Robert DeCoteau

The New Days: The First Son (A Zombie Tale) by Robert DeCoteau is a great surprise of a story! The surprise is how well written, thought-provoking, captivating, and complex the story is. It is partly a gory zombie tale, part examination of a father-son relationship, and part a "Mad Max" romp through a depressing dystopian future. It satisfies on all these levels. The writing is clear and descriptive. The world-building is detailed, effective and believable. And best of all, the characters show more are realistic, complex, and fascinating - the good guys are a bit bad, and the bad guys are a bit good. I stayed up late reading because I was so involved in the story. My only complaint was that it ended. I hope the author writes more about the New Days. I will buy everything he writes. show less

Don of the Living Dead by Robert DeCoteau is good fun. Don is a bit of a jerk; he is sexist, opinionated, set in his ways, and a bit arrogant. He is not very likeable, but he grows on you. I loved this book, which commences with Don attending to his regular mid-day visit to the office's handicapped stall. He hears strange shuffling, and eventually works out that the zombie apocalypse has occurred. The opening story is truly funny, and actually a bit scary too - I challenge you to not think show more of the book next time you are in the bathroom and someone shuffles in! Don becomes an unlikely leader and perhaps even hero as the story progresses. Good, tongue in the cheek tone, strikes the perfect balance between humor and horror. I have just bought another one of Mr. DeCoteau's books, because I enjoyed this one so much. show less

Don Carver is a bit of a loser. A divorced accountant for a pharmaceutical company, he lives in a studio apartment, has no luck with women and is sitting on the toilet when the zombapocalypse comes knocking on his stall door. Although Don isn’t the typical hero, he picks up a few stragglers and makes his way to his ex-wife’s house to pick up his son and escape the city.

There are some surreal and funny moments in this book – the characters, particularly Don, are realistic and don’t show more have the clichéd ‘hero’ tag. As the story progresses, more of Don’s past is revealed, giving more insight into the character, and other characters are developed into atypical zombie-survivor types and I wanted all of them (perhaps with the exception of Don’s crazy-ex) to make it all the way through to the end. The cause of the zombie virus is explained in good detail, not overwhelmingly science-y but enough to give credibility to the story.

Don of the Living Dead did lose some momentum in the middle of the book and felt a little like going through the motions rather than nail-biting action, but there were some memorable moments that kept me reading just to see how this would all turn out. And it turned out to be a proper ending – hurrah!

There are some spelling/grammatical errors in this book, not enough to make it unreadable but a good editorial or proofreading eye could make this into an excellent book. Mr DeCoteau has a definite future in zombie/horror writing with some unique ideas and a gutsy writing style. show less

Book Info: Genre: Horror short
Reading Level: Young Adult
Recommended for: People who enjoy a suspenseful story that isn't what it seems to be.

My Thoughts: I ended up quite liking this short story, which is mostly set in a psychiatric hospital, so it gave me that extra little delicious shiver over being “trapped” in such a place. However, unlike many books of its ilk, the hospital is not populated completely by psychos, nor are the patients drugged out of their minds. But it is there, so I show more liked that bit.

The only problem with it was that it could have used another editing pass, as there were a lot of errors scattered throughout the book. As an example, a noise was “to loud to bare”, which should have been “too loud to bear”. Missing commas abound as well, leading to run-on sentences that are hard to follow as a result.

However, overall I quite enjoyed the story, especially the twist ending. If you're looking for something bite-sized, see if you can find this one.

Disclosure: I don't remember exactly when I picked this up, but I believe it was a freebie on Barnes & Noble. All opinions are my own.

Synopsis: Jason is a confused young man who was abandoned by his parents at a mental hospital at the age of nine. He struggles with a reoccurring nightmare that may just be the key to finding his sanity. show less