This is another one of those books/authors that I found out about through the Twitter-verse. I saw zombies and wild/weird west and I was sold (though this one was another freebie when I picked it up).
Fans of Joe R. Lansdale, Robert Davis, and Adam Millard will love this fast paced tale of the Weird West.
What good is a six-shooter against a horde of the undead?
Nathaniel Caine wants to forget the War and see the frontier, and a trip by stagecoach seems like the perfect way. When the stage pulls into a deserted way station with obvious signs of violence, but a disturbing lack of bodies, he suspects things are going bad. Things go from bad to worse when the passengers fall under attack by people that should be dead, and Caine must call on old skills just to survive. He’ll also need the help of a fellow passenger who knows more than he’s telling if the restless dead are to be put back in the ground.
This book grabbed me from the very beginning. That’s important in a book like this (or perhaps any book really). The action and tension started at a fairly high point within the first few pages. Most of the characters are exactly as deep as they need to be for something like this. There is one character that was a nice surprise, but I won’t spoil said surprise. I don’t think Eric’s breaking really new ground here, but this is pure Saturday afternoon fun.
The thing I appreciate most about this story is that he makes an attempt at least to pay homage to zombieism’s historical roots. These zed heads are a good mix of walkers and their Caribbean ancestors. The latter is mostly for flavor, so it seems to me, but it’s a nice spice.
The writing is good. He kept the pace quick and I was “flipping” pages like mad to see what happened next. The only time I ever stumbled in the reading process was later in the book when he did some abrupt POV shifts. It’s good practice in my opinion to make some kind of hard break when you do that, but it didn’t happen a lot and I picked up and kept right on reading.
This book is now $2.99 at Amazon. The question is, is it worth it? If you want a fun, solid shoot-em up with some scares and a little gore this is the book for you. The only thing cerebral about this are the brains liberally spattered around during the last third.
I give this book four out of five brass cartridges.
Great review. You have to ability to make me want to read books that are totally outside my usual tastes 😀
Excellent! If you do grab it let me know what you think. This one’s TOTALLY in my wheelhouse. I’m interested in someone else’s perspective.