Received as an ARC from Netgalley:

S A Sidor is such a tremendously fun author and this is yet another book that proves that. I'm still only a tiny bit familiar with the game Zombicide but the books related to the boardgame are really fun.

This is an prison escape gone wrong with all kinds of twists and turns. The characters are mostly evil aholes, only a few of them have any redeemable qualities. The fight sequences and action are top notch. Sidor comes up with so many weird aliens and I was here for every minute of it.

I'm a sucker for a good breakout story, so the addition of zombies made this a win for me. Prisoners from a super-secure intergalactic prison are being moved to a new facility, and take the opportunity to escape. Too bad for them the planet they land on is infested with the mold-zombies of Zombiecide. Double crosses, cold-blooded murders, and a terrifying alien of no known type make this a bunch of gore-soaked fun.

This book was far more fun than I'd anticipated! I enjoy SA Sidor's writing a lot, so it was a pleasure to see her take on space zombies (!), making a fairly ridiculous premise into a decent political horror/thriller. The characters were real, and having worked in the prison service, I was actually pleased to see attitudes reflected in the story (whether by chance or not, I don't know, but it was pretty accurate!).

The science-fiction backdrop was well thought-out and I enjoyed the ride, being regularly surprised at the twists and turns of the tale.

Excellent fun.

Despite having not played any of the Zombicide games I've come to really love the franchise due completely to the work of the novels. Aconyte Books have produced some fantastic books in these settings, and whilst the regular Zombicide books, and the Black Plague series all follow the same group of survivors and their stories, the Zombicide Invader series gives us something almost completely new each time. This time readers are treated to a daring prison escape from some of the worst of the worst in the galaxy; an escape that leads our colourful cast of characters to an even bigger nightmare.

Death System begins in prison, in one of the worst maximum security prisons in the galaxy. Here we meet a number of the most high profile prisoners, such as Bak-Irp, the bounty hunter turned killer, Nero Lupaster IV, the super rich head of a criminal guild, Shawna Bright, the military pilot who shot down and killed her own unit, and Dr Lemora Pick, a scientist who created a weapon that killed a planet. Nero, who still has a lot of very powerful friends, has been carefully paying off one of the guards, getting him on side, and arranges for a very special package to be snuck into the prison and given to Lemora, another of his people. A package containing a deadly, infectious mould.

During a prisoner transfer that sees a few dozen of the prisons worst placed onto an old and beaten-up ship, Lemora uses the mould in a small explosive she's made, detonating it in the cabin. The mould begins to infect the non-humans on board, transforming them into ravenous zombies. It's in this chaos that Nero and his group stage their escape; an escape in which Shawna finds herself having to fight to survive. However, when the ship lands on a planet filled with more of the deadly zombie creatures the survivors will have to work together to try and make it out alive.

One of the fun things about Death System is that very early on there's almost no one you want to root for. Shawna is made to be sympathetic from the start, as Sidor makes it clear that she believes that she was framed for her crimes, and that she did not murder her team, but other than that there's no one in our group of survivors that deserve to get out alive. This group are some of the worst of the worst characters, mass murderers, psychopaths, and worse, yet as the story progresses you start to like the characters more and more, to the point where you start to feel bad when these very terrible people begin to die.

There are a lot of stories out there that try to make criminals sympathetic, and most of the time I find that they tend to fail. These stories often come across as romanticising crime and brutality, with the creators having to try to make despicable characters into victims of circumstance rather than out and out bad people in order to make them sympathetic. Sidor doesn't try this though, most of the characters are unrepentant, they don't have tragic backstories that justify their heinous acts, and most of them don't even care that they've done bad. Despite this, their personalities are what make them so likable. Lemora is uncaring, she has killed countless people and thought nothing of it, yet I couldn't help but come to like her because of her relationships with the other survivors and they small ways in which she was made quite charming.

Because of the work that Sidor puts into making these characters likable when the killing starts you do actually care when they die, and there are moments that had me letting out audible groans as someone who I was enjoying in a scene just a moment ago is brutally ripped to pieces by the hordes of undead storming the facility our characters are holding up in.

I can't really talk too much more about the story without spoiling too much, as there are so many twists and turns in the book that I wouldn't want to spoil anything for anyone, but if you like sci-fi horror, and have enjoyed the other books in the series this will definitely appeal to you. I had a great time reading it, and by the time the end came I was annoyed that it was over and wanted more. S.A. Sidor has written some of my favourite books with Aconyte, and this absolutely enters that category. Absolutely great fun.

Death System is one heck of a ride. Imagine a sort of Suicide Squad and Aliens with a sprinkle of Zombies and you still aren’t close to how awesome this is. Now first things first I will say to enjoy this one you don’t really need to have played Zombicide or Zombicide Invader but obviously if you have the enjoyment will be doubled. All you really need is to love sci-fi, zombies and mayhem (but well executed and paced mayhem).


I honestly adored this one. You are left on the edge of your seat while reading about cybernetic zombie aliens trying to take over a ship and potentially the world. Enter Shawna (who I loved) and a crew of dangerous criminals who need to survive and potentially stop the unthinkable. As you can expect from a zombie novel there is a lot of gore and guts, a lot of action and a lot of death. There’s also a lot of worry if the living are going to turn on each other as well as the undead aliens. Basically there is a lot going on but Sidor keeps the mayhem controlled and with a good plot. It’s safe to say if you love zombies and sci-fi this is one for you. With a heroine who I think would be best friends with Ripley and an undead horde to face you need to read Death System today.

Thanks to S A Sidor, Aconyte Books and Netgalley for access to the advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a fun book! Our hero, Shawna Bright is a pilot who is thrown into multiple bad situations with zombies on a spaceship and on a desolate planet. Great characters and good writing in this fast-paced story. Recommended for those who enjoy zombies or a great space adventure.

Review posted to Goodreads manually due to technical issues:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6249357977

I dont know if its me or the book but i wanted more from this one. There was nothing new here. Actions, characters, tropes everything is almost familiar but the names have changed and the overall book was written better than some others. The character work was also done better here.

Fast paced fun story. What could be worse than being wrongfully imprisoned? Well being that and then escaping …… into the hands of a meglomaniac and a zombie hoard. Oh yes, and trapped on a spaceship too!!! Thank you you to Aconyte Books and NetGalley for the ARC. The views expressed are all mine, freely given.

Death System is a well constructed SF/Horror game novel. The action is brisk and the characters are better than the one-dimensional figures one might expect. That said, there is nothing new here, just familiar tropes executed with competence. I would pick up another book by author Sidor, whether sequel or something else.