J.F. Holmes's Zombie Killers: Falling

(This is the first installment of my three part Memorial Day Review Series featuring stories written by veterans of the US Armed Forces and featuring the selfsame American military in action. Today's author is J.F. Holmes, a retired NCO who Served 22 years in the Army and Army National Guard with Tours in Cuba and Iraq. He also responded to the attacks on September 11, 2001.)

Far too many zombie stories start off either well into the apocalypse or use the whole “Oh, look the world is going crazy. Let me spend the next week, month, whatever asleep and when I wake up it'll be all gone to shit.” Not so with J.F. Holmes's Zombie Killers: Falling. We get a view of the fall of the world from the sharp end. Nick O'Neil, our hero is there at Ground Zero of the zombie apocalypse just as it is starts.

Holmes's portrayal of the military and the way it is treated is accurate as well. Nick's guard unit starts the story running a traffic control point in the Continental United States. They don't know why they're there. They don't know what they're guarding against. Put bluntly, they're treated like mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed shit. One guard member gets it right based on guesswork and they all think he's loopy. It's pretty typical and kind of cliché but it works. The military is trained to follow orders without questioning and that's what they do. The politicians seldom care what the military thinks. Even once details start to leak, Nick's unit only learns that there is a plague to the east, but not what it is. They don't know what the threat is until they witness it for themselves.

Seriously, this book starts so early in the fall (it is called Falling after all) that no one has any clue what is going on. Well, for the most part. At any rate things get ugly quickly and it all just goes to hell from there. The running. The fighting. The sudden death. It's crazy.

Holmes's zombies are just plain scary as well. They move quickly. The kill quickly from even the smallest bite. They turn so fast it'll make your head spin. That's probably their most horrifying trait. Like “Oh no, he's dead. OMG HE'S EATING ME!!!” That fast. They have glowing red eyes too. This is both terrifying and awesome. It also makes them easy to spot, but that's a separate issue.

Falling has all of the craziness and heartbreak you would expect from a zombie novel. I don't want to get into spoilers but trust me, one part of Falling had a big, bad, rough, tough, hardcore dude almost crying. Seriously, it hit me hard. I mean, the gut-wrenching heartbreaker is kind of a zombie staple, but Holmes knocked this one out of the park.

It's always a treat reading military science fiction written by someone who has served. There is a certain feeling that needs to be in a story about the military. It's hard to describe but it's kind of a mixture of “I've got your back,” mixed with “I love all of you,” crossed with “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on,” with just a touch of “I'm sick of this shit... even though I actually love it.” Holmes did a good job communicating that.

Something else that this book offers that most zombie stories don't is a goal. Somewhere to get to that actually exists. Remember the first season of The Walking Dead when Rick and company fought and fought to get to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta so that they could find the cure for the virus? Remember it not being there? I've seen an absolute buttload of that in zombie stories. Crying characters disappointed because they knew with absolute positivity, that there was a safe place to get to. There was somewhere that they could be sheltered and protected. But then they get there and it's not safe. The dead are stacked up like cord-wood or, more likely, scattered around in a mess of random death. But not Falling. Falling actually works backwards from that. Nick has no clue that there is anyplace to run to until he finds it and stumbles in with tears in his eyes.
My only complaint about Falling is that it doesn't end when the story ends. There is a definite arc here. I read this thing all the way through, enjoying myself the whole way, and then got to the end of a chapter. I was satisfied. I turned the page, fully expecting to see an excerpt from the next book there. What I got was a new chapter. I was...uhhh... not disappointed, exactly. As a lifelong fan of the written word, I'm always sad to see a good story end. It was a bit confusing though. Having read it, it's obvious why it's there. It sets up the rest of the series.

Falling starts off a series known as Zombie Killers. I get the fact that the end of the book sets up the rest of the series. I kinda, sorta get the fact that it needs to. It was just a bit perplexing to see it there though. Before the last couple of chapters, Falling works as a standalone book. As a matter of fact, it is a pretty champion standalone before those last couple of chapters. With that addition though, this book really only makes sense in a wider context than what is contained in its pages. I can't help think that Holmes added that last little bit for marketing purposes and, while I don't disapprove (authors do like and deserve to get paid for their work), I don't really see that they add much to Falling as a whole. It's almost like a bonus short story at the end of the book. Kind of like The Cleansing of the Shire at the end of The Return of the King except at least Holmes made it entertaining.

All in all though, it was a good book and I do plan on picking up the rest of the series at some point in time. I mean, Holmes has made the whole series available at a good price on Amazon and who am I to argue with quality fiction at a good price?

Bottom Line: 4.5 out of 5 Bitten Appendages

Falling
J.F. Holmes
Self Published, 2017

Falling is available for purchase at the following link:



The complete ten book series (which I have not read) is also available at: