I expected a lot more from these acclaimed authors than a novella about a virus that makes people turn into laughing maniacs and the efforts of an Army battalion fighting the hoards around Boston. It took some time to determine what was happening as there was no back story about the virus, etc. and there were too many names to keep track of. In fact, I wondered who was in charge and from where did the soldiers receive their orders.

The premise of the story was feasible and many of the infected "citizens" made me laugh at their antics...especially the couple dressed to the nines and driving a convertible Cadillac through the city, dragging bodies that are hooked up to the bumper in their wake. It also wasn't clear if the infected attacked one another or only those not infected. It's a real challenge for the soldiers as these "infected" citizens are not the mindless zombies from other books in the genre and are a formidable foe. In fact, they look normal until they start laughing. I'll pass on the rest of the series. ( )

http://read.tharos-web.de/2018/02/15/craig-dilouie-retreat-1-pandemie/ ( )

My original Pandemic audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

As soon as I heard about this audiobook, I literally stopped everything went to Audible and bought it. I have listened to stories from all three authors, Craig DiLouie, Stephen Knight and Joe McKinney, before and knew that this was going to be good. Then mix in one R. C. Bray to the mix and you would think you would have an audiobook powerhouse of a story.

A pandemic virus has spread to the United States turning people into creatures. No not zombies, but kind of the same idea. As the disease is spread by body fluids. The diseased are called Klowns because they laugh hysterically when they are inflicting pain on others or experiencing pain themselves. They are not mindless by any means and live to turn you into one of them.

Interestingly the story stars after the initial infection and society has already started to crumble. I am going to assume so that will leave plenty of material for flashbacks and characters remembering thing from the start of the outbreak.

From the beginning we are dropped into a small military unit in Boston. As they try to defend the city from the Klowns. This is where you can tell that the team of authors are experienced and really good at what they do. Because of the characters. Not cookie cutter, black and white, transparent or shallow at all. They are quite dynamic in the sense that their personality continue to change throughout the story. DiLouie, Knight and McKinney were able to pump so much emotion into each and every one of them I could smell the fear they were experiencing.

Pandemic is a military action filled nightmare. With some of the scariest infected that I have come across. I just felt that the story didn't really go anywhere other than to set the story in motion for the rest of the series. It did, however, make me interested, and kept my interest, enough to be on the look out for the next in the series.

R.C. Bray was the narrator. Really I could just stop there. Bray is a narration master. Continuing to develop his skills and adding those special touches that has made most love his style. In this performance he laughed like a mad man and sang a verse from a song. Bray delivers at a solid pace, however I did find this performance to be a bit on the slow side.

Audiobook was provided for review by the publisher. ( )

This is a boy book *giggling* yes, I am a girl and it is a boy book and I totally dug it, balls to the wall dug it because:

a) it was written by Craig DiLouie and I want to have his brain babies
and
b) I like boy books.. especially ones with big guns and explosions etc and homicidal clowns..err. klowns.. err... read on



Craig was introduced to me when I read the Infection, which was introduced to me by my friend Jessica who has a tendency to introduce me to books written by authors whose brain pans I want to lick like a lollypop! Now the Klowns would wanna lick it ..*giggle* yes I giggled a lot and was kind of knocked off kilter with the premise and some of the situations, and had a lot of OMG moments...

In fact the more I read this the more disturbed I was, my face twitched a bit and I felt something nagging in the back of my mind. I was not sure what to think. Having lived in the Boston area, where the book took place, I was even more out of place, the dreams I had were messed up. I can't really discuss the book, there would be to many spoilers.

Like his book Infection, it is not a zombie book, there is an infection, sure, but they are not real zombies, and also like Infection, they are driven in a mob like mentality... oh and they also like playing with water balloons and spreading the infection. What the two have in common, I will let you guess and go read the book to find out. What I can say is it starts off with something you think is a typical premise and mixes in something completely new and different, kind of like adding cayenne pepper to your pancake batter or salt to your carmel, sure not new now, but it was at one point wasn't it? Craig DeLouie is in the ground floor with this little bloody gem and of his and I like many others cannot wait for the second novella to come out!

Oh, one other thing, if very rational people who never think things are funny, and normally have to force a laugh start finding things funny which normally shouldn't be... they start laughing? RUN... RUN FAST.. VERY FAST!



Craig knows I want to have an intellectual crush on his bad boy self and waved a copy of this bad boy at me and I grabbed it right up... I didn't promise crap but I am writing a review, of course! *GRIN* ( )