Toby Bennett was born in 1976 in Cape Town, South Africa. He holds a degree in philosophy from the University of Cape Town. To date he has written eight novels and appeared in various collections of short stories. Benjamin Knox writes fun pulpy genre-fiction, horror, a little sci-fi and anything gleefully maniacal.
Viral - Vector 1: Raw Feed is another twist on the traditional Zombie tale. Here the outbreak has been quarantined to an area known as the Western Sector. There are four types of the Undead. Stalkers. Shamblers. Scraps, and (New!) Dumplings.
"At first it had seemed a simple progression--the infected became stalkers, stalkers degenerated into shamblers and those to far gone to even qualify as either became scraps. The dumplings were what had everyone panicked. No one had imagined, until a few months ago, that the contagion had the capacity to gather those scraps together and turn then into a single organism."
It's now been two years since the outbreak. Armed with a potential cure, a group of military and civilian volunteers enter the Western Sector, believing their lead tank and Armored Personnel Carriers will offer sufficient protection. Problem is, no one expected the zombies would be that smart.
Viral - Vector 1: Raw Feed was OK. One thing I found to be particularly annoying was the use of channel surfing to bring the reader up to speed on what was happening. Not a bad technique, but with every click the next story would start at the beginning. I don't know about you, but when I channel surf I never have that kind of luck.
As a rule, I don't mind novellas, but it seems to me this story may have been better served as a novel. Given its $2.99 price tag, this puts the overall cost of the tale at $11.96. That's a bit high for an e-book.
Viral - Vector 1: Raw Feed will be available as an e-book on October 1st, 2015 with the rest of the series available on consecutive Thursdays. Published by Macabre Ink, a digital imprint of Crossroad Press.
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