Keene ventures back into the realm of the Zombie with this
book. It really isn’t a follow up to
The Rising, and the zombies are a
bit more traditional here. This time around there is Hamelin’s Revenge, which
is a disease that is passed thru saliva and blood, rather than demonic possession.
Initially it only seems to affect a few species, but then it starts to jump
into previously immune creatures. Before you know it there are zombie pets,
horses, cattle, and God knows what else wandering the streets looking for a
meal. The central character in the book is Lamar. After being forced from his
home by the fires sweeping thru the overrun city he ends up on a Coast Guard
ship with a few other survivors. Deciding the sea is their best chance they get
the vessel seaworthy and get away from the land. But when Hamelin’s jumps into
the fish even the ocean isn’t safe.
I really enjoyed this book, much more than his earlier
efforts at zombies,
The Rising and
City of the Dead. It isn’t
that those books aren’t good, they are. But I just never really got into the
idea that the zombies were reanimated when they were possessed by demons. Call
me a purist, but I prefer my zombies old school. With
Dead Sea Keene
changes things up and has the cause of the uprising a bit more traditional,
Hamelin’s Revenge. Get bit or blood on you and soon you will be shuffling
around looking for someone to gnaw on. Keene is a great writer and this more
traditional take really turned out a great story. He does a wonderful job of
making the characters, even the minor ones, jump off the page and be very real.
This is key to making it work because then the reader cares about them as he
picks them off one at a time, which is really one of the things that zombie
fiction is all about. Characters are introduced, we like them, and then bad
things happen.
The book starts off in a familiar setting with Lamar hiding out
in his barricaded house, but then moves to the ship at sea, which I thought was
neat change. The zombie nerd in me always thought that a ship would be a safe
place to hang out if the and when the zombies showed up. Though this proves not
to be such a great idea in Keene’s version of a zombie apocalypse. The idea of
the plague jumping species was a fun twist with zombie dogs and horses
wandering about. But the best are the Zombie whales swimming around the ocean!
Yes you heard me correctly there are zombie whales!
Bottom line if you dig zombie fiction and haven’t read Dead
Sea you are really missing out. This
is hands down one of the best pieces of zombie fiction that you will ever
read. Brian Keene is the man. I highly recommend this one.
© Copyright 2023 John
Shatzer
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