14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you love the zombie genre, this book is for you!, June 26, 2003
Being from Western Pennsylvania, I always assumed we had the corner on the market for the best zombie stories. With his "Reign of the Dead" series, Len Barnhart has proven that there are great living dead stories to be told about Virginia, Maryland and the Shenandoah Valley.
Barnhart has a writing style that lends itself extremely well to an action-packed story like this one. Words are not squandered on flowery descriptions (or, in this case, horrific ones), except where it is warranted. He simply gets right to the point. You will thank him for it, because there's a lot of plot to unfold.
The story traces the attempts of our protagonist, Jim Workman, and a few others trying to contact and eventually travel to an island off the coast of Virginia. But there are obstacles, in the form of a racist militia, hordes of walking dead and ... nasty! ... hungry rats! The plot travels like a speeding locomotive, and there's never a dull moment.
Character development takes a back seat to action -- in fact, you might say that character development is just stowed in the trunk. Each character can be summed up in one or two adjectives: cautious, caring, cowardly, reckless, angry, insane. This is all that is necessary for this kind of story. If I wanted character development, I would read "Wuthering Heights" or something...
There are a couple of knocks on this book (and these are shared by the first book as well).
The editing is fairly atrocious. I know, some people will chastise me for raising such a complaint, but I was shocked at the number of errors. I almost began to count them, but I didn't want to ruin my enjoyment of the story.
* ...And I fully expect that someone will post a review here, lambasting my grammar and spelling... *
The story does draw upon the many plot-lines previously seen in other books and movies from the genre. Sometimes, phrases were taken directly from movies like "Dawn of the Dead." I saw this more as an homage to what came before -- and it usually drew a wry smile from me.
But let's put these minor criticisms back in perspective: despite these flaws, I loved this book (and the first in the series, "Reign of the Dead"). By no means am I a fast reader, but I finished each of the books in one evening. I could barely contain myself in the six days between my reading the first and my receiving the second in the mail.
For those of us who love the genre, let us hope this story finds its way onto film.
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A small one, September 1, 2004
This book is awfully trash, the first is readble but this one stinks, the main caracter sucks, he's not a man but a type of Rambo, or better an antizombie conan and rest...the rest are simply the rest...the end is horrible, i will pray to god for this trash never seen the light on film.
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11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Variations on a theme wasted by apathy, July 18, 2004
By A Customer
Ignoring some of the crass racial undertones, I was hoping to be impressed, and for Barnhart to redeem himself here. However the book doesn't demonstrate any improvements on the original story and there isn't anything really substantive in the first book other than the promise of an emerging author finding his voice. This effort just felt like something quickly put together, stuffed in an envelope and then sent to the publisher. The series' potential is wasted by laziness and apathy. I think the book holds up well enough as a sequel to the first, but sadly that isn't granting it a whole lot. Camp fiction fans might like this in the same way they to watch bad horror movies on cable. Serious horror fans, who are attuned to the intricacies of Anne Rice et al will be as receptive to this as one is to pofessional wrestling or tractor pulls.
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