City of the Dead

trying to jump on popular zombie theme--this is NOT a zombie novel just religious demons taking human bodies very disappointed glad i did not buy more of is books

Love this book. must read zombie book

Luckily I picked up and read The Rising just recently. So I knew there was a part 2, `City of the Dead', waiting to be read when I put down the first book. I would have been tearing my hair out if I hadn't known there would be a part 2 after reading the ending of The Rising. What a great way to end a book, cliffhanger or not. Thankfully, for me at least, it was a cliffhanger. `City of Dead' picks up right where Keene left us; Frankie and Martin waiting for Jim to hopefully find his son and bring him back to the Humvee. Shots are heard inside the house...and a neighborhood of zombies are coming for them. I could actually feel the intensity and bewilderment that Jim and Frankie were going through while trying to fend off the zombies from coming into the house. Zombies dying left and right, while the two are backing up a stairway. Enough Zombies dead that more zombies had to crawl on top of them to get closer to our survivors. Breathe. A mass of undead shooting through windows. Smoke. Yes smoke. The zombies lit the house on fire. Breathe. BREATHE! And that's just the first few pages. Keene had me breathless for probably 60-80 pages straight. A relentless assault that seems to never end. In this world of zombies, this would be what I would expect. If I was to be outnumbered millions to one, then I would think there would be no time to breathe. Constant running. Constant pain. Constant paranoia. No sleep. But then the unexpected happens. A shining light in a tunnel of darkness. A savior is still on this Earth and he tries to save everyone he can. His name is Ramsey and he is the creator of Ramsey towers. A standing triumph in the middle of Manhattan that can withstand terrorist's attacks, power outages, and even Mother Nature herself. Ramsey has created a safe haven for survivors within the city. A city that is filled by millions of the walking dead. But this is Keene we are talking about here. Keene isn't going to let something like indestructibility stand in the way of the smart zombies he's created... hehe. You just know something bad is going to happen. In `City of the Dead', Keene introduces us to a whole grip of new characters. A lot that are pretty interesting, or at least could have been I'm sure if the book was a lot thicker. I think we were introduced to many characters though because sometimes I would get them confused at times. But then again, it was nice to have a lot, because you still got attached to a lot of them, which made it kind of sad to have them taken away. Bates definitely had to be one of my new favorites of the book. An ex-marine. In charge of Ramsey's security. Was he to be trusted though? I wasn't sure, but the man knew how to take charge and not be a complete idiot in a zombiefied world. And I liked that. A few gripes I had about the book though was that it seemed like Keene was going to keep this book going into a third book or even a series. It seemed like he set so much up for more books. The brothers of Ob, Ab

Fortunately, I had Brian Keene's City Of The Dead all lined up to read after finishing The Rising. Otherwise, I probably would have been more than a little miffed at the ending of The Rising. Likewise, reading City Of The Dead without reading The Rising first will leave you really confused. Read them as a single large novel, and things work ok... Continuing from the previous novel (in fact, chapter one is the last chapter of The Rising), you continue to follow the quest of Jim Thurmond and his fellow travelers to reach his son and then to simply survive against increasingly impossible odds. Once the issue of rescuing his son is worked out, then everyone has to figure out how to exist with the ever-present threat of zombie attack (or even if it's possible to do so). There's a single refuge that exists in New York... an "impregnable" skyscraper with an owner who thinks he's the savior of the remaining human population. The problem is that the zombies and their leader know that location too, and they are mounting a final assault to destroy the remaining life on earth. Once that's done, the next phase of the demonic occupation of earth can occur (destruction of all insect and plant life, followed by the final phase of destruction of everything by fire). While the humans are relatively well-equipped to hold off an attack, emotionally they are falling apart. And of course, a single death within the building means that the body is replaced by a zombie who is going to up the body count in all likelihood. The intrigue is to find out who will crack, who will die, and whether there is any possible way to prevent the eradication of all human life. This book read just like an extension of the first installment, and I didn't feel there was any break in continuity. Same zombie humor, same deteriorating conditions, and same hopeless situations continue to evolve. Oh, and same gore and violence. Without going into the ending too much, it's accurate to say things play out without resorting to the happy Hollywood ending where everyone lives happily ever after. While some readers might hate the ending, I must give props to Keene for playing it out like that. Anything else would have been too improbable. If you can get both this and The Rising for three or four days of intense reading, I'd recommend blocking out some uninterrupted time...

This sequel to The Rising doesn't exactly pick up where its predecessor left off--it actually starts a few minutes before, a handy recap I suppose for those who experience a timelag between the reading of these two books, which are more like halves of the same volume than discrete stories. I would not recommend reading this one without having read the one that comes before. This one is perhaps a little more complicated and slightly less engaging than its predecessor, but it remains very entertaining. Keene has taken the zombie genre into some interesting alternate directions, drawing inspiration perhaps from the Italian zombie masters or from Sam Raimi's Evil Dead series. I admire the way he balances his apocalyptic subject matter with his highly sympathetic cast. There's plenty of mayhem here (and extremely graphic mayhem at that), but the story still has a heart.

SPOILERS GALORE The Rising was cool. It was a literate, philosophical, action adventure book. Part parable, Part depravity/gore, and Part heartwarming quest. It was sort of what The Da Vinci Code would have turned out like if it had been written by Allistair Crowley. The City Of The Dead, unlike most sequels, is better. There's more action, great kill scenes and a fascinating theology of the Siqquism (the demons who were banished by God to the void who now inhabit the brains of the once dead - duh!) While the depth to the normally brain dead (ha ha) zombies is interesting, deep, and intriguing - as it gives insight to the usually absent characteriation of the actual undead - it does come with a heavy price. because the Zombies are wise and cunning and ever present, there is NO hope for our lovable characters. One by one they get chopped, gutted, beheaded, eaten from the inside out, burned, shot, stabbed, etc.. ad nauseum. At the end of the story, after a shadow of hope, you are blindsided by a horrible (at first) ending. When you find out what happens to the last 3 survivors (yes animals count) you pray that Brian would have left us another cliffhanger ending like The Rising. At least he won't be accused of not telling us EXACTLY what happened. Just think, if all you whiny A-Holes hadn't complained about The Rising's ending, he never would have writte nthis book and I would have been able to make up my own conclusion that Jim and danny lived happily ever after. (...) I gave The Rising 4.5 out of 5 stars because I too wasn't satisifed with the ending. COTD's story is more fast paced, has some great characters and locales, but I can only give it a 4.75 because you can't kill GOD.