Catalyst: Decay Chains, Vol. 1

Wars makes an uneven debut with this energetic modern zombie novel. Stormy accompanies her boyfriend, Matt, to the hospital, where he’s undergoing an emergency appendectomy when terrorist organization Cold World attacks the building with a zombifying biological agent. Matt partially turns into a zombie, and he hounds Stormy as she collects a ragtag group of survivors and forms them into a counterterrorist cell based out of an isolated rural house. The group gathers intelligence and resources even as Cold World escalates its attacks, bringing on a global epidemic that portends apocalypse. Wars’s dedicated focus on action and frenetic pacing ultimately cripples the narrative, leaving the continuity and transitions too sketchy to follow easily. The story also suffers from awkward, uneven characterization and the conspicuous use of pseudoscience. Readers are left with the impression of a book that could have been stronger but instead relies too hard on the reader’s dedicated fondness for the genre’s most time-worn tropes. [em](BookLife) [/em]