Customer Reviews

De Bello Lemures, Or The Roman War Against the Zombies of Armorica

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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"?)

(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!

My knowledge of Roman history is principally derived from a ghastly experience I had almost twenty-five years ago in Latin 1 as a freshman in high school. I'm pretty sure there were no zombies involved, but my own lack of effort combined with the high expectations of my elderly instructor led to more misery than learning. So I am not ideally qualified to say whether this book is 'realistic' as a work of Roman history. Still, I can say that I didn't note any inconsistencies or obvious flaws that took me out of the moment. Instead, I was fairly convinced that I could have been reading an historical work, only recently discovered and translated. In this way the book was very effective. The use of extensive annotations, which I innitially feared would be a distraction, was no hindrance to reading the book at the pace of a real 'page turner' so to speak.

What I liked best was the description of the campaign itself which forms the background of the story. Suffice to say that life on the second century Roman frontier was nightmarish to begin with, never mind when the zombies arrived. It was in describing not only the actions of the Roman troops and leaders, but also their weltanschauungen that the author really created a world very different from the one we know today. Once that strange and terrible world was introduced,the action involving the zombies was described swiftly and effectively and, if the reader is willing to suspend the usual mistrust of supernatural claims, even quite plausibly. A real sense of jeapordy is created and sustained.

I enjoyed this book a lot. I would recommend it to any fan of zombie litterature or first-person Roman history. I think even well-trained academics would get a kick out of this story and the way this it is told.

I read through this short story quickly and was dying to know what happened next. The framing device the author used, that of a recently discovered manuscript, was outstanding and deeply appealed to the history major in me. If a "second manuscript" detailing the further adventures of Tribune Castus were "discovered", I would snatch it up instantly. If you enjoy zombies and historical narratives you will certainly enjoy this tale!

At first I was very confused. De Bello Lemures translates to Of Beautiful Lemurs, which was very, very cool. But I had no clue what lemurs had to do with the undead. I'd love to know the exact translation...
Regardless of that technicality, Thomas Brookside has crafted a nice addition to the zombie genre. It seems everywhere you turn you see zombies popping up from every corner: fast zombies, slow zombies, intelligent zombies. This genre has run near as rampant as the vampire genre, and like the vamps it ranges from truly wonderful to truly GOD AWFUL. If you've endured one in the latter category, you know what I'm referring to.
De Bello Lemures is on the up and up and is really quite brilliant. I'm not going to go into too much detail on the story, because it's right there in the title. What I am going to talk about is the detail. Details are everything, especially when you're writing historically. Thomas Brookside is an excellent writer. The thing that made "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" work was the style. Sure the concept of interjecting zombies into a Jane Austen book is gimmicky enough, but the real sell is when the author captures Austen's style so that it reads so fluidly. Thomas Brookside has done that here. The style of this book is the gimmick! It's text from 185 AD that recants the happenings of the time, with zombies interjected. The author inserts footnotes to the translation. So basically, you've got someone that's given you two distinct styles: historical translation and ancient text. It works beautifully.
That said, the ancient text part is the book's one weak point, albeit slight. The pacing, I felt, was off. It didn't stop me from speeding through it, but it did feel a bit labored in portions. I finish it, though, and remind myself that that was the style of ancient Roman (or Greek or Hindi) texts. They had a poetry to them. They had a different way use descriptors. It's a different pacing. It's certainly not enough for me to knock a star from the review.
PICK THIS UP! It truly is amazing.

I have been looking for interesting, well-written, zombie stories, and this one certainly fits the bill. A Druidic curse seemingly unleashes a plague of zombies on some Roman soldiers after the Romans put down a revolt in ancient Gaul. The story covers the first terrifying night of survival and the battle the next day to destroy the zombies before the infestation can spread to more populous areas and the rest of the empire. By the way, these are the traditional slow and dumb zombies--just the way I like them.

The author writes in the style of a recently discovered and translated ancient text, complete with footnotes to explain Greek and Roman terms, customs, and myths. You get the thrill of feeling that you are reading a true account of an event lost to history until recently. It is very well-done, though a little short. The ending (the resolution of the battle) felt a little abrupt, but that is just a minor quibble. I also got the feeling that the author is not a big fan of Christianity with the way some of the characters are presented, but I could just be misinterpreting those scenes. The author left it open for a sequel, which I would certainly and quickly buy and devour, so to speak.

As a fan of both Roman history and zombie fiction, this book was a real treat.

The author frames the novel as a translation of a lost text written by Castus, a Roman commander. Without giving too many spoilers away, Castus and his men are in the process of pacifying rebels in Armorica (modern Brittany, a peninsula that juts out from the northwestern coast of France). When they crucify the rebel leaders, one calls down a curse on the Romans and zombie action ensues.

Since the text is ostensibly a letter written by Castus to the Roman emperor after the events took place, the tone is more detached than one might be used to in zombie fiction. However, the author captures the tone of ancient texts extremely well; if you were to read a translation of Caesar or Sallust at the same time as this book you'd find they "sound" remarkably alike.

The author also took great care researching the book, and it shows. The arms, armor, buildings, etc. all feel authentic to the period; in fact, some terms are explained in footnotes - again adding to the authentic feel of this being a translation of a Roman text. There are some neat plot twists - the relationship between the Romans and their allied Sarmatian cavalry, the interactions of Roman religion with native cults, etc. There's also an interesting subplot which is quietly woven into the text, suggesting that Castus and his Sarmatians might have been the men who inspired the legend of King Arthur.

Great stuff all around.. As an added plus, the novel is short (96 pages) and can be easily read in an evening's sitting. If you are a fan of zombies, Roman history or both this is a must read!

Thomas Brookside's historical/horror novel De Bello Lemures is well written, perfectly formatted, historically detailed, and basically an outstanding read.

The book is set up as an annotated classics text, with links set up throughout it that provide some historical or literary background of the novel's passages. The author's breadth of knowledge of classical history is impressive. It's a good idea to read through the book entirely at first to immerse yourself in the story, then go back again reading the annotations to absorb the finer historical points.

It's a short novel, very economical in its prose. Brookside's writing skill really comes out in the climatic battle. The story is simple. After the Romans sack a city in Gaul, one of their crucified victims calls down a Druidic curse, raising the dead throughout the land against the Romans. The Romans are trapped in a countryside estate where they must try to survive the night.

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. My only criticism is that it ended too soon! I certainly hope additional manuscripts will be "discovered," so we can find out what happens next.

This book was an entertaining read. The author did a good job of recreating the feel of a classical text. The premise behind the book is a faux historical account of a zombie attack during the classical Roman era. The original text has been "restored" and presented to the public in the form of a scholarly paper complete with scholarly footnotes. The presentation is what makes this story stand out from other zombie horror books. You really will get the impression you are reading a long lost piece of history. Unfortunately, the book is too short. I read this in under two hours. A lot of details were never fleshed out and at times the author forgot that the reader may not share his frame of reference in terms of the "historical" facts. So there are these wholes in the story that can be annoying.