| Title | : | Torrent (Slow Burn, #5) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 329 |
| Publication | : | First published July 13, 2014 |
Following his none-too-soon reunion with his friends at the safe house, Zed is hoping things can finally fall into a stable routine, but in post-virus Austin, things are far from stable. On a mission to raid the ammunition bunkers at Camp Mabry, Zed and Murphy spot a group of the newer, naked infected, who are exhibiting some sophisticated and disturbing new behaviors, such as scouting and hunting – for them.
After a narrow escape, the two pass the home of Mr. Mays on the return trip, stirring Zed’s predictable rescuer impulse. Finding Mr. Mays dead, Zed brings fellow chain gang escapee Nico along to join the group, whose numbers have grown again, thanks to their merger with the girls on the riverboat, where the group has moved, as seems to be the safest hiding place… Or is it?
Torrent (Slow Burn, #5) Reviews
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Book 8 of my Zombie-a-thon 2022!
3.5 Stars
Whenever I read these post apocalyptic books I get concerned about some writers' bleak outlooks of how certain people in our society may respond when others around them are vulnerable and weak. There is a perfect quote from this very book to summarise some writers' concerns or possibly expectations for humanity:
"The rain started pouring again, pounding the pavement in a comforting rumble, draining off the roofs and running deep between the curbs. I hoped it would wash away the city's stink. All the evidence of evil littering the streets. And I wondered if the evil resided within each of us. Were the facades we constructed to mask our wicked brutality so fragile that they could be crumbled by a tiny virus and a high fever? Were the Whites not monsters but simply our true selves with the unwanted fetters of morality erased?"
Bleak right! Anyhoo, our band of survivors are starting to work out how they are going to deal with the intelligent whites (zombies) who incidentally have decided to free themselves from the constraints of clothing and are now running around naked 🤷♂️ -
Another great book by Booby Adair. We are once again thrown into the midst of the Whites who seem hell bent on fooling all of Zeds best laid plans and while he does finally catch up to his friends, his good luck is bound to run out. I think my favorite part of this book was the constant bantering between Zed and Murphy. The author has really created a dynamic relationship with these two characters and I am always finding myself laughing at something they say. This book is not all smiles & look-aid unfortunately and some of my favorite characters are no longer with us. Zed does finally lose his cool under the constant mounting pressure and extracts a just, yet final justice after a well meaning gesture of goodwill is tossed aside. He has a plan .. Doesn't he always! And his plan is to systemically remove the Smart Ones from the equation. Once they are gone, all of the other Whites will starve to death or move onto grassier pastures. We did not meet any new faces this time around which was kinda nice. I enjoy our bad ass crew of zombie killers but we do get to learn quite a lot about Murphy in this book. The story line itself, while rather weak, was believable and have zed plenty of opportunity to mess things up . The book as a quick and way read. I read it in just over a day it of course, there is bother cliffhanger waiting for you. Looking forward to book 6!
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Hooked
I'm hooked on these books. I enjoy the characters, Murphy and Zed are so funny even when faced with tough situations, they still manage to make me laugh. I love the writing and can't stand when people pick on little facts about the writing, just read the book and enjoy the story! "empty clips...oops, did I say clips? Old habit." Love your sense of humor Mr. Adair!!! -
I am reading this in the
Slow Burn Box Set: The Complete Post Apocalyptic Series boxed set
Something I don't understand, why would Murphy let a Why wouldn't he mention what he thought had occurred before and not after ? Doesn't make sense.
The ending was sad. They're just too different. I think Murphy's idea for himself in the beginning of the series is a good one. I hope the series ends like that. 4 stars. -
Anyone else want to know what Zed & Murphy look like?? I sure do!
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As with the rest of this series, the story is interesting and the characters are well written, but it reads like an ongoing perhaps permanent story much like a zombie serial. No ending, no single antagonist and no climax. Bobby Adair is a great author, I am not sure I want to keep reading a series with no ending.
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Awesome
Awesome
I love the slow burn series, can't wait for the next one!!!!!!! great action, drama, and love, a great combination of everything that makes a book worth reading. -
by far the best zombie series I have read. bobby Adair has done it again. I hate those bald whites as much as zed does. I love zed and Murphy friend. they have each other back. will be waiting on book 6. read it people you won't regret it!
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The series continues to improve with each book. More survivers are found, more lose that label, and a flood of near biblical proportions keeps the action moving along with this book.
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Great
This series is well worth reading. This book is just as good as the last. It is a new take on the virus that changed the world. Give it a try.. -
Zed is the Indiana Jones of the post infection world. Having a trusty side kick like Murphy along for the ride helps. Bobby, hurry up and finish book 6.
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You’re my lucky charm, not your own.
Loyalties will forever be pulled as taunt as their strings can hold, and shredded at the core day in and day out with the pressing number of the infected gradually climbing. Zed Zane and his friends seemingly found a way to escape the manic clutches of the infected, a ship docked in the middle of the Colorado River in Texas, safe from the Whites who held a paralyzing fear of the waters rushing past. Seemingly unaware of the disasters resting just off the shore, the promise of rain in both a welcomed relief and a terrifying nightmare. As both him and Murphy set off on their own to secure supplies as Scavengers for the group, they begin to understand the playing fields are anything but even.
How many dead can a person see before the pieces of his soul turn to ash and float off into the wind?
While the levels of the fever varied person to person, the intelligence it left behind in those Whites and Slow Burns did as well. Some could communicate in whispered shortened sentences, while others more than eagerly would comply. As both Zed and Murphy witnessed the Smart Ones leading hunting parties, searching and scavenging for survivors at Camp Mabry, the two were paralyzed with fear over the world’s new orders. Running in a desperate attempt to get back to those they loved, hope would find itself buried beneath the weight of thousands of outstretched hands. Standing beside one another they were powerless to stop the line from snapping, from easing the boat away from the shore as Mandi, Russel and Brittney took a last stand on the rooftop of the boat as infected greedily hopped aboard. As Dalhover, Steph, Megan, and Amy managed to escape on a Malibu Ski Boat, Murphy watched on as the woman he came to love amongst the infection, Mandi was massacred before his eyes. Russel in an aid to save Britney, stood in front before the infected could grab onto them both and take them down a path of consumption. Torn on a life even worth continuing, Murphy tries to fight the feelings of despair seeing the last shining thing in his bleak world fall to shambles at the White’s feet.
The shop was a monument to uninhibited human depravity, the kind that scars soul with permanent shadows. I had enough shadows on my soul. All I needed were callouses.
As they traced they footsteps back to the river’s edge, they struggled to catch sight on the boat that whisked several to safety as Hope seemingly was running dry. On a luck too blessed to ignore they stumbled upon the Ski Boat along with The note that could reunite everyone anew. The words we are going to Monk’s Island. Murphy and Zed take the terrain by storm tracing footsteps left behind to find them again while battling the silence of losses gathered at their feet. With every footstep they took, a million White’s were eager to fill in the gaps.
To choose to live, to make that choice to fight for life every day, had to be a choice to accept all the sorrows of all my tomorrows. But if that choice to live was to be bearable at all, I needed to let lose my embrace of the pain, both yesterday and tomorrow.
It took a second for recognition to kick in, but as I looked at him over my shoulder, I was sure it was Mark. Fucking Mark.
Murphy let me know how crappy it was. “Because I’m not retarded. I saw your dumb green lump ass crawling along the whole way.
“It’s like you want me to punch you in the face.” All this talk about punching me in the face was getting worrisome. “Keep an eye out, okay? Give me a few minutes.”
Was it so easy to lose the shackles the past burdened you with? Was it so hard to cry through the grief and then smile to face a new day? Was it so necessary to hold all the pain so close to my heart I could feel it over and over and over? -
I'm a shameless fan of the "zombie apocalypse" genre. It really has nothing to do with horror, but I enjoy reading stories about people overcoming adversity and surviving in a world that has been radically affected by a massive catastrophe.
I've read a LOT of books in the genre, and I consider myself a bit of an aficionado. Therefore, when I say that this is one of the best series I've read in the genre, I'm not kidding.
This book is one of a series of books, and I'm leaving the same review for ALL of the books, because I read them all in a back-to-back binge on my Kindle. In my mind, it's all one lengthy well-told story, and I don't see any point in trying to isolate each book for a review. The series is awesome. By them all, read them in order, and you will enjoy them!
So WHY is this series so good? Well, for one thing, Bobby Adair is a very good writer, and the books are well-written with interesting characters and lots of action.
In this series, the "zombies" are people infected with a virus that essentially fries their brain with fever, leaving them more or less mindless and violent. The interesting twist is that not all "zombies" are equally infected. Some zombies retain some of their intellect, and some remain essentially ALL of their intellect, although they cosmetically appear just as infected as the others. I'd never read a zombie story told from the perspective of someone infected, yet not fully mindless, and what it's like to experience persecution from all sides. The other zombies want to eat you, and the "normal" immune survivors don't trust you since you have the pale skin of the infected.
I also REALLY like the fact that the story is set in Austin, Texas. I'm a native Texan myself, and for a while I in Austin, so it was very interesting to me to read a story that's set in a familiar setting. Bobby Adair knows what he's talking about when he writes about what it would be like to experience the collapse of civilization in central Texas in the blazing summer heat of August.
I also really like the fact that the main characters are interesting. For instance, the character "Zed" isn't a bad ass who was a Green Beret, and he wasn't a prepper before the apocalypse. He's a bit of a loser, who graduated from UT with a philosophy degree yet works at Starbucks, and probably drinks too much and smokes too much weed, and is drifting through life thanks to a lack of motivation from his shitty childhood. He's not an angel, and he makes mistakes, and that makes him very easy to relate to.
I might also add that the book is laugh-out-loud funny in many places. The banter back and forth between Zed and Murphy is hilarious and very believable, and really made the characters come alive in my mind.
Read these books! You will thank me! -
If sh** wasn't real before, now it REALLY gets real, because now you've got mother nature to contend with. As if dealing with hordes of white zombies wasn't enough? Apparently not. Zed and Murphy go off into a wild (but important mission) that of course gets super complicated very fast, and rarely, (if ever) lets up. But given how much I LOVE those two comrades in arms, I still had quite a bit of fun riding along with them to witness their bickering. But of course, since this is a zombie story, things go to crap in some type of way, so...expect the suckage and sadness, depending on which characters you're attached to. I guess I should have thought about that in the very beginning. Don't. Get. Attached. Devastation all around in this book, seemingly never-ending. As always, the title fits. A literal torrent of depressing things.
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I sure hope they make it.
Murphy and Zed have seen and killed more of the "whites". They head out looking for supplies; then a terrible storm moves in with blackened skies and torrents of rain. Rivers rise and banks are swollen and the rivers are running wild. One place, Zed was able to score some pants and boots that fit. They both have lost so much weight. They are able to get back towards the houseboat to find it being swarmed by whites. Some were able to get off and headed down river on a skier boat. They are looking for them. It's night and time to sleep, both wondering what tomorrow will bring. -
Zed and Murphy on the road again
Zed Zane and road partner Murphy along with the Riverboat crew make the best of the the new situation - the virus that turned people white, burned their brains to sludge and gave them an irresistible urge to eat flesh, but only gave Zed and Murphy a real light complexion and kept themselves unappealing to the Whites. Smart Whites weren't fooled though. And love is in the air!
The saga of the Slow Burns continues to make for great reading! The characters are entertaining and the storyline twists and winds its way through the infected landscape. -
Oh Dang Another Cliffhanger
Murphy and Zed go on an adventure for some “rare” supplies and it finally rains in the desert. Except it’s not just a little rain..it’s a flood! Loved this one.. Murphy and Zed are a great team, I love their banter! Murphy is the “smiling” guy and Zed is more pessimistic but he also has a philosophy degree.. when they switch outlooks on life.. and take them for a test drive, I think both of them are surprised in the end! There was also a good deed and it helped to wash away some of the pain. Another great read in the Slowburn series! -
I'm simply captivated by this series--and was so engrossed that I couldn't put it down in order to "render unto Caesar",otherwise known as filing my taxes. I've found the characters Zed and Murphy to be an ideal pairing from the very first episode and am so disappointed that both our heroic figures have lost their lady loves to the Whites in such an appalling fashion. To watch helplessly as they meet their demise has to inform their actions throughout the remainder of the series.
Kudos to Bobby Adair for the non-stop action throughout this series. You've done it again, Bobby! -
A great addition to the story!
Slow Burn 5 is another great book in this series! Zed and Murphy are holed up on the river boat with the other survivors and just when you think they have a safe place the bottom falls out and their pushed back into the world with nowhere to go. This book had so very tough pages to read through, but Zed and Murphy weather the storm and keep on moving forward. I’m excited to see what’s in store for them in book 6! -
Okay
Uh, I'm disappointed in this book. A lot of fun nothing happened.
The Hilton for pain that I am, I'm gonna push through to the next one.
I must admit the humor was good, but a disaster every time Murphy and Zed leaves is redundant. I know the next book is already written so wish me luck.
Otherwise, I really like ever other book in this series. -
Another Great Continuing Story
Book 5 of 9 of the slow burn series continues the story of Zeb and his newly found friends and their battle of survival. After a virus hits and turns everyone into zombies Zeb and his friends have to try to survive them and natural disasters as well. -
I have the omnibus edition of this series so just wanted to say that this installment is fantastic in detail, atmosphere and learning experience.
Zed and Murphy are superb characters, a perfect foil for each other. There is an abundance of loss and horror and yet the coping mechanisms have more than an element of wisdom.
Extremely well done.
Highly recommended. -
I thought this one was quite flat and I really don’t like Murphy and his banter. Also, Zed’s so called heroism is getting quite boring - just the same thing of running into dangerous situations because he has no patience or forethought. I did like that we learn more about the virus and how it effects people though.
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Not only, we have "Smart ones", whites or infected humans that could use the other zombie type whites, to do their bidding, which could be using pure numbers to overwhelm any obstacles.
We now have the drought breaking, bringing another dimension of danger to this horrific world. -
Again, as I have said with the other books in this series, a great read.
