just re-read Brian Keene's Zombie Books...

[Phildogger]

Bad, Bad, and boring. Paper thin characters, cliche ridden crap. Full of mis-spelled words and un-realistic dialogue.

It kills me that people on Amazon give this 5 stars!

[jdog]

i hav'nt heard of these books before, but with your review i wont be wasting my time or cash. thanks for the warning.
have you read " the book of the dead" cant remember the author but romero wrote the forward and stepen king had a story in it as well. good read.

[Phildogger]

yeah, and i read the sequel, too. Good stuff!

[ShadowMan]

I have decided not to read any more of Brian's books since I first read "Ghoul". He went into disturbing detail about the slaughter of an innocent 12 year old boy and how the ghoul ate different parts of his body relishing every bit of it. This boy was one of the three main characters and what a sympathetic one he was! His father left him, he had to stay home with his alcoholic mom who would sneek into his room at night and molest him, he bought a pad lock to go on his bedroom door because of this, he poured out his troubles to his friend, he was hoping to stay with his friend and his family, etc... This kid had nothing and what was his end?....a horrible death. Too dark for me. I know real life doesn't always have happy endings...but sheesh!

[sgrosse]

I read his two zombie books. I wasnt to thrilled with them. I liked the Idea of it, but the guy is one sick puppy. I saw that there is going to be a third one comeing out soon. But I dont see how. Anyone who read the books knows what Im talking about.

[rightwing401]

Read the book 'The Rising'. As far as zombie books went, it was kind of good. At least in the beginning. The story went downhill fast. There was no real plot other than the father trying to get to his son, the rest was your typical survivor scenario.
The writing got repetative in some areas. I asked myself while reading the segment on the zombie bikers, "Didn't I already read this part?"
The characters were so cliche and one dimensional. No extra quirks to any of them, they fell into either 'good' or 'bad' category. I certainly wasn't believing the bit where the scientist helped to lead the surviving soliders into a trap set up by the dead because 'the Colonel is a bad man'.
The excessive and rather brutal rape scenes were a definet put off for me. I guess he was trying to get the point across, but I didn't need to read through four or five seperate incidents, each which were way too descriptive.
Keene's final put off for me was the seemingly morbid obsession with the destruction, or the attempt of, the male reproductive organ. I can count at least a half dozen times throughout the whole book where a guy gets his member eaten off, the zombie makes a direct attempt to go for that body portion first, or has it blown off. Like I said, there passes a point where it is intended to shock and instead becomes morbid.
All in all, it could have been a good read. But instead, it came off as too flat and too sadistic for my taste.
Like gross said, this guy has some twisted stuff going around in his head.

[ShadowMan]

Well said rightwing! That's the idea I got when I read Ghoul. That little boy's destruction was WAY too morbid and too in-depth. Like you said, there comes a point when the shock ends and the continued morbidity takes over. It's even sicker to think that someone might relish in the idea of coming up with this stuff. Sick.

[sgrosse]

One thing that always puts me off of something is when they try to hard to shock you. It ruins the story line, and takes you out of the story. A kill scene here and there works a whole lot better than if its a non stop blood bath. Things like that break up the story and it gets old very fast. about half of the way through the first book, I was thinking "yea, I get it. YOur edgy, good for you."