Plague of the Dead

I can't even give it 3 stars because that would indicate it's average - even if only average for a zombie book - but it's not. The zombies are cool, and the plot could have been tight but there was too... much... stupidity.

"They" (who are they? author never tells us) collect a news-broadcaster, lock her up in a damp cell and torture her like she's Osama himself. Since there was nothing in the story that indicates this character knew ANYTHING about ANYTHING, this torture is stupid, but even worse is that she "held out" against it. If you know nothing about something, why hold out? And if you're not a professional terrorist, how could you hold out?

It's frustrating when authors write stereotype behaviors that create some action, but have show more no realistic component. For a specific example: a building is being overrun by zombies, and the city is about to fall to zombies and yet a guy in some black-ops organization spends man-power and time to hunt down some other guy who helped the previously mentioned tortured-for-no-reason victim escape. Anyone not brain-damaged would a) escape or b) help in the defense of his nation/family/city/etc. Nobody is going to go hunt down one guy to "teach him a lesson", at least not if you have to wade through thousands of zombies first.

Oh, and there's also the military guy who has qualms about killing someone who is about to turn into a zombie: 'I can't kill him, he's still human' when in about 30 seconds he's going to try to start munching on you.

Hey, did that zombie LOOK at me? Pass me the gun. show less

This was okay. It didn't add anything new to the genre, and the plot moved fairly slowly. I might pick up the next book to see what happens next, but its pretty far down on my priority list. This book focuses heavily on characters in the military, and I honestly had a hard time differentiating between them, because they all had very little personality. It made the book hard to relate to.

I've been making my way through quite a few zombies novels, and thankfully, this one doesn't (at least not yet) delve into the mystical realm. The zombies here are victims of a nasty virus that incapacitates its victims to the point where they are driven, very aggressively, to spread the virus. As the virus, dubbed the Morningstar Virus, is spread through direct contact via bodily fluids, the virus victims are driven to attack and bite anyone uninfected.

More frightening, the virus is capable of reanimating the bodies after human death - thus survivors have to fight off "sprinters" - the still living carriers - and "shamblers" - the reanimated corpses of carriers.

The narrative follows two groups of survivors: a military scientist who is show more the leading expert on Morningstar and the journalist to whom she "leaks" top secret information about the crisis; and a military group, lead by a general who must get his men and a crowd of refugees away from Africa, where the virus first breaks out.

This was fast-paced and exciting, full of intriguing characters and lots of bloody deaths - yahoo for zombies! show less

Lt. Colonel Anna Demilio of the USAMRIID knows the danger of this new bug dubed the Morningstar Virus.The goverment plays down the advances of the virus in africa despite Demilio's warnings. The story follows the US soldiers (and civies) from Africa to the the USA all the while running from the Morningstar Strain.

The public was not properly notified due to the efforts of the government to hush it up. By time the characters reach the US, it is clear that the virus has hold. This virus infects the living turning you into a mindless flesh eating zombie, but it keeps you alive. These "living zombies" are fast and can chase you down as the never wear out. The other form is the more traditional Romero zombie, slow shamblers. Formerly fast show more zombies (ones killed without a headshot)can be killed the same way any person can, however they will wake up again as shamblers. Shamblers can be killed with a headshot, but inflicting damage anywhere else does not kill them.

This book has everything from an all out assualt and military defenses to close quarters battles and shut in sieges. There is plenty of action to keep you interested and the writting is of solid quality. The only issue maybe that the characters are bit more shallow than I would like. I'm a big fan of indirectly fleshing out characters, its a way of working in little kernels of info on them that will make characters a little bit more real. That's not to say the characters wre not interesting, far from it.

In the end Plague of the Dead intorduce little new to the genre. Even so, Recht managed to take the sacrificial hero, paranoia, and outright terror of survival to twist them into a cohesive and exciting reading experience. This is book that I had a hard time setting down, in my mind that is the best mark of good book. show less

Kearsten says: **Glendale Library doesn't own this one, but if you're interested, you can order it through Interlibrary Loan like I did (just ask a librarian to help ya!)**

I've been making my way through quite a few zombies novels, and thankfully, this one doesn't (at least not yet) delve into the mystical realm. The zombies here are victims of a nasty virus that incapacitates its victims to the point where they are driven, very aggressively, to spread the virus. As the virus, dubbed the Morningstar Virus, is spread through direct contact via bodily fluids, the virus victims are driven to attack and bite anyone uninfected.

More frightening, the virus is capable of reanimating the bodies after human death - thus survivors have to fight show more off "sprinters" - the still living carriers - and "shamblers" - the reanimated corpses of carriers.

The narrative follows two groups of survivors: a military scientist who is the leading expert on Morningstar and the journalist to whom she "leaks" top secret information about the crisis; and a military group, lead by a general who must get his men and a crowd of refugees away from Africa, where the virus first breaks out.

This was fast-paced and exciting, full of intriguing characters and lots of bloody deaths - yahoo for zombies! show less

I can honestly say this is the worst written book I've ever bought on the basis of reviewer praise.
I love the genre - and WWZ is a 5 star book in my estimation - Plague of the Dead is very hard to push through, and my second major disappointment from the publishing company Permuted Press. PP seems to exist only to publish otherwise unpublishable authors of zombie genre fiction. I recommend people steer clear.

Morningstar is a virus that first turns someone into a raving Lunatic (as in 28 Days Later) then, when the die, their bodies are reanimated, and they become zombies--or as the book states it, sprinters and shufflers.

The plot is basic to all zombie novels--the plague hits and humanity has to deal with it. The subtext here is incompetent government vs individual heros. The outbreak occurs in Africa, which is given up as lost, and we follow an Army squadroon as they attempt to keep the strain isolated. They fail of course, and we switch back and forth between the squad and a researcher in Washington, who has been arrested for Knowing and Telling the Truth.

As far as Zombie novels go, this is second tier. A good read, and I liked the show more notion of running and shuffling zombies. The dialog seems a bit stilted, and the subtext is overplayed, but still a good read. show less