The Complex by J. Rudolph is book 1 in a series titled The Reanimates. The story starts out in Japan with a small boy and his pet rat. After a nuclear power plant leakage and radiation contamination, Japanese citizens are evacuated and the boy’s family, along with his pet rat are off to the Big Apple. Little did they know that his little rat friend carries a deadly virus that produces a 100% mortality rate in humans. The problem is, the victims don’t stay dead. During a lay-over in California, a woman is bitten by the seemingly friendly pet rat, and this is where the rest of the story takes place. The day the apocalypse “hit†their little southern California community, was a regular day like any other. People went to work, kids played outside, and ravenous zombies were on the verge of taking over their small town.
Cali and Trent were watching the news in their apartment when the reports came in. They band together with the other members of their gated apartment complex to build a safe fortress from the zombies. At one point a band of marauders appear and try to take what they’ve built and the complex survivors must stand and fight for all they’ve attained.
First, I’d like to say I think the book was well written. The book was free from errors and I enjoyed the style of writing. However, there were a few things worth mentioning that I didn’t care for in the book. First, there was little character development. There were quite a few characters and most of them seemed to blend together. Nobody stood out from anybody else. At one point, somebody died and I couldn’t recall who the character was.
Another thing I’d like to point out was the calm and collected attitude of the complex survivors. We are in the midst of a zombie apocalypse and it seemed that everyone was very calm, cool and collected. Everybody knew exactly what to do and when to do it. It seemed a little unrealistic that there was no panic and very few deaths – it seemed as if they felt the zombies were just a mild nuisance, and not a major threat.
Overall, I thought the storyline was very good, and the book was well written – the ending had an interesting twist and the sequel is definitely in my queue to read!
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