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Dark Lands (Atrum Terra, Book 1) by Brenton J. Cox

A zombie apocalypse I can get behind. 🧟‍♂️

Etrum Terra offers a different way to look at the zombie apocalypse, in the sense that the majority of the story is told from the perspective of the military. Now some might say, “almost every zombie story has a military presence,” true, but I implore you think about this for a second. Yes, there is almost always some kind of military presence in one way or another, due to the nature of the situation, but there's hardly ever a military focus.

Majority of zombie stories are told in a very narrow scope, following a single person, or group of people, and showing the outbreaks impact through the eyes of the average person. I’m going to make a bold claim, and say that this is not a creative decision, but a tactical decision (albeit one that works). It’s an artifice that relies on pre-established staples of zombie lore. By focusing on the general public, it allows the story and characters to become more relatable to the average person. And just like any zombie story, the assumption is that it’s happening everywhere, even if you can’t see it. This allows the story to maintain its smaller, more intimate (as they like to call it) focus, and only every now-and-then allude to the state of the world at large with lines like, "For all we know, this could be happening everywhere" (how many times have we heard that?). This comes in especially handy for movies and tv in order to save money.

But Etrum Terra goes in a slightly different direction. There are two different story lines being told here: one following the military; one following an average person. But it's about a 70:30 split, majority of the book focuses on the military responding the outbreaks across the country. This allows for two great things to happen that are atypical of zombie stories:

1: A reprieve from the overused perspective of following an average person trying to survive and locate their loved ones (while there is a "loved ones" aspect to the non-military story arc, it's VERY different).

2: The scale of the outbreak isn't left to assumption. You actually get to see the scope of the situation, and the attempts being made, not just to survive it, but to stop it.