Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Satisfying & Exciting; Mondo on the Gore, August 5, 2005
This sequel to The Rising doesn't exactly pick up where its predecessor left off--it actually starts a few minutes before, a handy recap I suppose for those who experience a timelag between the reading of these two books, which are more like halves of the same volume than discrete stories. I would not recommend reading this one without having read the one that comes before.
This one is perhaps a little more complicated and slightly less engaging than its predecessor, but it remains very entertaining. Keene has taken the zombie genre into some interesting alternate directions, drawing inspiration perhaps from the Italian zombie masters or from Sam Raimi's Evil Dead series. I admire the way he balances his apocalyptic subject matter with his highly sympathetic cast. There's plenty of mayhem here (and extremely graphic mayhem at that), but the story still has a heart.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
THE RISING, Part 2, June 29, 2005
At the end of THE RISING, Jim had fought his way across several states through zombies and militia to try and reach his son. Just as the book stopped, we did not know what he found at his son's house. This book takes up just before the end of the first with a little repetition and we finally find out the status of Jim's son.
Right from the start Jim, Martin, Frankie and the rest of the party are on the run from organized zombies. We have zombies torching houses and mounting high-speed chases. This all gets Jim and company into a New York skyscraper reputed to be impenetrable. The part joins several hundred survivors in the building. Meanwhile Ob and the zombies are mobilizing on a grand scale. Their talk is to wipe out all humans so that the next wave can begin (plants and insects).
Death and gore are major parts of this book (as in the first). We learn a little more about the zombies and their purpose. The action builds and builds as the book enters the final phases. With only a dozen pages to go fates are still unknown and the reader has to go right to the final page. Unlike the first book, this does wind up the saga although many readers will probably not like the way the ending is handled. Personally I felt there could have been a few more pages or paragraphs at the end to fully close the book.
Still, the book was fun to read and it was a pleasure to find out how things went after the end of THE RISING. You are going to have to read it to find out what happens but I will warn you that at the very end you may not be completely satisfied.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Average, August 9, 2005
**Some spoliers ahead**
While I absolutely loved The Rising, I found City of the dead to be a copy of other zombie movies/books. While in the Rising this fact was also true, it was masked by the fact that Keene gave the audience a new angle on the zombie world by making his zombies intelligent and able to do things (like run and drive and organize) that had been the main drawbacks of zombies in the past (and the savior of most of the main characters...the only power of zombies was in their great numbers and ability to surprise).
But in this novel, Keene seems to forget (a little bit) about the new trail that he blazed in the first novel. Although the revealing that the zombies are actually deamons from another dimension was a very good twist, and the fact that he gives them a back story and even organization into different groups also adds to the book.
But then Keene runs dead into the wall that countless other zombie/horror writers have run into before: he creates a social criticism. Although this is an important part of many zombie works...IT'S BEEN DONE BEFORE. From 28 days later to countless others, the refugees of zombie attacks ALWAYS find someone in power who takes them in, goes nuts, and does something stupid to get all the people he's protecting killed. Keene does this as well, and I would've liked to seen something a little more original.
But the diologue was again very good as well as the first person details and descriptions provided by the deamon lord Ob. But the storyline up till the end was predictable and slow. But the ending was very well done and the religious undertones also added quite a bit to the ending. Not a bad read, but not as good or original as the first.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192250339_.gif){kind=small}
