Genre: Horror
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Publication Date: 2nd June 2015
Pages: 217
MY REVIEW:
I received
an advance copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This
book is published by Samhain Publishing.
The only
thing I have read previously by John Palisano was his short story in
Widowmakers, Splinterette and his novel Nerves. I absolutely loved both of them
so I was really excited to get the opportunity to review this one early with
NetGalley. I can’t help but feel a little bit robbed and disappointed.
Mike has
just recently started working for the Reclamation Crew in Los Angeles. It’s
been 5 years since the first outbreak of the “zoms”. His job now is to work
with his fellow crew members and investigate reports of “undead” that may be
going through the process of coming back. Generally things have settled down
and LA is getting back to normal. The undead are getting fewer.
Mike and his
team have noticed a change in the zoms though. They are getting smarter.
Smarter to the point of actually being intelligent and being able to interact
with society. This causes new problems for the world and it doesn’t take long
for a new outbreak that threatens man’s very existence again.
A zombie
apocalypse tale with a difference. That’s how I, and many others see this book.
Not your normal run of the mill “zombies running around eating everything in
their path” type book. Refreshing. Opportunities to make this an epic, new
zombie genre possibly? It has all the ingredients for it. Sadly for me it just
doesn’t deliver. I’m really sad about this. I loved Mr Palisano’s previous
stuff I have read. They were also “different”. Different styles which were,
again, refreshing. It seems to be a trademark of his to write stuff within a
genre but challenging the very boundaries of the genre and not conforming to
the normal “rules” if you like.
A few things
let this one down for me. The characters were pretty nondescript. Our “hero”
Mike was no more a hero than I would have been in the story. He was ordinary,
but the ordinary normally become the extraordinary in these types of stories,
getting you totally behind them and rooting for them till the very end. He was
none of this. In fact in some parts of the story I was shouting “what are you
doing man” at him. When the chips were down he sort of hid away in a cowardly
fashion and shied away from things that normal decent people would have jumped
to do. I ended up not really liking him very much.
I almost
felt the other characters were there just to make the numbers up. None of them
stood out as either capable allies or adversaries.
In terms of
action in the story I didn’t feel it either. It more or less trundled along.
There were no big epic scenes that took your breath away or left you gasping
for more, scrambling to turn the pages to see what happened next. The horror
was there but nothing that scared the pants off you or made you hide behind a
cushion while you were reading it. It had potential for so much more.
To
summarise: I feel guilty and a bit bad for giving purely negative feelings on
this one because I have loved John Palisano’s previous work but it just didn’t
have “it” for me. It had the exciting “difference” in how the normal zombie
story is approached but I felt it didn’t take advantage of that difference and
exploit it to its full potential. It felt rushed to me. Needs more action.
Needs more horror. Needs to expand on a new take on the genre.
General rating:
★★.5 It held my attention but, for me, could have been a lot better.
Horror rating:
★★ Not very scary at all I'm afraid.
You can buy Dust of the Dead here:
Book Synopsis:
Reboot the apocalypse!
For a while, it looked like the living had won. The war
against the walking dead lasted almost a decade, but it’s mostly over. There
are only a few straggling zombies left to take care of. Los Angeles has
returned to its lattes and long commutes. It’s up to a small Reclamation Crew
to clean up the Zoms left behind. But when the undead dry up, their skin turns
to dust. Now the hot Santa Ana winds deliver a new threat…because the Zoms were
only the beginning of something far worse.
John Palisano's short fiction has appeared in many
places. Check out: Horror Library, Darkness On The Edge, Lovecraft eZine,
Phobophobia, Lovecraft eZine, Terror Tales, Harvest Hill, Halloween Spirits,
the Bram Stoker Award® nominated Chiral Mad, Midnight Walk, Halloween Tales,
and many other publications. NERVES was his first novel. He is working hard on
its sequel, as well as many other upcoming works.
His non-fiction has appeared in FANGORIA and DARK
DISCOVERIES, where he's interviewed folks like Robert Englund, director Rob
Hall, and Corey Taylor from Slipknot.
Currently, DUST OF THE DEAD, his first book from Samhain
Publishing, is coming out in June 2015 with more to come from that partnership
in the near future.
His work has been cited by the Bram Stoker Award® three
times.
"Available Light" was nominated for the Bram
Stoker Award® in 2013. "The Geminis" was nominated for the Bram
Stoker Award® in 2014. "Splinterette" was nominated for the Bram
Stoker Award® in 2015.
John's had a colorful history. He began writing at an
early age, with his first publications in college fanzines and newspapers at
Emerson in Boston. He's worked for over a decade in Hollywood for people like
Ridley Scott and Marcus Nispel. He's recently been working as a
ghost-screenwriter and has seen much success with over two dozen short story
sales and his novel NERVES continues gaining critical and reader acclaim.
There's more where that all came from. Lots more.
You can see more of John at his website.
John’s author page can be found here.
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