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Tomes of the Dead #9
Empire Of Salt
A DREAD TIDE!
The Olivers have a chance to make a new home by the Salton Sea. Looking forward to Californian fun, sun and adventure they are unprepared for the ecological devastation they find. The sea is rotting, the town of Bombay Beach is dying and the citizens are like bait, waiting to be plucked from their homes by what comes from the sea. For just off the coast something lies in wait, a government secret gone wrong, a deadly experiment that has created a breed of zombie like no other.
Beware the coming of the green, the townsfolk say. Beware the coming of the night!
The Olivers have a chance to make a new home by the Salton Sea. Looking forward to Californian fun, sun and adventure they are unprepared for the ecological devastation they find. The sea is rotting, the town of Bombay Beach is dying and the citizens are like bait, waiting to be plucked from their homes by what comes from the sea. For just off the coast something lies in wait, a government secret gone wrong, a deadly experiment that has created a breed of zombie like no other.
Beware the coming of the green, the townsfolk say. Beware the coming of the night!
320 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2010
5 people are currently reading
146 people want to read
About the author
Weston Ochse
129 books295 followersThe American Library Association calls Weston Ochse “one of the major horror authors of the 21 st Century.” He has been praised by USA Today, The Atlantic, The New York Post, The Financial Times of London, Publishers Weekly, Peter Straub, Joe Lansdale, Jon Maberry, Kevin J. Anderson, David Gerrold, William C. Dietz, Tim Lebbon, Christopher Golden, and many more of the world’s best-selling authors. His work has won the Bram Stoker Award, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and won multiple New Mexico Arizona Book Awards.
A writer of nearly thirty books in multiple genres, his military supernatural series SEAL Team 666 has been optioned to be a movie starring Dwayne Johnson and his military sci fi trilogy, which starts with Grunt Life, has been praised for its PTSD-positive depiction of soldiers at peace and at war.
Weston has also published literary fiction, poetry, comics, and non-fiction articles.
His shorter work has appeared in DC Comics, IDW Comics, Soldier of Fortune Magazine, Cemetery Dance, and peered literary journals. His franchise work includes the X-Files, Predator, Aliens, Hellboy, Clive Barker’s Midian, and V-Wars. Weston holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and teaches at Southern New Hampshire University. He lives in Arizona with his wife, and fellow author, Yvonne Navarro and their Great Danes.
A writer of nearly thirty books in multiple genres, his military supernatural series SEAL Team 666 has been optioned to be a movie starring Dwayne Johnson and his military sci fi trilogy, which starts with Grunt Life, has been praised for its PTSD-positive depiction of soldiers at peace and at war.
Weston has also published literary fiction, poetry, comics, and non-fiction articles.
His shorter work has appeared in DC Comics, IDW Comics, Soldier of Fortune Magazine, Cemetery Dance, and peered literary journals. His franchise work includes the X-Files, Predator, Aliens, Hellboy, Clive Barker’s Midian, and V-Wars. Weston holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and teaches at Southern New Hampshire University. He lives in Arizona with his wife, and fellow author, Yvonne Navarro and their Great Danes.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
October 18, 2010
Secret Government lab produces zombies that they hide beneath Salton Sea in California. A new family arrives just as the situation begins to deteriorate and in a single week all hell is unleashed on the populace.
Weston pretty much razes the entire place... he plays no favourites and hammers everyone equally. Pretty brutal and once you get rolling it flies right by.
Weston pretty much razes the entire place... he plays no favourites and hammers everyone equally. Pretty brutal and once you get rolling it flies right by.
June 8, 2011
It's been a while since I read a zombie book. That it's Weston Ochse, who I admire greatly, is probably the only reason why I didn't pick this book up, say "cool cover, cool title" and then put it back down.
Turns out, EMPIRE OF SALT is great fun. Ochse has an ensemble of delightfully strange characters in his barren, sad setting of the Salton Sea, which also has a biblical tie-in that sort of sneaks up on you. The writing is first rate-- going from elegant to pulpy and action-driven, all of what I'd expect from an Ochse work.
Also, on the zombies... let's say that they are all-terrain and leave it at that. If you love this genre, you'll want to check out Ochse's take on how the zombies came about and what their purpose is. Good stuff!
Turns out, EMPIRE OF SALT is great fun. Ochse has an ensemble of delightfully strange characters in his barren, sad setting of the Salton Sea, which also has a biblical tie-in that sort of sneaks up on you. The writing is first rate-- going from elegant to pulpy and action-driven, all of what I'd expect from an Ochse work.
Also, on the zombies... let's say that they are all-terrain and leave it at that. If you love this genre, you'll want to check out Ochse's take on how the zombies came about and what their purpose is. Good stuff!
October 19, 2015
This book combines to of my interests, zombies and the Salton Sea. I first heard about the Salton Sea back in 2006 when I saw the documentary “Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea.” The characters in this book are loosely based on actual people highlighted in the documentary.
The book itself is good and an interesting read. I feel it may be best described as one dimensional. I did enjoy it, but as far as storylines go thee just was not a lot there. If you get nothing else from this book, find out about the Salton Sea.
Plagues & Pleasures of the Salton Sea
https://youtu.be/8TjGAWxL23c
The book itself is good and an interesting read. I feel it may be best described as one dimensional. I did enjoy it, but as far as storylines go thee just was not a lot there. If you get nothing else from this book, find out about the Salton Sea.
Plagues & Pleasures of the Salton Sea
https://youtu.be/8TjGAWxL23c
December 6, 2011
It's always interesting to see what direction the writer will take the zombie. Viral, bacterial, from outer space, man made, fast or slow. Weston's zombies kept my interest and made this book a quick and enjoyable read.
August 25, 2011
I really enjoyed this solid zombie tale set in the desolate surrounding's of California's polluted Salton Sea.
June 16, 2023
I wasn’t expecting much from this but I was still disappointed! The story was really boring and dragged at the start, but my main issue was that the characters just didn’t seem real at all. There’s zombies wandering round this weird little town and all the locals are chilled out about it. There’s a 30 year old man that is chained up and lives in a doghouse and no one really cares. It was just really odd. I also didn’t know what was going on half the time cos the book didn’t tell me. The action was convoluted and clunky. Just wasn’t a fan.
May 5, 2017
AN OKAY ZOMBIE TALE IT IS...
Hello, this story had a lot of promise, but did not quite deliver. I'm not going to give any spoilers, but it kinda went astray about middle of the story. Thanks.
Hello, this story had a lot of promise, but did not quite deliver. I'm not going to give any spoilers, but it kinda went astray about middle of the story. Thanks.
October 31, 2015
"So, what was Ochse's take on the shambler trope? And how did it fare? Empire of Salt is, quite simply put, an excellent zombie yarn. It combines a fresh take on the often stale undead formula, mixes in a good amount of shoot-em-up action, and incorporates a solid young adult underpinning that is enjoyable, not annoying or cloying. This is no mean feat.
The titular Empire of Salt is, in actuality, none other than the actual Salton Sea, the man-made sea resort in California, which is now derelict, and almost vacant, its penned-in waters an acrid, rotten, beer colored body of water, yielding daily bounties of dead and decaying fish.
Into this faded resort rolls a broken family; teen siblings Natasha and Derrick, their alcoholic father Patrick, and their live-in nanny, Auntie Lin. They've been drawn West by an economy in shambles, and the inheritance of a restaurant on the Salton Sea (due to Patrick's father dying in a sudden, rather gruesome manner). They leave behind the relative domesticity of Lancaster County, PA, in search of a new start. This is all quite hard on the teens, especially since they recently lost their mother as well. So, they have to place all their eggs in one basket and hope for the best. At least there is the promise of life near the sea.
Of course, as mentioned before, the current state of the Salton Sea is, well, less than ideal. Living among the decrepit trailers is an oddball mix of resident leftovers and castaways. Those who were too stubborn to sell or leave when things literally turned sour, and those who simply had no place else to go.
But there is more. Always, there is more. In addition to the inherent weirdness of the area, there is a sense of danger and foreboding. Rumors. Cryptic warnings to "beware the green", whatever that means. Mysterious traffic in and out of the local desalination plant. And then, just when Natasha and Derrick's family opts to stay and try to keep the restaurant going, people start disappearing.
Then things get much, much worse. Well, you can guess that there are zombies involved, naturally."
You can read my full review here:
http://hachisnaxreads.blogspot.com/20...
The titular Empire of Salt is, in actuality, none other than the actual Salton Sea, the man-made sea resort in California, which is now derelict, and almost vacant, its penned-in waters an acrid, rotten, beer colored body of water, yielding daily bounties of dead and decaying fish.
Into this faded resort rolls a broken family; teen siblings Natasha and Derrick, their alcoholic father Patrick, and their live-in nanny, Auntie Lin. They've been drawn West by an economy in shambles, and the inheritance of a restaurant on the Salton Sea (due to Patrick's father dying in a sudden, rather gruesome manner). They leave behind the relative domesticity of Lancaster County, PA, in search of a new start. This is all quite hard on the teens, especially since they recently lost their mother as well. So, they have to place all their eggs in one basket and hope for the best. At least there is the promise of life near the sea.
Of course, as mentioned before, the current state of the Salton Sea is, well, less than ideal. Living among the decrepit trailers is an oddball mix of resident leftovers and castaways. Those who were too stubborn to sell or leave when things literally turned sour, and those who simply had no place else to go.
But there is more. Always, there is more. In addition to the inherent weirdness of the area, there is a sense of danger and foreboding. Rumors. Cryptic warnings to "beware the green", whatever that means. Mysterious traffic in and out of the local desalination plant. And then, just when Natasha and Derrick's family opts to stay and try to keep the restaurant going, people start disappearing.
Then things get much, much worse. Well, you can guess that there are zombies involved, naturally."
You can read my full review here:
http://hachisnaxreads.blogspot.com/20...
June 29, 2011
2 AND ½ STARS
I have mixed feelings on this book. It reads very strangely, from the characters, to the setting, to the delivery. One of the main characters, Patrick, is a widowed father of two. He drives to a new town where he has inherited a house and business from his estranged father. Patrick spends the first third of the book drunk and sitting on a stool in his restaurant while his two nearly grown up children wander around the town witnessing a group of people, lead by a Romanian freedom fighter turned Elvis Impersonator, fire shotguns around the neighborhood. All of this happening while the locals act like this is an everyday occurrence. People actions were so odd that I felt as if this were taking place in some alternate universe.
Certain scenes were awkwardly described and varied greatly in its page count, which only added to the inconsistent reading experience. While some scenes were short and moved by very quickly, others felt overly long and seemed to go on well past their welcome. Although many of the characters were obviously scared of the encroaching danger, the matter-of-fact descriptions and lackluster atmosphere fell flat, leaving me feeling ambiguous and not scared of anything I was reading. The standard story of a government-experiment-gone-wrong was also disappointing. I also spotted a number of continuity errors and typos.
Now, I don't want to seem too hard on this book, because there were some rather enjoyable moments and the last third of the book really seemed to pick up the action along with the surprising deaths of some main characters. But with Ochse's solid reputation, the amazing track record of Abaddon Books, and one of the best zombie covers I've seen in a long time, I expected a lot more here.
I have mixed feelings on this book. It reads very strangely, from the characters, to the setting, to the delivery. One of the main characters, Patrick, is a widowed father of two. He drives to a new town where he has inherited a house and business from his estranged father. Patrick spends the first third of the book drunk and sitting on a stool in his restaurant while his two nearly grown up children wander around the town witnessing a group of people, lead by a Romanian freedom fighter turned Elvis Impersonator, fire shotguns around the neighborhood. All of this happening while the locals act like this is an everyday occurrence. People actions were so odd that I felt as if this were taking place in some alternate universe.
Certain scenes were awkwardly described and varied greatly in its page count, which only added to the inconsistent reading experience. While some scenes were short and moved by very quickly, others felt overly long and seemed to go on well past their welcome. Although many of the characters were obviously scared of the encroaching danger, the matter-of-fact descriptions and lackluster atmosphere fell flat, leaving me feeling ambiguous and not scared of anything I was reading. The standard story of a government-experiment-gone-wrong was also disappointing. I also spotted a number of continuity errors and typos.
Now, I don't want to seem too hard on this book, because there were some rather enjoyable moments and the last third of the book really seemed to pick up the action along with the surprising deaths of some main characters. But with Ochse's solid reputation, the amazing track record of Abaddon Books, and one of the best zombie covers I've seen in a long time, I expected a lot more here.
October 20, 2014
I liked the book, OK. The writing was good the story didn't measure up . It was a little bit on the unbelievable side and I found the characters a little flat and at times forced into their roles.
I would recommend it to a preteen whose just coming out of their Disney phase and are wanting a small taste of horror, because these things wouldn't happen too.
I would recommend it to a preteen whose just coming out of their Disney phase and are wanting a small taste of horror, because these things wouldn't happen too.
April 24, 2013
good, but depressing took awhile to get really juicy.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews