Review of Iain McKinnon’s “Remains of the Dead”
Remains of the Dead is the sequel to Iain McKinnon’s “Domain of the Dead” but in a way, it is its own stand alone story. I guess the term sequel doesn’t accurately describe this tale, since this story runs parallel to the first book. Both books start out the same way, with a group of survivors trapped years after the start of the zombie apocalypse inside a large warehouse that is filled with all the supplies they would need to survive. Unfortunately, they have burned through most of those supplies and only have a few months left before they will end up starving to death. A helicopter, stationed out at sea on one of the few surviving military ships, has come to the area where the warehouse is to collect an undead “sample” for the scientist on the ship to study. The people from the warehouse, upon hearing the helicopter, decide to make a run to the bird in an effort at escaping the hell they have lived through for several years and the reality that their time is running out.
The first book focuses on the survivors who climb aboard the helicopter as they return to the ship. Their story is one that examines the science behind the outbreak of the plague and the attempts to find a cure or inoculation against it. It also deals with a fresh outbreak of infection onboard the ship. This novel details the plight of those left behind: the people who couldn’t fit on the small helicopter and must figure out a way to survive until the chopper can return to rescue them. As the readers who have checked out the first book know, the estimated eight hour turnaround time they were hoping for is not quite what happens and the survivors will be forced to somehow make due for much longer than that.
The book is broken up into two storylines. The main story is of Cahz, the leader of the soldiers on the ground, Cannon, another soldier, Ryan, one of the survivors from the warehouse, Elspeth, an elderly survivor, and Ryan’s infant daughter, who happens to be Elspeth’s granddaughter. As we discovered in the first book, Elspeth has been bitten and the baby has been scratched, so it appears as if both will be dead from infection soon enough, which is why they chose to stay behind. The other storyline is that of Ali, another warehouse survivor who gets separated from the others in the throngs of undead trying to tear them to pieces on the race to the chopper, and is presumed dead. He manages to find his own route to escape and fights tooth and nail to survive and somehow figure out a way to reconnect with the others as the helicopter abandons them all with the hordes of undead nipping at their heels.
This was the story I wanted to read in tandem with the first story presented in book one of this presumed trilogy. I had been hoping to see the story rotate back and forth between the survivors on the ship and the survivors on the ground, but the author chose to split the stories up. I have to say that McKinnon turns the intensity up a notch in this, the second book in his series. The constant race against the undead, the desperate measures taken to survive at every turn, and the solid character development make this tale both a fun and invigorating read in the zombie genre.
I am looking forward to the third installment in this series, where I will presume the two sets of characters will be reunited and their saga will go forward as one story. While I suppose I still wish that the two stories would have rotated back and forth through the first and second books instead of being told separately, I have no complaints about the characters and the intense action the author delivers with his two books.
Remains of the Dead can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Remains-Dead-Iain-McKinnon/dp/1618680048/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321572504&sr=1-2
Review of C. Dulaney’s “Roads Less Traveled: The Plan”
Roads Less Traveled: The Plan tells the story of Kasey, a young woman living in the mountains of West Virginia, and a group of students from Pennsylvania coping with the initial days of the zombie apocalypse. Kasey and Ben, one of the students, have been corresponding over the internet for years, though they’ve never met face to face. While there are no real details as to how they stumbled onto one another, it isn’t difficult to surmise that they connected via one message board or another that was discussing the best ways to survive a zombie apocalypse. This story is built for the zombie fan who has been prepared for the apocalypse, or at least talked about being prepared for it, for years. You see, Kasey and Ben had a plan set up for when things fell apart and the zombies rose up. Of course, it was all talk until the undead became a reality. Now they have to put their plan into action, which entails Ben making his way down to West Virginia to Kasey while she prepares her very remote home as a holdout against a world filled with the undead. Ben has some friends coming along with him-other students at the college he’s at, foremost among them being Jake, who is another zombie fan who apparently has a plan of his own. Begrudgingly, Kasey agrees to let them morph their plans together, and make the journey to Kasey’s home, fighting through minefields of the staggering undead shambling rampant through Pennsylvania and West Virginia. A large chunk of the story is taken up with the tale of Ben’s journey south, along with a side story of another friend of Kasey’s who lives in Washington DC…Mia and Kasey speak early on in the book over the phone, and they both assume Mia is as good as dead given the massive population where she lives. But the story of her attempt at survival was one of the more interesting parts of the book for me-exciting and heartbreaking at the same time.
As a zombie fan, I need to make it clear that this story does not break new ground. The zombies are traditional Romero zombies. As a zombie author, I have no problem with there being no new ground broken as far as the undead are concerned. There is plenty of un-life still left in a tale filled with the slow, dragging, moaning undead. The key is telling a story that has characters that are compelling and make you want to root for them…or hate them,. Either way, they have to keep you intrigued.
I felt that Kasey was a well fleshed out character. She is strong, prepared, and takes on a leadership role among this newly formed group of survivors with relative ease. My second favorite character had to be Nancy, who while playing a minor role just seemed appealing-she is Jake’s grandmother, and the strength she exhibits in this story is not all on the surface. Kasey may be the leader, but Nancy is the glue keeping the group together. I wasn’t as fond of Ben, who didn’t seem nearly as fully developed given his key role in the story. He and his new found girlfriend become background noise for the bulk of the story, with a few points where they stand out for short periods of time, at most. Jake is far more complex a character, and outshines Ben from the very beginning. He was sort of an anomaly in a lot of ways, making him a unique. He is diminutive in stature, but plays the role of a bad ass, a leader, but he defers with no complaint to Kasey, and he is a psycho, though only when necessary. I am not sure I particularly like Jake, though he grew on me as the story progressed.
The writing is solid in this book and I had no issues with it, though I do have to admit switching from first person (with Kasey) to third person, with everyone else, isn’t my favorite way to go. It isn’t a major complaint, though at one point in the story, the two styles were intermingled. Kasey is in a scene, and speaking in first person, and yet she is not right next to some of the other characters, but somehow, she is still narrating about them. Again, this is just a quibble. I just tend to prefer it when an author keep the perspective consistent throughout a story.
Roads Less Traveled: The Plan once again does not break new ground, and the plan, though mentioned early on, really has no elements to it that are different than most of the other survivor’s plans I have seen in other zompoc tales. It just is something that moves the story along, giving the characters a purpose for doing what they need to do. For me, the real key to this story is that the characters, in particular Kasey and Jake, are interesting, and emotionally they seemed real. There are no superheroes here, just normal people struggling to stay alive in the face of both the undead hordes and the very dangerous living that tend to create even worse problems for the main characters.
I look forward to checking out the next book in this trilogy-the author has me intrigued.
You can find Roads Less Traveled: The Plan here: http://www.amazon.com/Roads-Less-Traveled-Plan-1/dp/1934861995/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1321116527&sr=8-2
Review of Tim Long’s “Beyond The Barriers”
Erik is a man witnessing the beginning of the apocalypse. As he watches the world crumble on his television, he decides that his best bet is to gather up some supplies and head out to a friend’s remote cabin in the woods. He can hunker down there, live off the land, and hope that somehow, mankind figures out a way to defeat the undead that have been devouring the living. After a harrowing trip to the local WalMart where he sees the undead starting to pop up all over, Erik manages to make his escape.
Months later, out of food and desperate to find out what has happened to the rest of the world, Erik returns home, only to have his worse fears realized, and far worse…because the zombies aren’t the only thing that have it out for humanity. There is a whole new breed of the undead that have risen from the ashes of the apocalypse: ghouls. And these creatures aren’t only ravenous for human flesh; they are intelligent and devious as well, having become the leaders of the mindless zombie hoards in their quest to destroy humanity. But there are still survivors, and Erik hooks up with a group of them. His journeys grow more harrowing with every step he takes, and the ghouls are there at every turn, plotting his, and everyone else’s, demise.
Tim Long has upped the ante on the traditional zombie novel with Beyond the Barriers. He has created a new breed of undead and a new form of terror for fans of the genre to come to grips with. The ghouls are an enemy with more than just a mindless desire to kill, but a twisted, evil desire to create a hell on earth. I just wish that as intelligent flesh eaters, one or two might be able to resist their all encompassing need to annihilate all that they once were-human. For now, they all seem uniform in their desire to destroy, but I know that the author plans at least one more book, which may reveal more behind the meaning of this new form of undead, and also reveal how evil they truly can be.
As I always try to do, I like to be fair and point out any quibbles I might have had with a particular book. The book, which is a first person narrative, has Erik contemplating and pondering on the horrors that surround him more than I felt was necessary. The nightmarish images of the world around him and the endless terrors he faces speak to those horrors loud and clear, and were far more compelling than his words on the subject, which crop up with a good frequency. Even so, his reactions to this insane world felt natural. I would probably act no different…that is, assuming I lasted all that long and didn’t go mad with fear. And again, this is just a minor quibble, but one I felt it only fair to point out.
Even with this slight criticism in mind, this is a fast paced, entertaining read, and I look forward to the next book in this series.
Beyond The Barriers can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-the-Barriers-ebook/dp/B005VT7F0I/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318989127&sr=1-3
Review of Bowie Ibarra’s “Down The Road: The Fall of Austin”
Down the Road: The Fall of Austin is not a continuation of the saga that Bowie Ibarra started with the first two novels in this series, but a story that runs parallel to it. More specifically, there are connections to the first book and the main character in that storyline, George, the teacher who is flees Austin as the zombie apocalypse gets rolling in Texas. The author takes things from a different angle, giving us a point of view from characters that were passers-by in the first story, but play a significant role here. This is somewhat of an ensemble piece, with an assortment of characters slowly migrating together toward the end of the story, but for the most part coming to grips with the apocalypse as individuals or in small groups in the rest of the tale. There are two fire teams from the army (who are at each other’s throats) that are assigned to clear out the capital building of viral threats, a police officer with a partner who seems to be a sadist, a teacher that George, the main character in the first book, had a tryst with before he fled Austin, a prison guard and the gang banger prisoner he frees as the world around them begins to fall apart.
This story, much like the other two in this trilogy, stands alone. You don’t need to know what came before to read this tale, though it doesn’t hurt to have read those books, in particular the first one. The spectacle of gore and zombie violence is pretty steady throughout this story, but it doesn’t overpower the story lines of the individual characters and groups that inhabit this world. Each character is well defined with clear motivations and developed personalities. I might not have agreed with everything that happened or how everyone reacted, but it made sense in relationship to the plot and who these people were. For the record, I wasn’t a big fan of the second book of this series, primarily because of the broad brush strokes the author used to paint the military and government in a negative light. I was pleased to see a more evenhanded approach in this book-there were evil men, but also good ones, who donned uniforms in this tale. Overall, the story was entertaining and filled with ripe imagery, though I did feel that every now and then the author would choose to dip into the similes and metaphors a bit more heavily than necessary, but it didn’t detract from what was, in essence, a quality zombie apocalypse tale that had the advantage of being in a local that the author knows and loves, which allowed him to paint a highly detailed picture of a world being swallowed up by destruction.
Down The Road: The Fall of Austin can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Down-Road-Austin-Bowie-Ibarra/dp/1934861235/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1305947355&sr=1-1
Review of David Dunwoody’s “Empire’s End”
I read David Dunwoody’s Empire nearly three years ago, and it has stuck with me as one of the standouts in zombie fiction because of its unique approach to the genre. Dave wrote a book filled with an element that seems to make perfect sense although no one that I am aware of has utilized it before or since. The Grim Reaper, Death, decides to take a stand against the undead, tired and angered by their defiance to the natural order of things. It is his job to transport those from this life into the next, and the undead resist that. So in Empire, death relinquished his responsibilities and became something not quite human, but not quite immortal. With his scythe, he laid waste to the undead. At the same time, he saved a little girl named Lily, who made him feel something human, something he’d never felt before: love.
Empire’s End continues the story of Death’s journey, along with that of Vorhees, the cop that was one of the last survivors out of Jefferson Harbor, Louisiana, a town in the badlands of the United States. Essentially, outside of the “Great Cities” to the north, which hide behind massive walls, the rest of the country is the badlands. A century has passed since the plague that released the zombie plague upon mankind swept the world. Before that, there were sources of power on this planet that allowed the dead to rise. They could not infect the living, just devour them, at least until the United States Government decided to tamper with this supernatural power. It was turned into a virus that could infect others and the rest, as they say, is history.
Much of Empire’s End takes place within one of the cities inside the walls that keep the undead out. Lily and Vorhees both are there now, and trying to adapt to a life of civility, or whatever approximates civility in this new world where the populous is convinced they are safe from the dangers beyond their gates. But while the undead are indeed not inside the walls, a group of traveling performers that have embraced the idea of an existence after life that is far more intoxicating, are building an army of the undead whose intent is to come north for a great feast of those hidden behind those walls.
Death, who has taken on the human name of Adam, is searching for Lily while he is being pursued by an undead vessel known as the Omega. I call it a vessel because this creature is filled with the vengeful spirits of many who Death has taken over the countless centuries where he fulfilled his duties. After having given up his mantle of responsibility, he has become vulnerable, and those who he sent to hell crave revenge.
Empire’s End is more than just a solid sequel to an excellent zombie novel; it surpasses its predecessor with a deeper look into a world filled with dark magic and vivid characters, both living and dead. Dunwoody somehow manages to make Death a sympathetic character and his zombies are some of the scariest around.
As an added bonus, at the end of the book the reader gets “Grinning Samuel” and “AfterDead”, two additional stories that explain the origin of the undead plague. I had read Grinning Samuel before, but AfterDead was new to me, and a very intriguing story that gives the reader a genuine understanding of how this all came about.
You can find Empire’s End here: http://www.amazon.com/Empires-End-ebook/dp/B004W9BXJW/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1303068127&sr=1-4
Review of Craig DiLouie’s “The Infection”
The Infection starts out with a brief prologue that introduces the reader to the Screaming that initiates the apocalypse. About 20% of the population starts to scream uncontrollably and then collapse, going into a coma that lasts three days. At the end of that three days, those people who fell down wake up, and their only desire is to spread the infection to everyone else by biting and attacking them. The reader is thrust into the story a few weeks after the initial assault and we are introduced to a group of survivors roaming through Pittsburgh in a Bradley fighting vehicle. The crew of three is led by Sarge, who shares the task of leadership of the civilian survivor crew with Anne, a mysterious woman with a major hatred of the infected. Wendy, a police officer, Paul, a minister, Ethan, a math teacher, and Todd, a geeky high school student, are the other members of this brigade of survivors.
The story relates their current experiences of attempting to find shelter, avoid exposure to the infected, and seeking out other survivors, while flashing back to their initial introductions to the infection, lost family members, and the horrific memories each of them has had. DiLouie does a bang up job of revealing, by inches, what we need to know about each of the players in this story. In time, they settle at a hospital, clearing it room by room, and realize there are more than just the zombie-like infected that have been introduced into this new, horrible world. As they flee the hospital, they discover an even wider assortment of alien creatures-from wormlike to giant demons that hint at something far more sinister than just a virus or plague at work. The group makes their way to a huge encampment of survivors, which reminded me of a vast, wild-west setting filled with both hope and despair as everyone tries to make due and pretend things are normal in a world turned upside down. But the needs of the mishmash of government agencies still in existence will send our survivors back out onto the road, where they must once again come to grips with the horror their world has become.
After reading Tooth and Nail, I knew that Craig DiLouie had a real talent for creating compelling, real, and fascinating characters, but he ups the ante here, with each survivor in the group being given an in depth look that allows the reader to fully appreciate the pain and agony each one of them has gone through to get to survive to this point, and why they have a willingness to stick with one another through the hell their existence has become. This is an apocalyptic novel, but I can’t say that it falls exactly into the realm of a zombie novel; instead, it is a hybrid that provides plenty of brand new terrors to mess with your head. Alien creatures with little to no real explanation make this story unique, though this did remind me of other works I have read prior to this, such as The Mist, from Stephen King. I am positive a sequel is in the works and perhaps that will reveal some answers about the creatures that have invaded this world, but there appear to be no explanations on these pages, only a bit of conjecture on the part of one of the characters. I am not sure if I am griping about this-not knowing what is actually going on-because the characters themselves don’t know anything either. They are just trying to survive, and in some cases, kill as many of these abominations as they possibly can. Another minor quibble I have is something I have grown used to over the course of this novel and DiLouie’s previous one-the fact that the author moves into present tense on occasion, which feels a bit jarring when it occurs. It offers up an urgency, a sense of “now” to the story, but it also serves as a minor reading distraction in my humble opinion.
Those very minor quibbles aside, this is an excellent book of the apocalypse, creative and wild from the start; from how the infection occurs to the results it yields, and the characters that inhabit its pages are just about as compelling as any I have ever seen.
The Infection can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Infection-Craig-DiLouie/dp/1934861650/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300070883&sr=8-1
Review of “Elements of the Apocalypse” from Permuted Press
Elements of the Apocalypse, as the title suggests, gives the reader four stories using the classic elements to show us how the apocalypse will occur. I thought it was a creative take on apocalyptic stories from the standpoint of using this theme. Fire, Air, Earth, and Water are the means to our destruction, and a different author took a swipe at each particular element.
The first story, by DL Snell, gives us fire as the source of our destruction. Dylan Bradley is minding his own business on a bus ride home from school for spring break when the bus driver bursts into flames. Rather quickly, most of the people around him are doing the same, as spontaneous combustion takes hold as the means to our end. Dylan races home with several other characters as madness takes a hold of the few remaining survivors, in an effort to find his girlfriend.
The second story, by John Sunseri, deals with aliens invading our planet and placing huge atmospheric generators on earth, which make our air unbreathable for humans. Thirty years later, a team from New America, the last surviving lair of humans, has created a device that might help them fight back. Led by Bess, the toughest survivor left, they climb out of their underground hideout and make their way to one of the alien’s air processing stations with the device in tow. Since the atmosphere is polluted not only with unbreathable air, but with “demons” and “diggers”, both servants to the aliens who crave the oxygen inside human blood, making the trek is somewhat like traversing one of the nine planes of hell.
The third story, by R. Thomas Riley, has the animal kingdom in revolt against humanity when Gaia decides that we are poor caretakers of our planet and she needs to start over. Animals don’t just turn on us, they become smart and vicious servants of their earth mother. But Gaia has a plan, and that includes enslaving some of the humans to do more of her dirty work.
The final story, by Ryan C. Thomas, has water the entire world over disappearing in a rapid fashion, leading to a desperate scramble to find the cause and find the last remaining sources of drinkable water on the planet. Cam, an estranged husband and father, has to work with Scott, his scientist brother in law, in an attempt to discover the cause of this catastrophe, while at the same time trying to find water for his infant son as he lay dying from dehydration.
Each story has individual merits, and I give credit to each author for giving us compelling characters that made each story more than just simple doom anthems. I grew attached enough to the characters that I found myself rooting for them to find a miracle despite knowing how most of these types of stories end. I am not going to pick out a favorite here, because I really don’t think any of them missed the mark, and there were parts of each tale that resonated for me. If you enjoy reading stories about our destruction that lean toward the fantastic, than this book is a entertaining choice I highly recommend.
Elements of the Apocalypse can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Apocalypse-D-L-Snell/dp/1934861502/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1293203900&sr=8-1
Review of Mark Justice and David T. Wilbank’s “Dead Earth: The Vengeance Road”
I have not read what I understand to be a novella that started the Dead Earth Series, entitled “Dead Earth: The Green Dawn”, but the authors did a commendable job bringing me up to speed with what happened in the first story through much of this novel, without any need for a prologue. What that translates to for someone who does forgo the first book is an immediate jump into the action with a story filled with zombies controlled by an alien invasion force dubbed “Necros” (short for Necromancers), by the few surviving humans who remain.
There are two groups of survivors at the outset of this tale. One group is made up of bikers running free and trying to avoid getting eaten while roaming around the Mexican desert in Baja California. Lead by Luther Kemp, there is friction between him and another member of this ragtag gang, whose nickname is Mother…and he is one big Mother, that is for sure. Mother only wants company because there is safety in numbers, while Kemp has bigger plans. The other group is led by a former sheriff’s deputy from New Mexico named Jubal Slate. Jubal is bound and determined to make his way up to Area 51 in Nevada, where the aliens apparently broke through into our dimension, started changing the atmosphere, and raising the dead to help in the take over of humanity.
It seems that those who have survived have some immunity from turning into zombies-they can be bit and survive, though if allowed to die, they too turn in the end. It is an interesting slant, and allows for a few gruesome scenes where I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.
Not long into the story, Luther Kemp is bequeathed a gift from one of the Necros, who fly in glider-type machines, as his band of renegades is surrounded by a zombie horde. A metallic band that adheres to his head, giving him power over the undead and the ability to read the minds of the living, as long as he follows the commands of these New Lords over the Dead Earth. That is about the time that Mother realizes that he wants nothing to do with Luther or his little band of devotees, as Kemp decides that he is pretty tickled to serve his new alien masters, as long as he is given power over both the dead and the living humans.
The two groups clash throughout the rest of the story, with both sides making the trek north from Mexico up to Nevada. There is plenty of gory zombie action and interesting variations on that due to the alien influence on the story. The near future time frame add little hints about the earth technology left behind, and we get a big dose of it from one of the secondary characters, who has the ability to tap into the ever diminishing world wide web through a chip implanted in his head. I enjoyed the pacing of the story-it was a fun and easy read. My criticisms of it are mostly tied to whether or not this book is the final chapter in this saga or not. My belief is that based on a very revealing chapter near the end, when a lot of divulged about the aliens and their plans for earth, that this series will continue. Also, without providing a spoiler, I felt that one character’s departure from the story was rather anticlimactic and my guess is that they will return in a future installment. If, however, this is where it all ends, I would be disappointed that there isn’t more to be revealed. My guess is that isn’t the case, though the authors certainly hit a dramatic stopping point which would allow them to leave things as is if that is the route they choose to go.
I felt that the three main characters in this story were all fairly well developed. Jubal taking the fight to aliens and undead was a refreshing change from what we typically see-there is rarely a main target to focus on during the zombie apocalypse, so seeing someone willing to do whatever it takes to undo the undead and the enemies of man was enjoyable to see-he was on his own personal Jihad. I liked the morphing Luther Kemp, as the necro technology he is gifted with starts changing and empowering him in twisted and devious ways. He goes from being a run of the mill sociopath to someone with an almost religious zeal and devotion to his new masters that is frightening. And my favorite character is Mother, the scarred, imperfect, reluctant hero that goes through hell and comes out of it looking for vengeance. He was the most developed and complex of the three, and also the most human of the bunch.
I do look forward to seeing where the Dead Earth series goes, and hope to hear about the promise of another installment from the authors somewhere in the not so distant future.
Dead Earth: The Vengeance Road can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Earth-Vengeance-Mark-Justice/dp/1934861561/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291266382&sr=1-1
Review of Jason S. Hornsby’s “Eleven Twenty-Three”
Layne Prescott is an expatriate returning home to Lilly’s End, Florida from his teaching post in China for the funeral of his father. As he and his girlfriend Tara sit waiting in the airport for their plane that will take them across the Pacific, they meet up with a Mr. Scott, who has a briefcase attached to his wrist by a handcuff in an airport bar. After they land in Florida and meet up with old friends, Layne discovers the same briefcase stuffed inside his luggage. From there, things get dangerously strange, as the world falls apart at 11:23, every twelve hours all over Lilly’s End. People go mad, tearing each other apart, and then killing themselves when there is no one else left to assault. The town is shut off by the government and lies about a smallpox outbreak keep the outside world at bay. All the while, everyone still alive inside of Lilly’s End is rapidly going mad, taking things into their own hands, while Layne and a few of his friends attempt to understand what is behind all of this and try to figure out what they can do to escape it.
That is the glossy overview of this story. Underneath that, this 300 page novel is thick with conspiracy, generation why angst, and a constant flow of confusion, deception, and things for the reader to ponder. I have read Jason Hornsby’s previous novel, Every Sigh, The End, and for a long stretch of that book I despised the main character for his self absorbed approach to life, which takes a radical turn as truths about the world are revealed around him. In many ways, I can say that there are parallels between that book and this one, although Hornsby’s writing has definitely matured with this book. It is clear that this is a Hornsby book-I could have picked it out blindfolded after reading several chapters. As another reviewer has put it, no one creates young, disaffected characters quite like this author. They are disagreeable, argumentative, self-absorbed, and irresistibly fascinating. It is hard to describe effectively, but while it is hard to feel much pity for the characters throughout a great swath of this book, in the end their misery is tangible, palpable, real, and you feel it along with them. Layne is one of those characters who would constantly confound you, but if you peeled away most of his facade, he would seem to be one of the most vulnerable people you might ever know. At least that was the sense I got.
I think after reading my first Hornsby book, I got the sense that the author and I would have very little in common, very little that would connect us. My presumption was that he was much like the characters he wrote. I had the chance to meet the author at a Horror Convention recently and I realized then that this was far from the truth. Hornsby just has a knack for writing characters that make you feel like you are biting down on tinfoil. He has a talent for that.
I will readily admit that I am not much of a conspiracy theorist, and as such, I probably don’t rate as someone who is a judge of the conspiracies that Hornsby presents in this novel, but I will say this-I felt pretty damn squeamish as more and more was revealed in this story, as my imagination was sparked and I tried to comprehend how deep and dark the rabbit hole the author had created was. Mr. Hornsby has created a novel that provides the disaffected youth he writes about with a nightmarish world that is even worse than they could ever imagine, which is quite a trick to pull off. This story was creative, wild, and forces you to pay attention to it at every step. But even if you do, there is more than meets the eye, and will give you something to think about long after you put the book down.
Eleven Twenty-Three can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Eleven-Twenty-Three-Jason-S-Hornsby/dp/1934861340/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1285374627&sr=1-1
Looking back at Horror Realm 2010
This past weekend, I got to go to my very first horror convention, Horror Realm, which is held in Pittsburgh. This is a zombie-centric horror conference and gave me and the rest of the authors from The Library of the Living Dead and Permuted Press the chance to meet with horror fans of all stripes, discuss zombies, and have a blast.
Things got going on Thursday night, when those of us who had the chance to come in a bit early were able to head to Rich Dalzotto’s house and mix and mingle with one another. Rich is one of the folks who runs Horror Realm. The party gave me the opportunity to meet and interact with quite a few of the folks I haven’t met face to face before but have corresponded with and spoke to on Skype. Too many to mention here, and I fear that if I start naming names, I will end up skipping someone. So suffice it to say, the party was a lot of fun and a great experience.
Putting up my books and being at the actual show was quite an experience. I have gone to conferences for work before, but never something like this. There were a ton of vendors and quite a few horror celebrities, with reunions for Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead happening at the convention. Even with these celebrities walking around, I gained the most enjoyment in having the chance to get to know a lot of other authors over the three days of the show. Doc, my publisher, was terrific, and so was Jacob Kier, who is the publisher over at Permuted Press. They both took great care of everyone and despite the fact that sales weren’t huge, the show was a rousing success.
One of the highlights for me was getting made up as a zombie to film a commercial for The Library of the Living Dead. All us zombies got to tear into Doc, though it wasn’t blood and guts that came out, but something else entirely. I won’t ruin the surprise, but lets just say we all had a blast filming the commercial.
I wanted post a few pictures I took at Horror Realm here as well, just to provide a flavor of the event and the people I had the pleasure of meeting up with. I am already anxious to go to next year’s event, because if it is half as much fun as this Horror Realm was, it will be well worth the trip!
A Plug for Horror Realm
I will be attending the Horror Realm Convention in a couple of weeks. Horror Realm is one of the premier convention for horror fans, and in particular zombie fans, and is held every year in Pittsburgh, PA, the birthplace of the modern zombie, when George A. Romero filmed Night of the Living Dead there over forty years ago. I haven’t had the opportunity to attend this event in the past, but I am very excited to not only having the chance to be going as a visitor, but also as a member of the Library of the Living Dead’s group of authors who will have tables at the convention. I will be selling and signing my book, Comes The Dark, and sharing space with a large group of other fantastic authors. In addition, I will have the opportunity to read from my novel on Sunday afternoon in one of the Author Panels and will be sharing the stage with Jake Bible, Robert Cordray, and Steve North. It will be a blast hanging out with these great group of writers. I just hope I have the opportunity to check out some of the other panels that are running all weekend long, which include both film and book panels, but I will promoting my book as much as I can, so I may be glued to my table most of the time. Not that I’m complaining-I can hardly wait to have the chance to meet and greet other horror fans like myself and talk up my book.
The Convention runs from September 17th-19th at the Crowne Plaza, Pittsburgh South. Check out the website: http://www.horrorrealmcon.com/ for all the information you’ll need to get tickets, find out who is going to be in attendance, and the schedule of events. That weekend will be jammed packed with a huge array of events that every horror fan will love. I am really looking forward to the costume party on Saturday night. Given that I will be getting all gussied up for a video spot being done a couple of hours before that for the Library of the Living Dead, I will fit in perfectly!
So if you live in the region and have the opportunity, head on over to Horror Realm the weekend of September 17th-19th and check it out. And if you can’t make it, check back here after that weekend to see what pictures I post and the stories I will have to tell about having the chance to meet all these fantastic people involved in writing horror novels and staring in horror films. I’m just hoping I don’t act like a total goofball when I get the chance to meet these people…but there is little doubt that I will.
Review of Tony Monchinski’s “Eden: Crusade”
Eden: Crusade is the sequel to Tony Monchinski’s first novel, Eden, which was essentially a murder mystery set in the community of Eden, a walled and barricaded sanctuary in New York City during the zombie apocalypse. The saga continues in book two with several of the key characters who survived Eden, and the primary story in Crusade is of their journey north, out of the city, toward a place that promises to be a safe haven for them. We are also introduced to a sizable group of other survivors who end up connecting with the characters from the first book toward the end of this story. The novel is book ended by chapters that take place in the future, where Bear, one of the key characters of both book one and two, taking it upon himself to start a crusade to destroy every last one of the undead in existence.
Overall, the storytelling style of Crusade is similar to the first book. The author is unapologetic of what happens to his characters, taking them in whatever direction serves his story rather than parceling out mercy or softening his touch anywhere along the way. He gives each character, minor or major, tremendous depth, which is impressive given the volume of people the reader is presented with in between these pages. We gain new insights into the old characters from the first book, but newer characters like Steve, Eva, and Sonya are also fully formed and felt very real and vital to me. Tony Monchinski has the knack of creating characters that revel in their shades of gray. What I mean by this is that it appears that almost anyone is capable of doing anything good or evil, given the means and motivation, and Tony is willing to explore that, no matter how sentimental the readers may be about a character they have gotten to know. That may be tough to swallow at some points in this story, but it is something I respect a great deal, because it shows a willingness to push and keep pushing as far as is necessary to get the storytelling job done.
As I try to do with my reviews, I bring up what I felt didn’t work for me along with what did. With Crusade, surprisingly, what didn’t work for me was in the first chapter. The book begins with a massive and lopsided battle pitting two characters against a mob of the undead that numbers in the thousands. I felt that it went on longer than was necessary, with an extensive description of all the weapons used, every tactic examined. I think it had a visceral appeal to it, but after a few pages, it felt repetitive to me. It could have been condensed and had the same impact on the story in my humble opinion. I thought it was certainly a powerful opening, but again, could have been shortened and still worked quite well.
With that one minor gripe out of the way, I consider this book an excellent sequel to Tony’s impressive debut. Again, I say that this writer has a talent for developing characters that are fully formed and razor sharp. He also gives his stories a gritty realism that is unapologetic. I am excited to see what the third book of the Eden trilogy holds, and look forward to reading it with great anticipation.
Eden: Crusade can be found on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Crusade-Eden-Book-Tony-Monchinski/dp/1934861332/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282884119&sr=1-1
Review of J.L. Bourne’s ‘Day by Day Armageddon Beyond Exile’
Day by Day Armageddon was one of the first books I read when I became interested in zombie literature, to go hand in hand with my fascination with zombie movies, almost exactly four years ago. As is the case with many people who enjoyed its personal approach to the apocalypse as told by an active officer in the military, I have waited all this time for the long hoped for sequel. Since J.L. Bourne is himself an active member of the military, my guess is that he was only able to write bits and pieces of this update of the saga between active tours of duty. While it may have been frustration for us fans of the first book to have waited this long, I have to say that the wait was well worth it.
An issue that some people had with the first book was perhaps the intentional diary approach to the book, with typos left in and even the text a bit rougher than you would get from a traditional novel. That is no longer an issue, as the format of this book is more traditional, with no errors in the text, intentional or not. I myself had no issues with that previously, but with it gone, it is one less point of criticism that someone may have with this type of storytelling. We once again get a diary of a military officer facing down the zombie apocalypse and this one picks up where the last journal ended, under ground, in the nuclear missile silo the author has dubbed Hotel 23, shortly after an attack by hostile survivors that failed to penetrate its defenses.
This is once again a personal journey of one man, with other people entering and exiting the story at different intervals. The characters in the first novel that are with the main character in Hotel 23 remain, but do not play a pivotal role here. The story has more dramatic swings to it than the previous tale, where it was mainly one man gathering who he could with him to find any place they could to survive. In this story, the military is reintroduced and play a huge role in the goings on of this tale. This allows the story to progress beyond what could have amounted to a group of people just trying to hide out underground for the duration of the apocalypse. Instead, the main character is required to make tough decisions and take on new responsibilities that will lead him away from H23 for the bulk of this tale and once again make this a intriguing saga of one man’s path, out in the open, during the zombie apocalypse.
My favorite character, and one which I am gathering much more will be revealed about in a future journal, is Saien, who our main character meets during his desperate travels and appears to be equally as capable (if not more so) than the main character at surviving in zed infested territory. His background is perhaps not completely shrouded in mystery, but it is clear there is more to the man than what the diary indicates. Suffice it to say, he is an interesting addition to the characters in the book, and the only one that shared a great deal of pages with the main character.
While there is a bit of romance afoot for our hero, it is certainly not a significant part of this journal. Personal interactions like that are kept to a minimum, with some character commentary that reveals bits and pieces, but the action is what the author targets, as is natural in a journal format such as this. While there is a great deal of military terminology, the author goes to significant lengths to make the layman, like me, feel comfortable with the equipment and hardware being used in the story. This is not a story about an every day guy beating the odds and surviving, but about someone who has gone through survival training, has a great familiarity with weaponry, hand to hand combat, and battle tactics most of us are not privy to, which makes this book fairly unique among most zombie stories written.
I personally enjoyed the gritty, personal perspective that this book and the previous novel have. A journal format does have its weaknesses: minimal dialogue, limited perspective, and by necessity, we know that the person who is penning the journal is okay because they continue to write about their exploits day after day. But done well, it is a compelling format, and it is hard to say that anyone out there does it any better than J.L. Bourne.
Day By Day Armageddon: Beyond Exile can be found on Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/143917752X/ref=cm_cr_thx_view
Review for Iain McKinnon’s “Domain of the Dead”
Domain of the Dead begins with a group of survivors living in a warehouse that was stocked with food when the zombie apocalypse began. There were 27 survivors at one point but they are down to a handful of them and one, Sarah, has decided that it would be best to end it all, because their food is about to run out after being tucked away in this place for as long as they all have. She climbs up to the roof, ready to jump, and sees a helicopter off in the distance and the decision is quickly made to try and make a break for it to the helicopter, rather than starve to death by the few people left in the warehouse.
A few of them survive the quick and violent trip to the helicopter, with the help of the military personnel who had set down and were patrolling the area. Some are left behind, because the helicopter doesn’t have enough room for all of them, and they fade out of the story for the most part, as Sarah and a couple of other warehouse survivors: Nathan and a little girl named Jennifer, fly back to a ship where the military is running experiments on zombies, trying to discover a cure or vaccination against the mysterious ailment that causes the dead to rise. Not long after that,things go a little nuts and a breakout of the zombie virus has the survivors fighting for their lives as the ship becomes a graveyard of the undead.
The book is a fast paced, quick zombie read that clearly intends to have a sequel based on how the story ends. I thought it was unfortunate that the people left behind on the mainland were not returned to the spotlight in this book after the helicopter returns to the ship, and the entire focus was on what was happening on the ship. The author provides some interesting suggestions based on science as to why the dead were rising and a good chunk of the book is spent on that discussion in the second act. Unfortunately, that felt like a slight disruption to the plot, as we start out with a high octane beginning to the book as the survivors from the warehouse are rushing to escape the hordes and get to the helicopter and then there is a lull until the action starts again towards the final third of the book. While that is a bit of a criticism, as well as the lack of connection to those left behind back on the mainland, the story itself is entertaining and does provide some good zombie gore, guts, and action. I think this series of books, whether it is two or more, could be quite interesting, as the fate of those who remained behind will likely be revealed pretty early on in a second book and things certainly will be different for the survivors who had been on the ship. I just wish they had remained a part of the plot of this first book.
Domain of the Dead can be found on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1934861278/ref=cm_cr_thx_view
Review of Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines
It’s always potential fun when someone tries to tie two popular genres together, but often time the fun ends once you get to see the end result and realize that what you have is a mishmash of ideas that never really mixed well. Not so here, with Ex-Heros. Peter Clines has created a very plausible set of superheros facing the zombie apocalypse and doing what they do best: saving the world. Its certainly a struggle for them, as there is no way to stop the zombie menace, but they’ve focused on creating a safe haven in Los Angeles at Paramount studios, aka The Mount, which is the most easily defensible place where they could bring hundreds to thousands of survivors. Opposed to them are the Seventeens, an old LA Gang that essentially controls the rest of LA, with their mysterious leader.
The story is told by switching back and forth from the present to the past, with each flashback done in first person and told from the perspective of a particular superhero. The story is given the opportunity to slowly reveal itself this way and had a flavor of Watchmen to it that really worked in this setting. Our superheros aren’t perfect-often they are sullen and none too happy with the people they are protecting, who don’t necessarily trust them. In addition to this, some of the superheros have fallen to the Ex virus, which started the zombie apocalypse in this story, and while they are not quite as powerful as they once were, they still present a sizable threat to both the human and superhero population in the story.
Clines does an excellent job of creating unique and believable hero’s for this tale, with The Great Dragon leading the pack. They may be studs physically, but there are plenty of warts that are revealed during the story, giving us some surprises along the way that impact the story dramatically.
I think this is one of the best genre cross-over stories I have read in some time and Clines, who indicated that many of the superheros created here came from his and friends childhood visions, clearly has a passion for both genres, and has created a very unique genesis to the zombie in this story that makes perfect sense and lands like a sledgehammer on the reader towards the end of the story.
There is no doubt that Clines could make this into a series, or just pull off a sequel, if he chooses. The characters are rich and involving and there is certainly much more to be revealed about all of them. Definitely recommended for the zombie and superhero fan alike.
Ex-Heros can be found on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Ex-Heroes-Peter-Clines/dp/1934861286/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274810026&sr=1-1
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