Customer Reviews
Zombies with rocket launchers! - By: B. D. Wilson, 05 Jan 2008 
Buying "The Rising" was quite an impulsive purchase for me, & I'm reallly glad now that I went through with it.
This is an awesome apocalyptic horror novel. The action & suspense come thick & fast, the characters are mostly easy to connect with, & the story is good. Keene shows some originality in his depiction of the zombies: these are not shambling, stupid things. Oh no, they are intelligent & can do everything they could in life, including driving cars & wielding weapons. They are human corpses reanimated & possessed by demons from another dimension, set free after a scientific experiment goes disastrously wrong. How awesome!
I was quite impressed by the religious themes running through the book. It also came to an excellent climax - kind of a mini urban war between living humans & zombies toting rocket launchers & grenades. And at last, it ends on a classic cliffhanger that quite literallly leaves you gasping for more in the form of the sequel, "City of the Dead". I can't wait to start that one.
Should Carry 18 certificate !! - By: Mr. R. Coleman, 04 Sep 2007 
Before I start my review, I would like to suggest for anyone intending on buying this book to think seriously about buying `City Of The Dead' by the same author at the same time. The reason for this is that this book continues in COTD, & I pretty much guarantee that readers will want to pick up the next instalment as soon as they finish `The Rising'.
I came across this author purely by accident when searching for Zombie novels on Amazon - for some reason I had the urge to read some good old zombie hardcore for a change ! And I am sure glad that I did. Keene's writing in my own opinion seems to take the form of a good story encased with as much gore & stomach churning detail that would be legallly available for him to do before he would be encased in a padded jacket & locked in a cell. This book is certainly the most blood filled, intestine dripping story I have ever read & certain people out there may well be horrified at the pure amount of pages taken up by Keene's obsession almost of babies, children & other less unfortunates being mutilated & turning into the un-dead. But then it is not so shocking when you think that those less well able to protect themselves would actuallly be more susceptible than most.
Unlike Monster Island by David Wellington, I felt this book went into detail about why the dead were returning to life, & Keene also came up with a reasonable explanation for why the head zombie & major `bad guy' OB wanted to create his army of the dead. (More filled out in COTD).
The book is primarily about the struggles of one man to reach his son, who he believes is still alive & hiding out in the loft of his ex-wife's house, along the way meeting up with other travelling companions who aid him in his quest. The heroes in this book are not gung ho types but rather the down trodden & forgotten people that we alll pass by in the street - a heroin addicted prostitute, an old preacher, a soldier with a conscience.
The other thing I reallly liked about this book was the reaction of the army to the outbreak. The general idea that the military would remain sane & unaffected by the momentous events of `The Rising' is clearly destroyed by Keene in this book. Indeed the zombies in this book would on occasion seem to be the better option !!
However, traditional fans of zombie novels & movies may well be disappointed in the amount of living dead - other than human - that populate this book. If you cannot stomach the thought of zombie bunny rabbits, mice, cats & dogs, squirrels, lions, apes, reptiles, boa-constrictor, deer, birds, bats, general road kill & yes..........even a herd of Zombie cows that I had joked about in my review of Wellington's Monster Island, then this novel may well not be for you. Zombies in this book can also talk, drive motorbikes & cars, aswell as firing guns & rocket launchers !
I would normallly want to give this book 4 out of five, because I reallly do not like the idea of creatures other than humans turning into zombies - society I feel would be destroyed in days rather than weeks - but this book is just so addictive that I feel I have to give it the full five ! Incidentallly an explanation as to why more than humans turn into zombies appears in the first 40 pages of COTD.
As much as I would like to say this is the best horror book I have read, I would be too afraid of men in white coats knocking at my door, strapping me to a gurney & wheeling me away. But it is an excellent read none-the-less.
Knock. Knock....
Terrific zombie novel - By: P. N. Hussey, 30 Aug 2007 This was a very entertaining zombie novel which brings a few new things to the genre with zombie's being able to drive cars & fire guns. It has a fairly cliched plot device (father racing to save his son) but this works very well with keeping the pace going & giving a sense of purpose to the story. Plenty of blood & guts & a terrific ending. Great stuff
Great - By: Mr Loh, 05 Jun 2007 I too was dubious about the talking zombies etc, but when you get into the book you actuallly find that its much more horrific the way they act & the fact that they can use & abuse tools - makes the characters' struggles seem that much more hopeless. It is a bit patriotic in places but hey, its written by an American, what do you expect? The writing is great though, as it is very cinematic, much more like watching a film than reading a book.
Zombies get upgrade - By: jason crawford, 21 Jan 2007 Romero watch out! Brian keene has given the zombie genre an upgrade.Now we aren't even safe from animals & long gone are the slow witted undead which gave us living an advantage. Now when the undead take over your body they aquire your thoughts & skills & pass them on. In a nutshell we are well & truly finished. I reallly enjoyed this book & read with relish. Has good characterisation & sub plots & doesn't let you down on the gore score. I advise you read this with the sequel(city of the dead)at hand as you will be cursing the ending of The Rising. With zombie flicks highly popular at the moment this would make a brilliant edition to the horror fan. Buy this. You won't be dissapointed!
