Who the hell doesn’t like a good zombie story? Planet of the Dead by Thomas S. Flowers is precisely just that. It focuses on a wide assortment of different characters spread out across the globe. It was fun to read about how the zombie apocalypse would begin from within my own backyard. Starting out as a simple outbreak of an unknown sickness reported to be a super flu, it gradually escalates into a worldwide epidemic of returning-to-life cannibals who are all too eager to devour everything unlucky enough to still breathe.
Quite literally, the story covers characters ranging from a Iraqi freedom vet and his girl friend to a poor dog in Korea wondering why his owner isn’t acting like himself. The individuals in the story will come off very memorable to you and will linger in your mind. You will be forced to keep turning pages until your curiosity on whether their vital organs turned into chew toys is fixed. Unfortunately, this George R. Romero dedicated tale will leave you shaking balled fists, kicking the bed post, and cursing to the sky because many characters do not have a proper ending – leaving you to wonder what happened. Be warned this is a horror story you might want to read before you’re corn dog lunch.
It gets plenty gory and pretty specific in detail of what a human slaughterhouse might look like. The ending is a truly morbid and dark trip into the brain that forces the question of how divided we as a people really are. Is it really United We Stand? Or does loyalty only go as to how starving a dog we all are?
There are many misspellings within the book and at times makes it hard to follow along as you might scratch your head asking “what did they just say?”. Some words are recycled over and over to describe the same detail which might lessen the intensity of the carnage transpiring to some readers. It’s still a very enjoyable read for anyone who craves the zombie genre in all its grotesquely, violent, bloodshed horror. While there isn’t much intimacy or overly used foul language, it is recommended for any strong stomached teenager and up.
Fans of Joe McKinney novels or Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead franchise will definitely want to read this story. Major props also go out to the author for diving into the subject of our soldiers and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The questions raised are worth pondering over.
Thank you, good sir.
George R. Romero would have been proud.
RATING: 4 / 5
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