Customer Reviews

Wet Work

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had read that Philip Nutman's "Wet Work" was based on his story from "The Book of the Dead" so I assumed the zombies would be George Romero-style. Well, it's true some of the zombies are slow, mindless flesh-eating drones. But, to my surprise and delight, Nutman has also thrown smart, fast zombies in the mix (somewhat like Keene's "The Rising") as well and most of the book centers on them.

The novel follows a Washington, D.C. cop and a black-ops type assassin as the society of the living crumbles and the dead rise due (apparently) to the earth passing through the tail of a strange comet. While the events of the book are not particularly groundbreaking in the zombie genre (flesh is eaten, loved ones are separated, lead characters become zombies, rinse, repeat), Wet Work is well written and the military style action is fast and furious. Probably the only virgin territory Nutman ventures into is the establishment of a new government by the undead, for the undead, which results in some amusing scenes between the smart dead and the living.

If you're a zombie fan you won't find anything particularly surprising in Philip Nutman's "Wet Work" but you will have a good time in a familiar landscape.

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Let me start by saying this book is a classic for any zombie fan but I have always been a George Romero fan and these zombies were not what I expected.

In this book there is different stages of dead if that makes sense. Some of the dead in this book can drive cars and function almost normally, but others are less intelligent and have hard times doing basic tasks. The whole scenario of a comet passing over and killing the immune system of the living and bringing the dead back to life was really cool but it wasn't totally original. Watch the movie NIGHT OF THE COMET and you will know what I am talking about. The book was a little short and very bleak at the end. It leaves no hope for humanities survival, but a great book all in all. I recommend this book highly but only 4 out of 5 to me.

I found Mr. Nutmans book at my local used bookstore and bought it really not expecting too much. I read the book that same week and I must say that I was very happy about my impulse buy. Mr. Nutman paints a very vivid picture of the end of the world and I would like to say to those out there who condemn the splatterpunk genre, that they should read this story before making a fool of themselves furthur. Richly descriptive and horrifying, this is what horror fiction is all about. Its like a nightmare written on page with all the claustrophobia and despair of a zombie invasion present. I have to make a personal confession. I rarely remember my dreams, but I sometimes do when they are nightmares. My worst nightmares have been about the living dead taking over the world and consuming the living. Its like Mr. Nutman took the anarchy, terror, and hopelessness of one of these dreams and made it his own. The characters are well structured, the pace of the tale furious, the story well realised. The only drawback: too damn short! I can only imagine what an epic length would have brought forth, such as the scale of the Stand or Swan Song. Mr. Nutman, do me a favor. Write more more more!

I like just about every zombie book I read and found this book average. It is a good read and is different than the usual zombie title and is pretty graphic. If you are looking for something to read and is pretty decent this is your book.

I was pleased to find this title on Amazon and get the book used through the site. I am trying as best I can to find as many zombie novels that have been made and certainly this work stands out as a quality work of the genre.
Philip Nutman wrote the short story Wet Work for 'The Book of the Dead' and expanded it into a full sized novel. It still has the feel of a up tempo fast paced story that pretty much takes place within a few days. Our two main characters are Dominic Corvino and Nick Packard, whose stories are seperate but intertwined through a zombie apocalypse caused by the effects of a comet that not only brings the dead back to life but excellerates common colds and other viruses so that victims die rapidly.
This work certainly had to have some influence on other tales of the undead such as 'The Rising' and 'Dead City', amongst others, with both its intelligent and truly malevolent zombies and the fast paced action that moves at a breakneck clip.
The basics of the story are that Corvino is a black ops operative who is trying to uncover who betrayed him during the first day of the undead uprising. Meanwhile, Nick is a rookie cop spending his very first days on the job dealing with the total chaos of a quickly unravelling Washington DC as more and more dead get back up and start attacking. His wife, Sandy, has gone to New York to deal with the last days of her dying mother and the two of them have to fight through this new nightmare world to try to find each other once again.
I had fun reading this book. It is a pretty quick and easy read and though there are a few lapses in the quality of the work (as another reviewer accurately points out, Nutman doesn't do that great of a job describing sex-it was a tad bit over the top) the writing was easily absorbed and entertaining. Another criticism that others mentioned was that the ending was far too abrupt but to me the pacing remained faily consistent throughout the entire novel-the story moves at a rather fast pace throughout. Overall, a book that is worth digging up if you are a fan of undead horror and fast paced action.

Philip Nutman is a name rarely known outside the zombie genre circles, but that could be just the fact that he hasn't written much in terms of novels since his explosive debut with his novel Wet Work. The novel was born out of the short story of the same title that was part of the 1989 zombie short story collection, Book of the Dead. Philip Nutman took the interesting twist on the zombie tale in that short story and blew it up to novel and epic proportions which brings to mind George A. Romero's grand opus work, Dawn of the Dead.

The novel begins with one of the lead protagonists, Dominic Corvino (CIA covert operator and part of the black op and wetwork team code named Spiral), barely living through a botched mission in Panama City and realizing that there might be a traitor wihtin the team and the CIA. At the same time all of this was occurring the comet Saracen begins its close pass by of the the planet and leaving behind a gift which would begin the clock to humanity's downfall and damnation.

It is back in the U.S. where the action really starts to go into overdrive as the effects of Saracen's pass-by of the planet begins to turn what should've been a normal day for D.C. cop Nick Packard into a decent into the hell that only grew worse with each passing day. Random, violent incidents begin to flood the station call-lines. It's the beginning of the zombie pandemic which starts off with a handful of attacks but which begins to spread in a geometric rate as each death returns to a semblance of life with only the extreme hunger for human flesh their only want or need. Most of the zombies were of the George A. Romero slow, shambling types but Nutman throws a wrench into the whole machine by allowing certain strong-willed individuals to return fully cognizant of their faculties and memories but at the same time harboring the same hunger as their slower and dumber cousins. These intelligent zombies will soon include Dominic Corvino as one of their numbers. As he battles his own hunger Corvino goes on a vendetta mission to take out those who betrayed him and his team in Panama City and whose new lease on unlife has turned the battle of the humans against the zombies into a slaughterhouse where the livings humans are both outnumbered and outgunned. It doesn't help that another side-effect of Saracen's pass-by of the planet was to lower the immune system of all humans worldwide. If the dumb and intelligent zombies do not get the humans then infection and disease of all kinds would finish the job.

Nick Packard gives the reader a point-of-view from the battleground itself. We see the world he knew fall apart around him as horrific scenes bombard him and his fellow officers at every turn. He also has to worry about his own wife who he has left behind at their D.C. suburban home before the crisis broke out. He, too, has his own mission to accomplish as law and order quickly crumble and fall around him and his brothers-in-arms. He now has the singular goal to reach his wife and hope that she has lived through the nightmare the world has turned into.

As the story progresses to its inevitable conclusion, both Corvino and Packard's paths will cross and both men will have to settle their score with the powers-that-be who seem to have accepted the new order in the world and have adapted quite fast from protecting and serving the people to feeding on them.

The book has its share of flaws that at times belie the fact that Nutman was new to this novel-size writing. The dialogue would become very cliched and purple in prose. I didn't mind the extreme level of gore (it's a zombie novel and I expected it, in fact) and violence, but the description of sex in the book seemed forced and too much like something out of Penthouse Forums to be believable. It just goes to show that it is much easier to write about violence and gore than it is to write a good sex scene. The story could've needed another hundred pages or so, as hard to believe as that might be. The story had a very consistent fast pacing which suddenly went warp-speed in the final 80-90 pages.

In the end, even with the flaws in the story I thoroughly enjoyed reading Wet Work and was completely engrossed by its mixture of apocalyptic horror, Mack Bolan-style action sequences and splatterpunk excesses. It is a shame that Philip Nutman hasn't written more horror since he certainly seems to have a talent for it. I've read his comic book writing and they're very good to great which just makes it even more baffling he doesn't write more. I would recommend this book to all zombie fans who haven't read it yet. The book delivers as advertised and doesn't try to be anything but a rip-roaring, action-horror tale which will leave the reader exhausted but still wanting the story to continue even past the final scene of judgement day by way of nuclear fire.

Been a while since I've read this book but it was good. What's it like? Well, imagine that Tom Clancy decided to write a short horror novel with zombies in it. It would probably turn out alot like this one.

After first encountering Nutmans work in the zombie story collection, the book of the dead, I was really amaised by the unbiased attention to detail, graphic or not. Some horror writers like to embellish thier discriptions with over bearing language which distracts the reader away from the litereary creation of the world the author is trying to show the reader. Nutman's Wet Work uses straight to the point discriptions in which do not try to portray any hidden message (such as the religous symbolism in Stephen King's The Stand) or anything more than giving the reader a clear picture of what is going on.

Eventhough the orgional storyline/idea comes from another source(fleash eating zombies), Nutman creates a world that is unique, with unique characters and monsters that leave a resenating effect on the reader, even after the last page is turned.

The only problem I had with the novel is the compactedness of it. I wanted to see more scenes and more dialog. From the first day cop to the hitman dealing with his zombifiuction, Nutman peers into the aspects of zombie exsistence in which George Romero would never touch.I would of liked to of seen more of this, maybe in an expanded version of this book.

Thank you Mr. Nutman for a very enjoyable experiance.

Let me start out saying that I was very excited about this book (I'm a huge zombie fan). Anyway, the idea of a comet and all is kinda cool (the comet emitts errie light and radiation on Earth which animates the dead and destroys our immune system...thus we die from a common cold and return as zombies).
Sounds promising, but once you start reading, you're like....."come on, Zombies don't drive cars, they don't make phone calls, put on new clothes, organize ambushes using guns, using walkie talkies and say 'Over and Out' or 'Body patrol, come and bag our food". These are just some of the problems with this book.
Another problem,...why does the author describe all the sex in his book with corny phrases like "His throbbing member" or "Her Dripping wet womanhood"??? Just read it..you'll laugh. Some parts are cool, but this is more of a police/military/cia story than a traditional Zombie story. I read the entire book hoping that it would get better...boy, was I wrong. Wait until you read the ending involving our "Zombie President" and his choices to activate nuclear war heads. Come one!!

A dark horror novel with som sumliminal comedy about the revived dead who decide to create the United States of Hell. Fast-paced and graphic, it is one of the best books that I have read in a long time.