By Brian Keene
I recently attended the 2014 World Horror Convention in Portland,
Oregon. That was an vastly enjoyable event that I could write a huge
article about and just might at a later time. The Grand Master was Brian
Keene and in the introduction at the opening ceremony, the presenter
referred to Keene’s book
The Rising as, along with Robert Kirkman’s
Walking Dead franchise, the main catalyst for the modern zombie craze. To which Keene shouted out, “Sorry about that!”
Brian
Keene in his wry way has a point. Zombies have been turned in to a bit
of a literary plague. You can’t walk through the book store without
bumping into a zombie book. Netflix Streaming is inundated with B
through Z movies featuring zombies. Yet Keene has nothing to be ashamed
of .
The Rising breathed new life into old zombies, giving them
a wicked little twist. It’s a twist presented at the beginning of the
story and pretty much drives and dooms everything to come. But most of
all it gives some interesting protagonists a fresh terror to fight their
way through, turning this horror novel into a terrifying
post-apocalyptic adventure.
The Rising’s slant on the
zombie genre is that Keene’s zombies aren’t really true zombies. At
least not the “Arrgh Urrgh” type that mindlessly limp and crawl to get
to your brain. The monsters of
The Rising are actually corpses
possessed by an ancient demonic race called the Siqqusim. This race was
exiled into The Void millenniums ago and due to a scientific experiment
gone wrong (of course) have returned to Earth to possess all dead bodies
and to destroy all animal life form. Keene’s zombies are actually
repossessed bodies that love to torture, eat and destroy. They are quite
agile, hampered only by the damage to the corpse and quite
intellenigent. When the zombie body is destroyed, by the traditional
means of a head shot, the Siqqusim simply leap into another dead living
form. No animal is immune. Some of the more ghoulishly humorist moments
involve attacks by zombie rabbits and zombie goldfish. The author’s
zombie invasion is not just a zombie apocalypse but the end of the
universe as we know it which is hinted at then explained in more detail
by the second volume.
Keene’s cast of survivors tend to be fairly
stereotypical but likeable and worthy of the reader’s support. Jim is
caught up early into the zombie apocal-mess and after his brief period
of disbelief and shock, his primary goal is to return to New Jersey to
save his son Danny. He is joined by a variety of interesting characters
including ex-junkie Frankie and conflicted preacher Martin. There are
also a few human villains they need to tackle but the emphasis is on the
undead variety. The leader of the Siqqusim is Ob and he is the source
of our information of this ancient demonic race. The author has
borrowed extensively from ancient myths and legends and have created a
mythos that has a similar feeling of dread and hopelessness that
Lovecraft created with his Chtulhu Mythos. But I will deal more with
this when I discuss the second book.
Overall, Keene has created a
realistic horror fantasy world that will entertain the most jaded
horror fan. This was his first novel and it shows especially in the
characters’ narrow dimensions. Yet there is a strong level of dynamic
tension that goes into making a tense edge-of-your-seat horror
adventure. Then there is that ending. Without giving it away, it is very
open-ended. The author, in his introduction, claims he did not mean for
it to be that way but it appears that his interpretation for the ending
did not quite translate to the reader in print. As he explains in the
introduction, this led his readers to demand a sequel and eventually he
wrote
City of the Dead.
City of the Dead starts exactly where
The Rising
ended. Jim have retrieved Danny, who has managed to survive his own
nightmare of possessed corpses. Jim, Danny, Martin, and Frankie now have
to battle a zombie horde and find shelter in a basically shelterless
environment. But in New York City, one tower is well lit and may be the
last bastion for humankind. Not only are our heroes headed there but so
is Ob and his demon possessed zombie army of which its soldiers are
astute enough to have tanks and WDMs galore not to mention an air force
of zombie birds. The plot goes full apocalypse leading to a final
battle. The author also writes well about the various human factors
which is full of well-meaning and not-so-well-meaning humans and at
least a couple downright wicked and perverse participants.
This
takes us to an important theme not only in this book but in a variety of
Keene’s other works. Referred to as the Labyrinth Mythos, Keene
incorporates overlapping ideas into what he calls a meta-epic. Through
subtle hints in both books we realize this end of the world scenario is
taking place on Earth but not our Earth. The author is seeding his books
with an idea of parallel Earths, each one of them threatened by some
kind of Apocalyptic horror and most, if not all, having to do with
ancient horrors of Lovecraftian proportions being unleashed. This pulls
his novels together. While this was only hinted to in
The Rising,
City of the Dead
brings out the inevitability of destruction to its awful and logical
conclusion. Intentionally or not, it makes one think about the
uncertainty of our own existence on our own earth. Maybe not zombies
but what about meteors, super volcanoes, and our own man-made
contribution, Nuclear Winter? I bet the dinosaurs thought they would be
here forever too.
The third and last book is titled
The Rising: Selected Scenes From the End of the World
and it is basically just that. There are 33 very short tales taking
place during the time of the first two books. A few have characters from
the previous novels and gives us a little more insight but most are
fast terror-takes: action, camera, fade-out. They are quite intriguing
to read and Keene has some really memorable bits of writing in some of
these stories. Yet they really do not add much to the first two books.
“Pocket Apostle” does give us an insightful look at a minor character
from
The Rising and I really likes the idea of trapping a
zombie and reading a book to him as described in “Spoilers“. Yet
overall, this is a book is a light dessert. You will want to have the
main courses first.
So altogether, The Rising Trilogy makes for a
epic battle of man vs. zombie and is an essential read for those who
want to prepare themselves for the next zombie holocaust. Let’s face it.
The Zombie novel is here to stay and the influence of Brian Keene’s
The Rising trilogy will be a formidable one.
Dutch writer Herman Koch is one of those
authors who write exquisite prose even if you feel you want to wash your
hands after reading it. His characters are far from perfect and border
between very imperfect and downright sleazy. Yet they wander amongst the
privileged crowd; artist, doctors, producers who exude a shallow tide
of civilization along with the well-hidden skeletons. Whatever your
opinion of the uncomfortable topic which is slowly revealed in the
novel, Koch's prose reels you in and immerses you into the plot like
sirens off the shore.
