Category Archives: Zombies

REVIEW: Portlandtown by Rob DeBorde

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Portlandtown: A Tale of the Oregon Wyldes Portlandtown: A Tale of the Oregon Wyldes by
Publication: (originally published 2012), Paperback, 384pp
Genres: , , , ,
Source:
Amazon • Add to shelf
three-half-stars

Welcome to Portlandtown, where no secret is safe---not even those buried beneath six feet of Oregon mud.

Joseph Wylde isn’t afraid of the past, but he knows some truths are better left unspoken. When his father-in-law’s grave-digging awakens more than just ghosts, Joseph invites him into their home hoping that a booming metropolis and two curious grandtwins will be enough to keep the former marshal out of trouble. Unfortunately, the old man’s past soon follows, unleashing a terrible storm on a city already knee deep in floodwaters. As the dead mysteriously begin to rise, the Wyldes must find the truth before an unspeakable evil can spread across the West and beyond.

Rob DeBorde's Portlandtown is a supernatural western, a fantastic blend of horror, magic, and zombies sure to excite even the most demanding genre fan. (from Goodreads)


I checked this book out from the library because it had two things:
1. zombies
2. fantasy/historical fiction/Western mash-up

Conan happy glee gif

It’s got a lot more than that, too, but those were the things that drew me to it– them, plus the cover.

It’s the first book in the series, and unfortunately it does that thing where ALL the characters, backstories, worldbuilding, and main conflict are set up all at once. There’s a LOT going on in this book, with the end result being that I don’t entirely understand wtf is going on. The story itself is fairly simple but the details surrounding it are confusing, especially since I assume the main plotline is going to continue onward in the next book if not the entire series. Continue reading »

TINY REVIEWS: Deadline & Princess Academy / Currently Reading (1)

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Tiny Reviews

169. Deadline – Mira Grant 5 Stars
paperback / library / read September 17, 2012
It’s been a while since I read Feed, but I had really high hopes for this sequel. Maybe it’s because my favorite character is dead in this book, maybe it’s because the conspiracy is so over-the-top ridiculous, maybe it’s because I could see the plot twist from a million miles away: whatever reason, I didn’t like this book. Yeah, zombies, yeah, reporters, but WOAH does this book have the second-book-blues. Blah.

171. Princess Academy – Shannon Hale 5 Stars
paperback / library / read September 19, 2012
Almost a month after reading this, I can’t work up any kind of review beyond “it wasn’t terrible.” Which is a terrible thing to do, isn’t it! My non-enthusiasm is almost worse than me hating it, and now I feel really awkward so I’ll move on.

Currently Reading

I was actually reading like five books at the same time this week, but now I’m down to just two: The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde and The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (read by John Lee).

The Eyre Affair isn’t the first Jasper Fforde book I’ve read this month; last week I read The Big Over Easy, which was a LOT of fun. It sort of reminded me of The Last Dragonslayer in that it’s more focused on fairy tale stuff and magical whatsits, although it’s not overtly a fantasy book like TLD is (it’s a mystery/police procedural/humor thingy, see). The thing about Jasper Fforde’s humor is that it’s got huge bits of absurdity to it, and sometimes that works for me and sometimes it doesn’t. For instance, it worked for me in The Big Over Easy. Giant eggs embezzling funds from criminals to pay for hospitals (or whatever)? Yes, please!

In The Eyre Affair, it’s mostly not. I think it’s not working because the absurd stuff is (mostly) book-focused, so you’ve got Francis Bacon terrorists and people forging massive amounts of first edition texts and isn’t it really sad that I can’t suspend my disbelief for a society that cares that much about books and reading and authors and literature? It’s just TOO absurd. Sigh.

The Three Musketeers audiobook is REALLY REALLY long, even longer than my Moby-Dick audiobook (by about seven hours!), but I’m about 10 hours in and I think I’ll stick with it. I like the story (mostly) and I really want to watch the various movie adaptations now, but the narrator is getting on my nerves. He speaks the French bits well enough (pronounces the names correctly, I mean) and he mostly does different voices for each character, but his inflections for some of the dramatic scenes basically ruin them and it’s annoying. I think if I were reading this book I wouldn’t be as annoyed with Dumas’ melodrama like I am hearing this guy reading them. Maybe I should just switch to the text and give up on the audio? Hm.

What’re you currently reading?

REVIEW: The Infects by Sean Beaudoin

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167. The Infects by Sean Beaudoin
Publication: Candlewick (September 25, 2012), ARC, 384pp / ISBN 0763659479
Genre: YA Horror/Satire

Read: September 10, 2012
Source: LibraryThing Early Reviewers

♦ Author’s site | Goodreads | LibraryThing ♦

Summary from Amazon:

A feast for the brain, this gory and genuinely hilarious take on zombie culture simultaneously skewers, pays tribute to, and elevates the horror genre.

Seventeen-year-old Nero is stuck in the wilderness with a bunch of other juvenile delinquents on an “Inward Trek.” As if that weren’t bad enough, his counselors have turned into flesh-eating maniacs overnight and are now chowing down on his fellow miscreants. As in any classic monster flick worth its salted popcorn, plentiful carnage sends survivors rabbiting into the woods while the mindless horde of “infects” shambles, moans, and drools behind. Of course, these kids have seen zombie movies. They generate “Zombie Rules” almost as quickly as cheeky remarks, but attitude alone can’t keep the biters back. Serving up a cast of irreverent, slightly twisted characters, an unexpected villain, and an ending you won’t see coming, here is a savvy tale that that’s a delight to read — whether you’re a rabid zombie fan or freshly bitten — and an incisive commentary on the evil that lurks within each of us.

Review

I really like zombie stories, because they’re almost like dystopian stories1 but with lots of interesting body horror stuff. The nice thing about dystopians is that they showcase all the terrible stuff people do to each other and then present a solution in the form of a wily teenage girl or whatever; with zombie books, you get all that but in a very physical form. People are LITERALLY eating each other, turning each other into monsters and terrorizing their loved ones and so on. And nobody’s safe! ANYBODY could be turned into a zombie, even by accident, and all in all it’s pretty terrifying.2 Continue reading »

MINI-REVIEWS: Sorcery & Cecelia, Rot & Ruin, Peter Pan

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165. Sorcery & Cecelia by Patricia C. Wrede & Caroline Stevermer
Publication: Graphia (September 1, 2004), Paperback, 336pp / ISBN 015205300X
Genre: YA Fantasy Romance
Read: September 1, 2012
Source: Library

♦ PCW site | CW’s site | Goodreads | LibraryThing ♦

Mini-Review

I’ve read and enjoyed books written by both authors before so I had high hopes for this one, not least because it’s an episolary novel and I love those especially. Letters! Telling a story! It’s almost as good as a diary book– well, usually. Sorcery & Cecelia is a cute but ultimately forgettable book, and that really disappoints me. I MAY read the sequel, if only because they go on a trip through Europe (right?) and the bits that annoyed me in this book1 may have been fixed in the next one. And now that the romance is settled, maybe the couples will annoy me less! And MAYBE things will be BETTER and and and I will ENJOY it! POSSIBILITIES OF BETTER THINGS. Yay!

Rating


It was okay.

Continue reading »

Tiny reviews for August reads

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Quite a few of these are for books coming out this month (September), and since I want to highlight those I’ve put them in a green font. New releases! Exciting, eh?

I am like THISCLOSE to being caught up on reviews. Huzzah!

151. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell – Susanna Clarke 5 Stars *
Bloomsbury USA (August 11, 2005), 3 volume Paperback set, 1006pp / Bought / reread Aug 1-4, 2012
Read this if you like superlong fantasies with clever footnotes that is also set during the Napoleonic Wars and if you don’t mind that all the female characters (the three that’re there, anyway) get terribly, terrible shafted. I took copious notes when I read this but I don’t actually feel like going through them and writing an essay of a review. However! I will say that I appreciated it a lot more this time around than the first time I read it, although I still really hated both title characters to the point that I think I gave myself a headache in the last third of the book.

152. In Memory Yet Green – Isaac Asimov 5 Stars
Avon Books (April 1980), Paperback, 732pp / Bought / read August 4-6, 2012
Read this if you like Isaac Asimov’s work and want to know more about the dude behind the typewriter. Turns out? He’s a big-headed perv who somehow makes his faults almost charming. Also, everyone in the sci-fi world in the first half of the 20th century were apparently all swingers. Continue reading »