CaptainMarvel

Bump for braaaaains...

I've been reading World War Z in my spare time. It's also by Max Brooks, the author of the Zombie Survival Guide previously mentioned.

The book is basically set after humanity has barely survived a zombie uprising, and it's a collection of retrospective interviews with people who lived through the events.

Very good, entertaining "slow zombie" stuff.

Giantrobo

Wow, that sounds cool. It's refreshing to see an attempt to view an "uprising" from a different angle.

Jason Bovberg

I was surprised as hell to see World War Z on the bestseller rack at Barnes & Noble, for 30 percent off. Needless to say, it's now in my possession.

vududaddi

I guess I'll chime in with my own unabashedly glowing review of World War Z. It's a great new look into the genre and a wonderful followup to The Zombie Survival Guide. Brooks does a good job making each voice different and believable. And the matter-of-fact style of the narration gives the story itself an eerie sort of authenticity.

A word of warning, though: if it's a down-and-dirty horror/action romp you're aching for, you might want to look elsewhere. In this book, Brooks creates an almost epic view of a world overrun by the undead. Sure, you get the occasional frag-fest (from humans and zombies alike), but sprinkled along with these are stories dealing global politics, the social climate, religion, etc. At times, it even alludes to our own present-day situations.

The only ding that I'll give this book is that, given the structure of the story, some of the accounts ended far too quickly. I could have seen many of these stories branch out into full-length novels on their own.

Anyway, great read. Now I'm curious to see how it'll be made into a movie.

mljones99

I'm reading World War Z too and so far so good. A little slow but not bad.

boredsilly

It is slow, but in the best way possible. I find his take on the spread very interesting, and I'm always picturing the world map in my head to tie the different accounts together. I could burn through it, but I'm going to take my time with the book.

Giantrobo

Brian Keene who wrote, "The Rising" and "City of the Dead" has a new dead book called "Dead Sea" that was released 7/31/07.

travlr

FYI - Dead Sea is not related to The Rising and City Of The Dead. The zombies in Dead Sea are classic slow Romero style zombies.

travlr

If you want to read one kick ass zombie novel, then go out and get a copy of Dying To Live by Kim Paffenroth right now. This is the best zombie novel I have read in a long time.
DYING TO LIVE
Kim is the author of Gospel Of The Living Dead: George Romero's Vision Of Hell On Earth.
GOSPEL OF THE LIVING DEAD


Also, no matter how badly you are starved for zombie fiction, don't under any circumstances purchase Deathbreed by Todd Tjersland - The Visionary Overlord Of American Horror.
ZOMBIE NOVEL
You can see my MST3K style review of the book here.
Tomoview Of Deathbreed

Giantrobo

Yeah I read the synop and gathered that. Besides, in the other 2 book there was no place to hide.

travlr

I figured you probably already knew that. It was more of a general FYI. It's was surprising the number of people that didn't read it. There were several people that showed at Brian's board, pissed because they though this was the sequel to The Rising and City. I blame Leisure for using hands on the cover yet again.


If you like Keene's zombie stuff, then pickup Dead Sea. As things stand right now, there are no plans for another zombie novel, at least not for quite some time.

Brian Jones

That travlr is right on the matter of enjoying Dead Sea if you liked his previous undead offerings. I still hold The Rising as his best zombie work, but Dead Sea easily beats City of the Dead. Not that I hate City, but some of the scenes in it made me shake my head and not love the work so much -- such as the scene where eyeballs are eaten out of a popcorn bag. Little things, you know.

Giantrobo

Cool, I'll check out "Dead Sea".

I liked both "The Rising" and "City of the Dead" but "The Rising" really had me really freaked out and kinda scared so I think I liked it just a bit more than "City". Especially since "City of the Dead" and Romero's "Land of the Dead", a film I wasn't crazy about, seemed to be so similar in some aspects of the story.

travlr

I could tell a couple funny Keene/Romero stories...

Maybe I can convince Keene to post here and tell them. He tells stories better then I do.

DJLinus

Amazon recently notified me of this book coming out on October 1st:



The Zen of Zombie: Better Living Through the Undead by Scott Kenemore

It could be funny...or not. Knowing me, I'll likely give it a try.

AGuyNamedMike

Please do!

DJLinus

I ordered Dead Sea off of Amazon last night, which should be good reading for my beach trip at the end of the month.

The 9 months of anticipation is killing me!

mgbfan

It's not my genre, but y'all have my interest piqued. So I picked up a couple of the Keene books at the library today. Will give them a go. Should make for some nice summer popcorn reading.

Giantrobo

Yeah just have fun with them.

I haven't read "Dead Sea" yet but I'm looking forward to it.

mgbfan

That's what I started with. Read about 70 pages last night. Nothing special, but not anything I'd abandon either.

mgbfan

Finished up Keene's Dead Sea. My first "zombie" novel and I was pretty underwhelmed. There were a few cool parts, but it just lacked any kind of real conflict/resolution (a pretty essential element to a good story, IMHO). It was basically just some people running around. No twists, no real "wow" moments. Just people going from Point A to Point B to Point C. The writing itself was fine, but the basic storytelling seemed somewhat amateurish.

I grabbed Keene's City of the Dead while I was at the library as well. Since these are such light, quick reads, I'll probably give it a go. Hopefully it'll be better.

cracksky

Of course we all know the original NotLD but not many know that the author, John Russo, wrote a sequel, Return of the Living Dead, that has nothing to do with Dawn or the movie that came out in the 1980's. He also wrote at least two other novels with living dead or undead themes. I haven't read Inhuman or Living Things yet but RotLD is excellent.

asianxcore

I have one chapter left in Keene's "The Rising" left. Great read.

Is "City Of The Dead" a direct sequel to the book previous to it? Or are the books following the first just a trilogy because they are set in the same universe?

Thinking about picking up the other two books in Keene's trilogy once I finish this and Wellington's "Monster Island"

Kevin M. Dean

It's a direct sequel and once you finish that last chapter you'll know why.

Frankly, while some of the concepts were good in those books, I found the characters and the dialog very cliched and ultimately don't really have any interest reading other books by Keene.

mgbfan

Ditto that. I read City of the Dead and Dead Sea. I didn't read The Rising (which put me behind on City of the Dead, but ... oh well, it wasn't tough catching up). Keene seems to like to set things up, but fails badly at seeing them through to some satisfying conclusion (for good or bad). To me, he seemed somewhat amateur. All bark, no bite.