Author Website Amazon (UK) Amazon.com Smashwords (ebook), 2014
208 Pages
WHAT IT'S ABOUT
Game of Thrones meets The Walking Dead in this post-apocalyptic zombie series.
Thousands of years after a zombie apocalypse wiped out the majority of humans, the world is a very different and harsh place. It's safest to live behind the fortified walls of the Kingdom of Golden Rock, or it least it had been. Rumours of an army of dead led by a man calling himself The Scholar have proven true, and even the most secure cities are no match for his undead soldiers. The Scholar's goal is to crush the world of the living, but he also wants to capture a simple baker named Saffi, though no one seems to know why.
Saffi's father vows to protect his daughter, and flees The Scholar's path, only to fall prey to other evils of the world outside the walls. In just one day's time, Ward and Saffi's lives will be forever altered, and the secret about why The Scholar wants her will be revealed.
OPENING PARAGRAPH
'I don't want to eat people' said the terrified half-dead. Her wrists were tied behind her back, around the pole in the city square where she would die. 'I'm not one of them. It's a sore. It'll heal'.
WHAT I THOUGHT
I've become quite a fan of A.R. Wise thanks to his Widowsfield trilogy which is among the best horror fiction I've read in recent years.
Among The Dead and Dying is a great start to a new series. I really like post-apocalyptic fiction so this book ticked all the boxes for me. The pacing is excellent and I liked the way the characters developed. I really enjoyed the rather dark and twisted world the author creates. Among the Dead and Dying is packed with tension, action and drama from the start and quite fast-paced. The novel deals with civil rights of the half-dead - people who are almost human but are infected half-zombies who are feared and hated by society. The book is set in the future but at times feels like something set during medieval times because of the way the society in the book is constructed. The revelations at the end of the book make me want to read more. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the books in the Among the Masses series.
I'd highly recommend Among the Dead and Dying for fans of zombie and post-apocalyptic fiction.