply run almost ended with their deaths. When a local gang violently uproots them from their shelter, there is little they can do but run.
Their flight finds them sanctuary one town over in a converted insane-asylum with members of the United States military. While things should be safer, an underlying tension begins to rule their lives as Sergeant Armstrong, leader of the small unit, begins to succumb to insanity. Tension runs high within the asylum. When all that separates them from the undead is a chain-link fence, Dakota begins to wonder whether or not they might be safer outside, especially when his feelings for another man leave him an open target to the disaproving within their midst.
Our Sunrise Review
In Sunrise Kody Boye has developed an interesting story of survival. The zombie apocalypse came and the world as we knew it fell apart. There does not appear to be a governing body. There are no safe zones. There are only packets of individual people who have pulled together to make small areas secure. We’re not even talking small towns secure but buildings or clusters of houses. The dead are walking and no one is safe.
As you open the first pages of Sunrise we start the novel by following in the footsteps of Dakota Travis and his best friend Steve Earnest. They are alive but are barely getting by and supplies and what they know they can scavenge are running low. If they weren’t already planning on getting on the move that intention was solidified when what looks to be a gang sees they are alive and attacks their building in hope of stealing whatever supplies they might have. They are able to escape but are on instantly on the run with no where to go.
As they are running they pickup an ex-gang member and end up in what was once an insane-asylum that had been being converted to a hotel. While they knew people were inside they didn’t know that it was being taken care of by a small group of soldiers who also had civilians with them as well. Dakota, being gay, is very uneasy in their new environment. Before the airwaves had been taken over there was a new uprising of folks who would instantly fit in with the Westboro Baptist Church who were blaming the entire zombie apocalypse on the gay population. With tensions high, the sergeant in charge of this company of men seeming to be cracking under pressure, and the idea of bigotry popping up they were starting to feel they should be on their way. Little did they know in this group of military men that Dakota would fall in love.
All hell breaks loose (as it tends to in a novel like this) and the survivors have to split up to escape. We lose track of some and follow the others as they attempt to meet up and a location that had been previously discussed.
The novel is extremely well written and a great tale on survival under pressure. We are introduced to a new kind of zombie (and zombie animals) in this tale which lead to quite a few refreshing ways to think of the genre. For anyone homophobic out there you may not be a huge fan of parts on this one but the story is so solid I’d suggest you get over it and go on. If I had any complaints about this novel it would be that people seemed to pickup headshots rather quickly but that is something that the vast majority of zombie novels suffer from. (Also the men to women ratio seemed far too high even though part of the novel was clearly about LGBT friendly. Women could totally survive int his world too! Though complete props for the last female introduced to be a strong character.)
This is one that will really draw you in and personally I’d love to see a sequel to this novel following up on what happens to our band of survivors. Also I really want to know what the hell these new zombies are all about.
Where can you get Sunrise?
Sunrise is available on Amazon.
