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Necropolis Rising

by Dave Jeffery (Goodreads Author)

3.53 of 5 stars 3.53 · rating details · 57 ratings · 15 reviews

It took thirty minutes for the city to die. But their hunger would last forever. The military has sealed the city. No one is getting in. No one is getting out. But a team of cyber-criminals have a job to do. A job that will see them receiving a huge payout if they succeed. Or a bullet if they don't. Once inside the city staying alive proves to be just as difficult as stayi...more

Kindle Edition, 156 pages

Published September 10th 2010 by Disturbed Earth

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Aug 24, 2011 Larry McCloskey rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Necropolis Rising" stars out as your typical zombie fare, but Dave Jeffery does a great job of infusing it with memorable characters and - believe it or not - intrigue (not exactly a staple of the zombie genre).

Birmingham, UK is the site of the latest zombie plague and the military quickly has the city locked down. Good for England, bad for a group of cyber-criminals who have been paid to do a job there by people who aren't too keen on hearing about unforeseen zombie plagues. Faced with the dau...more

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Jun 12, 2011 Mark rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: thrillers, horror

ZOMBIE novels are ten a penny these days, often as not putting the lie into the claimed demand for originality by mainstream publishers, but every so often one of the undead slaughter-fests rears its head to moan a discordant note that puts it outside the dismal pack.

Necropolis Rising, by Dave Jeffrey, is just such a title. The book grabs hold like a zombie and won’t let go until you’ve finished it off. For all that, however, the plot goes far beyond the now standard fare of a small band of surv...more ZOMBIE novels are ten a penny these days, often as not putting the lie into the claimed demand for originality by mainstream publishers, but every so often one of the undead slaughter-fests rears its head to moan a discordant note that puts it outside the dismal pack.

Necropolis Rising, by Dave Jeffrey, is just such a title. The book grabs hold like a zombie and won’t let go until you’ve finished it off. For all that, however, the plot goes far beyond the now standard fare of a small band of survivors seeking to stay alive and find a place of safety in the midst of a dead, zombie-infested civilisation.

Instead, the undead set the stage for an action-packed ride into mayhem, filled with intrigue and betrayal, where the characters have definite objectives beyond the immediacy of staying alive. The end is far from nigh; though it is always there, a lurking shadow of doom, waiting for one terrible mistake.

For Birmingham, the undead apocalypse has arrived, bringing its days as Britain’s second city to a terrifying end, but for the authorities the race is on to ensure that the Apocalypse fails to spread beyond its cordon sanitaire.

Nobody gets in; nobody gets out, but two covert teams are heading into the city nonetheless. Their respective missions are worlds apart, though no less shady in their purpose, but the fates of both teams will be become intertwined if any of them is make it out of the city alive.

O’Connell is a former Royal Marine, drummed out on a dishonourable discharge, who has forged a lucrative career in crime. Hired by an international cartel of organised crime, he’s tasked with a very specific cyber-crime: to make the police’s national DNA database a tool of the criminals rather than the police.

Success demands a covert raid to hack the computer direct, but there’s a problem – the mainframe is located in Birmingham. It’s an added complication to a job for which failure is not an option. Like it or not, he and his team have no choice but to sneak through the military cordon and face the undead.

Shipman on the other hand still serves Queen and Country, but in a darker, more morally dubious capacity, as a covert, special forces operative, used to missions that venture far beyond the pale. The Major’s team has a specific objective in mind: a survivor of the plague who holds the key to a cure and more – if he can be extracted alive.

Both O’Connell and Shipman are in a race against time, and to cap it all, there’s a traitor in their midst who wants the prize for private gain, but as they head towards their objectives, and their desperate need to survive overlaps, they find themselves working together to secure survival.

Behind the scenes, powerful forces are engaged in an internecine web of intrigue to profit and control a bio-weapon of fearsome potential, but their best laid plans depend on the two men leading their teams into the heart of Armageddon, where no plan can stay the course, and only wits and courage can see any of them through.

Jeffrey has written a novel that takes the standard zombie tropes and puts them to refreshing work in the service of the intrigue and deception that reveals itself as the story progresses. Quite how this combines to make for a refreshing addition to the zombie arena would conspire to create too many spoilers here; the surest way to reveal the originality at work is to dive into this action-packed thriller.

The author has revealed that zombie stories still have some life left yet. (less)

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Nov 09, 2011 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

When two members of the Animal Activist League blow up the penthouse apartment of Dr James Whittington, they believe they’re striking a blow against a notorious vivisectionist. What they don’t realise is that Whittington is actually working on a gas which creates zombies and he’s just got a whiff of it - and their explosion is going to introduce the toxin to the good citizens of Birmingham. Once the action kicks off, the book takes in a crack squad of cyber-criminals, military officials determin...more

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Jan 25, 2012 Robert Beveridge rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: owned-and-still-own, ebook

Dave Jeffery, Necropolis, vol. 1: Necropolis Rising (Dark Continents, 2011)

One of my favorite books of last year was Forrest Armstrong's The Deadheart Shelters, so I've started keeping my ear to the same ground that coughed that one up for me to see what it's rumbling about these days. The two books it most recently divulged were Matt Hults' Husk (elsewhere this ish) and Dave Jeffery's Necropolis Rising. The latter is not a bad little book, and I will admit that my rating of it is personal; I kn...more Dave Jeffery, Necropolis, vol. 1: Necropolis Rising (Dark Continents, 2011)

One of my favorite books of last year was Forrest Armstrong's The Deadheart Shelters, so I've started keeping my ear to the same ground that coughed that one up for me to see what it's rumbling about these days. The two books it most recently divulged were Matt Hults' Husk (elsewhere this ish) and Dave Jeffery's Necropolis Rising. The latter is not a bad little book, and I will admit that my rating of it is personal; I knocked it down from “slightly above average” to “dead average” because of a few personal grammatical-nitpicky quirks, which I'll get to eventually.

There's a solid premise here, and half of it you maybe haven't seen before. A genetically-engineered virus has gotten out of its lab and infected much of the city if Birmingham (UK, not US). The military think they've managed to contain it (and a competent military alone would be enough to set this story apart from most zombie tales), but there are a couple of skunks in the works. One of them is a small band of cyber-criminals being very well paid to get into Birmingham's crime lab and plant a virus. They're on a timetable, and if they don't deliver, they die. The other is a mole inside the military itself, planted there by the company engineering the virus to make sure that the one individual seemingly immune to the plague is evacuated and delivered to them.

Not bad, not bad at all. Jeffery combines the bits you do know all too well (ZOMGIMMUNESAVIOR!!!) with the Dave Jeffery Original Programming bits into a fast-paced survival-horror scenario that works most of the time. The problem is that the manuscript could have used a good editor to suggest to Jeffery when word substitutions would have been a good idea (“O'Connell was reviled by such a thought.”) or when he was using an incorrect form of a cliché (“worse case scenario” pops up once). And then there's the biggie. If I had a list of the ten golden rules for spelling and grammar, this would be on it, and if it doesn't bother you as much as it does me, than take this with a grain of salt. But please, Mr. Jeffery, and the hundreds of other writers who have done this: learn the difference between “phase” (a stage or aspect of something) and “faze” (to shock). In Mr. Jeffery's case: there is no such word as “unphased”. And yes, being the little grammar-Nazi bitch that I am, that was enough for me to dock this half a star. It's still getting a recommend, just not as strong as it would have gotten otherwise. ** ½
(less)

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Feb 26, 2012 Sonia rated it 2 of 5 stars

I read this after a recommendation from a friend – plus it was only 86p on Kindle (I think the price may be even lower now!). The same friend had recommended Hollowland, which I had really enjoyed. I do have a soft spot for a good zombie-esque book that’s a bit crap but doesn’t take itself too seriously.

The blurb sounded rather intriguing. The military have sealed off Birmingham completely – noone is getting in and noone (or nothing) is getting out…hopefully. However, there is a gang of crack cy...more I read this after a recommendation from a friend – plus it was only 86p on Kindle (I think the price may be even lower now!). The same friend had recommended Hollowland, which I had really enjoyed. I do have a soft spot for a good zombie-esque book that’s a bit crap but doesn’t take itself too seriously.

The blurb sounded rather intriguing. The military have sealed off Birmingham completely – noone is getting in and noone (or nothing) is getting out…hopefully. However, there is a gang of crack cyber-criminals that need access, and nothing is going to stop them completing their mission and collecting their huge reward. Not even a military crackdown of the area they need to get to.

However, it’s not just the military that they have to contend with. A virus has swept through the city, and the inhabitants are just refusing to stay dead!

Great idea for plot, aye? Usually everyone is just trying to run away from the danger (although even in Hollowland, the heroine was trying to make her way somewhere specific).

Oh my GOD this was awful! The story was OK, but the writing could have been done by my daughter, and the proof-reading…well, that just hadn’t been done at all! There was so much that jarred against me about the writing, grammar, and glaringly obvious plot-mistakes that I couldn’t enjoy the story at all!

For example: “…at fifty nine years of age, George Mitchell had fallen in love…” but in the next paragraph “At 25 she was thirty nine years his junior...” Argh!! That’s simple maths!

Another plot mistake: “…the only child of Pauline and Arthur Everett.” but on the next page “…His mum, Joy, was anything but joyful...”. I’d wondered if he’d changed the mum’s name to Joy to avoid the same couple-name as the Fowler’s from Eastenders!

Other proof-reading errors included ‘is’ instead of ‘in’, ‘to’ instead of ‘do’, even ‘Universities’ instead of ‘University’s’ amongst many many more. And if you are going to use Robert De Niro’s name in your book – don’t spell it Nero!!

Awful!!! Perhaps later editions of the book will have all the mistakes taken out, but with them all in, reading this was such hard work I couldn’t even contemplate reading the follow-up!(less)

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May 25, 2012 Kat rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: zombie, 2012-read, updated

Necropolis Rising has some unique points for a zombie book - mad scientists, bio-terrorism, bounty hunters, all in one book - should be any zombiephile's fantasy, right?

Unfortunately the focus of Necropolis Rising, for me, was just a little too Boys Own - heavy on military ops, conspiracy and loyalties that change more often than we change our socks, I spent most of this book either confused or feeling completely disconnected from the characters, who were all far too indistinguishable from each...more

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Jan 17, 2013 Jessica rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: zombies

I'm not sure if this book was slow in the beginning or if it just took me a little longer to get into the story but once things picked up (or I got into the story) I really did enjoy this book. There are some formatting issues as well as grammatical issues but those could be easily fixed in a second edition with a really good editor. If you are willing and can overlook them then give this book a read. No, it isn't the best ever written but this author has potential.

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Nov 13, 2010 Stuart Neild rated it 5 of 5 stars

Nowadays zombie books, like zombie movies, are ten a penny, so something really special has to come along before it stands knee head to the rest of the crowd, never mind head and shoulders above. The good news is Necropolis Rising, does indeed stand head and shoulders above the rest of the zombie fare. It’s like the zombie film you wish Romeo would make. Fingers crossed he, or someone else, one day will make a film of this one. Until then enjoy the class read.

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Mar 19, 2012 Tracy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: zombie, horror

This was a different type of zombie book to the usual fare. It was set in the UK which I quite enjoyed and the first chapter got my attention and the rest of the book held my attention. Sure there were some grammatical errors but they didn't spoil my enjoyment of roaring along with the story. Good job - looking forward to the follow up novel.

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Sep 24, 2011 Dean Owen rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Zombie Apocalypse starts in Birmingham.

Professional-quality writing, excellent characterisation.

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Jun 09, 2011 Padre rated it 3 of 5 stars

Not as original as I hoped, but readable. Waiting for part 2.

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May 24, 2011 ChristinaJL rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: kindle, sci-fi

Interesting British zombie story with a bit of a twist. Very readable.

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May 16, 2012 Mark rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

a good straightforward story set in against the backdrop of an emerging zombie breakout.

my favorite part is the idea of a stadium full of City and Villa fans all been zombified on derby day then being let loose on the rest of the city! Genius.

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Jun 13, 2011 Neil rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: kindle, horror

Good tale of a zombie plague in Birmingham, UK let down in parts by typos and errors but still a hugely enjoyable read.

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Oct 06, 2011 Anne rated it 1 of 5 stars

i got really board with this book :(

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Jun 04, 2013 Dana marked it as to-read

Jun 04, 2013 wingdreams pheung rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1returned-l, a-zombies-virus-apocalypse

May 28, 2013 Greg added it · review of another edition

May 28, 2013 Adam Light marked it as to-read

Shelves: books-i-own-tbr, horror, series, zombies

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Shelves: 1-kindle-loanable-titles

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Mar 13, 2013 Itsatushy Garland rated it 3 of 5 stars

Mar 12, 2013 Lexi added it · review of another edition

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About Dave Jeffery

Dave Jeffery is perhaps best know for his zombie novel Necropolis Rising which has gone on to be a UK #1 Bestseller. His Young Adult work includes the critically acclaimed Beatrice Beecham Series, BBC: Headroom endorsed Finding Jericho and the 2012 Edge Hill Prize longlisted Campfire Chillers short story collection. His story Daddy Dearest features in the award winning Holiday of the Dead zombie a...more

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