"In situations like this, most people are going to be casualties." - Renda

Jeb Stone is a psychiatrist going about his normal business when the zombie apocalypse arrives in full force on the back of a mutating flu like virus that has caused a huge number of deaths. His son is sick with the mutating flu, so his wife heads to the nearest medical centre. That's when Jeb's real problems begin, his wife is immune to the virus, which naturally means she is an asset to the military who have discovered a vaccine that gives receivers a short window of safety from the descent into zombification.

With the zombies starting to mutate, and even more worrying able to bred, Jeb and a new group of friends must cross America to rescue his wife from an increasingly deranged military that is harvesting anyone with immunity to the virus. Complicating matters are groups of Hunters out to capture "munies" for the military, marauding gangs, and a new more intelligent zombie emerging that leads "packs" of the creatures. Lock and load for the ultimate road trip into hell.

While Downunder we're getting pretty smug about our recent speculative genre output, so many emerging Writers is keeping the scene fresh and interesting, the U.S market certain hasn't been resting on its Stephen King laurels with new Writers emerging in that region as well. In fact the current explosion in speculative fiction works has meant quite a number of Writers disappear under our radar unless they get something of a fanfare on release in this part of the world. Which I guess means that an Author can have three or four books published before someone notices, reads a few pages, and informs the powers to be that we really should take some notice. The situation is becoming increasingly complex with the emergence of the Independent Publishers as a viable alternative to the majors, and of course the ubiquitous electronic publication. Add in self-publication and there's simply no way anyone is going to keep up. Which is a pretty convoluted explanation as to why we haven't touched bases with one J. E. Gurley yet, even though the U.S Author has a zombie novel set in Australia! Yes we suck, let's get down to the beat here and stop pointing fingers.

I'm about to commit some blasphemy here, but hear me out before you start erecting bonfires and calling down God's wrath. There's a major problem with Romero's Dead universe, besides that last movie set on an Island, the zombies have been quite happily decomposing yet years after the outbreak are still lumbering around like the plot line of a Eli Roth movie. Just checking outside, nope no signs of bolts of lightning. The science here is just not working folks, admittedly this is from the viewpoint of someone who barely stayed awake in science class through college. I've always thought this was a weakness with Romero's later movies, a trap that notably Danny Boyle didn't fall into given the final frames of 28 Days Later. Author Gurley neatly avoids the issue as well as he unloads one of his first major developments in zombie mythos, yes the zombies are decomposing but as their skin drops off a new harder skin has formed underneath the dead meat. In Gurley's zombie universe it's all about mutation and the zombies turning into something other than your run of the mill bulk standard shambling fare. And just to keep the science up, the zombies are hunting down and devouring every human they can, when humans are thin on the ground the zombies attack and consume their own kind. Now is that some weird kind of cannibalism or what! See like caterpillars zombies need to build up the energy levels in order to morph into a later stage of development. Though I guess zombies aren't likely to emerge as butterflies.

[Editor's Note: If you say one more bad thing about Uncle George, I'm going to throw every PR novel that lands in the queue your way Bro!]

So the first point I'm going to make about Judgement Day is that the ideas are original with Gurley not resting on his zombie atmosphere. In this apocalyptic world there's a more intelligent zombie developing, think Big Daddy from Land of the Dead, and the mock cream filling here is that the zombies can breed … think the most disgusting horror concept you have ever come across before. Whether or not you agree with the zombie upgrade is your business, I thought it rocked. In Gurley's hands the zombie almost becomes Giger's Alien with multiple life changes, not involving middle age spread.

Before anyone asks, see I knew you would, Gurley's zombies are more your runners than the Romero shamblers. Now I'm a shambler fan, but here we're talking a different kind of zombie, so I was okay with track star zombie.

To ensure we know Gurley can construct a novel, something singularly lacking in quite a number of "writers" of zombie outings, the Author lays down some classic prose moves. We have multiple viewpoints as the plot develops, which naturally converge towards the end of the book. I was high fiving the re-animated cat experiment I have going on in my garage over here, I love this approach in horror outings as it gives a wider focus to events going down. Equally Gurley has his "there's more danger out there than zombies" thing going down, just what do you think might happen when civilisation breaks down? To keep with the Alien comparison for a while, the zombies might be fearsome, but the Authorities sifting through the ashes are perhaps more chilling. And to round out this aspect, rather than simply going nihilistic on our arses, Gurley offers some glimmer of hope for his band of survivors, there's got to be a morning after yo!

Guess I should point out that Gurley finishes Judgement Day with ample room for a sequel, or if we're lucky a whole series of books. Did we actually ever find out what "Judgement Day" was, it was eluded to but from memory never actually spelt out? Don't worry the current novel is self-contained, the story ends, so you won't be waiting impatiently for the concluding chapters.

To the prose itself, J. E. Gurley attacks his writing in typical American fashion, but is more in the Irving camp than hanging out in the King lounge room. While Gurley isn't displaying that naturalistic style that made Stephen King a household name, he's hitting the more refined notes that Irving and other more mainstream U.S writers bring to the party. King writes the equivalent of "B" grade movies, its pop script if that's a term, while Gurley channels a more solid style that may just entice the normally reticent reader into dipping their toes into a horror book. Which isn't to say of course that Gurley doesn't write himself up a storm, Judgement Day is a page turner after all, I'm simply pointing out that the Author here is perhaps after a more serious tone to his novel than King employs.

Okay so my background is in the horror novels from Downunder and to a lesser extent the more considered prose coming out of the U.K, but I can dig the American style. There's a sort of free and easy take on the language that the Brits certainly don't get and which is at odds with the normal timbre in prose in this part of the world. Gurley lays down his plot, drops some surprises, and generally keeps things rocking from first line to last line, there's no lag, and noticeably it's in the U.S idiom. The Author won't have you bouncing off the page at any stage as he lays down his beat without dropping any clangers on us. One of the dangers of delving into the Indie pile is that you can run across some horrendously written stuff, hey worse than this review y'all, but thinking about it the majors aren't exactly covering themselves in glory either considering poorly written tripe like Twilight gets published. Thankfully the editorial policy here at ScaryMinds is to consign the bad to the rubbish bin of dim memory and focus on books that are worth cracking open, hence this review of Judgement Day. Somehow I thought I had a point with this paragraph, probably that Gurley had put down some excellent prose to groove to.

Another U.S zombie novel, I'm up for the challenge, especially if it's well written and takes the concept into new territory while maintaining the underlying mythos. We're talking fast moving zombies, mutating zombies, a book with attitude, something well worth dialling in for. I had a good time reading Judgement Day, have added a memo to include some more Gurley in our review schedule, and am pretty happy with the world. If you like your zombie light broiled, or indeed haven't tackled a zombie outing before, then Judgement Day is waiting you, full recommendation, dial on in kids. After finishing the novel send Severed Press an email demanding a sequel, it would be against the law not to!

Judgement Day is available via amazon.com, we really should have a link through or something, or you can hit up the publishers site right here and secure a copy for $13.50 plus P&H. Actually the Publisher site has some display problems on my computer's resolution, but not enough to divert from purchasing. The Author maintains a blog over here to keep you up to date with his current publishing onslaught, is 2012 the year of J. E. Gurley?