Z 2134

Z 2134 is a Kindle serial, written and released in installments. In brief, it deals with (yet another) dystopian future, where the population is segregated in to different numbered cities (sort of like, say, districts). There is tight, totalitarian control from the government. And for the sake of entertainment, citizens are punished by being forced to participate in the Darwin Games, battles that pit people from each district, er, city against each other in a fight to the death.

Hmm, wasn't there some movie based on some book sort of like that recently?

So, yes, what you have here is a rehash of The Hunger Games with just a sprinkling of The Running Man thrown in. Oh, but wait, there is a completely unique aspect that sets this apart from being completely derivative.

This book also has zombies.

Yup, more stinking zombies.

So what is good? Well, it moves pretty fast, and the story is at least moderately exciting. My big problems though are this: there is violence and gore described just for the sake of itself, for the shock factor. And there is excessive profanity for no compelling reason. The characters really aren't that well realized, the dystopian future just exists, with no reason as to why it exists other than it does. Same with the zombies. They are just there to make the world a more grim, disgusting and challenging place. At least in this book, they don't tie in to the world, they don't give it substance, they just feel like they are thrown in there because zombies were at the height of popularity when the author started writing.

There are small moments of an interesting story. Sadly, these moments are buried under a mountain of harsh, unappealing prose. While you could do worse than Z 2134, you could also do a lot, lot better.