Dead Bitch Army

With DBA Andre Duza crafts a wonderfully engaging story with well-rounded characters. In the story he plays with the conventions of the zombie genre. Duza's approach is starkly different from more mainstream counterparts such as Brian Keene or David Wellington. To start off with, there are no Romero-esque hordes of the undead roaming the countryside waiting to eat your brains. No, in Duza's book there is A zombie. "A" as in singular. One. Un zombie. And she is royally angry. This character, the boogeyman (or boogeywoman, rather) whom Duza creates is a real person with a past and presumably no future. Meet Bloody Mary aka Mary Jane. I have not fallen in love with a female lead antagonist since I read Clive Barker's Coldheart Canyon. This is the DB in the title DBA. She is dead. She is rotting. She is out for blood and she wants the entire planet to feel her wrath. However, in this world not many are willing to believe in a walking dead woman murdering and mutilating her way across the country. Enter the presumed protagonist, Natashia Armstrong. She is being blamed by the media and law enforcement for the "Bloody Mary Murders" as they have come to be known. Natashia has her own reasons for going after Mary, but are they based in reality or is her past just another lie? Duza plays with the notions of self and identity in intriguing ways. He also addresses race relations in America in as original as anyone in recent zombie fiction. This book is full of great characters and horrors galore. The fates which await many of those populating Andre Duza's world are horrific, and this is coming from a two-time combat veteran. It takes a lot to make an impact on me. There are flaws in this book, to be sure. However I do not see that they distract from the raw talent which Duza exhibits in the story telling. Maybe he could use a grammar class. Maybe he needs to focus a little more on finishing his ideas. I feel that these fall into the realm of poor editing, actually. At the heart of this book is a truly original storyteller making his debut in the literary world with a bang. And maybe a splat or two. Four stars.

The name Mary Jane usually conjures up thoughts of something good and wholesome. But in DEAD BITCH ARMY by Andre Duza, Mary Jane Mezerak is anything but good and wholesome. In fact, she isn't even alive. That's right, she is a gun toting, axe-wielding corpse with a bad attitude. She is adored and held in the highest esteem by her merry band of renegades. They believe in her and her cause, which has become twisted from years of hatred mixed with a fanatical desire to extract revenge on her ex-husband. She has spent years building and training her army, a small troop made up of runaways or individuals she's kidnapped. One members of her team has special telekinetic powers while the others have a proclivity for cruelty. They have been responsible for years of gruesome death and destruction among unsuspecting targets. Yet, in the bigger scheme of things, Mary Jane desires to build an even bigger army of all her true believers in order to change the world. Natasha Armstrong appears to be the only person who knows the truth about Mary Jane, or, more exactly, the only one willing to believe all she's seen about Mary Jane. Believing that Mary Jane killed her son, Natasha has been seeking revenge for the last twelve years. During this time, she has entered a world filled with many unexplained oddities that would make any person question his or her sanity. In fact, the authorities want to question her because they believe she is responsible for the now famous Bloody Mary Murders. Because of her close proximity to nearly all of the murder scenes and numerous eyewitness accounts, there are many who feel Natasha is responsible for all the horrible deaths. Captured by the cops and condemned by the media, Natasha can only sit back and plan her next attack. Will she stop Mary Jane? Andre Duza's freshman effort is one totally horrific and bizarre tale about retribution, hatred, justice and all-consuming wrath. It was hard for me to mentally grasp the concept of a dead person with normal human abilities and seeking revenge, which is why I was not feeling this book at first. After getting past that and into to the story, I found it to be fast-paced, gory as all get out and a nail biter. Many of the scenes seemed so real that at one point during the ensuing days after this reading experience, I found myself checking my rearview mirror for a black van pursuing me. That's just how creepy this book was. As much as this book got under my skin, I did note a few editorial inconsistencies that caused some distractions. Aside from that, I will mention that the artwork provided in this book was on point and really matched the author's description. I'm sure this author's unique perspective in providing an entertaining storyline will amass him a nice following as he continues to publish more books in the future. [...]

I had Dead Bitch Army on my shelf for a short while before I read it. Judging by the cover, the description, and what I'd heard about it, I wasn't sure I was in the mood (after all, I'd been reading quiet, mild horror for quite a while). Then I got sick and had more time to read, so I jumped right in and didn't stop. I absolutely loved this book. The characters are real, the events scary, and the writing tight and well delivered. I did have a few problems along the way. In a few spots, some typos pulled me out of the story. Not a real problem, but a minor annoyance. Otherwise, I enjoyed the hell out of this book. Definately worth a buy.

If you've read the description from the back of the book... "Step into a world filled with racist teenagers, masked assassins, cannibals, a telekinetic hitman, 100 warped Uncle Sams, automobiles with razor-sharp teeth, living graffiti, cartoons that walk and talk, a steroid-addicted pro-athlete, an angry black chic, a washed-up Barbara Walters clone, the threat of a war to end all wars, and [...] out for revenge." ...then you already know that you're in for a weird, wild ride with this one, and boy does it deliver. I had a few problems; the excessive use of profanity (what did I expect with a title like that?), the fact that I wanted more (even at 344 pages I whipped right through it in two days), which isn't necessarily a bad thing, and at times I felt like there was too much going on. Compared to how much I liked the book otherwise, that's a minor gripe though. Essentially Dead Bitch Army is about a woman, Natasha Armstrong, who is caught while hunting down a [...] who supposedly kidnapped her son. She is then blamed for the killings that the zombie[...] and her small army are responsible for. They kill for food, and use some of their victims as game. That's all I'll say about that. The police, and media don't believe Armstrong until the killings and kidnappings continue. One of the group...er army is a telekinetic named, Griffen, or Griff for short who constantly screws with people's minds, making them see all kinds of weird stuff. He calls this ability coaxing. This is where Duza really shines. His style is very visual which is probably why Dead [...] Army reads like a beefed up screenplay, with sections (an interview between an anchorwoman and Natasha Armstrong, an animated propaganda film that reminded me of something Manga would put out, for example) written in screenplay format even. It may sound a bit awkward, but trust me it works. I won't get too much into the plot, but the zombie-bitch has a good reason for trying to build an army. By the end of the book, the entire planet is screwed. In short, this book really kicked my ass, a smart, gory, funny even, fast- paced trip through a world that I'd definitely like to revisit. What more could a girl ask for? BUY IT AT ONCE! Tell em' Lacy sent cha.

I'll say this, Dead Bitch Army turned out to be much deeper than I had imagined. Judging from the cover I was expecting a balls-to-the-wall gore-fest. While it did have its fair share blood and scares, (Linda Ludlow's rescue scene gave me the creeps), it's really more intelligent than you might think, with surprisingly timely imagery and rhetoric. The Practice Makes Perfect section, for instance, is filled with such surreal images and spot-on descriptions that I could literally see the ominous, shifting graffiti characters looming outside the train windows, and smell the urine marinating in the subway tunnel. This book sinks its teeth into you from page one and doesn't let up until the end. It's been a long time since I've read a book that stayed with me so long after reading it. If you're looking for something fresh and original, I highly recommend Dead Bitch Army. Duza is definitely one to watch.