Customer Reviews

Among Madmen

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed this tautly written little novel. No, it's not The Stand but, then again, one was enough. (Oh, that's right, King found it necessary to re-release The Stand with an additional 400 pages added to an already too long book!) Anyway, this story dealt with the day to day life of a small group of people who have managed to survive in a world gone mad, literally. Something had occurred that caused most of the population to go insane. Sometimes, while watching the news, I think that may already have happened to the real world.

This book by Starlin and Graziunas is not the Stand rip off everyone seems to want to peg it as. The Stand is a great book, in my opinion one of Kings best. But the Stand was not the first book to deal with a catastrophe that killed off most of the people and left the remaining ones deranged in some way. You could go back to the stories of Matheson for that.

This book has the theme of one day the world goes nuts. So ex 'Nam vet and cop Tom Laker and his wife Maria try to find a way to survive in this new and dangerous world. Each chapter has great illustrations by Starlin in them. There is no giant 'Good vs Evil' theme like in the Stand. It is just a good novel about people trying to survive in a world gone crazy and there are no promises of things ending happy for anyone.

It took me 16 years to get to this book, and it was worth it. I wish Starlin did more work today, his excellent Marvel work made me hunt this down.

Not a bad story and a good, fast little read. We follow the day to day life of a small town in a post-apocolyptic world as our hero tries to maintain law and order in an increasingly savage world. Each chapter is highlighted by original illustrations by Jim Starlin, some of which are quite good. Unfortunately, for any who have read Stephen King's The Stand, this book can come across as a refresher course. Stralin and Graziunas' writing is tight though, and their characters have a real quality to them. I just can't get over the comparisons to the Stand enought to give it a stronger grade