Blood of the Dead: A Zombie Novel (Undead World Trilogy, Book One) [Paperback]

This is the beginning of a trilogy and I felt after reading this story that 90% of it was a set up for what comes with very few pages left in this first book.
What we have is what is essentially a character driven zombie story where we are introduced to four main characters who end up coming together through the course of this novel to join forces to face off against the dead in Winnipeg, Canada. They have all survived a year after a grey soup of a rain fell and instantly killed many people, turning into zombies immediately. Most others died afterwards in the carnage but a part of the city remains safe, called Haven. Three of our characters live there, Joe, who sees himself as a angel of vengeance, having fashioned his own hand cannon to blast the undead back to the just dead. There is Des, a video game warrior who wishes he was a real hero but has spent most of his time behind a computer screen since the world collapsed, and Billie, a young punker girl with Pink hair who is also a net junky that has had little use for much in the way of human interaction. August is the fourth character here, an older man who was forced to kill his entire family when they all turned into zombies after they all fled into the woods an hour outside the city. Now he has returned and our four characters are thrust together when all the undead, which had mostly be relegated to the inner city have come searching for anyone still alive.

Much of this book is spent with the characters running and fighting the undead. It also is spent with many of the younger characters acting hyper moody with each other, which may be realistic given the grim circumstances but if I am going to be critical about this story it lies here. August is frustrated with God and wondering where he has been this entire time while these three young people barely seem able to get along long enough to help each other survive. After a while all their pouting and moodiness started to get on my nerves. But it did not kill the story for me. The author did a good job of fleshing out these characters and the pain each one of them are going through in this new undead world.

As I mentioned earlier, I got the sense that all of this was introductory effort on the author's part because we really get to the meat of what is going to make this trilogy tick in about the last thirty pages or so. I will admit it gets somewhat confusing, which of course just translates into a cliff hanger ending and a lot of unanswered questions that often come with a trilogy. I will not go into detail but suffice it to say we are exposed to some supernatural elements that will have to play a very heavy duty role in book's two and three.

Overall, I enjoyed this story. There is gore galore and plenty of action for those who crave that in their zombie stories. The author has unleashed a few variations on the zombie theme with hints and more obvious introductions towards the end of your not so regular dead human's brought back to life that I will be curious to see more of.

AP Fuchs does a good job in writing his story and he is able to build up the suspense quite well. There is enough here for me to be quite interested in part II and part III when they are published. I just hope that we do not have to wait too long for the next installment, since he does leave you hanging at the end of this novel.

Stereotypes galore and terribly predictable. The female lead is so weak and stupid that she never bothers to pick up a real weapon. She has lived in a world with zombies for a long time but goes to the apartment of the gamer geek without even a big stick.
I also find it hard to believe that the milk man kept delivering milk when the dead started walking.
The end felt like the author was a schizophrenic who went off his medication. It came out of nowhere, it made little sense, and I resent the money and time I spent on this book.

Others have already touched on the plot so I won't rehash it.

I will say that I loved this book. I found the characters extremely likeable and the action intense. Others had problems with the ending but I for one enjoyed it. It threw me for a loop, left me with questions and extremely eager to see what happens next.

The book was a fun read. It's not the be all and end all of zombie literature but it's definitely something different from your standard survival horror. There's tons of gore and zombie action but it's a bit breezier and not as oppressively serious as many others I've read in the genre. Some of the back-and-forth dialogue between Des and Billie is genuinely amusing, you don't find much humor in the zombie/survival horror field.

There isn't any cursing or sexual situations in the book so it would even be an enjoyable read for younger/teen readers, provided they can handle the violence.

A.P. is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors. I love his Axiom-Man series and the Undead World series is shaping up to be just as enjoyable.

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