When is a Story not a Story?

Very interesting mash up of Sci-Fi, Horror and Fantasy that takes a great deal of tropes and works them into something new. The bad part is it does not go anywhere. This book is ten hours of world building and character background and character motivations that in the end SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER only brings our cast together and introduces what their goals are and why they are doing them. No conflict is resolved, No character grows. A couple of them learn to accept their new place in society but that is it.

The is listed as Book One of the Immortal Journey so I take it has more of a Prequel and hope the next one actually gets on with the story.

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Good Omens meets The Walking Dead

THE COMPANY OF DEATH is by Elisa Hansen, one of the authors of the Twilight parody Awoken (where a young teenage girl falls in love with Cthulhu). She is also a well-loved web reviewer of vampire fiction under the stage name the Maven of the Eventide. Her persona there is a perky Goth who fangirls over vampire fiction while also giving incisive commentary on the feminist, racial, sociological, or even environmental subtext of things like Daybreakers or Kindred: The Embraced.

The Company of Death surprised me as I was fooled by her persona to an extent and expected something a bit more Gothic Horror rather than full-on zombie apocalypse. It's not a straight horror novel but an interesting combination of horror, science fiction, and urban fantasy. It is a story that strangely reminds me of Good Omens combined with The Walking Dead.

The premise is the world has been overrun by zombies but that's not the only problem. The world is also afflicted with vampirism. The intelligent undead have gathered large number of survivors into communes where they're kept safe from the zombies in exchange for their blood. There is a third faction, an ostensibly "good" faction in the Life Preservation Initiative. It is an alliance of human scientists, soldiers, and survivors that attempt to liberate commune while working on a "cure" for zombie-ism in Manhattan.

The protagonist is Emily, a sprightly young woman who successfully escaped with her mother to join the LPI. She lost her mother along the way and it has left a profound disgust and hatred for vampire feeding on her. This is a problem when they want her to infiltrate a commune by serving as a vampire snack. Emily refuses and ends up going on a much more dangerous mission to avoid losing her "purity." How does it end? Well, it results in her meeting the anthropomorphic embodiment of Death.

I really enjoyed Emily as a character and her relationship with Death. As mentioned, it's a bit like Good Omens or Terry Pratchett's Discworld in that the embodiments of reality are quirky living characters. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse make an appearance in the book as does Time. However, the real heart of the book, for me, is the world-building as well as character interactions with the mortal (as well as undead).

The vampires in this book are not remotely romantic and are depicted as horrifyingly disgusting predators who keep their humans in filthy hovels. Even the most powerful and characterized one is treated as a monster rather than a sexy romantic foil. Even so, I felt like the Life Preservation Initiative seemed like it was unintentionally sympathetic by targeting the communes. Don't they have bigger problems right now?

Interestingly, the end of the world didn't seem to occur during "our" present and seems to have happened decades or even a century into the future. There's fully functional and sentient androids (or gynoids) in the setting. One of them is even a major character in the book. This science fiction element adds another interesting layer to the world-building. I also give props to Elisa Hansen for creating a self-identified asexual protagonist, which is not something you ever see in fiction.

The Company of Death is a strange and fascinating little book that doesn't go for horrific desperation but a kind of dark fantasy macabre quirkiness (not a sentence I ever thought I'd use). The situation is terrible and never played for comedy but when you have a party consisting of a god, an intelligent zombie, a robot, a human, and vampire--it never quite feels horrifying either. I like the characters and am interested in seeing where the story goes next. This is clearly at least a trilogy's worth of plot that doesn't get resolved at the end.

Narration wise? Very effective and very well done.

9/10

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4 people found this helpful

amazing book!

Elisa Hansen has proved that she is not only a very talented youtuber, but also an extremely gifted writer. It is an experience that reminds you of the great writers, but still very unique. Elise's writing skills in terms of switching perspectives and giving each character a unique voice. Elisa brings new spins on worn subject matters and unique character arcs for each person.

I can't wait for the sequels.

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A solid performance

Listened at 2x Speed

I hate to say it, but I wish this book had another narrator. Not to say Ms. Odom did a bad job, I just wish there had been another voice for Death, specifically. While she definitely tried to do a low, menacing, mysterious voice for him, it often came off as either too soft to register or simply just plain. Very much my opinion, and nitpicky at that, and I totally understand it's most likely down to budget constraints, as Traci does a great job with the rest of the cast, but just throwing my two cents out there...

The rest of the production was fine. No major deviations from the text, no huge hiccups in quality (barring the occasional hard-to-hear responses from Death every once in a while—probably not an issue with headphones), but also no largely memorable positives either. The voice acting was alright (again, barring my dissatisfaction with Death), the inflections and emotions pretty solid, and the pacing was consistent as well.

Overall, a solid performance that'll get you through the story just fine. The text has no huge accents, dialects, or foreign languages that might trip you up, so I see no huge reason to recommend this over print, but if you generally enjoy or prefer the audio format, there's also nothing to dissuade you from seeking this one out either.

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Fantastic For A First Time Author

While aspects of this struck me as feet finding for an author doing her first solo book (yes, I've read Awoken), there were far fewer of those than I had anticipated. Hansen excels at focusing on character before world, giving her unique take on the apocalypse a meaning that is frequently absent from books with a setting that needs extensive explanation. Emily, Scott, Carol, Death, and even the lightly touched on but intriguing Leif are the ones experiencing the world and give us a reason to care. Deeply. I'm excited for the followup book.

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1 person found this helpful

The performance really drags it down

Fun story, not my usual, but good. It started a bit slow but once you get into it it's a fun ride. I'll definitely keep up with the series. Gave me similar vibes to the Zombies Run podcast/running app. I don't think it's a classic of fantasy literature but I genuinely enjoyed it.

Worst part was the performer. Mispronounced a couple of words which was distracting. Also the voices uses for guys sounds like a fake boy voice you'd use to to make fun of boys in middle school, which really takes away from the more dramatic dialogue. I'm writing this part of my review as I'm only halfway through the story because it bothers me that much. She sounds like she'd be good at reading a textbook or a professional work but I'd say not great for a story about young multiracial adults in a zombie apocalypse.
Update: I finished it and the voiceacting still bothered me but the rest of the story made up for it.

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1 person found this helpful

This was a blast!

Can't wait to read the next book! Such a fun mashup of characters from all my fave subgenres.

(Btw, saw a review critiquing the writing style. Utter crap. Anyone who immediately mentions overuse of adjectives [almost always a guy & especially when it's not true] is an insecure writer. The writing was just fine.)

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Zombily

An entertaining take on an apocalyptic world with zombies, vampires, and androi- Er gynoids. Elisa did a good job establishing the world and characters and Emily was a good lead. I’m glad her first book turned out well and I can’t wait for the sequel.

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2 people found this helpful

Nice listen

I received a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for a review.

I loved this story. I think this is the first zombie story I've read/listened to that also involved vampires, or robots, for that matter. Unfortunately, I think I was spacing when that part was explained, IE, how the two supernatural creatures came about in the same story. The idea of Emily being dead but not was interesting. I've read several stories about Death and this was definitely a different take on him.

The narrator did a great job. No complaints.

While I enjoyed the overall story and the editing (great job!), I did notice some lines, here and there, that were questionable. One such example is: "Carol said at a whispered volume." Why not be direct by saying: "Carol whispered"? Or "Death looked utterly disgusted." How when he's a skeleton?

Otherwise, I wasn't a fan of how it ended... It didn't really end, did it? It's like the writer wanted to keep going but was told or decided she'd written enough and was going to continue with book 2.

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An enjoyable first installment of a epic adventure

This book was a entertainingly unexpected adventure with a incredible, ragtag crew. A great read.

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1 person found this helpful