Dead Cities

Adrian's March. Part Four (Adrian's Undead Diary, Book 12)

By: Chris Philbrook

Narrated by: DJ Leone

Like a brick at a birthday cake.

Shoreham Port in Brighton, England, has been secured by Adrian Ring alongside his friends, with the five navy ships that made the trans-Atlantic voyage to find the European Trinity. He must find the Soul, the Scribe, and the Warden and get them on their path, as he walk his, but there are obstacles.

The undead in Europe are faster and stronger than anything they’ve encountered, and the survivors here are hungry, and desperate for help. They can’t fight every zombie, but each one they pass could be a lethal threat to their own people, or to the locals who’ve fought hard to survive.

Luckily, he encounters a small, well-armed group of car-equipped survivors, led by a friendly man calling himself Chief, who dwarfs even the burly Adrian. They decide to work together to procure ground vehicles for the march north.
But Chief isn’t the savior he’s pretending to be, and there are far more monsters roaming in the dark of the old world than Adrian is prepared to face.

Dead Cities contains Adrian’s journal entries from September 9th, 2014 through November 27th, 2014. It also contains the side fictions The Ghost in the Boiler Room, Rachel and Mara, Fetters, Sanctuary, and Ernest Goes for a Walk.

©2021 Chris Philbrook (P)2021 Chris Philbrook

Unhappy in the AUD universe

After 11 books and developing a relationship with the character Adrian, a stranger shows up in a world he’s never been apart of. I’m greatly disappointed with the change up. This narrator sounds like he’s just gotten into college, when the character is a late thirties military man.

Bring back James “FN” Foster. He brought Adrian to life, he intrigued me with the story. I’ve listened to 6 hrs of DJ and still don’t know what’s going on.

Ugh, betray the fans!

Going down

Least favorite in the series so far. Like everyone else has mentioned the new narrator doesn’t match. He’s not a bad narrator, but he doesn’t match the character. He ruined several otherwise funny jokes by his poor delivery. Most of the female characters especially Abby sound like stereotypical gay college boys. Adrian sounds more like a frat boy than the leader he is.
The story’s not bad, just nothing groundbreaking.

Narrator hurts it overall

The difference between this Narrator and the ones from the previous books in the series is night and day. Adrian’s character suffered along with the story line due to a narrator that is not knowledgeable about items described in the novel. Military jargon was robotic and clearly showed the narrator was not versed in its meaning. Narrator may be great at other types of stories but not those containing military type phrases or acronyms

Change in narrator’s.

Didn’t enjoy as much of the previous books. Used to the narrator from first 12 books. Just not the same.

Narrator changed the feel of the story

I’ve listened to this series all the way through Book 12, so this isn’t coming from a casual listener. I’m invested in these characters and this world.

But the narrator change in Book 12 completely altered the experience for me.

I understand that production changes happen but in a first-person diary format, the narrator is the character. The voice, tone, and delivery shape how we experience Adrian. With the new narrator, it felt like I was listening to a completely different book. Adrian no longer sounded like the hardened, seasoned thirty-something man I’d come to know. Instead, he came across more like a college kid in his early twenties. It shifted the maturity and weight of the character in a way that changed the emotional impact of the story even though the actual writing didn’t change.

Abby’s portrayal was especially difficult. She no longer sounded like the strong, grounded woman from earlier books. The voice performance made her come across naïve and almost foolish at times, which altered the dynamic between her and Adrian.

Nothing about the plot itself changed but the tone absolutely did. And in an audio series, tone matters.

I’m still a fan of the story and the world that’s been built, but this narrator shift made it feel like I stepped into a different version of it.