Books
I'm a Brian Keene fan and I buy everything he publishes. Well, I can't buy all the super-deluxe ones that are designed for the affluent collectors, but I do buy the paperbacks and the trade hardcovers. And I'm never disappointed.

I've enjoyed all of Brian's fiction, but I think he is more successful in the novel length. I like it when he gradually builds his characters to the point where the reader cares for them.

The Rising: Selected Stories from the End of the World is a collection of very short stories set in the doomsday world of Brian's popular books, The Rising and City of the Dead. I enjoyed The Rising: Selected Stories from the End of the World, but it is almost definitely my least favorite of all the Brian Keene books I've read to date.

The stories seemed a but labored and it felt to me that it was well-trod territory. I found the majority of the book to be light reading. Well, light if you consider hyper-violent mayhem to be light. Most were worthy of a smile or perhaps a cringe or two, but I found many of them to be forgettable. Yet there were some standout vignettes in The Rising: Selected Scenes from the End of the World. A big standout for me was The Viking Plays Pattycake.

I recommend The Rising: Selected Scenes from the End of the World. Heartily so for zombie enthusiasts, which I no longer really consider myself. And I recommend it to other readers, with minor reservations. I would certainly urge anyone that hasn't to hasten to the bookstore and find copies of The Rising and City of the Dead. Then, if your thirst for Ob and his armies of the dead hasn't been slaked, I would definitely advise you to buy The Rising: Selected Scenes from the End of the World.

To those that have read the first two books (which is probably the majority of those reading these words), The Rising: Selected Scenes from the End of the World is partially a retread, but also a beguiling continuation of the stories. The end raises more questions than it provides answers, but we can say the same thing for The Rising.

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