In the near future, a desperate and evermore controlling UK government attempts to restore a sense of national pride with a New Festival of Britain. But construction work on the site of an old church in south London releases a centuries old plague that turns its victims into flesh-hungry ghouls whose bite or scratch passes the contagion— a supernatural virus which has the power to revive the dead — on to others.
“The Death” soon sweeps across London and the whole country descends into chaos. When a drastic attempt to eradicate the outbreak at source fails, the plague spreads quickly to mainland Europe and then across the rest of the world.
Told through a series of interconnected eyewithness narrative — text messages, e-mails, blogs, letters, diaries, and transcripts — this is an epic story of a world plunged into chaos as the dead battle the living for total domination.
Review: I was excited to read this because it sounded interesting and I decided to take a chance when it mention how it planned to tell the story. Which is the use of narratives — text messages, emails, blogs, etc and I found that a creative way to do it. It actually started off quite nicely but half way in to it, it just started to fall apart. It’s disappointing because I can tell it had potential but it just didn’t work.
The only thing constant in each narrative is the zombies and the purpose of gathering a collection of every kind of writing was to allow the readers a glimpse of each person’s lives as they deal with the dead. To see how their government, their countries are dealing with it and so on. But I feel like the story would have worked better if it focus on three or four people’s lives so that the readers could have build up a connection with them. To actually care what happens to them and be angry at those who let the outbreak happen.
There were only one or two characters that were becoming quite interesting and familiar with, but their story ended so quickly. It’s a shame because there is no way to care about a character in less than 10 pages. And if you don’t really care about the character, then I think you lose the sense of danger and suspense.
The part that just annoys me greatly is the ending. It was unsatisfying and a terribly way to end it. I was expecting a new character to be introduce, the person who ‘put together’ the book filled with these narratives. Which then they would add their own piece of writing to say that the war with the dead still continues but they hope that if the humans win at least there would be this book, documenting what happen. To educate and to prevent it from happening again. If not at least somewhere in history, when humans and the dead become extinct and another race evolves or something, they would have it.
If that was the ending it would’ve made up for some of the flaws. It would allow room for a sequel (whether it continues after the first book left off or in the distant future) but also allow the readers’ imagination to finish the story into what they would have liked. Be it the humans won, the dead won or something else happens.
Personally, I wish I read the book sooner so that I could have returned it once I realize it wasn’t what I expected. It’s not worth paying $15.00 for (or $17.50 if you’re in Canada).
 DamnBlackHeart · Mon Mar 26, 2012 @ 09:36pm · 0 Comments |
