David Dunwoody

This is what I expect from all zombie books. A rollicking good adventure with death and destruction and chaos and hilarity.

I loved this book. I loved how a sympathetic character - Weissman - turned out to be the rapist. I love that Death was an actual character. I love that the survivors didn't all survive.

I love that Death adopts a little girl, sort of. That, I've discovered, is one of my fiction kinks. Give me Death adopting a human, and I will fall in love with your book.

I love that there show more are regular people and crazy people and different kinds of zombies and I love that it seems like this is just one book in a bigger story.

Of course, it had its problems. POV shifts weren't all that clearly marked, so it'd take a paragraph or two to figure out that there was a shift. There were some scenes that made me cringe at the phrasing in them, and some scenes that needed to be elaborated more.

But overall, this was a superb zombie novel, so awesome that I finished it in a day and I'd read the fuck out of it again. show less

100 years after the dead start to rise the military is abandoning Jefferson Harbor to consolidate their forces inland, leaving the few remaining residents to take care of themselves in a city that is almost completely out of resources. The story follows a police officer as he tries to protect the residents, a female singer who has been left behind, a holy woman as she tries to maintain a shelter, an undead as he hunts through the city with his trusty shovel, a madman who is trying to form show more the dead up into his own personal servants, and Death himself as he tries to deal with an anomoly that is making his job most frustrating.

David Dunwoody's novel isn't your typical zombie story. First, there is the variety of zombies. As they feed they become stronger and faster so there are zombies ranging from the Romero type of lumbering idiot to the fast and deadly variety. Also, there are two distinct types of zombies. One who is risen by the powers of the universe itself, and another type who is infected and can infect others. Another thing that separates this novel from others is the appearance of Death. He is almost like batman in the city of Gotham, a legend come to life. His frustration is obvious and his unique perspective on the situation separates this novel from other zombie works even more. The zombies aren't the only evil within the book. There are also callous men who are only looking out for themselves, a rapist among the few survivors and the Baron's civilized evil gives the book a nice twist.

If you are looking for something new and refreshing in the zombie horror genre then Empire is certainly it. show less

This is a wonderful new take on an old premise. Zombies always get to have their way and you have to run and scream and hope someone shoots them in the head. Now we have one of the best characters ever "on our side". DEATH is so much fun and the only other person who has ever written him this well is Terry Pratchett. High praise indeed. If you want to have a great zombie read, this is the one.

This book was better than the first. It spent more time with Death a.k.a. Adam, which is good since the premise of the series revolved around him. The action scenes are written very well, and the second half of the book is glorious mayhem.

However, the biggest problem I had is the story is too unfocused. There are a lot of good elements here, but not enough time is given developing them. The undead circus and the Omega could have been fleshed out more, and other elements like the British show more plane, the rat king, and the tentacle creature were just one and done.

If you want to read a good zombie story with an interesting concept, I would recommend the Ex-Heroes series over this. show less