Entries from July 2007 ↓

Dead Sea marks Brian Keene's return to the walking dead but with a twist: it does so without overtly returning to the world of his two previous zombie efforts. Where in The Rising and City of the Dead, corpses are animated by means of a sinister and rather intelligent Other, this time around we have an alternate take on the hungry undead, a more overtly familiar one. These corpses, closer in keeping with the mostly mindless shamblers of Romero's canon, are the product of some kind of biological agent, a plague first found in and spread by rats. The agent, dubbed Hamelin's Revenge by a clueless media trying to play on the Pied Piper fable, quickly lays to waste several animal species as well as human beings. Though we get a sense of the horror of the End of the World (through flashbacks), the novel begins after most of the US (and possibly the world) is beyond salvaging.

Our point of view character for this post-apocalyptic nightmare is Lamar, a homosexual man whose last remaining friend in the world is chomped in the very first line of the novel. Killing the guilty zombie (and tending to his buddy) begins Lamar's journey through a realm of spiritual wonder and horror. Soon, he "adopts" a pair of orphan kids, buddies up with a former Bible salesman turned gun bunny, flees both a citywide fire and hungry undead hordes, gains a handful of additional allies, finds a floating home aboard a retired US Coast Guard ship, loses friends left and right, and discovers himself to be the embodiment of Joseph Campbell's archetype known as "The Hero".

In a postmodernist touch, Lamar is as "clued in" to his archetypal status as the reader, when a pedagogic character not only explains Joseph Campbell's take on mythology but also identifies several of the novel's supporting characters as archetypal (the hero, trickster, warrior, et cetera.). Unfortunately, this pedagogic character does not see himself as a helper/guide, though this is the role he most certainly fills. Apparently, it is far easier to analyze others than the self.

Though the novel initially seems to be removed from Keene's previous novels, longtime fans will identify plenty of details that connect this book to his other works (including, oddly enough, characters and situations from his own "alternate" zombie books, suggesting that perhaps this is a separate-but-similar universe to The Rising/City of the Dead -- what some folks might call a parallel universe, but which theoretical physicist Everett actually described as more perpendicular) but the references are expertly placed in-jokes.  If understood, they reveal a wholly new and intriguing layer; if missed, the text loses nothing.

Dead Sea also offers quite a bit of humor. Plenty of this is found in the dialogue, but there are several situations that are delightfully humorous, as well (particularly in the final section of the novel -- well, I found them funny, anyway -- which I dare not discuss here). Oftentimes, these are immediately followed by gruesome, grisly, bleak notes, but the humor certainly serves to intensify the situations. All of this builds to a rather powerful finale.

Now, this author takes quite a bit of flak for his endings (especially for the afore mentioned "alternate" zombie books). While this reader certainly enjoyed the ending of The Rising (it's an obvious homage to the conclusion of John Carpenter's remake of The Thing), there are far greater numbers of folks who did not. I'm certain that several readers are wondering how this ending fares. Well, without giving any of the details away, I can offer this: the ending is suitably final. I personally do not want to see a sequel volume about any of the survivors of this novel.

While television/film has certainly influenced his work (in fact, one Dead Sea character seems pulled from the show Lost), this reader finds plenty of literary references as well. Beyond the obvious tip of the hat to sociologist Joseph Campbell's works and perhaps a touch of William Hope Hodgson's Sea tales, this book invokes (for me, at least) aspects of John Skipp and Craig Spector's ecological zombie book The Bridge (a personal favorite), particularly when discussing the transmission of Hamelin's Revenge.

In this age of an overabundance of zombie fiction what does Dead Sea have to offer that can't be found elsewhere? Well, an intriguing protagonist, plenty of reanimated animals, a touch of the philosophical, some dollops of introspection, and plenty of balls to the wall mayhem as only Brian Keene can write it. All told, Dead Sea is a fine horror novel.

Dead Sea by Brian Keene
352 pages
Leisure Books
Released August, 2007

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