After the Pulse

I seem to be fast becoming a Kim Jewell fan without knowing it. I read Misery's Fire a while ago and was struck by the unique depiction of Hell found within. Now I’ve stumbled across After the Pulse and realized after a couple chapters that the author was the same person. The skill level of the writer left little doubt.

After the Pulse is a more traditional survival horror tale compared to Misery. In a lot of ways it reminded me of Stephen King’s Cell, where a mysterious electrical surge turns people into zombies and survivors have to travel across a ruined country. Being compared to Stephen King is a good thing in my opinion and in a lot of ways, I think Jewell is as good an author. The characterization is extremely well done here, much more so than what we normally find in this genre. Because of that, readers get an instant connection with the characters and really care about what happens to them as the story progresses. There is always that fear that something bad will happen.

Descriptions are particularly strong. In many cases I felt drawn into the story, almost down to street level with the main character survivors. The first person narrative at times may seem a touch off, but you get used to it quickly. In a way, that is the style of parts of World War Z, which is the pinnacle of zombie books. There is also a really cool mystery here regarding why some people were turned to zombies, some went into a coma, some died outright and a few people, like the survivors in the story, were not affected at all. I want to know why.

Only five chapters are posted, but already I want to learn more. The story is just getting really good. I’m left wondering if two people armed with a pickax and a bat will do well against hoards of zombies, or if the zombies will act like they traditionally do in most tales. Can survivors get infected? Perhaps the process can even be reversed?

This is the beginning of a great tale for zombiephiles, and the story is obviously in the hands of a talented writer. I have little doubt that it will become a wonderful novel in the zombie compendium.

John Breeden II
Old Number Seven

Hi Kim, Another suspenseful story! The freaky happenings during this usual athletic gathering capture. You have a strong central character going. And graphic description. It's a promising one - Shelved & starred - Katherine

A polished and assured sci-fi book for a YA readership. Kim, you really have the aptitude for this genre. The vocabulary is perfectly pitched, the editing faultless - both are as expected from this author. What I didn't expect was the strength of the plot and the sharpness of the characterisation. I love the first-person narrative. It has pitfalls for the writer and is manifestly more difficult to write given the obvious constraints of the story-line when told in a single voice, but when it works as well as this...
The highlight for me, was in the long pitch, 'A theory which some were quick to point out was how they believed God had hit the restart button.' That's a guaranteed hook for a teen readership.
Strongly recommended.
Jake

Hello Kim,
What a pleasure to see some polished work on this site, at last. For the first three chapters, nothing jumped at me.
Ch.4
“Every once in a while I’d catch a glimpse of a crazy run out of an ally or doorway and attempt to catch us on foot…” I think, comma after while and “running” and “attempting” might be better.
Ch.5
“…put of my stomach.” = “pit”
With the minimal amount of pages you’ve uploaded, it’s hard to assess the plot and character development, etc. It looks like the makings of a good story with an easy to read style and credible settings, actions, etc. so far.
I hope that you will rate and comment on one or more of my books
Best wishes, Charles Dyer (Mach100)

Kim,
You have a finely-crafted work of science fiction in After the Pulse. This is an unthinkable disaster which you have imagined, but your characters seem so real and the reader can easily feel drawn to the narrative from the quality of the prose. Six stars for this fine work of fiction which takes the reader places no one would want to go while giving them characters they can truly care about.

Walden Carrington
Titanic: Rose Dawson's Story

Yikes! This is creepy good. From the God references in your pitch I thought it was going to super Jesus- ey and almost didn't read. I'm glad I did you have great skill as a writer. Good luck with this.

Scratch
Depends On What You Mean By Inappropriate

Hi Kim,
I love the look of both of your covers, but read your bio and decided to read some of your new work.
Nice writing. Strange softball tournament! Glad I wasn't staying in that hotel! Wow, was it a dream? And then became real? Woah. Weird family!
Great work. Highly rated!
Monicque.
The Multiple Choice.
:)

I seem to be fast becoming a Kim Jewell fan without knowing it. I read Misery's Fire a while ago and was struck by the unique depiction of Hell found within. Now I’ve stumbled across After the Pulse and realized after a couple chapters that the author was the same person. The skill level of the writer left little doubt.

After the Pulse is a more traditional survival horror tale compared to Misery. In a lot of ways it reminded me of Stephen King’s Cell, where a mysterious electrical surge turns people into zombies and survivors have to travel across a ruined country. Being compared to Stephen King is a good thing in my opinion and in a lot of ways, I think Jewell is as good an author. The characterization is extremely well done here, much more so than what we normally find in this genre. Because of that, readers get an instant connection with the characters and really care about what happens to them as the story progresses. There is always that fear that something bad will happen.

Descriptions are particularly strong. In many cases I felt drawn into the story, almost down to street level with the main character survivors. The first person narrative at times may seem a touch off, but you get used to it quickly. In a way, that is the style of parts of World War Z, which is the pinnacle of zombie books. There is also a really cool mystery here regarding why some people were turned to zombies, some went into a coma, some died outright and a few people, like the survivors in the story, were not affected at all. I want to know why.

Only five chapters are posted, but already I want to learn more. The story is just getting really good. I’m left wondering if two people armed with a pickax and a bat will do well against hoards of zombies, or if the zombies will act like they traditionally do in most tales. Can survivors get infected? Perhaps the process can even be reversed?

This is the beginning of a great tale for zombiephiles, and the story is obviously in the hands of a talented writer. I have little doubt that it will become a wonderful novel in the zombie compendium.

John Breeden II
Old Number Seven

In your pitch: Why would boats sink if they lost power? (maybe 'boats flounded onto rocks').

'...like I had dissapeared. Fallen into a black hole. Gone from the Earth.' - Just the first two needed. (And capitalise Earth as it's a name).


...mouthful of food. Or blood. Stay within her speaker's head here. I didn't think it credible that she would consider blood at this point. Food does the job quiet nicely, let the reader's imagination do the rest.


Reasonable tension but I would have liked to have had her go out into the hall after her dad went back to sleep just after the pulse happened. Nothing would happen, but wandering the hallway (looking for one of the hotel staff for instance, maybe she was hungery, and getting a little distant from safety has the potential to build tension early on. When she gets back safely the reader's heart is set just a little bit faster for the next encounter.


Overall, the story has merit and your writing is pretty good. If you want this book to sell then it needs more kick to make it stand out against so many to be launched due to the 2012 prophecy though. Consider starting the story with her waking to the sound of the chilling scream - then she looks outside to find the place blacked out - then she checks her phone for the time, but it's not working etc... This gives you the opportunity to have strong starting lines in the book that pull the reader in.

Anyhoo, this is all meant constructively and you have a good book brewing here. I was interested in reading more, so that's got to be good. Hope it's helpful.

Miles.

While this is not real original, the pace and content was enough to keep me engaged through the first four chapters. Zombie tales are like vampire stories, difficult to seperate from the plethora of stories out there. You have a unique angel you seem to be building to and that may be enough, though it is still too early to tell.

This was fairly clean and tight and I found nothing to detract from the flow. Sme things didn't make sense, like why the truck worked but all other electronic devices didn't. Inconsistencies like this either need explanations or clarity so the reader isn't questioning why. Also, the amount of blood seemed excessive for the scene. To have so much blood that it makes walking difficult would require an aweful lot of dead bodies which doesn't seem to fit the scene. Pools of blood I can see, but so much that it covers every part of the stairwell is overkill and your story suffers some.

Still, with some tweaking, this could be a compelling and enjoyable story.

Good luck,

EddieTol -