Barren Earth [Paperback]

Eric S. Brown (Author), Stephen A. North (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 5, 2009

In 2118, the deep space exploration vessel, The Hyperion, left Earth. Its crew never imagined that coming home would be the most dangerous and deadly part of their voyage. Upon on their return, five years later, the Earth is dead and humanity is at war with its own dead. The colonies of man struggle to survive against the flesh eating zombies who now rule their home world and seek to spread the virus which created them among the stars.

Product Details

• Paperback: 186 pages
• Publisher: CreateSpace (August 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1448636590
• ISBN-13: 978-1448636594
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,161,275 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Barren Plot, October 26, 2009

By 

Scott C. Clough (Fayetteville, AR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Barren Earth (Paperback)

I don't usually write a negative review, but I was extremely disappointed in the quality of the writing and the gaps in the plot.

First, I was recommended this book by Amazon since I purchased the book Dead Tide, by Stephen North. I wasn't disappointed with that book, and I did enjoy his character development. But I have not read anything else by Eric Brown and having not done so, that perhaps that is why this book was an overall disappointment. I am especially surprised at this as the other reviews were high ratings with positive comments.

The basic premise of the plot was interesting to a zombie fan such as myself. A deep exploration vessel returns to a zombie infested earth. The first chapter went into how the zombie world came about, but it had plot holes. First, the aliens who attacked, there were remains of homo sapiens and yet there were aliens, infected on the planet. (I suspect this might be explained in earlier books by Eric Brown, and perhaps it should be warned to read ahead of time), then is the curiosity of how the infection crosses from alien to human, how the medical facilities on the first contact ship failed to detect the infection and isolate the victims, and how the ship "returned" to infect the rest of earth with a feral crew (Assuming the exploring crew actually was far away just as the "hero's" vessel was also).

The story then goes to the perspective of the returning ship and the story then moves along at a rather rushed pace, with little to no explanation of how events have progressed. In fact, return to earth turns out to be a very small part of the story as the survivors don't remain long at all. I will refrain from discussing any more holes in the plot so not to spoil the book for those who still might enjoy it.

The "intelligent" zombies are not zombies, but more like vampires without the defect of sun exposure. The basic feral zombie in the stories are only exposed for a very short while and never in the story do you get the feeling of terror by being confronted by the living dead. Instead you have a race of undead humans that embrace violence, but still some of them are able to unit and fight alongside humans?

The characterization is very shallow . At no time do I find a connection to any of the characters and they are never really developed to give any depth to their existence. The story feels more like an outline that was barely fleshed out. I really felt it could have been done better.

So my recommendation is to avoid this book if you haven't already read earlier books by the authors and enjoyed those.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Space Opera...Sung By Zombies, December 29, 2009

By 

NEO (Arlington Heights, IL) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Barren Earth (Kindle Edition)

Overall, this was a good, quick read. The characters weren't quite as developed as I would like but this is more of an action tale so it's understandable. I was unsure how this whole combination of sci-fi and zombies would play out but I was pleased with the story and I found myself really enjoying it.

Now, this isn't a perfect book. There are some grammatical errors, a common occurrence in Library of the Living Dead publications, and the story does switch back and forth so that you never really have a chance to dig deeper into the characters.

Stephen North is a very good writer, I highly recommend "Dead Tide" for all you zombie fans, but this is the first I have read from Eric Brown.

Potential readers of this title need to appreciate that there can be more to a zombie story than staggering, rotted corpses shambling around moaning "brains..."

All in all, a fun read that broadens the zombie genre.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I can't believe it's so bad, February 13, 2010

By 

MUFreebird (Harrisburg, PA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Barren Earth (Paperback)

I'm not going to flame the author or write mutliple paragraphs setting forth why this book is so bad. Instead, here are the highlights:

1) Bad grammar, misused words, improper punctuation

2) Worst plot I've ever witnessed (truly nonsensical)

3) Unduly liberal interpretation of the zombie horror genre that bears no relationship whatsoever to ANY zombie book ever written (don't mistake this for an endorsement of the author as someone that has upended conventions in a good way because he hasn't)

4) No character development (including the lack of detail of prior events that certain character's actions are based upon)

5) No science in the science fiction

Do not waste your money on this steamer.