Customer Reviews

Zombies in My Hometown

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

 

 

Gary Wedlund writes an interesting book that has a lot of black humor and reads like Dinner and a Movie on Ted Turner's TBS station. He is also reminenscent of George Romero's horrifying Dead series.

Joe is just your average guy trying to catch some fish.

Police officer Sandra Anderson is a girl he'd like to get to know.

William is a mortician who packs some SERIOUS heat and knows his way around an M-16 and a bazooka. His girlfriend, Patricia, is not the perfect picture of loyalty.

Reverend Purswell is a televangelist who has taken the word "terrorist" to a new extreme.

Throw in a lawyer by day, dominatrix by night, in Dominique and you have a recipe for success.

Oh yeah, a 13-year old Billy the Kid and lots of zombies add up to a fast-paced action filled rollicking good read.

This book flew by for me and I think Wedlund has the moxie and the stuff to make a really good horror writer. He has found a niche and all I can do is hope he has a sequel coming soon. Oh, the reason I only gave it 3 1/2 stars is Wedlund is extremely detailed in dialogue scenes and it was just a little annoying when the conversation's kept going. It could have been wrapped up a little tighter, but hey who am I to complain?

I am also an aspiring horror writer who plans on publishing through iuniverse.com as Mr Wedlund did. Hope u read this Gary, a very impressive debut!

I am not even done reading this book yet but had to put my two cents worth in. The one thing that stands out above all else is the huge amount of spelling errors in this book. I have never seen anything like. So far my favorite is the poor woman who dies of freight... I assume they meant fright. Unless of course a trunk ran her over or a large crate fell on her. There is another instance near the beginning where I am not sure if the character's name is Truck or Trunk. Errors aside, I am enjoying the book because I live in the area where this takes place and the obvious and not-so-obvious references to the locale are a hoot. My favorite subplot is the minister starting his own second coming by shipping zombies out of Port Columbus to all parts of the world to wreak havoc. Funny stuff. I am still surprised by how long it takes before everyone realizes what is going on and figures out how to kill them. The zombie genre seems to exist only because of self-denial. "Nope, never heard of or seen a zombie movie". Overall a good Zombie story with plenty of twists and turns and the stuff we zombie-fans like. Just make sure you have a pen with you to correct the errors before you loan it to someone.

I had read Zombies in my Hometown several years ago and really enjoyed it. I've just re-read the reviews on this book and the most obvious point made are the editing issues. Those are fair complaints... however, this book has had a lasting impression upon me and I honestly don't remember any major editing issues of significance. They were minimal as I remember.

I have read well edited books where the proper writing was plain and uninteresting. Technically correct but boring. This book however was very colorful, with a lot of spirit, with fun characters and a riviting story. True, the author could have edited better. But really, this book did shine and the editing issues can be overlooked.

There's a lot of writers out there. But, this author has "IT"... a gift of story telling. I remember this book as fun and satisfying. And if there are editing issues, well then, this author can reissue an edited version. After all, a good writer's first draft is superior to a hack's polished work. Sadly, this book seems out of print for quite some time and I hope the criticism is not the reason.

This is a great read and if you can, pick up a loose copy for resale. The writing is colorful, has many great characters, with a fun story to boot. I'm not going to nit-pick about the plausibility of the zombie's origins as other reviewers have. When the story really starts, it its a fun read that will keep you up wanting to know what's next. It is a great read! Besides, the best stories don't even have an origin... so why not overlook it here as the rest of the story plays out so well. Besides, the origins explained here are fun to read anyways.

Obviously, this is a self-published book and god bless the author for going through the effort and expense in publishing. Also, thank you for the great read. I had read this more than three years ago and only now writing a review after recently discovering I could do so. So let's put it this way, if this book was that bad, why would someone remember to think of it much later?

This book is a gem to find now. If you're lucky to find a copy, enjoy! I'm keeping my copy. Maybe someday it might be worth some money... but I wouldn't sell it (despite the attractive resale price of $75 currently).

I will say this.... this author has talent and I hope he writes another book (and reissues this one). Sure, make sure it's edited as to avoid the obvious criticism. But even in the raw, this author's books are fun and memorable. I only hope this writer hasn't been discouraged yet because he has a lot to offer THEN and yet to come. .

This story suffered from too many spelling and other contextual errors unfortunately. In addition, the story itself was fairly predictable in many ways, starting with the characters in it.

Our main character is ok as the average Joe who just wants to be left alone but gets pulled into an unpleasant situation. We have a bumbling Sheriff and his moronic son to contend with. Two "strong" female characters are a dominatrix lawyer and a crude, rude, and extremely promiscuous girlfriend of another character. The other main female role is that of another deputy who is so unsure of herself that she allows our main character, someone she just met, to basically take over her criminal investigation of what is going on around town with the dead. Add a typically overzealous tele-evangelist (who says not one single thing that sounded original at all but at least was creative in his uses of the zombies) and a odd mortician (what a shock that a mortician would be written as odd!) and you have a cast of characters that were interesting but had little depth.

The unique elements of this story are that a cream used by the mortician on the corpses is the element that brings them back to life, at least with the first one. Somehow his friend has snuck it out of some experimental government base or some such. It seemed a little thin as to how it got into the hands of this man given its potency, but regardless, he does have it. Another element that could have proven interesting was all the time spent where we are given insight into what the zombies are thinking. Unfortunately, there is little here except that they are hungry. We get several different terms describing what they see humans as-oversized sandwiches, turkey dinners, etc. Once was probably enough for that sort of description. I either personally prefer mystery or something more than just "they looked like a six course meal standing in front of him" sort of thing.

The story itself is alright and I could tell the author was having fun with the effort. With a good editor this story could have been much improved.

I bought this book several years ago and when I read it then, didn't really notice the horrendous editing...or rather complete lack of editing that went into it prior to publication. I recently re-read the book and it must be that I've been writing steadily for the past three years that opened my eyes to the spelling, grammar, and just plain goofy errors in the book. For me, seeing these errors, and it wasn't just one or two here or there, they were almost every time someone spoke or a detailed description was given, distracted from the story so much that the enjoyment of the "story" was hammered down to the point where I forced myself to finish the book.

The story is amusing and the characterization of the characters isn't bad. They're somewhat cliched, but in a way that makes them stand out a little more given the genre of the subject matter. I wish that a little more detail would have been spent with regards to timing and pacing, like an entry in each chapter that read "Day X, Time XX:YY" so that the reader could more easily follow the flow of the story. I'm not sure the main character would have recovered from the wound he sustained quite so quickly.

All the negatives aside, I have to congratulate Gary Wedlund for offering the book for purchase. It takes guts to offer your creation to the public and accept the criticism, good and bad, leveled against your creation. I've got two books finished, a third almost finished, and the next two in the series plotted out. I'm looking forward with trepidation when I start receiving rejection notices. So, kudos to you, Gary!

-- Kurt

The book starts out great. It begins with a witty thought or two, but travels down hill toward the middle. The look from zombie eye view was neat. The side characters are interesting, but the main characters are not. To tell you what bugged me about them would give too much away. The story did have a decent ending, but I don't want to ruin that either.

this is the second zombie book I read that was full of typos, the first was "the dead" (another great book) none of the mistakes seemed to bother me though, for I'm a crappy speller too, (allthough someone will be editing the zombie story I am writeing) This was basicly a clasic style zombie story. Just great for all you Zombie fans who hate it when people wander from Remero's original vision. Personally, I like a little diversety in a good zombie story, but this clasic type tale was right on and lot's of cool action. Gory, gory, gory, one of the scenes in the morgue almost made me sick (that is good).I was expecting a little more of a fun story from the title but the small amount of comedy was good and I really liked the little gun slinging kid. The author's hatred for police was quite obvious but the rest of the charactors seemed real enough. So if you like this stuff check it out, It was a good time.

AFMOM 63841

The Author has a very interesting imagination. It's cool he writes about Ohio the state he has lived all his life. I wonder why he didn't catch the misspelled words. Or was it for a reason? And he did it on purpose. Especially since he is so intelligent. I have always thought People who are very smart has a weird sence of humor and an active imagination. All Joe wanted to do was go Fishing. I bet Joe thinks twice before he goes again. The Book was fun to read and was very different. I wish the Author nothing but the best. And I hope he makes it to be a great Author.