Customer Reviews

Deadlands

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Generations have passed since a war ravaged the world, leaving nothing but barren, fallout-ridden countryside in it's wake. But power-hungry fiends were not content to stop at utter desolation. The fallen have been raised from the dead in order to create an army dead-set on continuing the destruction. A handful of lucky survivors have lived in various underground cities, creating a new way of life more primitive than that of their predecessors, desperately trying to restore some semblance of humanity.

Christian and Cadence have lived in such an underground city, known as Down-Town. The brother and sister work as guardsmen, protecting the city from the "rotters" who wander the barren wasteland aboveground, seeking the flesh of the living. When word gets out of other underground havens being ravaged, the guardsmen head out into the light to gather information. However, what knowledge awaits them on the surface shatters what little security they may have salvaged during those years in their burrows, as a new threat preys on what little remains of the endangered human race.

Scott A. Johnson has managed to breathe some new life into a worn out genre with his novel Deadlands. Many of the elements used are highly cliched, but Johnson places a rather intriguing spin on the plot as a whole, building upon the foundation laid by previous zombie genre authors. The plot builds quickly and doesn't loosen it's cold, decayed grip until the very end, and then you'll wish it wasn't over. I would have liked the book to be a little longer, and perhaps the ending a little less rushed, but this was still a great read, and I recommend Deadlands to other fans of zombie, horror, or sci-fi fiction. I look forward to anything Scott A. Johnson has to put out in the future!

Honestly speaking, the first half of this book reads like any other Zombie novel. Although clichéd, the story is still interesting and Mr. Johnson has created a few memorable characters that carry you through this post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland.

But, just as you are starting to think that you've read it all before, Johnson pulls the rug out from under you with a unique plot twist and keeps you reading until the end.

With each book, Johnson's prose and character development are getting stronger and stronger and he may be a very strong voice in the future of horror.

The book could benefit from a little editing as there are a few mistakes that pulled me right out of the story. (For example: instead of saying that something wasn't to be taken lightly, it said that it wasn't to be taken likely.) However, such errors were few enough that they didn't really stop my enjoyment of the tale.

In addition, one of the characters, Tierra, seemed more silly than sympathetic. I'll admit Johnson lost me a bit with this one. I just didn't believe in Tierra at all.

However, as a whole, the book is worth reading and I'm looking forward to Mr. Johnson's next offering!

This novel was a good read, what there was of it. The actual story part of the book is only 183 pages. The character development was pretty good but most of the scenes felt too rushed. IMO it is not worth $17. If you can find it cheap or get it as part of one of amazon's deals then i recommend it. Otherwise I wouldn't pay the amount they are asking for it.

This is more of a short story than a full blown novel. Unencumbered by a lot of intricately drawn characters, it moves in, gets to the point, and seals the deal in rapid fashion. Because of that I can forgive a little bit of simplicity when it comes to the emotions and actions of the main characters. Neither was extremely compelling or fascinating but given the page count, it would have been hard to give them a lot more depth. Overall, it was an easy read and fun enough that I can recommend it to someone who is a fan of zombies.

There is a new and creative slant to the zombies of old here. I do feel that it works well in a nuclear devastated wasteland where this story takes place and makes it interesting. It does drive this tale along so is certainly worthwhile without overshadowing the story itself.

I myself have no preference for new vs. traditional zombies. Some folks might complain about more stories with the old Romero zombies, saying "its all been done before" but the best out there, in my humble opinion, are "Day by Day Armageddon," "World War Z," and "The Walking Dead" series, all of which deal with traditional Romero-esque type zombies. What makes any zombie tale great is the story telling and the characters that inhabit it. Of course, there are good stories where there is derivations from the traditional as well, such as Brian Keene's "The Rising" and "City of the Dead" as well as a plethora of short stories in the various anthologies out there. The derivation works here, but it does not elevate the actual story so much as move it along. It is fun and interesting, but not totally fascinating or outright terrifying.

Since this story was so fast paced, I did not invest too much in either of the main characters. They were pretty flat and lacked a great deal of depth. Their actions weren't necessarily always predictable, but how they react seemed pretty straight forward and simplified. This is not a sharp criticism...afterall, there is only 190 pages in fairly large print which doesn't give a lot of room for more indepth analysis of each individual's psychy.

The quick pace does have its failings. At one particuarly dramatic and critical point near the end of the book an action and its results are explained in all of one paragraph, which is tremendously anti-climactic. I refuse to play the spoiler here, but something so key to the story development is over and done before you know it and we are on to something else. I feel that a few more paragraphs could have been spared to detail things out a bit at that point.

Overall though, a creative zombie story that was fun to read and quick to finish.

It's becoming harder and harder to offer up something new in the zombie genre, it's pretty much all been done. But, Scott A. Johnson has taken a successful stab at it in his new novel "Deadlands".

"Deadlands" follows brother and sister Christian and Cadence through post-apocalyptic nightmare world. In this dark combination of science fiction and horror the entire world is scorched and ruined. What little civilization is left lives in somewhat primitive underground bunkers hiding from flesh scorching daylight, poisoned air, and most importantly, the living dead. The zombies, referred to as "rotters" in the book, are a product of a last ditch effort by warring factions to build an unstoppable army during the worldwide conflict that turned the earth into "deadland". Of course, this plan backfired miserably. And, as if that wasn't bad enough, a new, mysterious threat has arisen that is destroying the underground cities and wiping out all their inhabitants threatening to put an end to humanity once and for all.

Zombie and post-apocalyptic fans will find a lot to enjoy about this book. While a lot of ideas aren't particularly new Johnson works hard to put a fresh spin on things. The book is fast paced, action-packed, and well written. Johnson throws in a new--at least to me--twist on the zombie but, I won't give it away as it's one of the books major plot points (and a good one at that). My only complaints are that the "emotional" scenes in the book are standard and clichéd and that the book is relatively short. If you're looking for your next apocalyptic and/or zombie adventure you won't be disappointed with "Deadlands".

In a bare, tough, life-deprived, post-apocalyptic world, small numbers of human beings try to sustain their miserable lives hidden underground. The enemy is everywhere: the weather, the temperature, the day and night cycles, the wandering "rotters". As the result of a succession of events, a small group of guardsmen find themselves cut away from their main base, in pursuit of a new haven. There, they will be facing numerous enemies, including a vicious new breed of zombies.

What I have liked-
* the idea of a super-zombie, the Necrosapien. This is a nice change from the usual dumb-minded, slow-moving living corpses. I don't think the author went far enough in developing the full potential of this dreadful enemy...
* the section describing Christian's turning out into a zombie. Although too short, the idea is good and hasn't, to my knowledge, been previously addressed. That was somewhat moving.
* the concept of the "interspecies mating". Terrifying, disgusting, but interesting, although not explored to its full potential.
* the world/environment of the story. A desolate, post-war world in which hope is like grass or life: much desired.

What I have not liked-
* Cain's death. Way too abrupt. Given the viciousness of the character, the reader would have expected a more gruesome "death".
* the total absence of any rational explanation for the war, the spread of the "disease", the glass lake, the human capability to have retained the technical and scientific knowledge of making the foil suits etc, etc.
* the lack of development in the things I have listed as good points above. Just to expand on one point: why would someone prepare at the same time the advent of zombies, including the Necrosapiens, and store so many means of getting read of them and restarting life all over again? Wasn't the initial war supposed to be total? How could the finders of the zombie apocalypse have predicted which environment the world would end up turning into? Lots of weaknesses in the rationale...

This book starts out treading on ground you've probably read about before if you like this kind of fiction, with some interesting blips in the story that combines a little bit of Logans Run with Return of the Living Dead as well as other recognizible pieces of fiction both printed and filmed. No problems here, the premise is interesting enough to be sure.

The problem, to me, was this book was over before it was done. Its quite short. What could have been a deep page-turner becomes the equivelent of a hollywood blockbuster summer movie, where almost every detail is glossed-over to get to the next dramatic point in the story. A 3 day trip across barren wastelands takes less than a paragraph. The whole story skips so much detail that when you reach the end of the book, which wont take long, you're left wondering if you just read the Digest version.

I'm also going to have to second another of the reviewers here, in that this book has sections that are written a little predictibly. (No offence to the author, I haven't written any books and probably couldn't do as good a job as he has), but there are sections where characters are introduced and then killed off a page later, characters that would seemingly play an important role in the overall story. Also, this leads to some...implausible...situations happening in the book that, again, are glossed over quickly, which tend to make them seem more implausable.

Overall I thought it was an interesting read, but I probably wouldn't read more books in the series at this point in time. With 100 more pages to flesh-out the characters and add more to the story, it would have been a meater read...probably more deserving of its rather high pricetag. Right now I felt like I paid nearly $20 dollars for a single short story.

A zombie book that provides an excellent decription of what a scorched earth would be like after decades of battling with zombies. The author provides vivid details of how depressing earth would be along with its sad surviving population. I thought it put a new spin on the zombie genre to some degree. I also appreciated the brother and sister relationship which was one of the most endearing qualities about the book, since family (brother & sister, parent to child) relationship played a role in the plot development. Since earth is a wasteland all you have is the memories of your past family members and the few that are still living.

I was somewhat surprised by the ending since it left on an upbeat note. Though it made me smile to end so optimistcally. I am not sure all horror fans would appreciate the "happy ending." I believe if you like zombie books this is another good one.

In the spirit of James Lowder's "Books of Flesh" comes Scott A. Johnson with a refreshingly unique tale of zombies in the aftermath of the apocalypse. The humans left after the devastation of the planet have been underground for almost one hundred years. They lead a rustic and simple life, unable to emerge during the day because of the scorching heat from a now unfiltered sun.

They must protect their underground cities from the "Rotters", zombies that roam the scorched landscape night and day looking for fresh human meat. Christian and Cadence, brother and sister, are both Guardsmen for the underground city of Down-Town. When scouts from New Tucson report that New Phoenix has been destroyed, the Guardsmen of Down-Town are sent to investigate.

While away from Down-Town, their city is raided and overcome by Rotters, sending the remaining Guardsmen fleeing to New Tucson. Here they discover a new breed of Rotter, one with intelligence, speech, and muscular control. These new, gray skinned Rotters call themselves Necrosapiens, and are led by the evil, oily Cain.

After an incident in New Tucson, Christian is banished to the Deadlands. Cadence follows him, and together they find the evil lair of Cain and discover his master plan for taking over New Tucson. Its up to Christian and Cadence to save the one remaining underground city from the evils of the Rotters and the Necrosapiens.

While 'Deadlands' is certainly a freshman effort, Johnson's new breed of zombie is so refreshing in a genre that has become stale that certain simplicities in prose and stiffness in dialogue are easily overlooked. There are a few editing errors in the book also, but nothing bad enough not to recommend this fantastic adventure to any true zombie fan. I'm looking forward to more from this author. Enjoy!

Johnson takes a fairly old topic, zombies, and adds an interesting twist. I won't spoil anything but there are several twists in the novel that make you raise your eyebrows. Johnson doesn't have the best writing style ever developed and this isn't great literature, but it's an entertaining read with some new ideas. I highly recommend for zombie fans.