Stylish and enigmatic

The novel could be an allegory of sleep, a phenomenology of time, or a cinematic metafiction. Whatever it is, its memory lingers

The narrative carries considerable literary weight with a rare grace

A captivating mood piece, delicate and wistful

As satirical and gut-wrenchingly emotional as it is horrific, Zone One is the zombie tale at its literary best

A cool, thoughtful and, for all its ludic violence, strangely tender novel

Punchy cocktail of horror, comedy and social critique

Often simultaneously arch and sombre, Whitehead's narrative flares with a sociological intelligence

What Whitehead does really well is anchor his apocalypse in the small, heartbreaking details of everyday humanity, giving his end-of-days a bleak, sad humour that is all its own

It's tense, suspenseful and terrifying... Yet, he's also very funny at times and anyone who has ever had dealings with a HR department will appreciate his asides at the zombies in personnel

Whitehead's witty spin on the zombie apocalypse is an enjoyable read and is highly recommended

It's monochromatically unsettling and blackly comic, as any zombie-related fiction should be. It's also one of the most gut-wrenchingly emotional reads of the year, with tragedy complex and inevitable enough to be Shakespearian... the tension is through the roof. The humour is perfectly pitched... He uses the entire situation to skewer and satirise... But where Zone One truly flourishes is in its depiction of the heartbreaking loss; loss of the chance to be simply mundane, loss of a perfectly formed stronghold and the relationships built up within. At moments like these, the book is quite startlingly, heartbreakingly beautiful, regardless of the subject matter... Whitehead's prose is engrossing, simultaneously verbose and casual enough to stroll off the page and shake your hand... even George A Romero would have to marvel at Zone One... what'll be more interesting is whether Whitehead will ever write anything as astounding as this again

1Q84 is certainly an engrossing, other-worldly mystery to lose yourself in, with a good deal of humour and a considerable thiller-esque page turning pull... Reading it is an intense and addictive experience, and this is no mean feat at all. However, it is also far more than that- it's a highly ambitious work, which raises more questions than it resolves in its intricate plot. A more optimistic take on George Orwell's 1984, kicking off in April that year just like the latter's dystopia, it is concerned with postmodern issues such as the rewriting of the past and the slippery dividing line between fact and fiction, exploring just how uncertain our grasp of reality can be, especially as the world we were born into morphs into somewhere quite different.... For all its fantasy surface and sexy details, this is a work of considerable and haunting complexity, which is likely to resonate a long time after one has stopped turning its numerous pages.

Contains enough of his weird offbeat allure to satisfy devotees

Portrayed in a fluid language that veers from the vernacular . . . to the surprisingly poetic.