Rating: 
Summary: Good effort, could have been better.
Review: ... Anyway, the book does have a compelling storyline with an assortment of characters that comes together in a morbid fashion. Yes, there are some weird things going on, but you know what, that is the world we live in. Sick, twisted, but amazingly horrific to say the least....
Rating: 
Summary: Blood runs out of this in droves...
Review: ...and I quote the author. On one hand, I give full credit to anyone who has the gumption to sit down and write a novel. On the other hand, with spell check and grammar check on most word processing programs, there's just no excuse for the multitide of errors found in this book. On the OTHER hand, I've had a great time opening up to random pages and reading things like 'he coped a feel of a corpse.' However, I've been unable to read the book through because the errors are just too distracting. I hope that the author channels some of his energy into editing next time around.
Rating:
Summary: Oh my god this book is bad!
Review: ...I really enjoy the zombie genre. I have a huge collection of both zombie movies, fiction and games, many of which are very good. This book is not. The following are my opinions, but I stand by them.Project phoenix Dead Rising tm is in my opinion not only the worst book I have ever read, but I suspect the worst book ever written. The sad thing is that I was looking forward to reading it. I shelled out my $...plus shipping and waited for it to arrive, happy that zombies were getting more attention. Eagerly I opened the cover (The design of which is very nice.) The dedication page citied all the right sources, so far so good. Then I read the introduction, things began to fall apart at that point. As soon as the author's voice entered the story I became worried. Then the prologue, which for no reason what-so-ever switches from the all knowing narration to first person. This trick might have worked if the author had anything interesting to say but sadly that was not the case. In fact here is when I really began to notice what a train wreck this "novel" really was.
There appears to have been no editing besides a quick run through with a spell checker. All the words are spelled correctly, but they are in the wrong place. The comical result being that at times the main character ends up sounding Jamaican. With phrases like "him arm" rather than "his arm". But that's only the beginning... When I encountered sentences like "They were each one the dead rumored in legend that found a new meal to nibble upon with Gibson." What?!
Perhaps English is Mr. Patterson's second language, perhaps he is "special" I don't know, but I do know that I shelled out about $...dollars for this!
It gets better, or worse depending on your point of view. By the first chapter the author begins to include quotes, which is fine except he quotes himself! Complete with the dates that he said these profound things. One can only imagine the hubris involved with quoting oneself, particularly when he says nothing that hasn't been said before and better by other people. Take for example this winner "God is forgiving of sin. Does the devil wage this as well?" I can guess what this is supposed to mean, but it's just bad language. The kicker is that the date given is 07/09/94-03/19/99...it took him about five years to polish that specimen of an insight. The book is full of forgettable, clichéd characters, a plot that makes no sense and writing that is honestly at a junior high level. The author has no problem using the same word over and over again in a sentence ( Thesauruses are not that expensive.) And yes I get it! You are naming characters after people involved with the zombie genre! But fear not because at the end of the book he thoughtfully explains what he meant to all you dimwits out there reading it. Actually he explains pretty much everything and goes on to pat himself on the back for being original. (Which he is not) I cringed expectantly when he introduced a character named Dante'. I knew it was just a matter of time before he would start a fire to be called "Dante's inferno" I was not disappointed. (Well, yes I was...but the author did it none the less.) I prayed there would not being a sex scene...page 209 made sure my nightmares became a reality. The passage was trite, insulting and predictable. Like a pubescent boy's fantasy of what sex might be like.
A very telling moment is when the author begins a diatribe about how jocks (pretty boy types) don't know how to treat or appreciate a woman. The just use them and throw them away. It comes off sounding like a personal beef by someone who has been rejected a few too many times. The entire time I was reading this monstrous book I couldn't help picturing the comic book guy from the simpsons having written it. ) In my opinion, the final nail (in this book's proverbial coffin) of this being nothing more than glorified "fan boy" fiction came at the afterward when the author talked of this being a trilogy and describing it as a "star wars of the dead". By any stretch of the imagination this is an awful book. Do yourself a favor and don't buy it. Spend your money on anything else. Rent a good zombie movie, take your sweetheart out on a date, because the real horror of this tome is that it's out there, disguised as literature and waiting for you to waste your hard earned money on it. If you want to be scared think of this, the author has promised (threatened) that there may be two more to follow it. Well fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. I am done with anything this author has to say. Now since I did pay for this book I have found a great use for it. I have many friends who are writers, when they come over we open it to a random page and read aloud. It never fails to get a laugh. So in the long run I suppose I did get my money's worth, but I would advise you not to take the risk. I could go on and on but I won't. This is a bad book by someone who has no artistic grasp of language. They say an infinite amount of monkeys given an infinite amount of time could write a Shakespeare play. If that is true my guess is that this took a couple a monkeys and a long weekend. If you need instant proof of how bad the writting is, check out the author's own 5 star review of his work right here on this page. He can't even get the title of his review right. It should read "Raising the Dead" or perhaps "The Rising Dead" But not as he wrote "Rising the Dead".
Rating: 
Summary: Rising the Dead Could Never Be Better!
Review: 1959, a secret military project quickly goes out of control and is then silenced. 1999, this time the whole world will know. In a little sleepy town in Ohio, a bio-engineered chemical is unleased along with it's carrier. Those who carry the world's destruction are not living, nor dead- they are undead. The ultimate soldier that will not stop. They hunger. Cheryl is a teenage girl who becomes partners with the local Hardware store guy in an effort to survive the rottening army of the dead inside the town of Bachman and the very much live army of the United States military that have barricaded the town from itself and the outside world. Non-stop action, gore and drama awaits.
Rating:
Summary: Zobie-lovers, get this book!
Review: First of all - I enjoyed "Project Phoenix" very much. It's a great book about zombies. Patterson knows, about what he's writing - and that's good. Combined with classic situations that we all know from various zombie-shlashers, the author presents a fresh upgrade for a genre that was too long forgotten.
The only negative thing about this book is the too often used slang-languige. A reader like me (and I come from Germany) might have his problems to understand everything.
Anyway - I had a hell lot o' fun with this one, and hope that there will be more soon (you hear me, Patterson?).
Rating:
Summary: Zobie-lovers, get this book!
Review: First of all - I enjoyed "Project Phoenix" very much. It's a great book about zombies. Patterson knows, about what he's writing - and that's good. Combined with classic situations that we all know from various zombie-shlashers, the author presents a fresh upgrade for a genre that was too long forgotten.
The only negative thing about this book is the too often used slang-languige. A reader like me (and I come from Germany) might have his problems to understand everything.
Anyway - I had a hell lot o' fun with this one, and hope that there will be more soon (you hear me, Patterson?).
Rating:
Summary: Good effort, could have been better.
Review: Granted, there are some interesting ideas trapped somewhere in this disaster of a book - although as other reviewers have noted, even those ideas are, at best, mostly derivative. However, DBP's atrocious spelling (too many errors to count on any given single page), meandering sentences that border on prattle, incorrect or inappropriate usage of words (which proves that he must have skipped vocabulary lessons in English class as well as spelling) and poor syntax and sentence structure, render this book unreadable. If not for the picture of the adult author on the back of the book, my best guess would have been that the book was the product of a semi-literate grade school student (no offense meant to grade school students). I am begging DBP, please get someone to edit your next book, or at the very least run a spell check on your file before it is published. For those who enjoy Dead literature that displays a basic command of the English language on the part of the author, I recommend (as have other reviewers) Reign of the Dead, or the Dead anthologies, The Book of the Dead and Still Dead.
Rating:
Summary: Terrible - English can't be this author's first language
Review: Granted, there are some interesting ideas trapped somewhere in this disaster of a book - although as other reviewers have noted, even those ideas are, at best, mostly derivative. However, DBP's atrocious spelling (too many errors to count on any given single page), meandering sentences that border on prattle, incorrect or inappropriate usage of words (which proves that he must have skipped vocabulary lessons in English class as well as spelling) and poor syntax and sentence structure, render this book unreadable. If not for the picture of the adult author on the back of the book, my best guess would have been that the book was the product of a semi-literate grade school student (no offense meant to grade school students). I am begging DBP, please get someone to edit your next book, or at the very least run a spell check on your file before it is published. For those who enjoy Dead literature that displays a basic command of the English language on the part of the author, I recommend (as have other reviewers) Reign of the Dead, or the Dead anthologies, The Book of the Dead and Still Dead.
Rating:
Summary: I was embarrassed for this man
Review: I love zombie stories don't get me wrong. I read alot of fanfic and truly do understand a work of love as opposed to writing to make a living. HOWEVER; this book would turn a zombie's stomach. It is that awful. I'm embarrassed for him. I actually read some of the paragraphs out loud to my husband to see if it is actually as BAD as it looks to me as I read it. It almost seems like a bad joke but it isn't. DON'T SPEND MONEY ON THIS BOOK. You'll be disappointed and god forbid we give any encouragement to this man. AND who the hell told him that the author picture on the back was cool? Jeez. Could you look anymore like an idiot? AND is that a nudie calendar behind him? I bet he lives in his mom's basement. This is just sad.
Rating: 
Summary: Uhm, really badly written and incomprehensible
Review: I tried reading this book 3 times. It wasn't possible. I couldn't follow the storyline and the narration kept wandering into wierd territory. The above 'death and his army of the undead' is the kind of drivel that fills the entire book. Not good, although there were some good ideas.
|
