The Rising (The Rising #1) in The Walking Read - A group for zombies and post-apoc fiction

Sep 28, 2014 Jonathan Echevarria rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: labyrinth-mythology, zombie-adventures

The Rising has always been one of my favorite zombie stories of all time. For me it's always ranked up there with Blood Crazy, Autumn, and Hater. There are so many zombie novels out there, but for me these have always been my top four. Now almost ten years later a new version of the Rising has came out called The Rising: Author's Preferred Edition. During this time Brian Keene has written many masterpieces, some can say The Rising was the work of a novice writer. However despite all of this, The The Rising has always been one of my favorite zombie stories of all time. For me it's always ranked up there with Blood Crazy, Autumn, and Hater. There are so many zombie novels out there, but for me these have always been my top four. Now almost ten years later a new version of the Rising has came out called The Rising: Author's Preferred Edition. During this time Brian Keene has written many masterpieces, some can say The Rising was the work of a novice writer. However despite all of this, The Rising still holds as a favorite for so many fans of the undead.

This is my second time reading this book, my first experience was with the mass market paperback version. This new version is much improved upon by the author Brian Keene. This version added 30,000 new text that was missing from the original. A lot of the grammar errors that slipped into the original version is now fixed in this version as well. It's a very long story but let's just say the original publisher is disliked by many authors who worked with them.

I always had my doubts that I would like this book as much as I used to. I was worried that nostalgia had clouded my vision, especially since I read so many reviews of people who disliked the grammatical errors the original version had. Also this was my first taste of zombie literature, up until that point I was only familiar with The Walking Dead and the various popular zombie movies. However now in the present I have read several novels featuring the undead, would this new version of The Rising hold up?

Well I can safely say that I enjoyed this version very much. Now that I am familiar with the Labyrinth mythology and the various members of the Thirteen that were introduced in Tequila's Sunrise I feel like I understand Brian Keene's big picture now. I honestly got to fall in love with Jim, Frankie, William Baker and Reverend Thomas Martin all over again. While these characters aren't as iconic as The Gunslinger, they still have a certain B-movie / Grindhouse charm to all of them. Plus there are moments where Keene really channels parental love through Jim and his son Danny. For me his relationship with his son was believable and heart warming.

If you are a fan of Evil Dead you will probably like this book a lot. The zombies in this series are more similar to Deadites then they are the infected from 28 Days Later. These "zombies" are intelligent and can never really be destroyed. I give this amazing apocalyptic tale a 4.5 stars out of 5! ...more

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May 30, 2020 Zade rated it did not like it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I've seen it opined, on Goodreads and in other venues, that The Rising (in combination with the movie 28 Days Later and the Walking Dead comics) lead to the revival of the zombie genre in the early 2000s. Having attempted to read this novel, I can only conclude that zombie stories regained popularity *in spite* of it.

I'm not in the habit of trash-talking books. If something doesn't strike my fancy, I'll just skip reviewing it. But this thing is so offensive, I'm going to break my rule.

First of a I've seen it opined, on Goodreads and in other venues, that The Rising (in combination with the movie 28 Days Later and the Walking Dead comics) lead to the revival of the zombie genre in the early 2000s. Having attempted to read this novel, I can only conclude that zombie stories regained popularity *in spite* of it.

I'm not in the habit of trash-talking books. If something doesn't strike my fancy, I'll just skip reviewing it. But this thing is so offensive, I'm going to break my rule.

First of all, the writing is not good. The dialog is stilted, he uses way too many adjectives, and there are more cliches than you can shake a stick at. It's not as bad as, say, a first attempt at a self-published novel with no editor. It's more like the fifth novel of a self-published author who finally paid the retired teacher down the street to proofread his work. Before the digital publishing revolution, there used to be a lot of schlock printed by big publishing houses. Maybe there still is. But even in that context, this is the literary equivalent of a direct to VHS movie.

The quality of the writing wouldn't be a deal breaker if the content were good. I've read many books by young authors who had a lot to learn and I've found plenty good to say about them because the skill can come with practice if the ideas and message are there. This book seems to be actively trying to offend.

The plot is so slim it barely makes sense. The characters are so undeveloped it's impossible to care about them. And the individual plot points are often completely irrational. For example, the protagonists have established that there is ample food to be had by looting homes and stores, yet they run into some human baddies who are voluntary cannibals. There's plenty of food, but these guys would rather hunt down the few remaining live humans, fight off demon-zombies who also want to eat said humans, and go to the effort of killing and dressing them than run down to the Piggly Wiggly for a can of Dinty Moore stew.

And of course there are the zombie bunny rabbits. I'm not even going there.

A lot of the worst plot elements come straight out of the fringe, survivalist, anti-science, beware-the-New-World-Order conspiracy lit of the 1980s and 90s. In the face of a global crisis, governments will promptly fail and rogue paramilitary units will quickly step in to impose slave labor and rape camps on the weak. Blah, blah, blah. If you want a decent take on this narrative, go watch (and read) Jericho.

What finally put me off the book completely, though, was its racist and misogynistic content. Minority characters are either prostitutes or gang bangers. There's a token kind old black preacher (TM), but it's small recompense for the way every other POC is portrayed. As for women, here's a brief example of what you can expect:

"Especially appalling to Skip, were the women who *enjoyed* being sexual conscripts: post-apocalyptic whores who didn't seem to mind sucking ten dicks a night as long as it kept them relatively safe and alive."

I half expected Keene to start calling them femoids and roasties.

There's a lot of good zombie lit out there. Don't waste your time or raise your blood pressure reading this. ...more

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May 31, 2014 Jonathan Echevarria rated it it was amazing

Shelves: zombie-adventures

If you are going to read the Rising I would strongly recommend the The Rising: Author's Preferred Edition over the mass market paperback version.

The Rising Author's Preferred Edition by Brian Keene

Not only are you getting 30,000 additional text content added to it with the uncut version. You are also supporting the author's work. Without getting into the drama, let's just say the publishing company that produced the mass market version wasn't very fair to the original author!

If you want to get into the series, I would go with the uncut versi ...more

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Feb 12, 2015 Matt rated it it was amazing

Shelves: brian-keene

There aren't enough adjectives to describe how good this book was. It's easily the best thing I've read so far in 2015. It's scary, well written (MOSTLY..), but more importantly, it manages to be an extremely original approach to the zombie genre. It's a page turner, and man it knocked my socks off.

I see its sequel 'City of the Dead' is higher rated on GR. If that's truly a better book, this two-part novel will surpass anything else I've read in the horror section, and that includes novels by a ...more

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Jan 17, 2012 Lena rated it liked it

Well, I didn't hate it but I didn't love it. It wasn't what I was expecting at all. Not your typical zombies. I'm not happy about the cliffhanger at all. Gotta read the next one. I have to know if Danny is alive!!!! Probably not since nothing ends well in this book. ...more

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