Empire: A Zombie Novel
by David Dunwoody
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Book Summary Information
Author: David DunwoodyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-01
ISBN: 1934861022
Number of pages: 296
Publisher: Permuted Press
Book Reviews of Empire: A Zombie Novel
Book Review: Death doesn't take a Holiday.
Summary: 5 Stars
Zombies are my thing.
Films, games, books, whatever, you say undead and I'm there. And unfortunately, usually when you take the dive into most things zombie you end up wishing someone would put you out of your misery instead of having to suffer through most of the hard to stomach offerings out there.
`Empire' on the other hand, gave me more than a few moments of love for Dave Dunwoody for breathing life into a field usually littered with writers you'd swear had come back from the dead (or were at least partially brain dead) to torture you with their tales. The premise of `Death' battling the undead is an idea I had actually kicked around a bit (damn you for beating me to the punch, Dunwoody :) and it's handled here in the same manner I'd thought about. Death is at most times calm and delivering of his `justice for the natural order of things' but not always. The undead confound him and (at times) even take the advantage. Dave writes `Death' with enough life to make him a living character. There are moments of humor, flashes of uncertainty and enough `human' emotions to make him almost our `hero' of sorts.
The living in the novel are many and are used to great effect in that way. Life among the not living (or afterdead in this case) is not pleasant and at times incredibly short and you're given enough of the characters to know them and care about them before some (you might not expect) meet their way to a gruesome end.
My favorite parts of `Empire' are the ones where Dave does what masters like Romero and the like do (and which so many others seem to forget to do) in showing the humanity and struggles for humanity still raging in a bloody new world. People are still searching for people and trying to make connections. People are still trying to make families, some in their own twisted way (which is a main part of the story and a great `villain' that I won't reveal so as not to spoil it). There is a particularly wonderful moment when one of the characters remembers his father taking him out to put down a dog gone afterdead. It smacks of all the lessons of life still viable, though now changed and yet not, in the new dead world and brings one of the many moments of true emotions usually lost in horror novels filled with more gore than core. And blood hounds fear not, on the `gore' note, there is no shortage of what we all love in flesh rippingly well-written verse (and wonderfully gruesome characters as well. I'll say only Sawbones, you'll know what I mean when you meet him). Dave also gets high points in my book for using the undead affliction in animals (something I hate when it's not addressed or even mentioned in zombie lit) with an especially great scene involving a shark. (I've also got to mention there is a brief appearance of a clown which fills me with glee knowing my wife will be reading this next and she's terrified of clowns).
All in all, `Empire' delivers on all fronts. The good, the bad, the living and not quite living all have a well plotted life of their own and the usual cliches are altered enough to make it fresh without making it too unfamiliar. A new twist, a bit of mysticism, and solid writing help `Empire' rise above the pack of other books about risers from the grave out there. Pick up `Empire' for a new bite on our favorite kind of biters.
Buy it and I promise not to send something over to eat you.
Summary of Empire: A Zombie Novel
The outbreak began in 2007. It's now 2112. The crippled U.S. government is giving up in its fight against an undead plague. Military forces and aid have been withdrawn from the last coastal cities, leaving those who choose to stay in the "badlands" defenseless against hordes of zombified humans and animals. It's been a hopeless battle from the beginning. The undead, born of an otherworldly energy fused with a deadly virus, have no natural enemies. But they do have one supernatural enemy. Death himself. Descending upon the ghost town of Jefferson Harbor, Louisiana, the Grim Reaper embarks on a bloody campaign to put down the legions that have defied his touch for so long. He will find allies in the city's last survivors, and a nemesis in a man who wants to harness the force driving the zombies-a man who seeks to build an empire of the dead where America once stood.Horror Books
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