The Scattered and the Dead Series: The First Four Books: Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

Overall review: TEOTWAWKI, zombies, raiders, cults, addicts, serial killers, average people just trying to survive, and mysterious guys wearing bags over their heads—the Scattered and the Dead has something for everybody. It's one post-apocalyptic thrill ride you don't want to miss.Individual reviews:Book 0.5shut-in vs. the apocalypseI love this book. It's grim, dark, and visceral. While society falls apart, Decker, a guy who sealed himself off from the world at the very beginning of the plague is trying to make a connection with the girl across the hall.This is a smooth, seamless read. I finished it in one sitting. I couldn't stop turning the pages. I had to find out what Decker would do next, how he would cope with this dark new reality, and whether he would finally give the letter to the girl across the hall. The ending gave me this sense of finality and loss, of irreversible changes—not just to the world, but to Decker himself. I realized I'd been clinging to the old world and the old Decker as tightly as he had been. In the end, that was the hardest part to stomach—watching helplessly while Decker became the man he had to be to survive.If this is any indication of things to come, then the Scattered and the Dead Book 1 can't come out soon enough. I can't wait to spend some more time in McBain and Vargus's grim and gritty post-apocalyptic world.Book 1.0it's the end of the world as we know itOne of the coolest things about the Scattered and the Dead Book 1 is that it combines everything post-apocalyptic enthusiasts love about the genre--death, fighting, TEOTWAWKI, the struggle to survive without modern niceties like electricity, and oh yeah, freakin' zombies!--with the contemplation of why humans cling so hard to The World As We Know It in the first place. Why do we fill up our lives with products and meaningless entertainment? What problem does a large Number 5 with cheese solve? How is being ironic on Instagram or Twitter enriching our lives? What lessons are we imparting to the next generation by spending our time in front of a television, ereader, computer, or phone screen? How much time and energy before and after The End are we going to expend trying to keep ourselves numb to the world around us?Zombie plagues and food for thought. Pretty awesome, right? And you haven't even met the cast yet.There's Mitch, the dad at the end of the world, who's turning into a zombie and only has hours left to prep his sons for the apocalypse they never thought would come. Erin, a teenager taking care of an eight-year-old while learning to survive in the world After. Travis, raiding the ruins of the world for all the booze, cigarettes, and pills he can find so he never has to feel again. Baghead, on a one-man publisher on a mission to preserve the memory of the world Before. The slick former televangelist, the lone sadist, the mysterious Five...the list goes on and on. Somehow the all-star team of Vargas and McBain managed to weave all of these story lines and ideas into a single book that takes us into, through, and out the other side of the apocalypse.The feeling I got as I read was one of all these story lines working toward a singularity, of disparate threads coming together, and without giving away any spoilers, I was not disappointed. The Scattered and the Dead Book 1 is epic on so many levels. It's the first full novel in the series, but I would say it could almost be read as a self-contained story. There isn't any cheesy cliffhanger; the ending is satisfying and awful and just right. I can't wait to see what happens with the characters and the world in the rest of the series.Book 1.5zombie apocalypse with a chance of muuuurderLike the Scattered and the Dead 0.5, I read 1.5 in one sitting because I couldn't stop. I had to see what would happen. The authors know how to write a story that won't let you go. I'm still thinking about everything that went down, turning over how it could all too easily become reality for mankind—just add apocalypse.The creepiest parts of this story was the isolated characters' slow slide into dark superstitions. Weird little ideas that might have been easily dismissed Before with the distractions of technology start to take on a life of their own After, where there's nothing but cold and dark and time to think. Suspicions grow and twist into obsessions, and those morph into horrific actions. It was inevitable and awful, and McBain and Vargus never give the reader a chance to look away. The writing is stark, almost painfully clear, and serves to reinforce that this new world is a one without the same brand of hope as the old world, even as one of the characters is offered a fresh start.The Scattered and the Dead 1.5 is also a volume of Postcards from an Empty World, the collections Baghead has become famous (or infamous) for publishing, and it offers us clues as to why Father wants Baghead dead. When viewed from that angle, it's not just an awesome read, it's an awesome piece of world-building metafiction. Unlike other works of metafiction, though, it isn't alienating or sarcastic. As the reader, you're both completely enmeshed in the characters' accounts and aware of the stories stretching across the Scattered and the Dead series. It's brilliant.Book 2.0not your grandpa's zombie apocalypseSome post-apocalyptic zombie stories are so predictable that the only thing keeping you reading is the zombie-head-smashing action. Some are so full of zombie-head-smashing that you can't see the cardboard-cutout-characters for the blood. Some are so focused on methodical survival that they could be the curriculum for a prepper's TEOTWAWKI course. And some are so dark that you can't imagine anyone wanting to survive in that sick new future, let alone actually thrive in it. But The Scattered and the Dead is not like any of those post-apocalyptic zombie stories. In this series, Vargus and McBain have struck an incredible balance between character, action, story, survival, dark, light, and oh yeah, zombies. It's the total package.Weaving together strands from the characters who fascinated us from the previous books with unpredictable newcomers, The Scattered and the Dead Book 2 takes us on a journey through the worst of human nature: A sadistic psycho driven to torture and kill. A corrupt community where no one is going to punish a murderer because he has connections. The creation of a cult by false prophets preying on their follower's desperate desire for miracles. The realities of scarcity and the lengths the survivors will go to take supplies from each other.However, unlike some post-apocalyptic series, The Scattered and the Dead isn't a complete condemnation of humanity. The authors didn't just slap some evil characters onto the page and call it a day. They built real, living, breathing humans out of words, then let those humans interact with the world. What came out was dark, definitely, but there was light in it, too. Book 2 is both a look at how awful humans can be to each other...and how beautiful they can be to each other. While reading, you get a sense of hope, a sense that maybe goodness can even survive a zombie apocalypse. The darkness in these books just accentuates the moments of light all the more.Of course, there's also a bunch of zombie-smashin', Bind Torture Killin', and revenge-soaked deliciousness in there, too. Even more of the disparate strands our favorite author duo started with are coming together in new, sick, and satisfying ways. If you see this ending coming, then you should probably check with your local psychic, because you might be clairvoyant. It's so inevitable and yet so unpredictable—and that makes it downright awesome. Just read it already!

I don’t often gravitate towards science fiction for my reading pastimes, but the dynamic duo of Tim McBain and L.T. Vargus had impressed and held me with all their other suspense books I’d read, and I have quickly become a huge fan of their writings, so I cracked open the “Scattered and the Dead” series. I’m four books in, ready to start Book 2.5, the 5th in the series, and once again, they do not disappoint.What a spooky yet compelling book to read as we navigate our way through this pandemic of ours. Astonishing to realize that the first 4 books at least were published before Covid-19 was even a “thing”. Believable characters face challenges that some of us face today—the hoarding behaviors, stashing, isolation, anger, independence, self-reliance, horrific behaviors…the ability to sacrifice things we never thought we could do without…and dealing with a kind of hysteria that hits what otherwise would be “normal people”.Although this was sci-fi in nature with elements we surely won’t face—hopefully!—it nonetheless made the unimaginable seem possible, especially with some of the dynamics that are playing out in front of our eyes today.And what a creative and ingenious way to bring about the story—following characters before and after the apocalypse so the readers get a taste of what’s ahead, and yet more suspenseful as we learn more about what could be in someone’s near future… The variations in personalities and environments opened up different worlds we the readers entered of people we liked and didn’t like, all individuals we learned about, and could somehow understand almost all of their reasons for being and acting as they did.As Franz Kafka did successfully in “Metamorphosis”, the reader enters inside the minds of characters going through what is an impossible thing, and yet in such a way that you get caught up in their thinking, relate to some of their thoughts or insecurities, and find yourself believing the impossible and feeling quite disturbed in the process. And then it’s just steps away from becoming even more horrific, realizing what mere mortals are capable of, which is every bit as awful, and maybe more so, than the terrorizing zombies…Are we really capable of change? Following the characters, one gets the sense that disasters and stress seem to augment characteristics. Sometimes the good ones are somehow made even better than they thought possible or tap into heroic acts they never thought themselves capable of. Sometimes the “bad apples” become even worse, creating horrific possibilities of what humans are capable of. This series is also a study of how suspicious people become of each other in such circumstances on the one hand, and yet how easily fooled people become during desperate times on the other.I have to confess that early on in Book 1 (0.5), I was thinking to myself, “Well, I’ll give this one a shot but I’ll be glad when it’s over and I can get back to the other suspense I enjoy reading.” And now here I am, ready to crack Book 5 (2.5), eerily anticipating whatever outcome is ahead. I’m way out of my comfort zone, craving more. How did you do that?And, by the way, the numbering system of the books just adds to the mystery of life and makes me smile with irony too. I’m a little OCD, so the order of the universe got shifted for me but then as things progressed, I relaxed back into the half-steps…0.5, then 1.0, then 1.5, then 2.0…until I came across 2.6, between 2.5 and 3.0. Thanks for that…I may be back in therapy soon.Thanks for the series, seriously. An odd journey to take during odd times. Looking forward to more.

The narrative follows a variety of characters across a spectrum of time periods before and after the nuclear strike. It’s a bit confusing to go back and forth like that all over the place, but I think ultimately it works.Sometimes there’s a bit of sameness to the character voices; several of the characters are unusually aware of their own physicality and physical actions/reactions. It’s a bit weird. The characters have some nice depth, though, and sometimes surprise the reader. Current post-apocalyptic fiction still often focuses so intensely on the basics–survivalism, largely–that it’s nice to find a book that develops the depth of plot and character necessary in fiction in general. Most sub-genres follow this pattern, starting out as sketches and basics and then gradually developing into fully-fledged fiction with all of the necessary elements for a good story. Unlike some of the recent books I’ve read, Vargus’s The Scattered and the Dead makes that transition.I like some of the details. There’s a prepper whose preparations come to naught because he gets hit by the plague, and given the odds, that should happen more often than not. It’s been a bit weird to read post-apocalyptic after post-apocalyptic in which both the prepper and all of his family members mysteriously turn out to be immune; after a while it beggars belief. Another nice detail: there may be some serious perverts in here, but at least it doesn’t depict every male as a rampant rapist and every female as a would-be victim.Vargus’s work is a bit rough around the edges, but I like the story and characters. If you like the genre it’s worth giving this series a read.

This is completely unlike my usual read, but having stumbled on Book 0.5 and found a lot of Book 1.0 tough going I'm now hooked. If you've followed the adventures of this motley crew of survivors trying to make their way in a post-virus apocalyptic America then you'll be desperate to follow Baghead, Erin and Izzy, Ray and Lorraine, along with some new characters, and you won't be disappointed. The characters are better drawn out than in the earlier instalments, and there's a huge "I didn't see that coming" finale.

I've read all 4 through Kindle Unlimited but with the next in the series out next month, I'll want to re-read this excellent series while I wait for The Scattered and the Dead 2.5. To that end, and at such a great price (99p), I've just bought them. If you enjoy the zombie apocalypse genre this series is unmissable but if zombies aren't your thing, give them a go anyway. I'm sure you won't be disappointed. They're very much character led and beautifully written and, cliche it may be, but I couldn't put them down. As soon as I'd finished one I downloaded the next and was off again.

The story is so disjointed and dragged out that you get sick of reading it. Could have been much better as the story has potential but after getting this far I no longer care what happens

Although I did finish the books and quite enjoyed reading about how everyone was getting on, i found myself flipping through the pages when there was too much thinking of people

Very interesting read.