The Rising

Rating:
Summary: Zombies ain't Dead!
Review: If you are a fan of the Zombie genre then you are,no doubt,used to the standard zombie story. Shambling hunks of re-animated tissue etc. In film we've had the recent Dawn of the Dead re-make and Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later as an antidote. Well in the literary world we have Brian Keene's THE RISING. A true work of Zombie genius. Keene creates both interesting Zombies and interesting charcters that you actually care about! Imagine Zombies that recognize and greet you before they eat you ! Zombies that can drive cars? Zombies that have a sense of humor?
Well it's all here in THE RISING. I'm sure Mr. Keene could write the next Hotel New Hampshire if he so desired but thankfully he's a horror buff and has blessed us with this nugget. Some refer to his writing as "punk rock" and I agree but only in the best possible sense. Anyway if you are reading this then you must know what you're looking for and you've found it!! I can't wait for the sequel.

Eric ZL

Rating:
Summary: One of the Zombie Horror Greats
Review: It's always a dicey prospect to discuss Brian Keene's "The Rising". Most serious zombie horror readers have Keene's work in the "of course it's great" category, and don't really delve into critically thinking about and discussing the work. The shocked incredulity and embarrassed silence that often follows one's bringing up certain troubling issues and flaws in the book's narrative progression, characterizations and pacing are embarrasing are reminiscent of the look one gets from Star Wars fan boys after trying to discuss a critical narrative or thematic point in one of the films.

Now, as a dedicated zombie fan boy, let me start off by saying that "The Rising" is one of the zombie greats, and has the right to claim quintessence over many poor competitors. The undead violence, human cruelty, and apocalyptic woe of humanity's last gasp are all as gripping, gritty and realistic as the hardest of hard survivalist fiction and the nastiest of splatterpunk works.

Keene is an excellent writer and brilliant imagist, and he has a fertilely devious imagination (used both in the torturing of his characters and his readers). His characters, even the undead, are vividly drawn. The significant, heavy-handed work of fate and chance in the story is visceral, gut-wrenching (especially where characters one expects to be significant quickly get snuffed out in terribly sadistic ways).

The opening of the book, with intelligent,insanely homicidal zombies actively seeking a breach in protagonist Jim's fallout shelter and Jim making the monumental first steps to save his son several states over, almost reeks of literary horror. One could almost say classic. The remainder of the book continues along this righteously excellent path. John Wyndham himself might be proud of this level of story-telling.

However, Keene's unsentimental, washed out, morbid telling of this tale, while a benefit to the zombmie or hard-core horror fanboy, should be a deterrent to any other type of reader. The plot, as powerful as it is, is fairly simple and relatively static. Jim must get from West Virginia to New Jersey to save his son. Along the way he has numerous adventures that continually lead nowhere and meets interesting people who really do not develop as complex characters. Jim himself really doesn't develop, except to become more fanatical in his desire to rescue his son. This story purity is an element shared by most zombie novels (good and bad), but would probably bore the average, general horror reader.

Overall, a classic for the lover of the zombmie survivalist sub-genre.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: Not sure what that last reviewer was smoking. there's only one "sex" scene--and it's a brutal rape, not even sex. Can't wait for the sequel, City of the Dead!

Rating:
Summary: Bleach
Review: This book had too much sex in it for my tastes. The characters were underdeveloped, and I didn't really care about them at all. The book just ended without any explination or ending. It wasn't scary, either. For a good book go read Bradbury or someone else, but not The Rising.

Rating:
Summary: Dead On!
Review: I am a huge "living dead" fanatic. This book does NOT disappoint. I sat down at 6 and finished it at 11 with dinner in between, there was no way I was going to bed without getting all the way to the end. The book is glorioiusly descriptive, beautifully gorey and extremely unique. Now you might say "a book about zombies? unique?", believe me these arent your normal zombies, no romeroesque mindless lurching, or screaming 28-days later maniacs. These zombies are the sci fi thinking mans animated dream. I got my copy from the library, but after reading it I will definatly purchase it because I will want to read it again.

Rating:
Summary: And Then.....
Review: This book had me on edge throughout most of the whole thing. Granted, some of this book was slow but most of it was wildly entertaining but just as the book is comming to a raging climax it just ends...bleah

Rating:
Summary: There is no ending!!!
Review: Not a bad zombie novel at first,tense,suspenseful,and the uber zombies ***SPOILER ALERT***that are intelligent,organized,and can drive and shoot are great.The army guys are slumming from Swan Song,another post-apocalyptic novel.The problem really lies in the fact that THERE IS NO ENDING TO THE BOOK!! It just stops as if the publisher ran out of pages,or the writer suffered a sudden attack of appendicitus.Extremely frustrating and unsatisfying to read.

Rating:
Summary: This book gets 5 rotting and festering STARS !!!
Review: An instant classic. This is Mad Max + Dawn of the Dead + Apocolypse Now.

Science, as usual, brings about man's demise as they open up another dimension while studying Black Holes. There, "those who have been waiting" reanimate, and take over the bodies AND BRAINS of the dead.

These zombies are smart/fast and calculating BUT they are still decomposing and rotting and a tad slower than a healthy human.

This story has gore, chills and scares but it also has humanity, depravity, comedy and real tender theme of one man's quest to save his son and make something good out of a once promising life that he had been ruining before THE RISING. I can't reccommend this book enough.

And look out for zombie fish/birds/deer and lions among others. Not just humans can become zombies.

Mr. Keene has an awesome website - www.briankeene.com


Rating:
Summary: Good old fashioned horror novel
Review: If you are fond of 80's horror, then you will enjoy this book (and I mean that as a compliment). The Rising revels in exactly what it is--a horror novel, with no pretensions at being anything more.

Rating:
Summary: These are DEMONS!
Review: I am a huge fan of the old fashioned zombies. They're slow, there is a lot of them, they bite you and you go down... yada yada yada. SO of course I was lured to this book. But people, these are DEMONs from another realm, they are NOT zombies. If you want the traditional living dead, stay away from this book. If you are looking for something new, you might kind of like this book. I say "might" because, besides the misleading zombie description, the book bit a little. You end up not really caring about any of the characters, they were underdeveloped, and really this book was a yawn fest (sorry Keene if you ever read this... I know you tried). And the parts that were meant to be funny, were not. If you are still interested, buy this book used, not new.