Tagged: smart zombies
After the End by Bonnie Dee
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
The end of the world is only the beginning.
Zombies are on the loose and the world comes unraveled. A group of strangers on a Manhattan subway are brought together in the name of survival following the lead of Ari Brenner, a young man who represents authority because of his army uniform. Even though Ari doesn’t feel worthy of their trust, he steps up during the crisis as he’s been trained to do.
College student Lila Teske finds her non-violent beliefs tested in the crucible of a zombie attack as she takes her place fighting by Ari’s side. There are other members of the diverse group, but the focus of the story is on Lila and Ari, young people who learn about sacrifice, inner strength and even love during their ordeal.
With infrastructure down and communication with the outside world broken, the survivors head toward the nearest marina to escape New York. When they meet a lab tech who may know the key to defeating the virus, he must be protected at all costs. But the reanimated dead aren’t the only danger that impedes them on their perilous journey.
[Full disclosure: I requested and received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
It’s actually kind of funny that I found this book on NetGalley because 3-4 years ago I read an excerpt from the original version. The voice of the author was so unique that even though I didn’t have money to buy it at the time, it’s been on my list for a while. So when I saw a chance to read the whole book (a new revised edition, mind you), I leaped at the chance.
First off, Bonnie Dee’s zombies are not your typical zombies. They’re a little smarter and are surprisingly strong, but what really stood out for me was how you kill them. Just disabling their brain doesn’t work; you have to go for their spinal column to get to their so-called ‘primitive’ or reptilian brain that drives them. So having a bunch of guns and some sharpshooters isn’t necessarily going to save your butt this time like in so many zombie books. They’re also a little smarter and some of them are quite strong, so you’ve got the makings of a perfectly terrifying apocalyptic scenario.
So while the zombies and general world-building was good, my relationship with the characters was so-so at best. Ari and Lila were both very good, solid characters with lots of development. Ari has to fit into his unasked for leadership role as the only man with military training around and Lila has to reconcile the new everyday violence with her pacifist tendencies. If they don’t succeed in changing, they’re all going to die. There’s a definite romantic element to the plot as Ari and Lila become close, but it’s not always the main focus. The main focus is survival.
That was the really good part of the characterization. The bad part is that for her secondary characters, Bonnie Dee tends to use stereotypes. The pampered model, the cute and helpless kid, the scientist with the cure, the disgruntled teenager, etc. I would have liked her to flesh out her secondary characters a whole lot more, but she never really did. There was so much potential with many of these characters that was never lived up to, so in a way the characterization was rather disappointing when you compare it to that of the two main characters.
However, the plot is incredibly fast-paced. Bonnie Dee grabs you into her story and doesn’t let you go until you’re done reading. There’s a constant undercurrent of tension from the very real threat of the zombies as well as the many interpersonal conflicts that crop up in a diverse group of survivors. She has an excellent writing style that describes things in detail without ever really letting go of the fast pace. Thankfully, there was no middle sag in this book either as Ari’s group got their footing. It’s fast-paced pretty much all the time, which is what you really want in a post-apocalyptic novel.
So overall, I was pretty happy with how After the End turned out. The main characters were good, the zombies were terrifying and new and the plot was insanely fast-paced. The only real letdown was the secondary characters, which could have had so much more depth and added so much more to the story.
I give this book 4/5 stars.
Zombies: More Recent Dead by Paula Guran
(Cover picture courtesy of Prime Books.)
The living dead are more alive than ever! Zombies have become more than an iconic monster for the twenty-first century: they are now a phenomenon constantly revealing as much about ourselves – and our fascination with death, resurrection, and survival – as our love for the supernatural or post-apocalyptic speculation. Our most imaginative literary minds have been devoured by these incredible creatures and produced exciting, insightful, and unflinching new works of zombie fiction. We’ve again dug up the best stories published in the last few years and compiled them into an anthology to feed your insatiable hunger…
[Full disclosure: I requested and received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
I’ve been suffering from a severe case of Walking Dead withdrawal for a few months, so I figured that I might as well get back into that zombie kind of mood with a new anthology from some well-known authors. Jonathon Maberry, Neil Gaiman and so many more authors that I actually like were included in this anthology. Where could it go wrong?
Apparently, almost everywhere. This is a non-traditional zombie anthology, which I knew when I requested it. All of these zombies are either thinking zombies or just kind of dead shells of their former selves come back to life. I don’t mind reading about these types of zombies. It’s a newer (more terrifying in some ways) take on a creature that is a little over-hyped by pop culture. Of course, being that people are people, sometimes they would do disgusting things with these zombies: have sex with them, make them servants, etc. It’s sad to see that my faith in the worst impulses of humanity is still justified.
Except, by the end of the anthology, I was really, truly struggling to finish it. This is not a long book, by the way. It’s only 480 pages and it should not have taken me so long to finish, but I really had to force myself to keep reading about 2/3s of the way through. Why? Because, for the most part, it was boring. Most of the stories, even by authors that I really liked, were quite boring. Yes, they showcased the new type of zombie very well but some of them didn’t seem to have a point (or a plot) and still others were so boring that you forgot how the story began by the time you got to the end. It’s not like I have a short attention span, either.
None of the characters really stood out for me here and even though it’s only been a week since I read this, I couldn’t really name more than two or three of them. This anthology just did not pack the punch I’ve come to expect from authors like this. In the end, I was more disappointed than entertained, which is not something you want when you’ve just read through almost 500 pages.
I give this anthology 3/5 stars.