De Bello Lemures, Or The Roman War Against the Zombies of Armorica [Kindle Edition]

Thomas Brookside (Author), Lucius Artorius Castus (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a really cool concept." --AWorldOnFire.com

"...an outstanding read...the book is vivid in its details, from the minutiae of Roman country life to military strategy to symbolism drawn from Virgil and Euripides, without ever overwhelming the reader or detracting from the story." --Author Robert Williams

"Incredibly bone chilling ride..." --Author R M Putnam

"Thomas Brookside has crafted a nice addition to the zombie genre." --Author Eric Mays

Product Description

A recovered Latin text tells the story of a struggle between Roman legionaries and the undead in 185 AD.

Lucius Artorius Castus leads an expedition to Gaul to defeat a rebellion against the rule of the Emperor Commodus - and gets more than he bargained for when his enemies rise from the dead to fight again. The power of the zombie horde is amplified by the Babel of Ancient Rome's religions and superstitions, and the terror the undead bring in their wake foreshadows the incipient medieval darkness already creeping into the world at the end of Rome's Antonine age. Richly annotated, this mashup of survival horror and alternate history takes the reader on a bracing journey into one of ancient Rome's dark corners.

The book is structured as a work of nonfiction, with a foreword describing the history of the Latin document and its solecistic title, a "translation" of the text itself, and extensive footnotes. It is a loving homage to the paperback nonfiction products of university presses - a classics text reimagined as a postmodern horror tale.

Special Kindle Edition Bonus: The Kindle version of this title contains an 80 page free preview of Thomas Brookside's new release THE LAST DAYS OF JERICHO.

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 288 KB
• Publisher: Historic Classics; Revised edition (March 16, 2010)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B002U829N6
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #125,612 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A little short, but actually very good., December 4, 2009

By 

Blue Cat Books (Boston MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: De Bello Lemures, Or The Roman War Against the Zombies of Armorica (Kindle Edition)

This was a really pleasant surprise for me. I take a chance on a lot of books with an alternate history element, but my expectations were kind of low for a book where the "alt" event is a zombie infestation. But this was really, really good.

The author pretends to not be the author at all, and poses as the translator and editor of a Latin document that turns up in a German library. The "real" author, Brookside claims, is Lucius Artorius Castus, otherwise known to history as "maybe kinda sorta this guy was the real King Arthur". This is explained in a drily amusing introduction that is played perfectly straight. I liked how the "voice" in the introduction was pretty distinct from the "voice" of the fake ancient document. If you read a lot of history, there's a cadence to documents from antiquity that is pretty effectively employed here. It breaks down in some sections, mainly the ones where the story just requires more dialogue than an ancient text would include, but the overall "spell" works. Since the book is formatted as if it were nonfiction, there are a lot of footnotes in the "editor voice" that add to the historical feeling of the work. A lot of the footnotes seem to be in-jokes about differing interpretations of the history of the period - I got some of them, but don't think I got them all.

Then, of course, there's the zombie story itself to consider, leaving all of the meta stuff aside. And it's a good one. A lot of zombie fiction set in the modern era is repetitive and derivative. But since this story is set in antiquity, everything is different - from how the zombie infestation starts, to how ancient religion and superstition makes the characters react to it, to how zombies have to be fought and killed without guns, etc. It's worth reading just to read the scenes where pagans and Christians scoff at each other's plans for how to deal with the zombies. And the story is set in an obscure part of Roman Gaul where it seems that civilization lies very tenuously on the land, and the atmosphere of darkness and isolation this creates works really well for a story of this kind.

Like I said in the title, the story is a little short. It's more like a novella than a novel. But it's a good enough read that I didn't mind. I can't tell if the ending is supposed to imply the possibility of a sequel or not, but I'd like to know what eventually happened, and why history "forgot" the zombie event until the supposed document was rediscovered.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very clever novella with some real creepiness, October 31, 2009

By 

John P. (Kennett Square, PA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: De Bello Lemures, Or The Roman War Against the Zombies of Armorica (Kindle Edition)

I heard about this clever book from someone on a discussion board. The framing as a translation of a Roman manuscript is brilliantly done -- from the "cover" to the translator's introduction to the footnotes. The way it allows your imagination to work on what happened in AD 185 before you get to the actual manuscript reminded me of the slow build-up of an H. Rider Haggard novel. The story itself lives up to the frame. It has good suspense and pacing, with real chills. Overall, the author succeeds at the difficult task of writing a horror story that is both entertaining for modern readers and believable (or not wholly unbelievable) as an ancient work. On a few occasions, the spell was briefly broken when the dialogue became too modern. But those moments are rare.

Well done! I'm interested in seeing more work from this author.

(I have one technical question that remains unanswered: In the title, what is the grammatical relation of "lemures" to "de bello"?)

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Romans and zombies, together at last., February 24, 2010

By 

Katey "kateyvic" (McLean, Virginia United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: De Bello Lemures, Or The Roman War Against the Zombies of Armorica (Kindle Edition)

(Kindle version review)

So, as both a Latin teacher and a lover of zombie novels, I must admit right off the bat two things. One: I bought this simply due to the Latin title. Two: I had expectations for it to be rather horrid due the incorrect grammar of the Latin title.

That out of the way, I was pleasantly surprised to find the book was thoughtfully written, with true horror and true research! The nonsensical title was explained right away in a forward that made a lot of my misgivings go away. L. Artorius Castus' narrative is very compelling, especially the night in the villa. I also really enjoyed the footnote feature, which ranged from explaining obscure terminology for the reader to 'commenting' on the work as if it were a real letter. Very clever and a lot of fun.

This means nothing to people who are not fellow Classicists, but I think the writing seems a bit Apuleian (must be the supernatural aspect of the story) in terms of style. This is a very good thing in this case and lends a certain "authenticity" to the work as being a translation of a Latin work.

The ending is a bit rushed, but that can be explained as the letter being incomplete. The writing style is very bare-bones at times, but that seems more a literary device to add a certain Roman-ness to the tale. Is it Dawn of the Dead levels of terror? No, but it is still a good read.

If you are a fan of Roman history and zombies, I definitely recommend this!