Book Review: City of The Dead – Author Briane Keene

CITY OF THE DEAD
Written by Briane Keene
Published by Leisure Books
Publication Date: 2005
Format: Black /White – 357 pages
Price: $7.99

There are rarely any horror novel sequels that live up to the original masterpiece written by a man who knows the genre he’s writing about. The sequel I’m referring to is, City of the Dead, a follow-up to the original hit horror novel, The Rising. What is there to say about the sequel? It is more terrifying than its predecessor which is a bold statement. Today in this day and age, few horror novel sequels lack that powerful punch the original novel has. With City of the Dead, there is nothing to fear, this tale of madness and hopelessness is right up there with The Rising.

The story picks up exactly where The Rising left off. The main characters from the first novel are alive and kicking and fighting to survive in a world that is overrun by a malevolent force that has taken possession of the dead carcasses all over the world. It doesn’t matter what species it is, if it’s dead, it’s used as a shell, a host if you will. These things that take possession are known as many things. Demons or what have you.

They’re here invading the world of the living, using their hosts to feast upon the flesh of the living, although not entirely devouring their victims, leaving them somewhat intact for the entities’ brethren to take full possession of their new vessels.

The characters are back for another round of zombie slaying action as the main character has reached his goal and has seemingly found a sense of happiness although the world is going to Hell with living corpses running all over the place and attacking and killing humans and whatever living organism they come into contact with. The only obstacle that stands in our characters’ way is fighting to survive. There is a lot of obstacles that are in their way as they try to get to somewhere safe, where there aren’t any corpses. The terror in this novel is ten times stronger than in The Rising.

I don’t want to spoil the ending, but it’s one of those books where you find yourself in a situation where everyone you know and come into contact with is being killed by the unthinkable. This is a dark time for humanity within these pages. Here in this book you will learn of what one man would to protect his son against a formidable threat whose numbers are increasing by the thousands with everyone dying around the father, the son and those he considers his friends. Fortunately they find safety, but a question we have to ask ourselves is, how much longer we would be safe from the end of the world crashing through those protective barriers.