Just to give you all a head warning...this blog entry is going to turn into a bit of a rant.
Brain Keene's book The Rising was a great story of another zombie apocalypse. With lots of blood, innards, and just all out violence...along with the living struggling to survive, and the zombies driving cars, firing guns and launching coordinated efforts to wipe out the living. Wait?!?! WTF?? Intelligent zombies?? Yes...they are in this book..
The Rising starts with Jim who is stranded in an underground bunker (constructed by himself for Y2K) he is deciding what he should do....should he shoot himself or should he come out of the bunker and join the zombie denizens. Which one of them, is his pregnant second wife. Suddenly Jim's cell phone goes off, he picks it up and hears his son (from his first marriage) asking him to come and save him. " I love you to infinity Daddy" Danny says and then the phone goes dead.
Jim sets out to save his son. Along the way he befriends, Martin a preacher, Frankie a former heroin addict, and Baker a scientist that worked for the company that they figure created the zombies. Which would make sense in a "The Stand" kind of flashback, but alas...it is not to be.
Instead, the zombies are created by an "unseen force" that takes over the dead body. These zombies are intelligent, calculating, and crack one liners. To me that is not a zombie. Zombies are brainless eating machines with nothing to do besides groan, walk and chew. Don't you all just start hearing the famous line "Braaaaaiiiiinnnnnnsss!" But I digress...
Anyway so my major complaint is that this book took on a science fiction type of aspect, with some "thing" taking over the dead people's bodies, (and animal bodies, did I mention that?? Lions tigers and bears plotting against us! Yup...your reading right) kind of like an alien possession?? Folks the beings from another planet aren't just abducting you...they now live in your body! Well, what's left of it...
Other than that, the book was enjoyable. I pushed through the absurdity of zombies being able to drive, fire weapons etc. and discovered I actually enjoyed the book. I may bitch about the "mensa zombie group" , but Brian weaved that aspect in quite well with the horror and made the book really entertaining. I give it two thumbs, a femur, and a decapitated head up!
Sorry...I think I've been reading to much zombie fiction. :)
Rooting around looking for my next book to read...maybe I'll go dig something up ;)
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