Product Description

Jim Workman returns from a three-week wilderness retreat in the Blue Ridge Mountains to find that the world is a vastly different place. In the few short weeks since he dropped out of civilization a bizarre plague has swept the planet. The recently dead are rising as feeding machines that feast on the warm flesh of the living. A bite from one of the creatures is ultimately fatal as one ghoul becomes two, becomes eight, becomes sixteen, until the human species is nearly extinct. Jim joins a group of about a hundred survivors who are temporarily barricaded in a local rescue center as they search for a way to make it through this waking nightmare.

In an isolated country house just miles from the rescue center the sanctimonious Reverend R.T. Peterson is leading a group of troubled teenagers. Guided by his visions and voices, the Reverend forges a twisted plan to carry out God's will now that the apocalypse is upon them.

In a nearby government installation, tucked deep beneath the mountain, scientists search for answers as the scientific, military and political forces involved battle for dominance and survival.

The story follows the lives of six main characters as they attempt to navigate through a nightmarish world of death and destruction. It is a tale of good and evil, of love and of the indomitable human spirit, leading to the climactic encounter as the three factions finally come together.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1192014 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Download Description
A worldwide plague causes the dead to walk

Customer Reviews

Solid Zombie Novel
I really love zombie movies and so I decided to try reading a book about zombies. This is the first one I read, and I really enjoyed it. There seems to be too many characters to keep up with. But overall, it was an enjoyable read.

Not bad and it's actually about Zombies
I picked this up in a used store and read it over the weekend. It has no pretension about being more than what it is, an entertaining zombie story. Some reviews gripe about the preacher subplot but I didn't mind the quick resolution to it. After all, it's all about the zombies. I enjoyed it much more than the Wellington book (Monster Planet), which was not really about zombies at all but more of some magical fantasy, wizard, mish-mash. That being said, I agree with the comments about the "seers" and "visions" in the Barnhart book but they are kept mercifully brief and pretty much involved only with the preacher subplot. If you like zombies, you will like this book.

Fun.
Len Barnhart, Reign of the Dead (iUniverse, 2001)

Reign of the Dead, like Autumn, has become something of a vanity-press legend over the years, so when I saw the first two of the trilogy at Half Price Books recently, I snatched them up. I was pleasantly surprised, albeit moderately.

It's difficult not to compare Reign of the Dead to Autumn, so I'm not even going to try to resist the temptation. Interestingly, the two complement each other's strengths and weaknesses. Where Moody conceived Autumn as a whole new kind of walking dead tale, Barnhart's novel wears its influences on its sleeve, so much so that a few scenes in Reign of the Dead are straight homages to Romero, especially in the beginning. One of Autumn's greatest weaknesses is that Moody introduces too many characters too fast, so that none of them get a chance to really grow; Barnhart gives us a smaller stable of personalities, but his characters, as well, often suffer from two-dimensionality.

Flat characters and derivative writing aside, Barnhart gets right what a number of debut novelists get wrong: the pace. I grant you, when the pace of your book starts off breakneck and stays that way until the final page, that's not terribly hard to do, but it's a good sign when a writer recognizes that this is a good way around the problem. (Barnhart put me in mind more than once of Jack Priest in this regard.) If you like your novels plot- and zombie-heavy, and aren't terribly concerned with having characters you can sink your teeth into (pardon the pun), then Reign of the Dead gets a strong recommendation. If you're more a fan of deep, well-drawn characters, you may want to give this one a pass, but I'd advise against it; this is good, solid, turn-your-brain-off fun. ***