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Joined: 20 Jun 2006 Posts: 259 Location: Poontang, Indiana

I'm almost done with DEAD SEA. It's fucking fantastic.

It starts off like any other zombie story. But what makes it different is how Brian can tell a story. His characters are well written and the story flows right along.\

Another great zombie book.
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Joined: 05 Jul 2006 Posts: 862 Location: Xibalba

Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 28514 Location: Flo-Town,Alabama

I though Dead Sea was ok, but just ok.
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Joined: 05 Jul 2006 Posts: 862 Location: Xibalba

It's certainly better than THE RISING and a fuck of a lot better than CITY OF THE DEAD. Not Keene's best work but it's action packed, never stops barelling forward, has good characterisation and makes good use of first-person narrative.

Unfortunately Keene is already threatening DEAD AIR, which will bring back those retarded "clever" zombies from his other two books. On a plane.

I bought Dead Sea today, and am only on the first chapter.

I'm glad that he has the Romero-esque zombies back in this one.
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Damn!

Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 28514 Location: Flo-Town,Alabama

I read the whole thing in about 2 and a half hours.

It felt very short to me.
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"Sigh. Malachi, Conan is a fictional character, Dungeon Masters are real, hard-working people..." - Chainsaw

Joined: 05 Jul 2006 Posts: 862 Location: Xibalba

Most of the Leisure books are short, quick reads.

I could not friggin' believe Keene put a Chuck Norris joke into DEAD SEA. That shit's kinda getting old but reading it in a mass market novel was still very fucking cool.

Yeah, I'm almost done with it already, and I just bought it yesterday.

So far I like it...and was suprised to find references to The Rising. I thought this was a completely different universe than what happened in the events of The Rising/City of the Dead.
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Damn!

Joined: 20 Jun 2006 Posts: 259 Location: Poontang, Indiana

Joined: 21 Jun 2006 Posts: 87

I absolutley LOVED The Rising. I thought it was a unique zombie story, and pretty fucked up as well. City of the Dead was a little bit of a let down, but fun as well. I haven't read anything else by Keene, but I just listened to Burying Betsy on Dreadtime Stories. It was somewhat twisted and a bit predictable, but very cool to hear Keene read it himself. I look forward to reading more from him.
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I finished Dead Sea the next day after I bought it.

It was good, and it felt like the events in The Rising.

Like we were seeing another parallel storyline to the Rising's.

They referenced characters and events in Dead Sea from the Rising, so I suppose it takes place in the same universe during the same outbreak - but yet the zombies behaved much differently.
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Damn!

Joined: 20 Jun 2006 Posts: 259 Location: Poontang, Indiana

I believe DEAD SEA has nothing to do with The RISING. That's why the dead are slow and can't use tools.
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That's what I thought (and kinda still do) but they actually reference events from The Rising - like the lion in the zoo...and the character of Frankie.
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Damn!

So I just got done "Dark Hollow" and "Ghost Walk" back-to-back. And I have to say, they hit me hard.

A few criticisms first. Sorry, but Keene has the same problem that I have with had with Braunbeck; there are incredibly forced pop culture references. At one point a character in "Ghost Walk" complains that two characters are having a religious argument of the level of "Pitch Black." I am a genre fan and it took a couple seconds for me to remember that part, and this character showed NO predisposition for genre material. He peppers his books with them and it has the opposite force that he intends on me. Instead of grounding the books in reality, it pulls me right out of what is happening.

He also seemed to have some damn lazy writing in "Dark Hollow." I am not saying that an author cannot have a character or even a main character who is an author, it just felt lazy to me.

However, I have to say that I had an uneasy night's sleep after finishing both books. And not for the conventional horror reasons. Oh no. I had a dream patterned after "Demons" the other night and loved it. These dreams were about inadequacy. They were about dreams lost and lives wasted. And quite frankly, I have to chalk it up to the characters. "Dark Hollow" would also be about the story, as it involved women leaving their husbands/boyfriend's. "Ghost Walk" takes a character that I really liked and understood, and gave him the most emotionally brutal attack I can remember. I put down that book hating the other character that did it to him, and to a small amount hating Keene. Eventually I realized that him doing what his does to the one character is the point and that because of that the book made me feel something.

And it gave me nightmares. Not the good one's, where I am running from a monster or hiding from zombies. The bad ones, about my screw-ups in life that are going to haunt me for a long time, even after I wake up.

He could do little things to be a better author, but few others that I have read have hit me as hard emotionally.

Joined: 10 Aug 2008 Posts: 6478

I wasn't going to come in here but I can't help it. The only way I'll ever read another one of this guy's books is if I'm completely bored out of my mind and have absolutely nothing better to do.

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