Dead City (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author), null (Editor, Illustrator)
Key Phrases: more zombies, three zombies, two zombies, San Antonio, Officer Hudson, Ken Stoler (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Battered by five cataclysmic hurricanes in three weeks, the Texas Gulf Coast and half of the Lone Star State is reeling from the worst devastation in history. Thousands are dead or dying - but the worst is only beginning. Amid the wreckage, something unimaginable is happening: a deadly virus has broken out, returning the dead to life - with an insatiable hunger for human flesh...Within hours, the plague has spread all over Texas. San Antonio police officer Eddie Hudson finds his city overrun by a voracious army of the living dead. Along with a small group of survivors, Eddie must fight off the savage horde in a race to save his family...There's no place to run. No place to hide. The Zombie horde is growing as the virus runs rampant. Eddie knows he has to find a way to destroy these walking horrors...but he doesn't know the price he will have to pay.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Pinnacle (November 9, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786017813
• ISBN-13: 978-0786017812
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (86 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #32,282 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Day of the Zombies, January 7, 2007

By	Joshua Koppel (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Texas has been hit hard by hurricanes and Houston is under water. North, in San Antonio, the weather has been better and they are taking in refugees. But for one policeman, things are about to become a nightmare. He is forced to terminate an argument with his wife in order to respond to a call in a bad part of town. It seems that there is some sort of street brawl going on. But after responding, the truth begins to come out. What at first looks like a gang fight is revealed to be far deadlier. Some crazy people are attacking everyone they can. They stagger about and seem unstoppable. Bullets don't seem to faze them. Many are seriously wounded but pay it no mind. To make things worse, they seem to want to bite and eat people. For lack of a better explanation, they are described as zombies. A bite from one is deadly. Their numbers seem to increase very rapidly and our hero is the only one to escape this altercation.

Then the real horror begins as he quickly realizes this is not just a local thing. The whole town seems to be overrun with the zombies. The day, and night, becomes a fight for survival and a quest to find his wife and baby. His travels have him run into other survivors, some who continue to survive and some who don't. Intermittent cell phone service lets him know his wife is alive, but not where she is. In this time of crisis, some people band together and help while others are quite the opposite. Just how this story ends is left to the reader to discover but I will say it is not a standard ending but it works very well.

This is an interesting story. Zombies are becoming the rage again in books and this is one of the better offerings. At first it reminded me of Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead comics but it quickly found a voice of its own. I found it hard to put this one down as I had to know what was going on. We never really find out what caused the zombies. Was it a mutated germ or did something in a bio-lab escape due to the hurricanes? We don't know. We also never find out how the zombies congregate so quickly (although the question is asked many times). But I do know I really enjoyed the book and am looking forward to more from this author. Check it out.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Like One of the Best Zombie Movies ,,, In My Head, February 11, 2007

By	Josh Brooks (Sc, USA) - See all my reviews

I've read my share of horror novels. It's mainly all that I read. I'm the type of reader that gives what I'm reading cinematic detailing in my head as I read it, and I have never had so much ease and fun while doing this as I had with Dead City.

Joe McKinney captured the true essence of what makes a good zombie tale. You have your usual substance of gore, relentless crowds of zombies, the apocalyptic world, and so on. But what truly made the book was the depth and power McKinney put behind his main character, Eddie Hudson. Eddie was just a regular guy working his late-night shift as a police officer when all hell broke lose in his life. The book tells the story of Eddie as he fights for his life, accompanies many side characters, and struggles to reach his wife and 6 month old son.

What was also interesting is the reasoning that McKinney gave to the dead coming back to life. That being that a recent string of hurricanes randomly exposing a virus to the Gulf Coast. Simple. Also, the characters in the book question the zombie genre themselves. From Eddie's first assumption of the reanimated dead being zombies, him uttering the word "zombie" for the first time, a character in the book being a zombie chatroom discussionist, and other side-notes about the existence of zombies.

One negative note about the book is its ending. It was a little too formulaic for me. Up until the last 3 chapters, McKinney didn't really go against zombie movie formula. He would introduce characters, make you get involved with them, only to have their limbs ripped off a few chapters later. When it came to the end - although what you were rooting for occurs - it becomes just a little too formulaic. But it's not really something I should gripe about when comparing it to the brilliance that is the rest of the book.

Joe McKinney has a great sense of writing and character development, and I really can't wait to see what he terrifies us with next.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you love living dead this is one for you!!!, January 8, 2007

By	J. Griffin (Granby Mass) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I couldnt put it down from the moment I started reading it!!If there was ever a book that should be word for word produced into a movie,then this is it!!I would love to see this on the big screen.From one moment to the next Eddie Hudson who is a police officer finds himself in amazing situations tring to find his wife and child.I have to say this is by far one of the best written Living Dead books I have read in a while.There are no weird mind reading Orbs or freak zombie animals or evil vs good monsters,just good old plain dead coming back to life and that should be enough to scare the heck out of you!!This is one I wont sell as soon as Im finished,this one is going on my shelf right next to I am Legend.