Customer Reviews

The Dead

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Rapture novels as a genre first got rolling in the 1830s. My own earliest exposure to this field of religious fantasy was the discovery, in the 1950s, of Sydney Watson's gloriously wacky "In The Twinkling Of An Eye," penned in 1916. In it Watson's protagonist, a Jewish newspaper reporter, finds himself stranded on an Earth given over to satanic forces after its Christian population is "raptured" to heaven. Among the results of this radical regime change, aside from Bible burning and the extermination of rabbis in the newly reconstituted Israel, is an upswing in popularity of modern art, public nudity, jazz, and racial integration! Yow!

Despite the campiness of Watson's early 20th century biases, the novel holds to its major horror: being left behind and unredeemed. You've had your chance; you didn't believe. You were wrong; you've blown it! No hope, Clyde: you're damned!

Mark E. Rogers reopens these particular gates of hell in this Infinity reissue of his 1989 novel, "The Dead," where his protagonists, the dysfunctional Holland family, face the same hopeless dilemma. The Dead is a truly horrifying reading experience as the world of the living is systematically overwhelmed by the walking dead, the minions of Satan's lieutenant, Legion. Rogers, an accomplished illustrator, brings his considerable skills to paint a believable
picture of apocalypse, a well constructed book you'll find hard to put down.

This book was incredible! I couldn't put it down. I loved this book because it was not your typical brain-eating zombie book. In fact, these weren't your run of the mill zombies...they were angels from Hell assuming the bodies of corpses. No brain eating here...only torturing and murder for those left behind. The book had a great plot to it and a little bit of religeon and theology thrown in. This book could even make an atheist start to wonder. Read it and you'll see what I mean!

This book is OKAY, but definitely not a great read. Lots of misspellings and grammatical errors, and the author's own pentecostal religious outloook (which is strange, because all the main characters in the book are Catholic), make it feel as if you're reading the Turner Diaries as envisioned by George Romero.

There are still some good scares provided, just don't expect this to be a well-written book.

With very few good zombie survival books to choose from, wasting your money on The Dead is exactly that, a waste of money. Do not let the cover of this book fool you, it's really just a sermon in sheeps clothing. Filled with fire and brimstone, it places the action behind the thinly laid subtext, God God and more God. By page eight you're already tired of the thinly laid debates between all of the main characters (who are all religious figures of some kind). The plot is somewhat pacing for the story but the dialog thrown in is truly a tragity. The characters are predictible and poorly thought out. Do not waste your time. If your in the market for a good book minus the sermon, buy Reign of the Dead and call it a day.

Finally, a novel that brings together my two favorite subjects, philosophy and zombies! THE DEAD is definitely the most well-thought out and SCARY books I've ever read. You'll never look at New Jersey State Troopers the same way again!

This book scared me death! I slept with the light on for a whole month after reading it. I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed this book so much. It's a quick read but there's so much substance to it. The dead are possessed by some evil from the pits of Hell under the command of Legion a demon who plays the role of some dark messiah. The zombies are quick and intelligent not like George Romero's zombies. The zombies in this book don't attack the living out of a hunger to feed but out of deep maliciousness, and for purely sadistic purposes. They like to torture their prey before killing them and adding then adding them to their unholy, undead army. The end of the world scenerio very realistic and quite possible if you consider the underlying religious theme that sorta runs through the novel. The debate between an atheist who in the past murdered his ex-wife and buried her in a basement (his second wife was in on it to and was subsequently murdered by his zombie ex-wife) to be particularly humorous. It was a sense of "poetic justice" but it serves as sort of an injoke. Well I don't want to give away the whole story, but some of the survivors of the initial dead onslaught are so annoying that when a few of them are taken out, I couldn't help but smile a bit. It's a great book if you're into zombie movies. The zombies in this book are more like deadites from the Evil Dead Trilogy!

I recently reread this book; it had been years since I had first read it and it still sucked me in so much that I finished it in a day. I love zombies (in abundance) and the apocalypse (one apocalypse check). I couldn't stop turning the pages, I knew what was going to happen but I had to read it all over again. I could scarcely contain myself at several points waiting for certain events to happen. The characters where as real to me this time around as the first, they aren't just characters in a story they are people I know.

The theological discussions are interesting and keep your attention while moving the plot along. While the action scenes are packed fill up Roger's usual descriptive bloodshed, both disgusting and amusing at the same time.

I have made every friend of mine read this and even loaned it to my mother, she was most upset that while reading it she missed her train stop. Buy this book, read it, make your friends read it, make them buy it.

I've always been a huge horror fan, and am intensely happy when somebody gives it a rough, jolting twist and throws something in that I'm not expecting. The horror throughout book (IE - my idea of 'wacky hijinks') is a great deal of fun, and since I'm also a sucker for apocalyptic stories, I was practically salivating at the 'idea' of the horrific extinction of the human race throughout the book.

The story presents a lot of very interesting theological ideas and arguments without being preachy about it, which is a definite bonus. It presents very good points without hammering them constantly into your squishy greymeat.

The one thing that I'm most fond of with Mark's writing is that his good characters aren't entirely good. There is a great deal of shade to them, which keeps me from wanting to choke them because of possible overly paladin characteristics. Also, his evil characters are so viciously dark and bile filled that it's really a treat to get to know them. The quips and jibes that his characters trade back and forth always make me smile - if not laugh outright, and his depictions of violence and mayhem are absolutely dreamy.

Go buy this book now or you will surely knock your head against that little part of the ceiling that juts out just far enough to crack it painfully as you go bounding downstairs for whatever nebulous reason.

:: Rogue ::

I picked up The Dead because I enjoyed Rogers's fantasy books (Blood + Pearls, etc) so much, and because the premise intrigued me. A zombie story set to the backdrop of the Christian apocalypse... ok, sounds like a fun ride. And oh man, it was.

The book ended up being much more than I expected. Instead of a simple scary story I found a long theological discussion with periodic episodes of completely hair-raising horror. I'm not a spiritual person but I never felt put off by the deep religious basis of the book, nor did I ever feel like I was being preached at. On the contrary, I found myself very intrigued by the philosophical implications of the story. Rogers's take on the ultimate evil is especially interesting. He tackles ideas about free will, the nature of God, what it means to have faith, and more. What other "zombie story" can say so much?

I've been lending The Dead to all of my friends and all of them have loved it so far. If you enjoy being scared and being made to think at the same time, check this book out.

I picked up this book due to the overwhelming positive reviews here. After reading I have to wonder if I bought the same book everyone else read. Scary? Hardly. There were times I couldn't keep my eyes open while reading it. Far too often the book fell into having various characters discuss theology (like, once a chapter) and it became rather tiresome after a while. This is the type of book where a horde of zombies will appear out of nowhere, attack a group of people who flee, then, as they pause to catch their breath, discuss whether the priest in the group has been true to his oath to serve God. Fortunately I didn't get the impression the author was trying to preach otherwise I never would have finished it.

Bonus point for the concept, which was unique in zombie horror, but again, instead of discussing the events unfolding around them (like planes dropping from the sky, etc) the characters sit around discussing if God had turned his back on mankind.

Furthermore, Infinity Publishing should be embarassed by this book's presentation. Riddled with typos and completely unformatted. It's almost as if they printed out the manuscript the author sent them on a dot matrix printer, then sent it off to the printing press without even looking at it. For a book costing $20 we deserve at least one go-over with a red pencil.

If you really want to read a book that will keep you awake at night, pick up Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door. It will haunt you for years.