Bryn Davis was killed on the job after discovering her bosses were selling a drug designed to resurrect the dead. Now, revived by that same drug, she becomes an undead soldier in a corporate war to take down the very pharmaceutical company responsible for her new condition...
Working Stiff: A Revivalist Novel
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'A first-class storyteller' Charlaine Harris, author of True Blood
About the Author
Rachel Caine is the author of more than twenty novels, including the "Weather Warden" series. She was born at White Sands Missile Range, which people who know her say explains a lot. She has been an accountant, a professional musician, and an insurance investigator, and still carries on a secret identity in the corporate world. She and her husband, fantasy artist R. Cat Conrad, live in Texas with their iguanas, Popeye and Darwin; a mali uromastyx named (appropriately) O’Malley; and a leopard tortoise named Shelley (for the poet, of course).
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
My grandfather used to say "Life's tough, and then you die."
But for Bryn Davis, death is only the START of her troubles. Rachel Caine's "Working Stiff," the first book in a new series, quickly kills off the heroine and reanimates her, and launches her into a bizarre, action-packed adventure. However, this book can be downright depressing at times, and the story sometimes drags in overcomplex circles.
Ex-soldier Bryn Davis takes a job as a funeral director, but her first day is a disaster. A teen girl kills herself, Bryn is pursued by the creepy Fast Freddy, and she discovers that her boss is selling a strange drug that reanimates the dead. And then he kills her.
When she wakes up, she's still technically dead -- but she's being kept animate by an experimental drug called Returne, which the Pharmadene company has discovered. However, they will only keep her alive for as long as she's useful to them, and since their company has a leak connected to her funeral home, they want her to ferret out the supplier.
But while hired gun Joe Fideli and the icy security chief McCallister are helping her, Bryn knows that her days are literally numbered. And as she becomes tangled in elaborate webs of conspiracy and megalomania, she finds that her enemies are both inside and outside Pharmadene... and if she doesn't stop them, the entire world may be next.
It took me a long time to figure out why I simply didn't like "Working Stiff." But eventually I worked it out -- this book is possibly the darkest, bleakest story that Rachel Caine has written to date. And not in a good way, but in a "I want to suck on the business end of a Glock" way. People are paranoid, greedy and cold, all the heroine has to look forward to is a slow gruesome decay, and a supporting character is grotesquely tortured.
That dark mood also extends to Caine's writing, which is somewhat more morbid than usual. The story also unfolds in fits and starts -- we have short, dense packets of action and shocking twists, followed by slower lagging periods that made me itch for SOMETHING to happen. And Caine couldn't seem to make up her mind whether she's writing about nanite technology or magical zombie drugs. But Caine does deliver in the climactic final chapters, which are much tighter, faster and richly satisfying.
As for Bryn, she's a character who takes awhile to grow on you. She was never quite convincing as a hardened soldier, but she does have a likable vulnerability and determination that really blooms at the very end. McCallister is an interesting love interest, who takes a little while to de-ice enough to really connect with Bryn.
"Working Stiff" is a rather depressing urban fantasy with an unusual premise, but the ending does indicate that the next Revivalist book might be better. But this one is kind of a dark mess.
But for Bryn Davis, death is only the START of her troubles. Rachel Caine's "Working Stiff," the first book in a new series, quickly kills off the heroine and reanimates her, and launches her into a bizarre, action-packed adventure. However, this book can be downright depressing at times, and the story sometimes drags in overcomplex circles.
Ex-soldier Bryn Davis takes a job as a funeral director, but her first day is a disaster. A teen girl kills herself, Bryn is pursued by the creepy Fast Freddy, and she discovers that her boss is selling a strange drug that reanimates the dead. And then he kills her.
When she wakes up, she's still technically dead -- but she's being kept animate by an experimental drug called Returne, which the Pharmadene company has discovered. However, they will only keep her alive for as long as she's useful to them, and since their company has a leak connected to her funeral home, they want her to ferret out the supplier.
But while hired gun Joe Fideli and the icy security chief McCallister are helping her, Bryn knows that her days are literally numbered. And as she becomes tangled in elaborate webs of conspiracy and megalomania, she finds that her enemies are both inside and outside Pharmadene... and if she doesn't stop them, the entire world may be next.
It took me a long time to figure out why I simply didn't like "Working Stiff." But eventually I worked it out -- this book is possibly the darkest, bleakest story that Rachel Caine has written to date. And not in a good way, but in a "I want to suck on the business end of a Glock" way. People are paranoid, greedy and cold, all the heroine has to look forward to is a slow gruesome decay, and a supporting character is grotesquely tortured.
That dark mood also extends to Caine's writing, which is somewhat more morbid than usual. The story also unfolds in fits and starts -- we have short, dense packets of action and shocking twists, followed by slower lagging periods that made me itch for SOMETHING to happen. And Caine couldn't seem to make up her mind whether she's writing about nanite technology or magical zombie drugs. But Caine does deliver in the climactic final chapters, which are much tighter, faster and richly satisfying.
As for Bryn, she's a character who takes awhile to grow on you. She was never quite convincing as a hardened soldier, but she does have a likable vulnerability and determination that really blooms at the very end. McCallister is an interesting love interest, who takes a little while to de-ice enough to really connect with Bryn.
"Working Stiff" is a rather depressing urban fantasy with an unusual premise, but the ending does indicate that the next Revivalist book might be better. But this one is kind of a dark mess.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.6 out of 5 stars
66 reviews
54 of 56 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Kind of... bleak
Aug 7 2011
By J.J. Macken
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Working Stiff was a tough read for me. I was ecstatic to find it in my bookstore because I love Rachel Caine's work and I truly believe she is a master storyteller... I'm giving it three stars because I was interested in the story enough to finish it...
But
*** Going to contain some spoilers ***
I found it really hard to empathise with a heroine who is dead.
It just didn't work for me.
Bryn needs a daily shot of Returne to keep from decomposing alive, (a grisly process we get to witness toward the end) so I just didn't see any hope for her in this book, or, it turns out, from future books. It's just such a bleak outlook for a woman who is already dead. Though she's a fictional character you kinda feel like there's no point getting behind her because she's already a lost cause, already dead.
The bleak note continues through this book, I mean, how many horrible things have to happen to Bryn before she saws her own head off? One sister is already missing, another gets kidnapped, killed, brought back multipe times, until she is forced to beat Bryn to her second death with a frying pan...
Not only is Bryn a sort of chemical zombie living on borrowed time, she has to contend with the awful corporate psychos at Pharmadene (the company that makes Returne) who just want to use her and then tie her to a bed and record her slow, torturous decomposition.
Patrick, Bryn's love interest in this book, is a cold, aloof mystery man. Boy did I get sick of his mystery persona. And then we find out a little about him and it's this uber depressing tale of a serial killing sociopath older brother.
Come on! We need some light, some hope.
I also just didn't feel any connection between Bryn and Patrick. I kept wondering if it was wierd for Patric to be into a woman who is, essentially, a zombie.
One side of Returne that I just couldn't buy was the whole "Command Sapphire" and "Command Diamond"... the idea that a serum which is shot into your body to keep you from decomposing will also respond to anyone saying "condition sapphire" by forcing you to do whatever that person asks of them is too silly and random. Are the nanites at work in the serum taught from birth to respond to the word "sapphire"? It's ridiculous!
That was such a contrived side-effect to Returne, a thin excuse to have Bryn mind raped by total strangers... as if she hasn't been through enough.
Personally, I don't think I'll read the next revivalist novel, it just feels like more of the same, Bryn fighting against seemingly insurmountably odds and skidding from horrific situation to horrific situation without any hope to grease her wheels.
But
*** Going to contain some spoilers ***
I found it really hard to empathise with a heroine who is dead.
It just didn't work for me.
Bryn needs a daily shot of Returne to keep from decomposing alive, (a grisly process we get to witness toward the end) so I just didn't see any hope for her in this book, or, it turns out, from future books. It's just such a bleak outlook for a woman who is already dead. Though she's a fictional character you kinda feel like there's no point getting behind her because she's already a lost cause, already dead.
The bleak note continues through this book, I mean, how many horrible things have to happen to Bryn before she saws her own head off? One sister is already missing, another gets kidnapped, killed, brought back multipe times, until she is forced to beat Bryn to her second death with a frying pan...
Not only is Bryn a sort of chemical zombie living on borrowed time, she has to contend with the awful corporate psychos at Pharmadene (the company that makes Returne) who just want to use her and then tie her to a bed and record her slow, torturous decomposition.
Patrick, Bryn's love interest in this book, is a cold, aloof mystery man. Boy did I get sick of his mystery persona. And then we find out a little about him and it's this uber depressing tale of a serial killing sociopath older brother.
Come on! We need some light, some hope.
I also just didn't feel any connection between Bryn and Patrick. I kept wondering if it was wierd for Patric to be into a woman who is, essentially, a zombie.
One side of Returne that I just couldn't buy was the whole "Command Sapphire" and "Command Diamond"... the idea that a serum which is shot into your body to keep you from decomposing will also respond to anyone saying "condition sapphire" by forcing you to do whatever that person asks of them is too silly and random. Are the nanites at work in the serum taught from birth to respond to the word "sapphire"? It's ridiculous!
That was such a contrived side-effect to Returne, a thin excuse to have Bryn mind raped by total strangers... as if she hasn't been through enough.
Personally, I don't think I'll read the next revivalist novel, it just feels like more of the same, Bryn fighting against seemingly insurmountably odds and skidding from horrific situation to horrific situation without any hope to grease her wheels.
33 of 38 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
The dark side of death
Aug 5 2011
By E. A Solinas
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Mass Market Paperback
My grandfather used to say "Life's tough, and then you die."
But for Bryn Davis, death is only the START of her troubles. Rachel Caine's "Working Stiff," the first book in a new series, quickly kills off the heroine and reanimates her, and launches her into a bizarre, action-packed adventure. However, this book can be downright depressing at times, and the story sometimes drags in overcomplex circles.
Ex-soldier Bryn Davis takes a job as a funeral director, but her first day is a disaster. A teen girl kills herself, Bryn is pursued by the creepy Fast Freddy, and she discovers that her boss is selling a strange drug that reanimates the dead. And then he kills her.
When she wakes up, she's still technically dead -- but she's being kept animate by an experimental drug called Returne, which the Pharmadene company has discovered. However, they will only keep her alive for as long as she's useful to them, and since their company has a leak connected to her funeral home, they want her to ferret out the supplier.
But while hired gun Joe Fideli and the icy security chief McCallister are helping her, Bryn knows that her days are literally numbered. And as she becomes tangled in elaborate webs of conspiracy and megalomania, she finds that her enemies are both inside and outside Pharmadene... and if she doesn't stop them, the entire world may be next.
It took me a long time to figure out why I simply didn't like "Working Stiff." But eventually I worked it out -- this book is possibly the darkest, bleakest story that Rachel Caine has written to date. And not in a good way, but in a "I want to suck on the business end of a Glock" way. People are paranoid, greedy and cold, all the heroine has to look forward to is a slow gruesome decay, and a supporting character is grotesquely tortured.
That dark mood also extends to Caine's writing, which is somewhat more morbid than usual. The story also unfolds in fits and starts -- we have short, dense packets of action and shocking twists, followed by slower lagging periods that made me itch for SOMETHING to happen. And Caine couldn't seem to make up her mind whether she's writing about nanite technology or magical zombie drugs. But Caine does deliver in the climactic final chapters, which are much tighter, faster and richly satisfying.
As for Bryn, she's a character who takes awhile to grow on you. She was never quite convincing as a hardened soldier, but she does have a likable vulnerability and determination that really blooms at the very end. McCallister is an interesting love interest, who takes a little while to de-ice enough to really connect with Bryn.
"Working Stiff" is a rather depressing urban fantasy with an unusual premise, but the ending does indicate that the next Revivalist book might be better. But this one is kind of a dark mess.
But for Bryn Davis, death is only the START of her troubles. Rachel Caine's "Working Stiff," the first book in a new series, quickly kills off the heroine and reanimates her, and launches her into a bizarre, action-packed adventure. However, this book can be downright depressing at times, and the story sometimes drags in overcomplex circles.
Ex-soldier Bryn Davis takes a job as a funeral director, but her first day is a disaster. A teen girl kills herself, Bryn is pursued by the creepy Fast Freddy, and she discovers that her boss is selling a strange drug that reanimates the dead. And then he kills her.
When she wakes up, she's still technically dead -- but she's being kept animate by an experimental drug called Returne, which the Pharmadene company has discovered. However, they will only keep her alive for as long as she's useful to them, and since their company has a leak connected to her funeral home, they want her to ferret out the supplier.
But while hired gun Joe Fideli and the icy security chief McCallister are helping her, Bryn knows that her days are literally numbered. And as she becomes tangled in elaborate webs of conspiracy and megalomania, she finds that her enemies are both inside and outside Pharmadene... and if she doesn't stop them, the entire world may be next.
It took me a long time to figure out why I simply didn't like "Working Stiff." But eventually I worked it out -- this book is possibly the darkest, bleakest story that Rachel Caine has written to date. And not in a good way, but in a "I want to suck on the business end of a Glock" way. People are paranoid, greedy and cold, all the heroine has to look forward to is a slow gruesome decay, and a supporting character is grotesquely tortured.
That dark mood also extends to Caine's writing, which is somewhat more morbid than usual. The story also unfolds in fits and starts -- we have short, dense packets of action and shocking twists, followed by slower lagging periods that made me itch for SOMETHING to happen. And Caine couldn't seem to make up her mind whether she's writing about nanite technology or magical zombie drugs. But Caine does deliver in the climactic final chapters, which are much tighter, faster and richly satisfying.
As for Bryn, she's a character who takes awhile to grow on you. She was never quite convincing as a hardened soldier, but she does have a likable vulnerability and determination that really blooms at the very end. McCallister is an interesting love interest, who takes a little while to de-ice enough to really connect with Bryn.
"Working Stiff" is a rather depressing urban fantasy with an unusual premise, but the ending does indicate that the next Revivalist book might be better. But this one is kind of a dark mess.
23 of 26 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Depressing.
Aug 5 2011
By B. Kirkland
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Kindle Edition
This was an interesting concept. It's a zombie book. It was fine for a single read; however, it was depressing and the depression only deepened by the end of the book. No room for the exhilaration arising from missions accomplished at the climax; instead, the the conclusion leaves you with an abiding sadness.
Borrow it, read it, then return it. It's not what I would call a "keeper," so I'm not going to be purchasing the second book in this series.
Borrow it, read it, then return it. It's not what I would call a "keeper," so I'm not going to be purchasing the second book in this series.
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 66 reviews
3.6 out of 5 stars
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