The plan is to reread all of Brian Keene’s available works in roughly the order that they were published. I’m doing it because I’m an author in need of improvement and a reader who enjoys a storyteller willing to bleed out on the page in a powerful and interesting way. I’m a fan of Keene’s work. I think there is something to be learned through this process.
You can also go back to the Introductory Post: A Gathering of Books to read more about the how and the why of this or any of my other posts up through this one and beyond by checking out the Master List of all my #BrianKeeneRevisited posts.
There was more after the ending to The Rising, so it is time to reenter the City of the Dead.
I remember coming across City of the Dead in the horror section of the bookstore and being thrilled beyond words. I liked the ending of The Rising and thought it was complete. When I saw Keene had continued it, I couldn’t believe it but was happy he had.
The beats of the escape scene are harrowing and near perfect in their dirty high-octane action. The escape from the house itself is one of the best zombie action scenes ever written. I can’t believe this property hasn’t ever been successfully adapted for the screen as a movie or series. Even now, there is not much else out there that is like it or matches it. I bought into the whole thing and all the peril. Jim doesn’t enjoy killing his zombified ex as much as many people would.
Ob returns in all his dark glory. Here he rises from a one-book super villain to being something that will permeate the Keene Universe for decades to come.
A Trump-like figure looms large in this narrative. The savior complex defines this character and differentiates him from being just any old Big Bad in a post-apocalyptic story. The Trumpian comparison was timely back then, but is transcendent now, especially since it was conceived so long ago. Definitely even more significant now than when he first wrote it. Keene prides himself on seeing trends early. Seeing a Trumpian tyrant atop a tower ruling over an apocalyptic nightmare before the final fall is a hell of an omen.
Going from a road trip story to a siege story was a stroke of brilliance. It succeeds in setting the books apart from each other without losing that balls-to-the-wall pace from this series. I’m amazed at how he so skillfully avoided parking the characters and the action once they are inside. Everything keeps barreling forward. The world unravels perfectly. The scenes of horror are dark, demented, and delightful.
We get mentions of Daredevil and Ghostrider. Over the radio, in a pitch of battle, soldiers named Savini and George are called out among others. A little nod to the godfathers of the subgenre.
In one part of the binding, I noticed a line of text poking out. With a little care to separate the pages, I saw it said: TDOR616 City of the Dead Sec 3 Bottom. I’m not sure if paperbacks are bound the same way these days, but I found that an interesting bit of old school detail hidden in the pages.
The final stretch of last survivors making their escapes is a wonderful sequence. Everything readers and fans could want in horror flirting with the extreme. The character choices and what follows makes the story stronger.
As before, Keene does his best to shut the door and stick the unreversible definitive ending. The fact that more Rising books will follow shows that the insatiable demands of the undead world of publishing and readers refused to stay buried.
My next post in this series will be Earthworm Gods #BrianKeeneRevisited which can be found on the Master List of all my #BrianKeeneRevisited posts. Note: The photo of Brian Keene used in the banner image of these blog posts was taken by John Urbancik and used by permission of both Keene and Urbancik.
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I remember first coming across this book in the horror section at a nearby Hastings that I used to go to all of the time for books. The title reminded me of SD Perry’s Resident Evil novels. She had a book in the series that was based off of the second Resident Evil video game that was also called City of the Dead. I was really into those books, so when I saw Brian Keene’s City of the Dead and saw it was also about zombies, I couldn’t help but think they would be similar books. They are not. I had no idea that it was a sequel to The Rising, and when I browsed through the Keene books in my early days of discovering him, I can’t even remember seeing The Rising. Imagine not having read The Rising first and reading this one first instead. I would’ve been so confused! That book didn’t hold my interest as much as The Conqueror Worms did, which is the book I reminded myself to pick up when the mood struck me to discover a new horror writer.
Eventually I found out that it was a sequel and I read it soon after The Rising. I originally remember thinking it wasn’t as good as The Rising but did feel like it was more “fun”
than The Rising. Apparently because Brian was having more fun writing this one. One image from the book always stuck in my head from my original read of it was the zombie with the maggots coming out of his penis. “Maggot sperm” as Brian so eloquently puts it LOL. I enjoyed it but I didn’t think it was nearly as good as the others that I had read by him up to that point.
This reread was a lot of fun and I think I enjoyed it more. I discovered that I really loved Pigpen way more than I originally did. I’m more invested in Jim and Danny’s relationship this time because I am a parent now and wasn’t when I originally read it. I also couldn’t help but compare Ramsey to Trump. It’s very fascinating reading this 17 years after it was published and not think that Brian had a little bit of foreshadowing. Much like King did with Greg Stillson in The Dead Zone.
I also love how Brian really started getting into his Labyrinth mythos. That’s the fascinating part of reading his books chronologically because you can really see him develop it. Martin’s death was BRUTAL and I had completely forgotten about that. He is a character I have grown to love over the years. I wasn’t nearly as into Don as I was Martin even though it seems to me that Don became the new Martin as the guy watching out for Jim and Danny. And the ending is maybe even more brutal than The Rising. I didn’t see it ending any other way. It was kind of a hopeless situation.
Overall, I do like this book, but it’s on the lower tier of his books so far for me. But I definitely appreciate its position in the Labyrinth mythos.
That’s an interesting way to come into Keene’s work. I read The Rising, City of the Dead, and then Dead Sea in that order. I came to his other work a bit later. I’m enjoying these early revisits too because he was a great writer back then, but he’s doing even more amazing things now. It’s cool to see who he was when he was still in the process of figuring it all out.
I agree. I’m really enjoying reading these in order. It shows how he evolved throughout the years.