The Final Outbreak (Madness Chronicles #1-3) by M.L. Banner

The Final Outbreak (Madness Chronicles #1-3) Reviews

• 
  Tracy

  M.L. Banner's The Final Outbreak (Madness Chronicles, #1-3) flew by in the blink of an eye. By the series conclusion I did not want to say goodbye to these (well developed) characters. The impeccably written narrative held my undivided attention as I zipped through all three books - one after the other. Good stuff.
  Narrator Gary Tiedemann did a phenomenal job keeping up the rapid-fire pace with this very diverse group of larger than life characters.
  A Post-apocalyptic grandslam.
• 
  Michael Keller

  The Rage Virus has gone viral! It began with birds, like a Hitchcock movie.
  
  The world has gone crazy, starting with the explosive eruptions of volcanoes around the 'Ring of Fire' and the haze of volcanic ash clouds blanketed the planet. Airline traffic was crippled as the powdery grit clogged engines. From the clouds of ash flew feathered fury. Nothing living escaped their wrath. Waves of mice and rats overwhelmed all in their path leaving blood and bones behind.
  
  The explanation was found to be a parasite that is found in most mammals. This single celled amoeboid, named T-Gongii, infested the host brain, subtly rewiring parts for an unknown purpose and on known effect. . . until now. Thermophyllic bacteria from the volcanic clouds found a welcome home in the brains of warm-blooded mammals and merged with T-Gondii activating the rewired brains. Once activated, the host became able to identify anything not infected and became violently, ravenously, single- mindedly fixation on killing and consuming its prey.
  
  The only safe place on earth may be the Regal European cruise ship, 'Intrepid', where Ted and T.J. Williams and the ship's officers and crew fought to keep the passengers alive and the ship afloat. Waves of red-eyed critters with murder on their minds wreaked havoc on the Intrepid and the latest wave of crazies were human!
  
  This is a horror story in the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock and Rod Serling. The characters live and breath (for a while) in full Technicolor, brought to us from the mind of a master storyteller. The action is non-stop and insanely scary! Mindless rage and flesh-eating gluttonous appetites fuel the exciting prose. This is a must-read book, but choose where and when wisely! Read with a friend, or have a buddy standing by, but read it! 
• 
  CloudyEm

  Well researched and written
  
  Great characters to follow through a very well written plot.
  Horrible circumstances interspersed with some clever humour at times.
  I think Horror not thriller would be a better description.
  Looking forward to reading more from this talented author.
• 
  Susan Tydings

  How Can You Experience Too Many Disasters?
  
  I like LONG drawn out stories with a lot of fast paced action. Be careful what you wish for. Tsunamis, earthquakes, plague spewing volcanoes, man eating mammals, cannibalistic psychotic people, all adrift out at sea in a giant cruise ship. Wait, wait, give this book a chance. If you read just the cover you might be tempted to toss it, however it is a fast paced read the grows on you. I almost took notes to keep all the characters straight. On a warm summer day when it is almost too hot and humid to do much of anything, pull a comfortable chair over by the air-conditioner with a large glass of brew or lemonade and lose yourself into this story. I think you’ll be glad you did
• 
  Brenda Fryland

  Started out ok, although some character behaviors were pretty silly.
  Backstories ludicrous. Main idea pretty cool with raging animals. Story devolved and I could no longer suspend disbelief about 2/3 through first book. Rating 4 at first then 2. Not moving on to next book.
• 
  Amanda

  I really enjoyed the character development and the microcosm of having all of the characters on a cruise ship. I am very hopeful that the author will continue this series.
• 
  Pam Shelton-Anderson

  When I first watched the "Walking Dead" I had thought that being on an island or cruise ship would be the best place to ride out the apocalypse, but this story illustrates how misguided that would be. I like that this is a larger, normal sized book instead of the current trend of episodic length booklets. This was a solid 3.5 for me, but I rounded up because the writing was decent and the story, for the most part, interesting. I don't know enough microbiology to determine if the premise of the story is scientifically feasible, but I did find it interesting and different. I liked that the uninfected humans never gave up trying to survive, but also that many of the infected persons were able to keep vestiges of their humanity. At times the book did seem to drag a bit with a lot of minutiae about the ship and a lot characters, with some of whom it was best to not become attached. In the beginning the passengers and crew seemed anxious to carry on "the cruise" despite the dreadful attacks on shore they had seen and only barely escaped. The crew seemed to be a little slow to organize to safeguard critical ship functions, though inability to find out what was happening in the rest of the world might have contributed. Overall, I enjoyed this story.
• 
  Jerry Mount

  An interesting take on the sorta-Zombie Apocalypse story. The history and science presented explaining the "Madness" is a little different from the typical story in this genre. The mix of characters and settings in this book is pretty interesting. A cruise ship on the high seas is a cool setting to ride out an Apocalyptic event. Most of the story was within my limits of believability for this genre. SPOILER: The La Palma volcano/tsunami thing was over the top for me, having studied the real scientific "risk" of such an event. But it is a useful plot device to explain why the cruise ship had difficulty in finding a port or refueling place. Otherwise, I liked the action scenes. My biggest overall gripe is that the "combined" book is simply too long for the real content presented. Way too many pages are spent in analyzing the thoughts and feelings of the married couple at the center of the story, with little payoff. Also, I thought that the ending section after the last action climax was weak. SPOILER: the time-jump epilogue was unsatisfying. A lot more could have been done here, both to fill out this story more completely and better provide for a possible sequel.
• 
  Sharon Stellburg

  Why I gave four stars
  
  I like the way the book was done and by the ending the only thing I was not able to like was the encounter with the island itself was good writing but unlikely to have simply not the outcome of it had in real life no one would just let those people enter without a pat down also would have had guards to watch over the refueling after what had happened last time that the ship refueling and the keeping the infected locked in room that they had more than one way to get out and keeping them alive in such an area. Just my thoughts good book and that is why I only gave four stars
• 
  Rosann

  I guess it was a ok read. Different version of how a virus evolved, though the book itself didn’t keep me to a point where I just had to turn the page and finish it same day.
  
  Plus Chapter 2 ( about TJ) her story and how she became very afraid of dogs, I did not have any compulsion to read at all.
  
  Her story probably should have been first or because her fear was explained in first chapter didn’t need to be given a chapter 2 story.
  So I just closed the book and didn’t bother reading Chapter 2
• 
  Ian

  Not your run of the mill Zombie Apocalypse
  
  I have never been able to get into zombie fiction, finding just too ridiculous to be enjoyable, but the Madness trilogy steers clear of the gore and has a definite grounding in science to carry it off. The characters are believable and the reader is drawn into the plot making it a satisfying page-turner where you're eager to find out what can come next.
  This will attract lovers of the zombie and general apocalyptic fiction alike. A follow up is a must.
• 
  lynn m harrison

  Good read
  
  I wasn’t sure that I was going to like this book but I did! It is different from other end of the world books and o had a hard time putting it down. The only thing that was a little annoying was the use of the word glare/glared in the story. Sometimes it seemed out of place in a sentence. The word glared would be used but I didn’t get the impression that the character was angry with the other person so why use that word. But otherwise I really enjoyed the story and would definitely like to read more on these characters.
• 
  Robert Chapman

  This trilogy is a zombie/rage virus type of story. What I liked about it is that the way the virus was born and how it spreads was a bit different than the usual means. I also liked the cruise ship setting as it introduced both advantages and disadvantages to the survivors.
  
  While it had it unique points and was enjoyable, I found that it dragged on a bit and story had some weird twists with the virus which I found unbelievable.
  
  Still a good read, but just a bit above average.
• 
  Deedra

  I really enjoyed this 3 book set! gary Tiedemann did a fantastic job narrating.First it was the animals.They had red eyes and started attacking humans.It took awhile,but the infection mutates until it has humans attacking humans.Our brave employees on a cruise ship fight to keep it and the human race afloat.Sometimes you need a zombie apocalypse book series.It is gorey.I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.' 
• 
  Marcie Pfeifer

  I highly recommend this series.
  
  I really enjoyed all three books. Even the scenes where animals didn't make it were tolerable (usually that's not the case) because it didn't go into details (or I skipped them that well) and their deaths were pertinent to human survival.
• 
  Lawrence

  Good book
  
  Good book long detailed and very exciting for the most part. Surprised that some of the people who have been bitten still have their human body. I would recommend a book to anyone who likes zombies