Customer Reviews

Dark Resurrection

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

 

 

The premise of John Karr's Dark Resurrection is great. It's a fascinating twist on the zombie theme, where zombies aren't mindless killing machines, and they're even using hospitals to cover up the harvesting of humans for food. The plot moves quickly and certainly had me turning the pages to find out what happens next.

However, while I found the plot engaging, the characters didn't quite do it for me. I found it hard to engage emotionally with them, which for me is where 'horror' truly lies in horror fiction.

This partially speaks to my own genre preferences rather than the book itself. I prefer emotional & psychological horror to what I think of as action/thriller with horror trappings. Dark Resurrection is firmly in the latter camp for me---the horror comes in the form of critters and blood. If that's what you're looking for, then Dark Resurrection delivers a solid story with great pacing.

I think what it comes down to is this: if you enjoy creature-feature fiction, Dark Resurrection is great. It's got all of the traditional elements---blood, explicit sex, action, and even romance---combined with a new and different premise.

If a more psychological and emotional horror is your cup of gore, however, this isn't where you'll find it.

If you like horror, get ready to get scared. The author's masterfull story telling produces a gripping thriller, not to be missed.

I wanted to like Dark Resurrection. But I knew when I was halfway through the first chapter it was going to be a hard sell.

The problem is the writing reads like something from a high school creative writing class. He info-dumps every chance he gets, telling you everything from the color of the carpet to what sort of glow the florescent lights give off. He does this on every page, everything is meticulously described, yet you can't seem to picture anything. A classic case of telling, not showing.

The dialog is unrealistic; "You're looking good with your sleeves rolled up and your muscles bulging through your shirt" says the surgeon's wife, while his 3-4 year old toddler speaks with the proficiency of a 5th grader. The malevolent villain chats like a casual acquaintance, even when he's supposed to be frightening. None of the characters have a sense of distinct personality to them, so it's very hard to get attached or feel sympathetic towards any one of them.

The worst though, is the repetition. Twice in the few pages the author makes a reference to the intercostal muscle, and both times feels the need to explain to us that they are a wall of muscle between the ribs, as if we didn't catch it the first time. This happens constantly throughout the story, the author basically repeating whole sentences within a page or two, or using a word to death in a paragraph when there there were others he could have chosen.

I gave the book two stars because the story itself isn't that bad. It can hold your interest enough to keep you turning pages despite the flaws in the writing, and it shows a lot of potential. A good editor or a few more years of practice could have made this a wonderful book. As it stands, it's only mediocre, serious flaws in the prose keeping it from being good enough to call average.

A FAST PAGE-TURNER, THOUGH I WAS DISAPPOINTED THAT I KNEW HOW THE STORY WOULD END BY A LITTLE HINT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NOVEL ABOUT THE KEY-CHARACTER'S OBSERVATION OF AN ITEM. SORRY, BUT THE AUTHOR SHOULD HAVE LEFT THAT PART OUT, AND LET THE READERS USE THEIR IMAGINATION.