‘City of the Dead’ – Brian Keene

Page Count: 357 Pages

Because you can’t just read ‘The Rising’ (I did, over Here) and then not read ‘City of the Dead’ afterwards. That would be just… wrong. Having said that, and funnily enough, I actually read ‘City of the Dead’ before I read ‘The Rising’ first time round. Not ideal but it was all about what was on the shelf at the time. ‘City of the Dead’ does work on its own but it goes without saying that reading the whole thing in order is the way to go. But I’m getting ahead of myself a little here. Let’s start with a little blurb…

Where can you go when the dead are everywhere? Cities have become overrun with legions of the dead, all of them intent on destroying what’s left of the living. Trapped inside a fortified skyscraper, a handful of survivors prepare to make their last stand against an unstoppable, undying enemy. With every hour, their chances diminish and their numbers dwindle, while the numbers of the dead can only rise. Because sooner or later, everything dies. And then it comes back, ready to kill.

The easy thing to do here would be to say that everything that makes ‘The Rising’ such an awesome, compelling read is right there in ‘City of the Dead’ as well, making it a… you guessed it. And I have to give a little nod to that. After all, if something isn’t broken then you don’t mess with it, you just let it keep on going and there are elements of that here.

But I’m not going to take the easy way out here and I suspect that’s probably what Keene was thinking when he settled down to write ‘City of the Dead’. We’re looking at a book that continues to do what ‘The Rising’ did so well but ‘City of the Dead’ is very much its own thing as well, both in the targets that Keene sets for himself and how he hits them.

From where I’m sat, ‘City of the Dead’ is all about digging yourself out of the hole that you’ve found yourself in; whether it’s Keene having to write himself out of the ending to ‘The Rising’ (which I believe was originally meant to draw a line under the whole thing) or Jim Thurmond finding out that Ramsey Towers isn’t the haven that was promised, and having to fight for his son all over again. Keene writes himself out of ‘The Rising’ and into ‘City of the Dead’ with some aplomb, giving us a fresh slant on what we thought happened and throwing even more zombies into the mix, setting a pace that never lets up.

What really struck me though is how Keene signs off at the end, an incredibly bleak book that suddenly ends on a note of hope. Death is inevitable but it may not be the end. Another tough target to hit then; how do you give people hope when the world has all but crumbled? Keene’s characters are one of his strong points and Jim and Frankie really come to the fore here. If people can still love then there’s always hope and Keene shows us this time and time again (even though we may not see it at first) with Jim, Frankie, Martin and the rest go through to protect Danny. Even as the world ends around them. Add in the constant high octane zombie horror and ‘City of the Dead’ becomes a powerful read in its own right.

I’ve got a five hour course to sit through, in the morning, so I’m going to end things here but hopefully you can see why ‘City of the Dead’ will always be on one of my shelves, sat right next to ‘The Rising’. If you enjoy zombie fiction, these two books are essential reading; that’s all there is to it.