Strange things are starting to happen all over the world. One man walks naked into heavy traffic. Another man is defecating all over his apartment building and there is a new underground night club that says it can give you an out of body experience. Welcome to Marty Raft's world, he's a man with a horrific past who plans to find out what's going on in Anthony Rapino's Soundtrack To The End Of The World.

Going along for the ride with Marty is his best friend Corey, a wannabe comedian with problems of his own. Corey and Marty get an invitation to the underground night club from their friend Skinny, who is a Buddhist and claims he can take over other people's bodies. In the club they witness the impossible and see spirits leaving their bodies and entering other people.

From there things start to get worse, people start turning into zombies, but these aren't your normal everyday zombies, they don't want to eat the living. In fact nobody is quite sure what they want but when the zombies see the living their jaws open wide and they let loose a high pitched scream that turns the living into the undead.

When I started reading Soundtrack To The End Of The World I was expecting an all out action packed gore fest. While it does have action and gore it offers a lot more. At the heart of the book is a story about the importance of family. Marty has lost his family and is just drifting through life. This is illustrated when he witnesses a man die and he thinks to himself that he wants to care and he tries to look like he cares but in reality he just feels hollow inside and doesn't know what to do.

On his journey to find out what is causing the zombie apocalypse he meets other people and they become a family and Marty finds his purpose. The book gives an interesting social commentary on whats important in life and gets into philosophy as well. It also provides some humor and some tense scenes where your not sure if the zombies or the people Marty and company meet on the road are the bigger menace.

There was a couple of scenes in the book that I did find confusing, like when two of the men that Marty are traveling with think they see something and they go running through the woods and get captured by slave traders. There is also a confusing scene where Marty's truck gets stopped in a traffic jam and hit by a car of people who end up joining Marty's family, but the story has many great scenes as well.

In particular I liked the scene where Marty and his family are taken to a church where a mad priest thinks the rapture is happening and is giving people to the zombies so they can be saved. I also loved the fight scene at the end of the book and how the book wraps up. There is also a really good love scene that is funny and touching at the same time. Soundtrack To The End Of The World is a very original zombie tale with a lot of action and gore thrown in for good measure. ( )