Marcus Nelson, tenured professor, his son Ali and friend Vic are visiting Stanford University as part of a business trip while also looking at places for his son to attend in the future. While on a guided tour, there is an earthquake and a light in the sky. As the tour group recovers, they see a group of people running towards them, attacking those around them with inhumane ferocity and feasting on the bodies of those they have killed. Marcus, Ali and Vic run for their lives and find themselves on the roof with several others who had survived the initial onslaught. As they wonder what is going on, and what they can do, they can still see the carnage below. As the hours pass and with less activity below, the group decides to make a run for the parking lot and try to escape before it becomes too late. As they make the perilous journey, they attract the attention from several people trying to rip the group apart and feast on them. But making it to the car is not going to be the end of their escape, Surrounded on all sides and with no help coming, who will survive this deadly attack?

A Hard Reset is zombie apocalypse story that is the first part of a series. It was quite eye-opening to read as a British reader. it id very American in its style and full of name dropping for the first part of it before the story truly hits its stride. The plot is simple enough: zombie outbreak, people running for their lives, bloodshed and mayhem, you get the idea. I have to admit, the attacks by those affected are well written, short and brutal and convey clearly the power and ferocity these inhuman creatures have.

The characters in the group are a little stereotypical for these kind of stories, the families, the racists, the tour guide. You can put a list together of people on the roof and guess who will survive by who they are. The other big problem I have, is that the point of view can change from line to line depending on who is acting. It feels as though everyone is acting one person at a time, instead of as a group with one person viewing all of it. The main protagonists are Ali and Vic, but for the course of the story they are more along for the ride, while Marcus is a much stronger character, even if he is briefly described up front without all the attached fashion. The author is trying very hard to get us to like certain of them. The formatting needs work, as it does switch between people on separate lines and I noticed some spelling errors and grammar issues through the story.

However, my biggest gripe is it just ends and not in a good way. If the idea was to cut half way in the middle of a scene and hope to draw the reader back for the next part, well, i spent a couple of minutes after reaching the end looking for the next page and wondering what was going on.Overall, it’s fine for a quick blast of zombie horror, the zombies are really quite good, but I’m not going to be looking for the rest of the series.