Outpost

by Adam Baker

it is a remote refinery in the arctic. there is a disparate crew. there is freezing cold and isolation and all of those sorts of things. these are the sorts of things i often like to read about. there is a mysterious worldwide disaster. there are zombies, a new kind of zombie, metallic zombies. there is a space-born plague, maybe? the plague is from nanobots, maybe? one can only guess. there is an abandoned luxury liner. it is full of zombies. 

there is an ambiguous ending, which is perfect.

the book has a certain kind of writing style. there are a lot of short, declarative sentences. it is like so. it actually drove me crazy in the beginning. it was so monotonous. everyone sounded the same. but then it began to work. it sorta began to work. Baker's monotonous style never changed, never became invisible, but it began to feel like the exact style needed for his tale. but i don't want to underplay the frustrating monotony of the style. it got under my skin. like a metal-based nanobot? maybe so.

there is a fat chaplain - she is our protagonist. the 'fat' part is important, it becomes the key to understanding her character, her motivation and her isolation and her self-loathing. 

there is a ruthless young lady. she may be going mad. she may be our villainess. hard to say, but an absorbing character.

the characterization is not the strongest part but those two characters were quite well-done. there is a third character who is even more compelling. her name is Dr. Elizabeth Rye. she is also well-characterized. her background and her context and her thought processes made sense. the next sentence is a spoiler. she becomes a zombie. we continue to read her thoughts. her thoughts are fascinating and her story is bizarre and frustrating and tragic. she is my favorite part of this novel.

the book is grim, grim, and grim. but it is not all grim. there is some hope in the book. the book is not necessarily scary but it certainly creates a mood. the mood is grim. it is a cold feeling but the book did not leave me cold. i don't like the cold but i like to read about the cold. i liked the book.