I never thought that the day would come when I would hate zombies. But it has.
Oh, I don't really hate them. I always enjoyed a good, gutsy walking hungry dead story. From the time when I was terrified by watching Night of the Living Dead on an off-channel late one night on TV, to Romero's later Dead pictures and on to such wonderful things as The Return of the Living Dead, Skipp and Spector's Books of the Dead and Philip Nutman's fun Wet Work. The flesh-eating zombie is a staple in the horror world.
Yet some aren't happy until they drive a sub-genre into the dirt. I hold Brian Keene partially responsible for this situation. His debut novel, The Rising, along with the Dawn of the Dead remake, helped usher in a glut of zombie gut-munching tedium. Just as the way Anne Rice's influence made vampires disgustingly popular and Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs brought on an onslaught of serial killer copycats.
Far, far too many writers and filmmakers are turning to zombies with their projects and I'm fed up to here. I refuse to indulge in the majority of them, with very few exceptions. I'll always watch any Romero film, especially in his Dead series. And I'll read any book that Brian Keene publishes.
Brian is, I think, well aware that there is absolutely no way he can please everyone. A lot, or maybe even the majority, of his readers probably wish that he was writing The Rising Part 8 by now. Others, myself included, have enjoyed the way he has flexed his imaginative muscles in other directions, with books like Terminal, Earthworm Gods/The Conquerer Worms, The Rutting Season/Dark Hollow and Ghoul. I certainly do not wish to see writers I like putting out the same book over and again. On the other hand, the readers that love zombie fiction represent a large percentage of his audience and he'd be a fool to ignore them.
Thus comes Dead Sea, a brand new zombie novel from Brian Keene. This is a stand-alone book, not one that takes place in the world of The Rising.
As with every other Keene novel, I read Dead Sea very quickly. Brian knows how to tell a story and how to hook his readers in. But the first sections of Dead Sea were a bit hard-going for me. As I've elaborated about, I'm sick of zombies and I don't really get excited at new and unusual ways to describe their carnage.
Of course, the world is once again under a zombie plague. Civilization is crumbling and the dead are walking in search of living flesh to consume. To his credit, Brian utilizes some unique zombie elements in Dead Sea, such as in the way various animals are infected.
A handful of human survivors take refuge in a ship that goes out to sea and here is where the story began to kick into gear for me. To be honest, plots are not Brian Keene's greatest strength as a writer. His books work the best in the human interaction within them. It's obvious that he cares about the people in his stories and that passion makes his readers care as well.
The ship sails in search of some sort of safe haven, as its occupants sink deeper and deeper into a dead sea of despair. This book is one of the grimmest and darkest that I've ever read. Dead Sea begins with little hope and the situation of the people in it gets worse by the page. There are some incredibly disturbing scenes in it and I'm not simply referring to the many descriptions of gore and viscera that the author employs.
Brian Keene's fiction tends to run to the apocalyptic and he is known to write stories of societal breakdown. Dead Sea takes the concept further than ever before, with utterly disorienting results.
But there's more here than merely guts and desperation. The characters have depth and their conversations are often rich and even philosophical at times. Joseph Campbell and his works are brought up, as are his theories of human myths and archetypes. Brian also draws on his own prior Naval experiences for Dead Sea, bringing an authentic tone to tale.
Zombie lovers who have yearned for Keene to return to the walking dead will be ecstatic with Dead Sea, but there is much in the book for any lover of horror. Whether they are sick to death of zombies or not. Brian Keene continues to grow and hone his craft, giving his readers not only thrills and chills and heaps of guts, but also a lot to contemplate when the last page is turned.
Oh, I don't really hate them. I always enjoyed a good, gutsy walking hungry dead story. From the time when I was terrified by watching Night of the Living Dead on an off-channel late one night on TV, to Romero's later Dead pictures and on to such wonderful things as The Return of the Living Dead, Skipp and Spector's Books of the Dead and Philip Nutman's fun Wet Work. The flesh-eating zombie is a staple in the horror world.
Yet some aren't happy until they drive a sub-genre into the dirt. I hold Brian Keene partially responsible for this situation. His debut novel, The Rising, along with the Dawn of the Dead remake, helped usher in a glut of zombie gut-munching tedium. Just as the way Anne Rice's influence made vampires disgustingly popular and Thomas Harris' The Silence of the Lambs brought on an onslaught of serial killer copycats.
Far, far too many writers and filmmakers are turning to zombies with their projects and I'm fed up to here. I refuse to indulge in the majority of them, with very few exceptions. I'll always watch any Romero film, especially in his Dead series. And I'll read any book that Brian Keene publishes.
Brian is, I think, well aware that there is absolutely no way he can please everyone. A lot, or maybe even the majority, of his readers probably wish that he was writing The Rising Part 8 by now. Others, myself included, have enjoyed the way he has flexed his imaginative muscles in other directions, with books like Terminal, Earthworm Gods/The Conquerer Worms, The Rutting Season/Dark Hollow and Ghoul. I certainly do not wish to see writers I like putting out the same book over and again. On the other hand, the readers that love zombie fiction represent a large percentage of his audience and he'd be a fool to ignore them.
Thus comes Dead Sea, a brand new zombie novel from Brian Keene. This is a stand-alone book, not one that takes place in the world of The Rising.
As with every other Keene novel, I read Dead Sea very quickly. Brian knows how to tell a story and how to hook his readers in. But the first sections of Dead Sea were a bit hard-going for me. As I've elaborated about, I'm sick of zombies and I don't really get excited at new and unusual ways to describe their carnage.
Of course, the world is once again under a zombie plague. Civilization is crumbling and the dead are walking in search of living flesh to consume. To his credit, Brian utilizes some unique zombie elements in Dead Sea, such as in the way various animals are infected.
A handful of human survivors take refuge in a ship that goes out to sea and here is where the story began to kick into gear for me. To be honest, plots are not Brian Keene's greatest strength as a writer. His books work the best in the human interaction within them. It's obvious that he cares about the people in his stories and that passion makes his readers care as well.
The ship sails in search of some sort of safe haven, as its occupants sink deeper and deeper into a dead sea of despair. This book is one of the grimmest and darkest that I've ever read. Dead Sea begins with little hope and the situation of the people in it gets worse by the page. There are some incredibly disturbing scenes in it and I'm not simply referring to the many descriptions of gore and viscera that the author employs.
Brian Keene's fiction tends to run to the apocalyptic and he is known to write stories of societal breakdown. Dead Sea takes the concept further than ever before, with utterly disorienting results.
But there's more here than merely guts and desperation. The characters have depth and their conversations are often rich and even philosophical at times. Joseph Campbell and his works are brought up, as are his theories of human myths and archetypes. Brian also draws on his own prior Naval experiences for Dead Sea, bringing an authentic tone to tale.
Zombie lovers who have yearned for Keene to return to the walking dead will be ecstatic with Dead Sea, but there is much in the book for any lover of horror. Whether they are sick to death of zombies or not. Brian Keene continues to grow and hone his craft, giving his readers not only thrills and chills and heaps of guts, but also a lot to contemplate when the last page is turned.
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