Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

City of the Dead (The Rising #2)

by Brian Keene (Goodreads Author)

3.79 of 5 stars 3.79 · rating details · 2,700 ratings · 149 reviews

This terrifying new novel picks up where The Rising leaves off after a plague has turned nearly all of America's population into zombies.

Mass Market Paperback, 357 pages

Published May 25th 2005 by Leisure Books

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

The Walking Dead, Vol. 1 by Robert Kirkman

Zombies!

28th out of 800 books — 2,539 voters

Best Zombie Books

50th out of 388 books — 885 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Feb 27, 2008 Rob rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Not even people that I hate.

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. If you read my review of 'The Rising', the first book in this collection, well then you know exactly what I will think of 'City of the dead'

Miraculously, City of the Dead manages to be even more so terrible than the rising. Lashings upon lashings of depressingly bad dialogue between characters, stupidly over the top gory scenes and overall, a completely moronic plot with more god references than the last book managed to squeeze in, which is quite an achievement.

Notable crapness:

A homeless person...more

like 9 likes · see review

Apr 25, 2008 Kristen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror

Before we begin - This is the Sequel to "The Rising" and should be read in that order. If you have yet to read "The Rising" stop reading now because what is in these reviews will be spoilers when reading the first in the series.

Now for the Summary - Keene rewinds a bit in the opening of this book, recapping the final chapter of "The Rising" where we were all left in that upsetting cliffhanger. He then continues on from there with an ever growing and shrinking group of scrappy survivors. At this...more Before we begin - This is the Sequel to "The Rising" and should be read in that order. If you have yet to read "The Rising" stop reading now because what is in these reviews will be spoilers when reading the first in the series.

Now for the Summary - Keene rewinds a bit in the opening of this book, recapping the final chapter of "The Rising" where we were all left in that upsetting cliffhanger. He then continues on from there with an ever growing and shrinking group of scrappy survivors. At this point they have now crossed 5 states, escaped the psychotic military troupes, run from the Zombie leader "Ob" and continued on into New Jersey. In this installment (the final installment at the point of my writing this), the group spends most of the first half of the book running like heck, then being rescued by another group of survivors holed up in a supposedly indestructible skyscraper. Shockingly enough, the man in charge of the skyscraper has lost his mind (sounds like something you've seen on the TV doesn't it... well you're right). To prevent what might be any spoilers, I won't go beyond there.

But odds are, if you are reading this book, you like Zombies... which would also imply that you like Zombie movies, which would then mean... you've already watched this book. The first 3rd of the book is standard run from the Zombie fare... the second 2/3 of the book is an almost exactly the same as George Romero's "Land of the Dead." Now as to who ripped off who... according to Amazon, both were released in 2005 so it's a toss up. All I'm saying is that the majority of the book is the same as the majority of that movie. I was really disappointed in that aspect. I had really been hoping for something new and inspired, unfortunately if you've seen the movie, it's not.

Does that mean this is a terrible book? By no means, it's a heart pounding thrill ride from beginning to end that never lets up for a second. I blazed through the 360 some pages in about 3 hours. I enjoyed the read; Keene is a very fast paced writer. I just know I would have enjoyed it more had I not seen such a similar film.
(less)

like 6 likes · see review

Jan 15, 2008 Greg rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I thought the ending of The Rising fit the novel very well. The reader know what would happen next, Keene didn't need to write the scene. However, there were many cries of foul, demanding a sequel to a book the author thought was finished. Eventually, this sequel was written, but I don't think it adds much. A few more details, a few more explanations, but nothing new. I don't mean to sound petulant, but City of the Dead is little more than a 300 page epilogue. It...more

like 2 likes · see review

Feb 28, 2009 Dreadlocksmile rated it 5 of 5 stars

Brian Keene's `City Of The Dead' is the sequel to the post-apocalyptic zombie novel `The Rising'. The novel begins by reliving word for word the last chapter of `The Rising'. This is because the novel takes off from exactly where `The Rising' ended (with its nail biting cliffhanger). From here on in, the novel races ahead with building tension as the survivors join up with others within a massive fortified building.

New characters are soon introduced whilst others are soon killed off. Keene mana...more

like · see review

Nov 27, 2012 Justin rated it 2 of 5 stars

When I picked up the sequel to one of my now-favorite books, I was thrilled at the chance to continue the story from it's cliffhanger ending. Unfortunately, I was extremely disappointed by the second book in this series.

According to an author's note at the beginning of the book, Brian Keene received complaints about the ending of the first book. I can't attest to having any such qualms myself, and I now find myself wishing he'd have just left that story where it was. City of the Dead not only fa...more

like · see review

Apr 06, 2012 B. Pope rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is a continuation of Keene's novel The Rising. It has some of the same characters I discussed before like Jim, Frankie and Martin, but adds some new characters to the mix too. And where the first book was a lot like a 28 Days Later, with the people in it running and hiding and even getting mixed up with a fanatical militia group, this one is more a Land of the Dead, with the characters bunkering down in a New York skyscraper.

New characters from the novel include two ex-marines, a billi...more

like · see review

Jan 05, 2012 C. rated it 3 of 5 stars

Very action-packed. My favorite scenes were the descriptions of the small "community" living together in the fortified skyscraper as the world they knew crumbled outside. The demon mythology about how the dead came back was very intriguing ... except that nothing panned out regarding it. I expected some of Reverend Martin's warnings from the beyond, his pointers on how to prevent the apocalypse from succeeding, to be used in the climax. It wasn't.

Also, after all Jim Thurmond went through to save...more

like · see review

Aug 24, 2011 Luthien rated it 1 of 5 stars

This is the sequel to "the rising", written due to readers demands.
Sometimes I wish writers wouldn't listen to us. The ending of the first book was perfect... (sigh).
Even though Keene does a good job of summarising the first book in the first chapter, they really should be read in order.
Spoilers about the first book ahead...
Jim, Frankie and Martin are survivors in a world infested with zombies. These are not regular zombies, but actually demons who came from an alternate dimension, and now are t...more

like 1 like · see review

Jul 17, 2011 That70sheidi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, horror, sci-fi, series

Well. I gave a good review to the first one, and I still really love all creatures great and small becoming zombies and human zombies using guns and cars and all that. And I really, really love the ending. I think I'd have liked everything in between a bit more if the audiobook narrator wasn't so breathless and melodramatic every second. On the one hand, the accents and voices for each character were distinctive and well done, but on the other hand it seemed to cheapen the plot.

Danny was infini...more

like · see review

Mar 20, 2011 Creature rated it 3 of 5 stars

Greeting fellow Bibliophiles:
What can I say, I love a good Horror book and "City of the Dead" is a real page turner. I think I devoured this book in only about 6 days which for me is quick reading.
It is the story of a father and son (Jim and Danny) thrown into a horrible situation with a few rag-tag survivors of a world gone mad and crawling with what appears to be an army of the undead. Where to go? Is there anyplace that is safe? These are the questions that there can be no simple solution...more

like · see review

Nov 05, 2010 Patrick D'Orazio rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is essentially a review of both "The Rising" and "City of the Dead" as I read both books within 2 days after ordering them from Amazon. I had no lag between the ending of the first story and the beginning of the second which allows me to consider them as one work.

This is the first works of Brian Keene that I have picked up and I certainly can say his writing style is amply satisfying and his storyline kept me drawn in from start to finish. While the characters are much more detailed in the...more This is essentially a review of both "The Rising" and "City of the Dead" as I read both books within 2 days after ordering them from Amazon. I had no lag between the ending of the first story and the beginning of the second which allows me to consider them as one work.

This is the first works of Brian Keene that I have picked up and I certainly can say his writing style is amply satisfying and his storyline kept me drawn in from start to finish. While the characters are much more detailed in the first book, he attempts to cover a much larger group of people in the second book and does an adequate job. Not great mind you, but adequate. He covers the needed ground while remaining on target and staying fixed on the story at hand started with the first.

I am a fan of zombies. Traditional zombies and zombie derivatives but I can in no way claim that I have any more than a fascination for the concept. I am not an expert nor do I feel that someone has violated some sort of unwritten "code" of zombie conduct by tweaking them or adding to their abilities to find a new and different audience. I do give credit for stretching the concept beyond perceived barriers and fleshing it out in more detail. Mr. Keene does so here and I give him kudos for his creativity with these creatures. With that said, while reading these books I realized that I was not in fact reading books on zombies at all, but on demons, pure and simple. I must admit outside of the writings of Stephen King and a few other authors I am not a rabid horror fan, but I feel that I can discern the difference between monster archtypes. Souless mindless zombies these creatures most certainly are not. They simply wore the "skin" of zombies but have the internal structure of something entirely different.

I like the idea of zombies probably more for the apocalyptic flair and realistic potential of a zombie threat; while highly improbably that the dead shall walk, a disease or biological attack that creates an army of shambling (or running) mindless eating machines scares me a great deal. The fact that they are lacking in any real cognitive functioning, focused on one goal, and nothing short of anihilation can stop them, holds the appeal for me.

Thus, these works are certainly not, for me, zombie stories. WHY the Keene Zombies eat flesh is clearly laid out and while it is an abomination and scary in its own right, it just does not give me the same feeling of shear stark terror. I guess to me, if demons can possess the empty shell of those whose souls have passed on, that means that God is involved in some way and I can take solace in that. Our souls move on to a better place. This is spelled out clearly in these books and reassures us that there is something better beyond this existence.

Demons are grand and glorious visions of evil, not pedestrian members of our society who have simply been infected and turn into shambling versions of what they once were. Creatures immortal and epic beyond the scope of our mere existence on this plane of being. The shere power of the situation gave me no hope for mankind whatsoever, at least not on this earth, and I had accepted its fate from the outset. The demons can't be stopped-if their shell stops functioning, they just return in another shortly thereafter. Whether infinite or finite, who cares when it only takes a few million to run through the entire population of humans and animals as they return to the flesh over and over again?

Certainly, I was drawn in by the passion with which the characters Jim, Frankie, and Martin have. The author has given them all a reason to fight and to try to remain alive for as long as possible (I have a five year old son myself and believe me, I would fight to my last breath to keep him safe under any circumstances), but there seemed little possibilty other than the end result of "City of the Dead" with how the story and Demon lore was laid out. The author could have elaborated further at the end as to the results on earth with the three demon forms, but to have taken a different path with the main characters would have seemed unfeasible, at least in my mind. Some stories you read for the twists, some you read because there is a satisfying frission at the end that comes with completion of a highly enjoyable tale. With this story, I felt a mix of many emotions but there was no true satisfaction or wince of desire to return to this realm in any way, shape, or form. No twists that made me go "oh wow!" or dramatic ending that made me feel good or disturbed or craving of more. I liked the main characters but they really seemed to fade away rather than put any sort of real punctuation on the story when it came to a close.

Zombies are more scary than these demons, in my estimation. Perhaps it is because you can look into the eyes of a zombie and see a souless entity that cares not a wit for you or anything else besides its undeniable and insatiable need for flesh. That you may be devoured with no promise for an afterlife and you just do not know if your soul does pass on or if perhaps remains trapped in your corrupted flesh is scariest of all. With these demons, your soul escapes. With zombies, there is as much a chance that they are the wrath of God as they are the wrath of satan or just of man's own foolishness and science run amok. I guess in the end, I like the idea of mystery. Not knowing allows my fertile imagination run wild. Knowing all the details and further knowing that my soul will be preserved and go to a better place would be imminently satisfying if I were inside the story, but as a reader, it doesn't give me much to dwell on or think about any further than that.

Overall, I liked the writing style, give points for creativity with the creatures, but in the end the demons and the story left me flat.(less)

like 1 like · see review

Jun 10, 2010 Tumbleweed rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2000-2008

I bought this book a few years ago from a library book sale, and didn't realize until I had already started reading it that it was not a singular book, but book two of a series.
It was also my first introduction to zombies, and for a middle schooler who has just discovered bad animes like Inuyasha, there's nothing more boring.

Perhaps it is for these reasons that I hated the book. Perhaps it really is a bad book and my dislike for it was intuition. Perhaps it's actually a fairly decent book. In...more

like · see review

Jun 04, 2010 you know that you want my books ;) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: zombie

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. While I hated the zombie pigeons Keene's work was much like diet stephen king. Not as pleasing as the real thing but you can learn to like it.

The demons and the alternate dimension in which they are imprisoned reminds me of Toc from King's books. In his other works he expands upon the idea of this ancient race and the hope for mankinds fall.

The thing that I like the most was the zombies were a metaphor for death. It doesn't matter how strong,rich,smart, or good you are death will get you in the...more

like · see review

Mar 31, 2010 Carmaletta Hilton rated it 1 of 5 stars

I liked the first one, but this one... I didn't like this at all. I forced my way through most of it, and only skimmed the second half. The dreams gave it a kind of "The Stand" feel that was off and just didn't work for me. As I read Frankie's dreams, I kept thinking, "Huh. This was so much better in The Stand." Danny annoyed me within two pages of meeting him and a lot of it just seemed overdone. The stuff with the doctor was disgusting. A lot of modern horror just seems like an excuse to write...more

like · see review

Mar 24, 2010 Heather rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book was a powerhouse of action. You hardly had a moment to catch your breath in between the attacks and battles. As fun as the first one, The Rising, but even more brutal and graphic. Full of good characters fighting the good fight, and with a healthy dose of unscrupulous and mentally unstable characters alike, you never know what's going to happen next.

This book picks up where The Rising left off. Jim has just made it to his son's home, and the zombies are closing in outside. The book ope...more

like · see review

Dec 16, 2009 DJMikeG rated it 2 of 5 stars

Warning: Contains Spoilers

I'm a big fan of most of Brian Keene's work, and I especially like his first book, "The Rising", to which this book is a sequel. I can't say I liked this one very much. This book picks up right where the first one left off (one of the most agonizingly suspenseful endings ever). Keene lays on the action, mayhem, and stomach churning gore liberally, but there is such a thing as too much of a 'good' thing. This one is so chock full of violence that it actually becomes alm...more

like · see review

Aug 04, 2011 Neil Sinclair rated it 2 of 5 stars

So another Brian Keene book. um.. despite calling he undead zombies - they aren't - one of my biggest peeves with this series. The corpses are demon possessed. zombies in my opinion are not animated by the spirits of evil beings banished by God invading our dimension. Zombies don't sit around and chat, drive HumVee's and use rocket launchers (unless they are re-animated like in "Dead Eyes Open" ) then there is necrophilia, one castration "just because the zombies could" etc etc. near the end of...more

like · see review

Nov 11, 2011 Malbon rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: bad-horror, don-t-bother

City of The Dead gets one star because Goodreads makes me give it something or it doesn't think I read it. It deserves a big fat zero. It's an unrelenting assault of a novel that uses "nauseous disgust" as the definition of horror. If this book was your first try in the horror genre, or the zombie genre, or the reading genre, it will make damn sure you never try again.

Where to begin on City of the Dead? Where do you start on what might be the worst novel ever written? Oh, I know: zombie bondage...more City of The Dead gets one star because Goodreads makes me give it something or it doesn't think I read it. It deserves a big fat zero. It's an unrelenting assault of a novel that uses "nauseous disgust" as the definition of horror. If this book was your first try in the horror genre, or the zombie genre, or the reading genre, it will make damn sure you never try again.

Where to begin on City of the Dead? Where do you start on what might be the worst novel ever written? Oh, I know: zombie bondage fucking.

Let me say it again, because it's almost a little poem. Zombie bondage fucking. Kind of rolls off the tongue, doesn't it. I'm not apologising. Are you offended by my use of the word fuck? Were you thinking of reading this? Giving it to your children as a gift? Zombie. Bondage. Fucking.

Now if that doesn't turn you off, if you think a little hardcore necro-porn might be just up your alley, let me go on: talking zombies. Yes, the zombies talk. You might say, hey, talking zombies, that's new and inventive, a talking zombie might give a new insight to a well-worn concept. What might a zombie say to you, given the awesome power of speech?

The answer: "I'm going to eat your face!", and things to that effect. Oh, and they talk to each other. A lot. Most of the dialogue in the book is zombies talking to one another or their leader, who resembles Evil Ash from Army of Darkness. In fact, it's pretty much Evil Ash and his army of the dead attacking the skyscraper from Die Hard, but without any of the charm, and humour of either movie. Instead, you replace plot with horrible unending scenes of torture and death in exquisite detail. Wooden, faceless characters act for no reason except that the book said they had to do that, and there's a "spunky black badass hooker" character who seems to have been stolen completely intact from a '70's Blaxploitation movie.

Oh, and zombie birds. And zombie rats. And presumably zombie turtles, fish and penguins too.

Oh, and, SPOILER ALERT! Everybody dies. Everybody. And by the time they do, all you feel is relief that every human being on Earth is dead.(less)

like · see review

Oct 06, 2009 Robert rated it 3 of 5 stars

2nd in the series, continues with the backstory from the first, including the last chapter from the first book taken as the first chapter to this one. Instead of people avoiding zombies randomly (a construction worker, preacher, ex-prostitute, guilt-ridden scientist) this one has them all congregating in a building built by a genius billionaire who begins to develop a god-complex and is slowly going insane. Again another brilliant, jump into human nature. When I say it's light reading, I only me...more

like · see review

Apr 14, 2009 Patrick rated it 3 of 5 stars

Sometimes when I see another zombie novel, I feel like impersonating Christpher Walken's character in the Saturday Night Live Sketch, where Will Ferrill attempts to join the band by clanging on the cowbell for the band, Blue Oyster Cult, "Don't Fear the Reaper."

Except, I would have said, "After Thunder and Ash, Zombie Blonde, The History of the Dead, Patient Zero, Dying to Live, Plague of the Dead, what we really need is....more zombie novels!"

The Rising, The City of the Dead, and Dead Sea, ar...more

like 1 like · see review

Jun 28, 2011 William M. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror

3 AND 1/2 STARS.

City of the Dead, the sequel to The Rising, is a slightly better entry than Keene's first zombie epic. It has all the usual things one would want in this type of genre - incredibly fast paced action, gore galore, lots of death, and some twists to the zombie mythology. Herein lies my one problem with the book. I would be more satisfied to have more mystery about the zombies/demons instead of being told ever single detail about the "rules" of why the undead are taking over. The tal...more

like · see review

Nov 09, 2009 Jennie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2009

Gross, but entertaining! (I don't know what that says about me). I didn't really like The Risen which City of The Dead follows on from, as I skipped through after struggling to get into it. I then picked up this book, not realising that it was a follow up.

These books have a high gore factor, and don't get too attached to a character cause chances are they will be killed off (horribly).

I liked having a clearer (to me) explanation of the "Zombies" and how they came to be. Of course most of this...more

like · see review

Jul 30, 2011 Andre Higgins rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was a great sequel to The Rising. I love the fact that the zombies are created from something more akin to demon possession, that was a different and welcomed approach. The ending was nicely worked up to. Good pacing and somewhat of a page turner. This is my second book from Brian Keene and makes me want to read more. On a more negative note, the zombies are not as present in this sequel as in The Rising. That could be a let down for zombie fans. But I still liked it a lot. I think that you...more

like · see review

Apr 27, 2013 Carol added it

Mostly spoilers
Sequel to the popular 'The Rising', this continues exactly where its predecessor finishes. The author was pressurised into writing a sequel and did so(view spoiler)...more

like · see review

Jun 02, 2011 Melissa Wise rated it 2 of 5 stars

It was an acceptable zombie sort of book. I never actually bonded with any of the characters, so it didn't really bother me much. In all fairness though, I read this book without reading any of the previous and this is apparently a series. That can make a big difference. I think the various tweaks from more typical zombie stories make the odds of survival seem even more impossible. I think I needed something to say there is/was a chance for survival and I just didn't get that. All in all, I have...more

like · see review

Apr 16, 2012 L.A. Taylor rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this a couple of years ago, but overall I liked it. Brian Keene's zombies aren't like the ones I would use in my novels. They are just like you or me, but they do eat you. In this novel for instance, a dead corpse is awakened by some kind of evil spirit of a recently killed dead person. It's a bit crazy, but the dead enemy can run, talk, drive, shoot....So us live people find it really hard to escape...
Overall, this is a fast paced humans v's the undead kind of story, with some cool twist...more

like · see review

Mar 12, 2012 Outerspace Andrea rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror-thrillers

Yes, yes, yes, and yes, Brian Keene does it again! I enjoyed this book as much as its prequel “The Rising”. Once more we have a fast paced roller coaster ride of a plot full of blood dripping viscera, sex (including necrophilia, to forewarn those who need forewarning), death, and demonic zombies. Our original cast’s plight continues on with some newbies acquired along the way, and more awful trials to endure and attempt to survive. The zombie causation is explained more thoroughly in this novel...more

like · see review

Jun 04, 2012 Paulo Carvalho rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror, zombies, apocalyptic-post-apocalyptic

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This two books are for me just one. I've read them in my holidays, one after each other.

We learn quickly that the world went insane when some scientists working in one of those secret weapons laboratories experimented with a new particle accelerator. Whoops. The experiment had all sorts of important functions, at least on paper, but warnings that strange incidents could take place went largely ignored by the technicians involved in the project. When reports began surfacing about the recently dea...more

like · see review

Nov 19, 2011 Dustin Reade rated it 3 of 5 stars

I don't know what to think of this book. Parts of it were pretty incredible, but there was so much preaching going on it hurt the story. Keene is obviously a Christian, and that is fine. But I found the constant religious stuff pretty redundant after a while. And the ending? Well, I don't want to give anything away but when I read a book that ends this way I usually feel a little cheated, like I invested all that time into the story for nothing.
Don't get me wrong. I liked this book. But only li...more

like · see review

Aug 31, 2010 Dan C. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010-book-challenge, zombie

City of the Dead is the sequel to Brian Keene's Bram Stoker Award winning novel The Rising. I read The Rising a couple of years back after I picked it up at a used bookstore here in town. I knew that it was a zombie book, but I was hesitant. Zombie fiction is a notoriously tough nut to crack. Most of what little I have bothered to read has been dreadfully boring. Even World War Z didn't really do it for me, which is really saying something. But The Rising, simply put, rocked. It was gory and sca...more City of the Dead is the sequel to Brian Keene's Bram Stoker Award winning novel The Rising. I read The Rising a couple of years back after I picked it up at a used bookstore here in town. I knew that it was a zombie book, but I was hesitant. Zombie fiction is a notoriously tough nut to crack. Most of what little I have bothered to read has been dreadfully boring. Even World War Z didn't really do it for me, which is really saying something. But The Rising, simply put, rocked. It was gory and scary and intriguing and had a killer opening scene. It had zombified animals as well as humans. And these zombies were not your typical slow, lumbering Romero zombies, but they also weren't the Danny Boyle 28 Days Later fast zombies either. These zombies were smart. They could talk. They could drive cars. They could shoot guns. They broke ALL the cardinal zombie rules according to Dan. It was a recipe for failure that instead, served up something so delectable that I could hardly believe it.

City of the Dead picks up right where The Rising left off, and because it had been so long since I had read The Rising, I had to go read the plot recap at Wikipedia. With it all coming back to me now, I dove into City of the Dead. A group of survivors of the zombie apocalypse has made their way from West Virginia to New Jersey in search of Jim Thurmond's young son. By the time City of the Dead opens, the undead population outnumbers the living by a staggering proportion. However, these zombies are not what they seem. As it turns out, a particle acceleration experiment has ripped an interdimensional hole in the universe which has allowed a demon race known as the Siqqusim to enter our world and possess the dead. The fact that the reanimated dead are possessed by demons is a cool idea and goes a long way toward explaining the intelligence that the zombie hordes possess.

Surrounded on all sides in the suburban New Jersey home where they find Thurmond's son, Danny, they make a narrow escape (an absolutely thrilling series of scenes) that eventually leads them to lower Manhattan and Ramsey Tower. It's designer, billionaire Darren Ramsey, declares it to be completely impregnable and therefore, the perfect fortress against the 99.9% of the Big Apple that is now rotting and possessed by Siqqusim. Clearly, Ramsey has never heard of the unsinkable Titanic because the building is not quite as sealed off as it might appear, especially once the leader of the Siqqusim, Ob, starts rallying heavy artillery and tanks.

The chain of events in a novel like City of the Dead is completely predictable, but you're not there to be surprised by the plot. In the hands of a lesser writer, it'd be a tosser. But Keene has mastered this kind of writing. Instead of being bored by the predictable plot and characters that veer a little too hard into cliche at times, I was intrigued not so much by what-happens-next as by how what-happens-next happens. The smart zombies really work even though for me, they really shouldn't. Their intentions are clear (kill all humans by whatever means possible) and they really are pure and unadulterated evil. The writing is graphic and bloody and gory. So vivid are the descriptions of what's taking place in the novel that what's usually necessary to really seal the deal with zombies - the visuals - are rendered superfluous. You can see it in your head. And that is why good zombie fiction is so hard to find. Usually, you need the visuals. With Keene's zombie novels, you simply don't.

It's been a long time since I read a book this quickly - it really held my attention and interest. It's not great literature or anything, but who says a good book has to be? Fans of zombies and horror fiction in general will certainly enjoy both The Rising and City of the Dead. They are leaps and bounds better than some of the other mid-level horror fiction I've read and the best zombie fiction I've read. Of note, Keene has also written another unrelated zombie novel, Dead Sea, which features more traditional slow zombies which is a hell of a read as well.(less)

like 1 like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (9)

More editions...

Genres

Horror

166 users

Horror > Zombies

128 users

Science Fiction > Apocalyptic

19 users

Apocalyptic > Post Apocalyptic

14 users

Fantasy > Paranormal

4 users

Fantasy

4 users

Adventure > Survival

3 users

Science Fiction Fantasy

3 users

Novels

3 users

Adult

2 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

Monster Nation
by David Wellington
Dead City
by Joe McKinney
Eden: By Tommy Arlin
by Tony Monchinski
Blood Crazy
by Simon Clark
Dying to Live: Life Sentence
by Kim Paffenroth

About Brian Keene

BRIAN KEENE is the author of over twenty-five books, including Darkness on the Edge of Town, Take The Long Way Home, Urban Gothic, Castaways, Kill Whitey, Dark Hollow, Dead Sea, and The Rising. He’s also written comic books such as The Last Zombie, Doom Patrol and Dead of Night: Devil Slayer. His work has been translated into German, Spanish, Polish, Italian, French and Taiwanese.

Several of his n...more

More about Brian Keene...

Books by Brian Keene

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About City of the Dead

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

title link	preview: City of the Dead
avg rating	preview: City of the Dead Goodreads rating: 3.79 (2700 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/90577.City_of_the_Dead?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348120199l/90577.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/90577.City_of_the_Dead?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]City of the Dead by Brian Keene[/url]

City of the Dead (The Rising #2)

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website