J. L. Bourne: Day By Day Armageddon (Beyond Exile)

This is a second book in a series. If you would like to know about the first book (click) Day by Day Armageddon, I have already read and reviewed this book. While it is not completely necessary to read the first book, it gives a great background to the second book and how our main character has ended up where he has.

The rebel human enemy has passed, though the explosion has increased the number of dead who are hovering around Hotel 23, more have returned to the main door, and the one dead is still instantly hammering with a rock there. Hotel 23 appears to be safe for now, they have enough food and water supply to last their small group. They have received more reports about the radiated undead to be faster and smaller making them more deadly, but all that matters now is saving and helping as many people as they can. Our main character is able to gather more survivors and even helps some trapped military personal, but at what cost? Hotel 23 is becoming less and less of a secret. As the Military circle closers, and even threatening to take Hotel 23 by force, our protagonist has to decide whether they can win the fight, or if he must face the life he walked away from at the beginning of all this. He is considered a deserter by the military, but joining them might be the only way to safe the people he has come to care for. That is if the military will even accept him and don't shoot him first...

This book pick up right where the first one left off, which was great because I was very interested in seeing what happened next and where Bourne would take the story line, now that they had found what seemed like a pretty permanent hiding spot. Additionally, by starting off where the first book left off, I was not left wondering what had happened when time had passed and what great adventures I might have missed out on.

I like this book a lot better when our main character is not so involved in the military, I understand why he had to choose the path that he did, but I find i enjoy the story more when it is our main character fighting for his own or a select few survival. The military has access to too many weapons, personal and all around goodies to make the survival story less interesting.

Bounre does a good job in showing the psychological change that had been happening to the main character, he comments on when he approaches a door in order to get into the house, that he is unable to remember right off the bat whether he should turn the knob right or left. Something that was so common in a normal life is now foreigner and I think that would be very true in order to survive this type of situation, priorities change and what you get used to as your day to day definitely change. Bourne, also does a good job of showing how our protagonist is affected by all the responsibility he has and how one decision he makes can turn everyone he cares for into the undead and also how he felt after he was forced to kill people who were still alive. I also agree with the amount of people that Bourne has left alive, in which the majority being individuals with some form of military background. This is very realistic that these individuals would have the survival and gun training in order to survive a disaster, just look how well our main character has used his training, and has adapted to this ever changing situation. I doubt you and I would last so well (though I secretly like to think that I would be among the living, lol).

This book introduces mystery aspect as there appears to be a secret military group that are intending on help our main character as long has he complies with their orders. Some of the technology that is shared by this secret groups is definitely out of this world, and by the end of the book I was kind of getting a spacey/sci fi feeling to the technology and some other details, but this may have just popped into my head because of the mention of a military group in Nevada (Area 51 anyone?). I hope that the books to not go too sci fi or spacey, as I find I often get lost in this genre.

All in all, I will say this book not as great as the first (I only really say this because of the increased military aspect of the book, other than that I really enjoyed it and could not put it down), and is definitely worth reading to see how the story progress and what will happen next. This book is also in journal format, which I liked as it did not stray away from the first book. I think readers who like zombies and  action adventure survival type books will enjoy this series (and even if you don't like zombies this is still a good action adventure read).

Enjoy!!

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