Reign of the Dead :

Rating:
Summary: Rudimentary writing
Review: I read this and couldn't believe how rudimentary it was. I think that a lot of the story was left undeveloped and the grammar and spelling needed a lot more editing.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I was very excited to read this book after reading other reviews of it. I must say though this book was fairly disappointing. The story is just your standard run shoot zombies in the head and try not to get bit zombie story. While normally I do like books that aren't afraid to kill off main characters in this book it's a major drawback. There is very little time spent developing any of these people and so many people die you just don't care anymore. It was almost more fun to guess which person was the red shirt on Star Trek for each little adventure. It's so bad at one point the author can't even get the names right. When former Mayor Stan Wood turns into Mayor Woodson. The book starts lots of interesting ideas but then leaves them hanging or cuts them off very quickly. Things like spending the whole book creating other villains besides the zombies to have them taken out in two seconds when they finally enact their plans. My favorite being a character that was locked up for stealing foods being the first one outside to mess up and escape attempt. Also this book will only take you a few hours to read so factor that versus the price tag.

Rating:
Summary: A zombie fan's kinda of Book
Review: I was very excited to receive this book, it was very well written for a first novel by the author. Some of the chapters are alittle small and some ideas are alittle unoriginal, but on the other hand the author really put some really original zombie survival moments. It is good enough to make me want to buy the second volume. If you like zombie movies or books you should like Reign of the Dead.

Rating:
Summary: Worst horror book ever
Review: I'm a big fan of apocalyptic fiction of all genres. Being such, I've read a lot of great fiction and some bad. Even with the bad it's usually of the pulp, B-movie type so you pretty much know what you're in for before you start reading so you generally take the whole thing tongue-in-cheek. This first attempt by Len Barnhart is at the far end of the "bad" scale. I love the concept of zombie-fiction, but there's nothing original to be found in Reign of the Dead. Looking at the front cover of the book I immediately thought of Nosferatu. This is just the first of Mr. Barnhart's apparent fetish for borrowing from past masters. The rehashed cliches and tired story concepts come up page after page after page. We only have to wait until the last sentence of paragraph number three to get to the first bit of his story that has already been used countless times in far more creative ways. In that paragraph we find that Jim, our main character, has been taking some R&R at his cabin in the woods for the past 3 weeks. Already I'm thinking of Stewart's Earth Abides novel (the first nuclear age apocalyptic novel) and Johnston's Out of the Ashes series. Pretty soon we're introduced to zombies who are described as walking Frankenstein's with arms stretched out in front of them. Romero did a much better job of visualizing a zombie's shuffle. I don't need to have a sophomoric comparison to Frankenstein. Pretty soon we're introduced to a man of religion gone over the edge. There goes another familiar tune. The same old themes that have been used time and again pop up on a regular basis. There is nothing original here. Normally I don't pay much attention to poor editing as I find myself typically caught up in the story, but since I was constantly on edge watching for more unoriginality several poorly worded phrases or out right mispellings jumped out at me. When someone like me can pick up on these things, something is amiss! Do yourself a favor and go read something you've already read if you're desperate for a good read. It's not to be found here.

Rating:
Summary: Dreadful
Review: I'm a huge fan of the zombie genre, so when I read the reviews on this book, I was pretty excited to get my hands on it. While I didn't think the book was *bad*, it seemed to lack the substance and depth that makes a good book great. It almost seems to be a work in progress or a first or second draft as opposed to the final story. There was so much potential for a really great novel; the author's writing style is interesting and the storyline jumps around, keeping the flow fresh. The character development just doesn't seem to be quite finished.

Rating:
Summary: Best book I've read
Review: I've noticed that some people in the reviews wrote that book didn't explain too much. The second book basically ties up all the loose ends. They are also both fun to read. I couldn't put this book down, and I usually hate reading. I basically find no joy or fun in it, and get bored very quickly with it. Not this book. I have also read some people saying that it takes too much from the George A. Romero films, such as Night, or Dawn. GAR set the standard for zombie horror. Reign has a good (and unique) explaniation for why the dead walk, but when it comes to the whole destroying the brain idea, or the dead being slow and dumb, it's really the same thing as an author of a vampire story using sunlight or a stake to kill a vampire, or a silver bullet to kill a werewolf.

Rating:
Summary: Good, solid zombie story
Review: Jim Workman returns from a three-week stay in an isolated cabin to discover that zombies have infested the world. In a nutshell, this is your basic the-dead-rise-and-take-over-the-world-and-menace-the-living kind of story, but even though there was nothing particularly original here, "Reign of the Dead" still is a strong addition to the zombie subgenre of horror. The story is very reminiscent of George Romero's zombie films, and has quite a bit of action and good characterizations Though Barnhart may not be one of the best writers I have ever read, he knows his zombie lore and tells a damn good story. I am looking forward to reading the sequel.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible, and not in the way the author intended
Review: The novelty of a zombie thriller set in an area of Virginia that I know well compelled me to buy this book, which isn't carried on many bookstore shelves. After reading it, I realized that there's a good reason that it's not carried on many bookstore shelves: it's amateurish to the point of near-illegibility.

The author's stick figure characters, coupled with a stilted, disjunctive writing style, left me regretting that I wasted my time reading this; fortunately, not much time was wasted. The core premise isn't bad -- if unoriginal -- but Barnhart's sloppy plot development, lack of credible characters, and cheesey dialogue put this book on the list of novels that should go out of print. At some point, I considered that this book was intended for teenagers or adults with learning disabilities but the writer's poor grammar killed that theory.

Rating:
Summary: Ho-Hum
Review: The zombie novel resides within a genre context necessarily tightly bound by convention. There are almost always elements of siege and proto-fascistic aynrandianism among the novel's protagonists, but the absence of such dull factors would indicate the absence of zombies themselves and a possible lull in the action.

Numerous amateur writers on the internet have leaned on this genre structure to create a series of stultifying survivalist tales (though probably vicariously exciting to some). In each such tale, an intelligent, somewhat prepared protagonist steeped in the real-politique of the undead sets off with a band of survivors to try and outlast the zombie storm. Caches of supplies are often found, safe havens are carved out and our protagonists live, die and unlive nobly or ignobly, depending on what sheet of cardboard they are cut from.

Occassionally, professional writers-- and here I am thinking of David J. Moody in particular-- have taken the siege context of the zombie genre and churned it into a harrowing tale of survival as well as high pop-psychological fare. David Moody's "Autumn" series revolves around the segregation and alienation of victims of zombie plague, and how the survivors' notions of love, life and the human condition warp under the strain of the undead's constant attention. But Moody took three novels and a series of novellas and short stories to make his points clear. Most serious authors and screenwriters have of late strayed away from the tried-and-true, Romeroesque, Beau Geste staple of amateur zombie writing and plunged into more varied territory.

Len Barnhart's "Reign of the Dead", however, fits firmly within the amateur canon of zombie siege and survivalism. His characters, including hero Jim Workman (successful, perceptive, white middle class, tough as nails but yet empathetic and sensitive-- Herbert Spencer, anyone?), are all simply drawn and quite limited in their emotional and intellectual outlook on their savagely-alterred world. I was half surprised not to see fuzzy versions of Howard Roark or Dagny Taggart saunter through the protagonists' compound. The zombies are blandly written versions of Romero's undead. The action is meticulously described as to the details of surviving but quite low on gore, suspense or even atmosphere.

Mr. Barnhart is not a bad writer per se (even if the book itself is badly edited, and awfully bound). He has a spare, lean writing style. He keeps to an economical, carefully-considered narrative pace with repeated jolts of excitement to keep it moving. He even shows wicked sense of humor and effectively employs pathos and tragedy where necessary. In addition, his biography indicates a far-reaching interest in and a considerable amount of writing for both the horror and space opera genres. His enthusiasm is unbounded!

But "Reign of the Dead" is not worthy of his burgeoning talents, or any serious, adult reader's time. Frankly, I am surprised this novel even made the cut to be published, let alone earn Barnhart a contract to write a prequel and a sequel.

N.B. Parents who care take note-- for young adult readers, "Reign of the Dead" would be an acceptable horror novel to read-- language, gore/violence and sexuality are all kept to a comfortable level. This would not be as distressing to read as, say, Keene's "The Rising" or Rogers "The Dead" or as bewildering to read as Greatshell's "Xombies".



Rating:
Summary: Worth a read for fans of Dawn/Day of the Dead
Review: There aren't that many great zombie movies out there. Night, Dawn and Day, of course. Resident Evil was much better than expected, and now we have 28 Days Later. Aside from that, everything else is either tongue-in-cheek (Dead Alive, which is great, or the Return of the Living Dead movies, which are not) or Italian. (Bob Clark's "Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things" was pretty decent, though.) I've watched Dawn and Day dozens of times because I love the bleak, apocalyptic world it sets up, and have always been looking for extensions to that world. Len Barnhart's book, while far from original (it samples pretty liberally from both Dawn and Day, not to mention The Stand), did the trick nicely. While it isn't going to win any awards for prose (someone hire a new editor, I found tons of spelling and grammatical errors), it's certainly a fast, entertaining read. Many of the scenes and themes are quite familiar, but the ending action sequence is really cool, and Barnhart also works in some interesting musings on the nature and rules of the plague. Anyway, if this is your kinda thing, you should check it out, you'll eat it up. If it's not, well, you probably aren't reading this review anyway.