 Book: This Dark EarthYear: 2012 Publisher: Gallery Books – Simon & Schuster Author: John Hornor Jacobs Language: English Chapters: 7 Pages: 352 Type: Novel |
 Author’s Summary: The land is contaminated, electronics are defunct, the ravenous undead remain, and life has fallen into a nasty and brutish state of nature. Welcome to Bridge City, in what was once Arkansas: part medieval fortress, part Western outpost, and the precarious last stand for civilization. A ten-year-old prodigy when the world ended, Gus is now a battle-hardened young man. He designed Bridge City to protect the living few from the shamblers eternally at the gates. Now he’s being groomed by his physician mother, Lucy, and the gentle giant Knock-Out to become the next leader of men. But an army of slavers is on its way, and the war they’ll wage for the city’s resources could mean the end of mankind as we know it. Can Gus become humanity’s savior? And if so, will it mean becoming a dictator, a martyr . . . or maybe something far worse than even the zombies that plague the land? |
Review: Of all of the genres in horror, zombies aren’t my favorite especially when reading, but let me tell you, This Dark Earth had me right from the beginning. A typical zombie story here, as in books and movies alike, the government is involved, a huge chemical leak unfolds and thus a virus is airborne which causes massive destruction and out comes the zombies that eat you to the bone.
We start learning about the leads; Dr. Lucy and her young son Gus, who is only 10 years old. They become the mainstay of the story while we meet boatloads of other survivors. The characters are plentiful in This Dark Earth, it is one of my quibbles about the book. For some reason to me I don’t like heaps of people while reading, it gets very cumbersome and hard to remember, so it is getting ticked down a bit.
The characters are always on the move looking for safe havens and places to stay when they come across Bridge City, which is now called their home. The doctor and kid find other survivors on this western-style desolate apocalyptic landscape that are flippant and trying to take control of the situation. The inevitable doom of hordes of zombies, mischievous leaders and the struggle of daily survival leads to showdowns with the remaining survivors for control of civilization as we know it.
The seedy population captures the young prodigy who has emerged as a leader in this war-torn world. Gus endures tortuous acts of abuse so they can get vital information about the rulers of Bridge City. During all this mayhem, zombies are trying to break down the wall that’s surrounding the city, and the constant fighting amongst the survivors ends with a gripping climax that leads to you wanting more.
This Dark Earth is graphic and I like that in a novel, moreover…you need it in a zombie tale and you get gourdes of it. The book is available on Paperback at every popular retailer out there from Amazon to Barnes & Noble to Books-A-Million to iTunes for $10.98. You can also get the Kindle edition or Nook edition for $9.99 in the electronic format. I am recommending This Dark Earth to all horror readers not only zombie fans because it is worth it. My final tallies and suggestions are below.
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 Reviewer: Dark GoddessDate: 08/28/2012 Rating: 7½/10 Suggestion: Paperback: Buy Suggestion: E-Book: Buy |
