Product Description

The series that created the zombie movement reaches its most pivotal, series-altering arc yet! They thought they were safe in the prison. They were wrong. A force far more deadly than the walking dead is at their door and when the dust settles, their rank will be reduced by more than half. No one is safe!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27147 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 136 pages

Customer Reviews

The just and the unjust perish together...
I've been following "The Walking Dead" since the first trade paperback. I'm so devoted to this series that I bought a newly released collection while on vacation in Sweden a couple years ago because I couldn't wait to catch up. I wasn't sure what direction Mr. Kirkman would take after the last collection's apocalyptic final page, but he has certainly gone to the dark side with this volume. That man has *no* mercy. Wow.

In a flashback we see The Governor, body horribly maimed by Michonne but hateful soul intact, marshalling his forces against Rick's enclave using blatant lies and force of will. Suffice to say that he's more twisted now than ever, especially given the depths he's sunk to in his relationship with the little girl zombie he keeps leashed up at home. Between her and his "entertainment system," we see that he's more comfortable relating with the undead than with the living.

After we return to his assault on the prison, things get even nastier. No quarter is asked, and none given. Familiar characters are brutally murdered, badly wounded, spiritually broken, or flee for their lives. What makes this volume so devastating is that many longtime players are lost or forever damaged, even some that have been around since day one. And of course, the undead feast on anyone unlucky enough to get in their way (talk about survival of the fittest). As with most zombie stories, the undead aren't really the villains. Indeed, the living are more gruesome and do the most heinous deeds by far.

In the end, we have yet another of Mr. Kirkman's trademark cliffhangers, one that tops all the previous ones in its horror and desolation. I don't know what Mr. Kirkman snorts while writing these stories, but it must be some hardcore stuff. Absolutely recommended - but not for kids or the faint of heart.

Governor of the Dead
Most of the folks here already know that The Walking Dead saga is a compilation of stories by Robert Kirkman that expand on the story that is well know to any zombie movie fan....The main story. The one started in earnest by George Romero in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead [and was later remade in 1990 (the version that I prefer) by Tom Savini (with Romero oversight)].

The Walking Dead Volume 8 continues the story of former Normal-World Police Officer Rick Grimes and those that he comes in contact with in a New World...a world that has been over-run by zombies.

I'd agree with you if you thought that maybe The Walking Dead, Vol. 7: The Calm Before took a major pause in the epic series to focus less on zombies and more on what happens to society, its morals, laws and standards when government is lost and the planet becomes mostly uninhabitable.

You'll probably recall that previous volumes in the series showed how venturing out of the confines and security provided by the characters' home (established in Volume 3) are less than safe. The new zombie-infested world is dangerous not only because of the hordes of undead, but outside the gates await unfathomable chaos and horror in the pockets of societies of other survivors (see Volumes 5 and 6)....Especially in Volume 6 where survivors in desperate situations do the unthinkable to stay alive (or entertained).

By the end of Volume 6 we thought that one of the major threats to the primary group of survivors that the series follows had been removed. But what fan of the series can forget the cliffhanger of a last page from Volume 7? Volume 7 was appropriately named "The Calm Before", because Volume 8 is indeed a storm. Volume 8 picks up right from the shocker of a final Volume 7 page and relentlessly presents a war...not between the undead and man...but between two societies of the living in a world gone mad.

There's real, heartfelt emotion in The Walking Dead series combined with believable scenarios. I was never a big comic book guy prior to this series. Now I'm singing a different tune. This comic book series blows the doors off of a lot DVDs that I've wasted time with, and it's introduced me to a whole new entertainment media.

Anyway, the volume releases of The Walking Dead are like reading a screenplay with storyboards of a version of Night of the Living Dead that began simultaneously, but in a different part of the country (much like George Romero's late 2007 release, Diary of the Dead). Yes, The Walking Dead is kind of a rip-off of a story (stories) already told, but the key is that it's done very very well. The zombies are true to the original Romero creation: slow and stupid as opposed to the fast and thinking "infected" in (28 Weeks Later / 28 Days Later) or the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead.

Each Walking Dead volume only takes about an hour to get all the way through, and they leave you wanting more. And they seem to keep coming; I think that issues 49 - 55 will likely comprise Volume 9 (with issue 55 due in Sept '08), so unfortunately, as of this writing, only #49 - #53 are published. The wait begins.

Volumes 1 - 8 are all available individually. A hard cover combination of Volumes 1 & 2 is out (The Walking Dead Book 1, a hard cover combination of Volumes 3 & 4 is out (The Walking Dead, Book 2), and Volumes 5 & 6 are now combined in Hardcover (The Walking Dead Book 3).

Anyone in need of a very well done zombie fix that you don't put into your DVD player should absolutely get down with The Walking Dead sickness. Add it to your cart, but be sure to start with Volume 1 and read them chronologically.

Pure carnage
For zombie story splatter-fans who may have felt that this book was getting a little plot-heavy and lacking in the gore department, this volume provides all the blood, guts and exploding heads you could ever want. It's not the slow-moving zombies who are doing all the killing, though: this time it's all about human-on-human violence, as a militaristic rival band of survivors -- led by their pure-evil, super-sadistic Governor -- descend on our hero Rick and his band of refugees. All the character development that author Robert Kirkman has invested in the series pays off in horrific emotional dividends, as one hero after another falls prey to the madness of war. Indeed, you'll be busier trying to figure out who *didn't* get killed than the other way around.

This is a harsh storyline, cruel, unrelenting, unapologetically tragic -- and genuinely gross. Indeed, there are at least three grueling sequences that literally made me nauseous while reading them. If you want some real, hardcore horror, Kirkman really delivers on this one. And, boy, I can't wait to see what happens next! (Joe Sixpack, ReadThatAgain book reviews)