Ask yourself this: If the dead rise tomorrow, are you ready? Do you have a plan?
The dead rose, and the living quickly realized that Hollywood-style tactics were the quickest way to find yourself one of the walking dead.
Kasey, a strong-willed loner from West Virginia, and Ben, a college student from Pennsylvania, have shared an unlikely friendship over the years. And their bond is stretched to its limits when society collapses under a tide of zombies. But Kasey has something she likes to call The Zombie Plan. While Ben sets out for West Virginia, taking with him a ragtag group of friends, Kasey prepares for their long-term stand against the deadheads at her home in the mountains.
But every plan has its weaknesses, and the youths are unaware that a freight train of tragedy is bearing down on them all. In the darkness that follows, Kasey's Plan slowly unravels: friends lost, family taken, their stronghold reduced to ashes.
The dead rose, and the living quickly realized that Hollywood-style tactics were the quickest way to find yourself one of the walking dead.
Kasey, a strong-willed loner from West Virginia, and Ben, a college student from Pennsylvania, have shared an unlikely friendship over the years. And their bond is stretched to its limits when society collapses under a tide of zombies. But Kasey has something she likes to call The Zombie Plan. While Ben sets out for West Virginia, taking with him a ragtag group of friends, Kasey prepares for their long-term stand against the deadheads at her home in the mountains.
But every plan has its weaknesses, and the youths are unaware that a freight train of tragedy is bearing down on them all. In the darkness that follows, Kasey's Plan slowly unravels: friends lost, family taken, their stronghold reduced to ashes.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Praise for...
"C. Dulaney didn't reinvent the wheel, but goddamn if she didn't send it spinning down interesting paths. I'm invested now... what's going to happen next?"
-Thom Brannan, author of Lords of Night, Sad Wings of Destiny, and co-author of Survivors and Pavlov's Dogs
"If you're addicted to zombie literature, this one's for you. C. Dulaney's Roads Less Traveled: The Plan is crafted with such beautiful and terrifying scenes, you'll think you are one of Kasey's friends, running from the dead and preparing to live in a dark new world. Her prose crackles off the pages and into the mind's eye. By the time you've finished reading, you'll be clamoring for more from this exciting new author!"
- Clyde Wolfe, author of Down Darkened Paths, The Siege of Antrell, and Guardians: Desolate Souls
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Excerpts:
A couple of hours went by before I had any inkling something was wrong. I was in my office, pissing and moaning about the next project I had been assigned, when I heard what sounded like a scream come from down the hallway. I reacted in much the same way I assume anyone would react. I made a face, took another sip of coffee, and went back to the computer screen.
What finally got my ass moving was seeing my lab assistant stumbling and falling down the hallway in front of my office (the wall separating me from the hall consisted of several floor-to-ceiling windows), with the janitor hanging onto her back for dear life. That's just weird even on an ordinary day. But this day the janitor was eating her neck, tearing and ripping at her flesh, blood gushing all over his face and down her back.
--------------------------------------
"This is going to hurt, but try to tuck and roll or something. Maybe try to land close to the edge of the awning, so you can grab hold and steady yourself before jumping to the ground. And for God's sake, don't break the bottles," I said as Jake prepared to jump.
He smiled and winked before climbing over the edge and letting go. I watched him fall, hit the awning like a rubber ball, bounce off, and land with a thud on the street below. But, the bottles didn't break; he had them clutched tightly to his chest with both arms wrapped around them.
----------------------------------------
"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit," Mike muttered as he tore through the kitchen and past the two ladies. They watched him run by and up the stairs, then slowly turned to each other. They dropped the plates they were holding and were about to start outside when the other three men rushed through the door. Ben slammed it shut as Jake and Zack continued through the house.
"We have to go, now," he said as he grabbed Kyra and Nancy by the elbows.
"What's happening?" Kyra asked while Nancy turned on her heel and raced up the stairs after Jake.
"They're coming."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reviews:
Michael Gardner, Living Dead Corner Reviews
"ROADS LESS TRAVELED is the epitome of a great survival tale. It has its fair share of gore, violence, betrayal, and loss. Let’s not forget the zombies, either, because there are MANY of them, as well. It is an action-packed page turner that will have you condemning the thought of putting it
down.
Our main protagonist in this tale is a woman named Kasey, and she is prepared for such a situation like the dead rising. She and her friend, Ben, have actually come up with a plan: The Plan. And it is through this plan that these survivors survive or live as long as they do. I found the one rule to this book was that if you didn’t follow The Plan, you would more than likely die – and a lot of people in fact do die; one way or the other. I believe this scenario to be wholly plausible with the times that we live in. Almost everyone knows what a zombie is, and it is completely feasible to have your own plan for when the dead rise, or let’s say when an economy crashes. So I think THE PLAN takes a very realistic approach to the zombie apocalypse and world we live in today.
The basic premise of this story is as follows: Ben, along with some friends, must venture from their college a few states away to West Virginia to meet up with Ben’s friend, Kasey – who is readying her house for the coming onslaught of the undead. They planned things out for something like this some time ago, and now they just need to follow it. There are of course problems along the way – not everything can go according to plan, especially in a world where it’s not just zombies you have to worry about: people who only endanger you and everyone around them, people who you’ll have to risk lives for, and people who just want you dead.
No, The Plan doesn’t break new bounds in the genre, but it sure takes the old Romero formula and spruces it up with intense action sequences and realistic character interactions. I really liked the fact that we have a strong lead protagonist being a female. It’s not often that you get to see this in a zombie story. And it worked out great.
The entire cast is fleshed out, each having their own individual personality that gives them life to the reader. There are some that you won’t like. There are some you’ll grow so attached to that when it is their turn to meet their maker, you don’t want to see them go. And the interactions between these people flow smoothly, and none seemed forced or just thrown in there to take up space. It works out like this because of several perspective changes, which equally move the story along and builds each character.
There were two parts in the book where it felt like the perspective changes were a bit rough, but it wasn’t anything to pull me away from the read.
This is the first installment of a planned trilogy, and I am looking forward to reading the rest.
Another great publication from Permuted Press. And with this one, you’ll definitely Enjoy the Apocalypse."
Andrew Hawnt, Horror News
"Apocalyptic zombie fiction from a very promising author? Yes please. Roads Less Traveled: The Plan may be yet another genre novel told in the first person (this is really bugging me of late), but it’s one that has a superb balance of plot, character, fun and carnage.
Getting underway the day after a zombie apocalypse has kicked off, the story follows main characters Kasey and Ben as they assemble a group of friends and acquaintances in order to put ‘The Plan’ into action, basically a scheme to not get their brains eaten by hordes of the undead.
Thus begins a journey of hundreds of miles that sees the group torn apart by both circumstances and their own conflicts. The novel is the first of three, and I’d say that the series is going to pick up a lot of fans.
The style of the book is interesting, told in a style that is somewhere between YA and general horror fiction. This isn’t a bad thing at all, as it means the prose is well paced, to-the-point and fun to read. Dulaney is not kind to her characters though, which is refreshing, meaning that there aren’t as many great escapes as you would expect from the genre in prose or on film. People suffer.
A great strength of Dulaney’s writing is the interplay and conflict between the characters, giving them a mix of Joss Whedon-style banter and Walking Dead-style struggles to stay sane and alive around each other.
Don’t for a second think this is zombie-lite, though, as there is enough brain-chewing, zombie-blasting, flesh-tearing mayhem in this first book to make even Romero proud. My only concern is whether or not Dulaney will be able to maintain the tension and excitement over the course of three books. On the strength of Roads Less Traveled: The Plan, I would say that concern I unfounded. Like zombies and believable characters in your fiction? Buy this."
Dave, Bricks of the Dead
"Most zombie stories like to work under the idea that zombies are a concept no one is aware of. In their universe, Night of the Living Dead never happened, there is no underlying cultural consciousness of zombies and how to deal with them, and Max Brooks certainly never wrote a detailed guide for surviving the zombie apocalypse. It’s a pretty simple conceit to make sure the characters are caught completely unawares, and have to actually work to figure out how to defeat their undead enemy. The problem is, it’s all a bit overdone.
Roads Less Traveled: The Plan takes the opposite approach. Not only do zombie flicks exist in its universe and people are acutely aware of them, some characters have actually thought out detailed plans to survive the (inevitable) zombie apocalypse. In fact, one character even acknowledged that George Romero was correct in making his zombies slow while others watch a bit of Dawn of the Dead to kill time in the evening. In keeping with the characters’ unusual ability to recognize zombies, some also recognize and comment on other horror tropes, which adds a bit of levity to certain sections of the story.
Despite having a zombie survival plan, the characters in Roads Less Traveled still have their work cut out for them. Any plan, no matter how well conceived, is going to have flaws somewhere; generally these present themselves when people don’t react the way they “should”. Right off the bat, our heroes are thrown a curve ball when more people than they expected tag along to the zombie survival oasis that is Kasey’s (the main character) remote West Virginia farmhouse. Those additional people call for everything from more vehicles for transportation to more opportunities for personality clashes. As one would expect from a zombie story, there’s a bit of attrition along the way, but the extra load is still something that affects Kasey and her friends throughout the novel.
Roads Less Traveled has an interesting structure. In its first act, perspective shifts between Kasey’s first person accounts, to a third-person account for all the other characters. There’s an every-other-chapter switch off for a while – up until the characters all meet up – and then the perspective shifts occur a bit more organically. It took a little getting used to, but I ended up liking it quite a bit. We got to know Kasey a lot more intimately than the other characters, and she helped to be a sort of anchor for the novel.
Much like the perspective shifts, the book tends to cut back and forth between more muted scenes of preparation and mentally dealing with the zombie outbreak, to scenes of pure action. This oscillation between action and more cerebral activities works quite well, and it doesn’t take long before Roads Less Traveled finds a nice rhythm. The action scenes tend to be fun, and appropriately over-the-top. Everything else is much more practical; we see what people (primarily Kasey) are doing to prepare and learn why they’re doing it. We also get a chance to get into their heads a bit, and see a lot of the psychological battle with the undead that’s normally glossed over in zombie stories. Some of this works quite well, but a few scenes (like Kasey’s bizarre hallucination of zombies near the beginning of the novel) seem to be there because they’re thought provoking instead of working well with the character and situation.
And speaking of Kasey, I thought it was extremely interesting to have a female protagonist in what is typically a male-dominated genre. The fact that the writer, C Dulaney, is also a woman helped make the character and her struggles seem more realistic and better thought through (not that men can’t write good female characters, of course). Kasey is a good main character because she’s smart and resourceful, while also having a few weaknesses – such as dealing with people – that help to balance her. Sure, she’s occasionally a badass superwoman in the action-oriented parts of the novel, but she’s generally pretty grounded.
While writing throughout Roads Less Traveled is generally good, there are a couple one-dimensional characters and the author does tend to overwrite a lot of descriptions (an easy trap to fall into, and one I’ve made many, many times). Dulaney also has an interesting tick of name checking things, particularly name brands of products being used and very specific geographic terms, including the names of town and streets. I think readers familiar with the area in which the novel is set will have fun mapping out where the action is taking place. I would also note that the ending seemed a bit rushed, but since this is the first part of a planned trilogy, that’s pretty understandable.
Roads Less Traveled: The Plan is a fun, quick read. Kasey is a interesting main character who draws support from a largely rich supporting cast. I’m interested to see where the story goes next."
AstraDaemon, The Zombiephiles
"I have never heard of C. Dulaney before reading this story; I still don’t know squat about the author, but I am huge fan of Permuted Press, and I’ve enjoyed 95% of the books that they have released. When I was offered the chance to review this new novel, I didn’t realize that it was the first in a series. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Dulaney didn’t ambush readers with a sudden cliffhanger. As a matter of fact, this book could function as a stand-alone, but I am looking forward to finishing the series.Roads Less Traveled: The Plan is divided into three parts. Part One, Down The Road, begins on October 1st. A young woman named Kasey actually had a “Z-plan” in place before the zombie outbreak in the story. She and her friends are apparently huge zombiephiles. “Sure it might sound crazy, but who’s alive right now and who’s not?”
Ben and Jake are Kasey’s two friends that agreed to the Z-plan, but the three of them are joined by Jake’s grandmother Nancy, and some fellow college students who are caught up with the main trio during their escape from the city to Kasey’s home in the Appalachian Mountains. The POV switches between Ben and Kasey throughout Part One, until their storylines merge on October 6th.
Part Two, The Road Home, begins on October 7th, and switches POV to a friend of Kasey’s named Mia, who was briefly included in a phone call with Kasey in Part One. Mia runs out of supplies in her home, and tries to escape to Kasey’s safe haven. Along the way, she meets a little boy named Ashton at a rest area, which further complicates Mia’s dire situation. The POV switches temporarily to Kyra, who is abrasive towards Kasey, and causes one problem after another for her group. Instead of eliciting sympathy, Kyra’s thoughts and actions only justify the hatred readers are sure to feel towards her character. When the storylines of Mia and Kyra finally merge, the cast of characters find themselves in a downward spiral, despite their carefully laid out survival plan.
Part Three, Road To Nowhere, which begins on October 20th, was emotionally devastating. The horrors that Kasey and her group have to face had me in tears. In Part Two, another survivor group is momentarily mentioned in passing, and they predictably clash towards the end of Part Three, but, even so, I was surprised by the fates of the main characters.
I thought Roads Less Traveled: The Plan was a great start to a series, but the beginning of the book requires a little patience. The zombie action doesn’t happen right away, and there is more focus on the relationships between characters than killing the undead, but the depth of the characters makes up for the lack of gore. I think it’s safe to assume we will see more conflicts with the undead in the sequel, and I can’t wait to read what else Dulaney has in store for Kasey’s group.
Other zombie stories might inspire you to pack a bug-out bag, but Dulaney’s undead crucible will have you carrying your survival gear with you at all times."
Jamie Brownlie, Brutal as Hell
"In the world of Roads Less Taken: The Plan the dead have risen and society has crumbled. While most of humanity stumbles around in a blind panic, a girl named Kasey has a plan for such a catastrophe: an isolated, well stocked home in the mountains of West Virginia. Of course, things don’t go as planned, because humanity sucks in a crisis, zombies don’t care about your feelings and small children die easily.
Aside from a few problems I’ll mention later, this is actually a pretty decent read. While I’m not sure I can accept that a rational person would actually have a fully implemented “Zombie Plan,” the survivalist angle made for a pretty interesting and original set-up that let the author, C. Dulaney, skip a lot of the usual (and often clichéd) back story and get straight to the slaughter. Dulaney, who according to her bio on the Permuted Press website is an avid hunter, obviously understands gun play and works it confidently and fairly realistically into the action. Little details, like counting bullets and collecting empty shell casings for reloading, grounds things in reality and helps give the story a believable feel. Also, she gives her hero, Kasey, an interesting choice of guns. They’re interesting not because they’re over the top Big Fuckin’ Guns (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but because they’re a collection of odd caliber rifles that a real hunter and shooting enthusiast would have. It’s just a bit more reality to help cancel out the absurdity that comes with something as absurd as a zombie apocalypse.
At first glance Roads Less Taken: The Plan seems to cover the same ground as countless other zombie books and movies, and to a degree it does. Like every other walking dead story, it deals with zombies, survivors and the clashes the survivors have with the walking dead and their fellow humans. Because this element is present in all zombie tales, the author has to bring something new to the table or the story ends up being just another faceless and bland entry in the ocean of zombie stories. Happily, Dulaney does this. She has a young and contemporary writing style which is something you don’t run across every day in professional novels. At first, the writing struck me as amateurish. Not incompetent, mind you, just not as tight and fine-tuned as you’d expect to find in a published novel. It reminded me of a really good college creative writing submission or a great piece of fan fiction. The talent’s there, it’s just still really raw, and with that rawness came one of the problems I mentioned earlier: the narration. One moment it would be strong and mature, which complemented the implied maturity of the main character, and the next it would use phrases and expressions more suited to a high school or college kid. It’s a minor complaint but I found it jarring and, frankly, fairly off-putting. However, my dislike of it might say more about me and my ever increasing age than about the writing style.
My other quibble was that, early on, I found some of the character’s interactions and motivations confusing. Most of these issues are smoothed out as the story develops, but at first they were problematic for me. I didn’t understand why some characters disliked other characters, the friction between them wasn’t adequately explained, and I wasn’t sure to what degree other characters were linked, whether it was romantic or platonic. As I said, most of this is ironed out as the book goes on, but it made me hesitant to like certain characters because their motives were unclear, not in a “is this person good or evil way,” but in a “why would a person react like that” sort of way. I think this can be chalked up to an inexperienced writer and not a lack of talent, and it’s a skill I foresee Dulaney having no problems mastering this in the future.
When you come down to it, this is a fun and exciting novel, especially from an author new to the profession. Dulaney obviously has skills, even if they are raw and still developing. Is Roads Less Taken: The Plan a great zombie tale? No, but it’s good enough that I want to read the sequel and I’m exciting to see what the future holds for the author.
Oh yeah, one last thing: the hero listens to Nickelback. Nickelback? Really? Man, I’m getting old."
*You'll notice a few mistakes in these reviews. My name, the book's title, etc. I don't write 'em, folks. I just pass them along.
Praise for...
"C. Dulaney didn't reinvent the wheel, but goddamn if she didn't send it spinning down interesting paths. I'm invested now... what's going to happen next?"
-Thom Brannan, author of Lords of Night, Sad Wings of Destiny, and co-author of Survivors and Pavlov's Dogs
"If you're addicted to zombie literature, this one's for you. C. Dulaney's Roads Less Traveled: The Plan is crafted with such beautiful and terrifying scenes, you'll think you are one of Kasey's friends, running from the dead and preparing to live in a dark new world. Her prose crackles off the pages and into the mind's eye. By the time you've finished reading, you'll be clamoring for more from this exciting new author!"
- Clyde Wolfe, author of Down Darkened Paths, The Siege of Antrell, and Guardians: Desolate Souls
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Excerpts:
A couple of hours went by before I had any inkling something was wrong. I was in my office, pissing and moaning about the next project I had been assigned, when I heard what sounded like a scream come from down the hallway. I reacted in much the same way I assume anyone would react. I made a face, took another sip of coffee, and went back to the computer screen.
What finally got my ass moving was seeing my lab assistant stumbling and falling down the hallway in front of my office (the wall separating me from the hall consisted of several floor-to-ceiling windows), with the janitor hanging onto her back for dear life. That's just weird even on an ordinary day. But this day the janitor was eating her neck, tearing and ripping at her flesh, blood gushing all over his face and down her back.
--------------------------------------
"This is going to hurt, but try to tuck and roll or something. Maybe try to land close to the edge of the awning, so you can grab hold and steady yourself before jumping to the ground. And for God's sake, don't break the bottles," I said as Jake prepared to jump.
He smiled and winked before climbing over the edge and letting go. I watched him fall, hit the awning like a rubber ball, bounce off, and land with a thud on the street below. But, the bottles didn't break; he had them clutched tightly to his chest with both arms wrapped around them.
----------------------------------------
"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit," Mike muttered as he tore through the kitchen and past the two ladies. They watched him run by and up the stairs, then slowly turned to each other. They dropped the plates they were holding and were about to start outside when the other three men rushed through the door. Ben slammed it shut as Jake and Zack continued through the house.
"We have to go, now," he said as he grabbed Kyra and Nancy by the elbows.
"What's happening?" Kyra asked while Nancy turned on her heel and raced up the stairs after Jake.
"They're coming."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reviews:
Michael Gardner, Living Dead Corner Reviews
"ROADS LESS TRAVELED is the epitome of a great survival tale. It has its fair share of gore, violence, betrayal, and loss. Let’s not forget the zombies, either, because there are MANY of them, as well. It is an action-packed page turner that will have you condemning the thought of putting it
down.
Our main protagonist in this tale is a woman named Kasey, and she is prepared for such a situation like the dead rising. She and her friend, Ben, have actually come up with a plan: The Plan. And it is through this plan that these survivors survive or live as long as they do. I found the one rule to this book was that if you didn’t follow The Plan, you would more than likely die – and a lot of people in fact do die; one way or the other. I believe this scenario to be wholly plausible with the times that we live in. Almost everyone knows what a zombie is, and it is completely feasible to have your own plan for when the dead rise, or let’s say when an economy crashes. So I think THE PLAN takes a very realistic approach to the zombie apocalypse and world we live in today.
The basic premise of this story is as follows: Ben, along with some friends, must venture from their college a few states away to West Virginia to meet up with Ben’s friend, Kasey – who is readying her house for the coming onslaught of the undead. They planned things out for something like this some time ago, and now they just need to follow it. There are of course problems along the way – not everything can go according to plan, especially in a world where it’s not just zombies you have to worry about: people who only endanger you and everyone around them, people who you’ll have to risk lives for, and people who just want you dead.
No, The Plan doesn’t break new bounds in the genre, but it sure takes the old Romero formula and spruces it up with intense action sequences and realistic character interactions. I really liked the fact that we have a strong lead protagonist being a female. It’s not often that you get to see this in a zombie story. And it worked out great.
The entire cast is fleshed out, each having their own individual personality that gives them life to the reader. There are some that you won’t like. There are some you’ll grow so attached to that when it is their turn to meet their maker, you don’t want to see them go. And the interactions between these people flow smoothly, and none seemed forced or just thrown in there to take up space. It works out like this because of several perspective changes, which equally move the story along and builds each character.
There were two parts in the book where it felt like the perspective changes were a bit rough, but it wasn’t anything to pull me away from the read.
This is the first installment of a planned trilogy, and I am looking forward to reading the rest.
Another great publication from Permuted Press. And with this one, you’ll definitely Enjoy the Apocalypse."
Andrew Hawnt, Horror News
"Apocalyptic zombie fiction from a very promising author? Yes please. Roads Less Traveled: The Plan may be yet another genre novel told in the first person (this is really bugging me of late), but it’s one that has a superb balance of plot, character, fun and carnage.
Getting underway the day after a zombie apocalypse has kicked off, the story follows main characters Kasey and Ben as they assemble a group of friends and acquaintances in order to put ‘The Plan’ into action, basically a scheme to not get their brains eaten by hordes of the undead.
Thus begins a journey of hundreds of miles that sees the group torn apart by both circumstances and their own conflicts. The novel is the first of three, and I’d say that the series is going to pick up a lot of fans.
The style of the book is interesting, told in a style that is somewhere between YA and general horror fiction. This isn’t a bad thing at all, as it means the prose is well paced, to-the-point and fun to read. Dulaney is not kind to her characters though, which is refreshing, meaning that there aren’t as many great escapes as you would expect from the genre in prose or on film. People suffer.
A great strength of Dulaney’s writing is the interplay and conflict between the characters, giving them a mix of Joss Whedon-style banter and Walking Dead-style struggles to stay sane and alive around each other.
Don’t for a second think this is zombie-lite, though, as there is enough brain-chewing, zombie-blasting, flesh-tearing mayhem in this first book to make even Romero proud. My only concern is whether or not Dulaney will be able to maintain the tension and excitement over the course of three books. On the strength of Roads Less Traveled: The Plan, I would say that concern I unfounded. Like zombies and believable characters in your fiction? Buy this."
Dave, Bricks of the Dead
"Most zombie stories like to work under the idea that zombies are a concept no one is aware of. In their universe, Night of the Living Dead never happened, there is no underlying cultural consciousness of zombies and how to deal with them, and Max Brooks certainly never wrote a detailed guide for surviving the zombie apocalypse. It’s a pretty simple conceit to make sure the characters are caught completely unawares, and have to actually work to figure out how to defeat their undead enemy. The problem is, it’s all a bit overdone.
Roads Less Traveled: The Plan takes the opposite approach. Not only do zombie flicks exist in its universe and people are acutely aware of them, some characters have actually thought out detailed plans to survive the (inevitable) zombie apocalypse. In fact, one character even acknowledged that George Romero was correct in making his zombies slow while others watch a bit of Dawn of the Dead to kill time in the evening. In keeping with the characters’ unusual ability to recognize zombies, some also recognize and comment on other horror tropes, which adds a bit of levity to certain sections of the story.
Despite having a zombie survival plan, the characters in Roads Less Traveled still have their work cut out for them. Any plan, no matter how well conceived, is going to have flaws somewhere; generally these present themselves when people don’t react the way they “should”. Right off the bat, our heroes are thrown a curve ball when more people than they expected tag along to the zombie survival oasis that is Kasey’s (the main character) remote West Virginia farmhouse. Those additional people call for everything from more vehicles for transportation to more opportunities for personality clashes. As one would expect from a zombie story, there’s a bit of attrition along the way, but the extra load is still something that affects Kasey and her friends throughout the novel.
Roads Less Traveled has an interesting structure. In its first act, perspective shifts between Kasey’s first person accounts, to a third-person account for all the other characters. There’s an every-other-chapter switch off for a while – up until the characters all meet up – and then the perspective shifts occur a bit more organically. It took a little getting used to, but I ended up liking it quite a bit. We got to know Kasey a lot more intimately than the other characters, and she helped to be a sort of anchor for the novel.
Much like the perspective shifts, the book tends to cut back and forth between more muted scenes of preparation and mentally dealing with the zombie outbreak, to scenes of pure action. This oscillation between action and more cerebral activities works quite well, and it doesn’t take long before Roads Less Traveled finds a nice rhythm. The action scenes tend to be fun, and appropriately over-the-top. Everything else is much more practical; we see what people (primarily Kasey) are doing to prepare and learn why they’re doing it. We also get a chance to get into their heads a bit, and see a lot of the psychological battle with the undead that’s normally glossed over in zombie stories. Some of this works quite well, but a few scenes (like Kasey’s bizarre hallucination of zombies near the beginning of the novel) seem to be there because they’re thought provoking instead of working well with the character and situation.
And speaking of Kasey, I thought it was extremely interesting to have a female protagonist in what is typically a male-dominated genre. The fact that the writer, C Dulaney, is also a woman helped make the character and her struggles seem more realistic and better thought through (not that men can’t write good female characters, of course). Kasey is a good main character because she’s smart and resourceful, while also having a few weaknesses – such as dealing with people – that help to balance her. Sure, she’s occasionally a badass superwoman in the action-oriented parts of the novel, but she’s generally pretty grounded.
While writing throughout Roads Less Traveled is generally good, there are a couple one-dimensional characters and the author does tend to overwrite a lot of descriptions (an easy trap to fall into, and one I’ve made many, many times). Dulaney also has an interesting tick of name checking things, particularly name brands of products being used and very specific geographic terms, including the names of town and streets. I think readers familiar with the area in which the novel is set will have fun mapping out where the action is taking place. I would also note that the ending seemed a bit rushed, but since this is the first part of a planned trilogy, that’s pretty understandable.
Roads Less Traveled: The Plan is a fun, quick read. Kasey is a interesting main character who draws support from a largely rich supporting cast. I’m interested to see where the story goes next."
AstraDaemon, The Zombiephiles
"I have never heard of C. Dulaney before reading this story; I still don’t know squat about the author, but I am huge fan of Permuted Press, and I’ve enjoyed 95% of the books that they have released. When I was offered the chance to review this new novel, I didn’t realize that it was the first in a series. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Dulaney didn’t ambush readers with a sudden cliffhanger. As a matter of fact, this book could function as a stand-alone, but I am looking forward to finishing the series.Roads Less Traveled: The Plan is divided into three parts. Part One, Down The Road, begins on October 1st. A young woman named Kasey actually had a “Z-plan” in place before the zombie outbreak in the story. She and her friends are apparently huge zombiephiles. “Sure it might sound crazy, but who’s alive right now and who’s not?”
Ben and Jake are Kasey’s two friends that agreed to the Z-plan, but the three of them are joined by Jake’s grandmother Nancy, and some fellow college students who are caught up with the main trio during their escape from the city to Kasey’s home in the Appalachian Mountains. The POV switches between Ben and Kasey throughout Part One, until their storylines merge on October 6th.
Part Two, The Road Home, begins on October 7th, and switches POV to a friend of Kasey’s named Mia, who was briefly included in a phone call with Kasey in Part One. Mia runs out of supplies in her home, and tries to escape to Kasey’s safe haven. Along the way, she meets a little boy named Ashton at a rest area, which further complicates Mia’s dire situation. The POV switches temporarily to Kyra, who is abrasive towards Kasey, and causes one problem after another for her group. Instead of eliciting sympathy, Kyra’s thoughts and actions only justify the hatred readers are sure to feel towards her character. When the storylines of Mia and Kyra finally merge, the cast of characters find themselves in a downward spiral, despite their carefully laid out survival plan.
Part Three, Road To Nowhere, which begins on October 20th, was emotionally devastating. The horrors that Kasey and her group have to face had me in tears. In Part Two, another survivor group is momentarily mentioned in passing, and they predictably clash towards the end of Part Three, but, even so, I was surprised by the fates of the main characters.
I thought Roads Less Traveled: The Plan was a great start to a series, but the beginning of the book requires a little patience. The zombie action doesn’t happen right away, and there is more focus on the relationships between characters than killing the undead, but the depth of the characters makes up for the lack of gore. I think it’s safe to assume we will see more conflicts with the undead in the sequel, and I can’t wait to read what else Dulaney has in store for Kasey’s group.
Other zombie stories might inspire you to pack a bug-out bag, but Dulaney’s undead crucible will have you carrying your survival gear with you at all times."
Jamie Brownlie, Brutal as Hell
"In the world of Roads Less Taken: The Plan the dead have risen and society has crumbled. While most of humanity stumbles around in a blind panic, a girl named Kasey has a plan for such a catastrophe: an isolated, well stocked home in the mountains of West Virginia. Of course, things don’t go as planned, because humanity sucks in a crisis, zombies don’t care about your feelings and small children die easily.
Aside from a few problems I’ll mention later, this is actually a pretty decent read. While I’m not sure I can accept that a rational person would actually have a fully implemented “Zombie Plan,” the survivalist angle made for a pretty interesting and original set-up that let the author, C. Dulaney, skip a lot of the usual (and often clichéd) back story and get straight to the slaughter. Dulaney, who according to her bio on the Permuted Press website is an avid hunter, obviously understands gun play and works it confidently and fairly realistically into the action. Little details, like counting bullets and collecting empty shell casings for reloading, grounds things in reality and helps give the story a believable feel. Also, she gives her hero, Kasey, an interesting choice of guns. They’re interesting not because they’re over the top Big Fuckin’ Guns (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but because they’re a collection of odd caliber rifles that a real hunter and shooting enthusiast would have. It’s just a bit more reality to help cancel out the absurdity that comes with something as absurd as a zombie apocalypse.
At first glance Roads Less Taken: The Plan seems to cover the same ground as countless other zombie books and movies, and to a degree it does. Like every other walking dead story, it deals with zombies, survivors and the clashes the survivors have with the walking dead and their fellow humans. Because this element is present in all zombie tales, the author has to bring something new to the table or the story ends up being just another faceless and bland entry in the ocean of zombie stories. Happily, Dulaney does this. She has a young and contemporary writing style which is something you don’t run across every day in professional novels. At first, the writing struck me as amateurish. Not incompetent, mind you, just not as tight and fine-tuned as you’d expect to find in a published novel. It reminded me of a really good college creative writing submission or a great piece of fan fiction. The talent’s there, it’s just still really raw, and with that rawness came one of the problems I mentioned earlier: the narration. One moment it would be strong and mature, which complemented the implied maturity of the main character, and the next it would use phrases and expressions more suited to a high school or college kid. It’s a minor complaint but I found it jarring and, frankly, fairly off-putting. However, my dislike of it might say more about me and my ever increasing age than about the writing style.
My other quibble was that, early on, I found some of the character’s interactions and motivations confusing. Most of these issues are smoothed out as the story develops, but at first they were problematic for me. I didn’t understand why some characters disliked other characters, the friction between them wasn’t adequately explained, and I wasn’t sure to what degree other characters were linked, whether it was romantic or platonic. As I said, most of this is ironed out as the book goes on, but it made me hesitant to like certain characters because their motives were unclear, not in a “is this person good or evil way,” but in a “why would a person react like that” sort of way. I think this can be chalked up to an inexperienced writer and not a lack of talent, and it’s a skill I foresee Dulaney having no problems mastering this in the future.
When you come down to it, this is a fun and exciting novel, especially from an author new to the profession. Dulaney obviously has skills, even if they are raw and still developing. Is Roads Less Taken: The Plan a great zombie tale? No, but it’s good enough that I want to read the sequel and I’m exciting to see what the future holds for the author.
Oh yeah, one last thing: the hero listens to Nickelback. Nickelback? Really? Man, I’m getting old."
*You'll notice a few mistakes in these reviews. My name, the book's title, etc. I don't write 'em, folks. I just pass them along.
