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Zone One cover art

Zone One

By: Colson Whitehead
Narrated by: Beresford Bennett
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Summary

In this wry take on the post-apocalyptic horror novel, a pandemic has devastated the planet. The plague has sorted humanity into two types: the uninfected and the infected, the living and the living dead. Now the plague is receding, and Americans are busy rebuild­ing civilisation under orders from the provisional govern­ment based in Buffalo. Their top mission: the resettlement of Manhattan. Armed forces have successfully reclaimed the island south of Canal Street - aka Zone One - but pockets of plague-ridden squatters remain. While the army has eliminated the most dangerous of the infected, teams of civilian volunteers are tasked with clearing out a more innocuous variety - the 'malfunctioning' stragglers, who exist in a catatonic state, transfixed by their former lives. Mark Spitz is a member of one of the civilian teams work­ing in lower Manhattan. Alternating between flashbacks of Spitz’s desperate fight for survival during the worst of the outbreak and his present narrative, the novel unfolds over three surreal days, as it depicts the mundane mission of straggler removal, the rigours of Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder, and the impossible job of coming to grips with the fallen world. And then things start to go wrong. Both spine chilling and playfully cerebral, Zone One bril­liantly subverts the genre’s conventions and deconstructs the zombie myth for the twenty-first century.

©2011 Colson Whitehead (P)2011 Random House Audiobooks

What listeners say about Zone One

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

A good read

I enjoyed this book. I will admit that if I was reading a paper copy there were sections I might have skimmed. The author is fond of eulogising in long rambling passages that do not really further the plot, but the plot is excellent, the central characters are well drawn and the narration is clear and nicely paced. I'd definitely recommend it.

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4 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Well written but not enough action

Well narrated, good build up of characters but not enough action for me and ends in an annoying way.

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2 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Very boring

Left completely dissatisfied, the over describing of every minor detail became dull to follow. I was never sure when the story was going to progress beyond the description of every insignificant detail. Save yourself the misery of losing a monthly token and give it a miss.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Monotone and crawling

Dispite being beautiful written and well performed, it's just so dull. If you ever wanted to know what it's like to day dream as zombies try to claw at your face - this is the book for you.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

An great story, that is NOT an action thriller.

This book is a collection of fragmentary musings, nostalgic mental wanderings and reflections about the metropolitan life dead and undead. Do not expect an action packed story and do not be deceived by a zombie setting. That said, it is still a good book, a melancholic journey, which for the most part takes place in the protagonist’s mind. The only objective problem with this story is that, at times it is hard to keep track of the chronological story line with flashbacks imbedded in flashbacks. Still worth a read, but not if you expect a classic gore, blood and guns filled z-word novel.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Hard to follow

Very nice writing but very hard to follow - esp re: timeframes. Constant jumping around of flashbacks and not clearly done made it hard to tell which part of the story we were in. Kind of disorientating.

Very padded out which led to it being quite boring at times. The ending however got very good - the writing, story and pace. Performance was good. One of the few audiobooks I would caution about. Read the reviews first. If you're happy with verbose, slow books then you might genuinely love this esp if you have time to concentrate. But if not, then it's not an easy read/listen

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Somehow making zombies pretentious

Hey, you know how you like horror or zombie apocalypse stories that have depth or action or anything? Yeah, this has barely any of that. Do you like lazy obvious viewpoints concerning living in a city presented in a tedious flashback fashion? Then this is your book. Do you like characters to be unrelatable and uninteresting? Then bam, grab this baby right here.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Bennett brings the apocalypse to life

Colson Whitehead’s take on the zombie apocalypse is like a full fat cake without the calories: a guilty pleasure to indulge in without shame.
As literary as it is gripping, it follows the (mis)fortunes of a distinctly average man in the wake of the collapse in a way that comprehensively suspends disbelief.
But I’m not sure I would have bought into it so entirely without the narration of Beresford Bennett, whose pitch-perfect reading draws you in and keeps you there till the very end of the very end of the world.

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