Posted at Shelf Inflicted Brian Keene’s Dead Sea is a little different from his earlier zombie stories. In The Rising and City of the Dead, the zombies carried rifles, were intelligent, and drove cars. In Dead Sea, they are the more traditional shambling, empty-eyed, mindless variety. The end of the world began in New York City, when people were attacked by swarms of undead rats. The infected died and came back to life. Once the infection (known as Hamelin’s Revenge) spread to the city of Baltim...

YES!What a great mixture of action stuffed zombiecalypse and moving thoughts about the sense of life, why mindkind tries to survive in times of despair. Keene created a really thrilling horror scenario that overlaps just bloody fights against the undead. Furthermore "Dead sea" discusses the old theories of the archetypes and the existence of a collective subconscious - who is a hero, who is a survivor ? One of the things I admired most about "Dead Sea" is that the narrator is a gay black male na...

"A fucking zombie whale"Why do I read this crap?

If you want to read the best book ever on zombies and social complaints about prejudism toward blacks, gays and poverty, this one is it. I found it to be too preachy and schizophrenic. The premise is simple: something has caused people to die and turn into zombies. Then, in their bloodlust for human flesh (don't all zombies go through that?) they kill others and convert them into zombism.The narrator, a black gay man in Baltimore, befriends two children and helps them escape the city on a large

Brian Keene's Dead Sea might sound like The Rising at first glance. Same author, same genre, same sub-genre. But that's where the similarities end. While I loved both books, I love them in very different ways. Dead Sea is in some ways a more innocent book than The Rising; the presence of the children and the nature of their relationship to the narrator of Dead Sea endows the book with a sweetness that surprised me. However, the bleakness of the book is more pronounced than it was in The Rising.

I couldn't put the book down for the life of me.

This was such a delightful book to breeze through, well delightful if you like icky zombies laced into an apocalyptic theme with no signs of victory. Fast paced and exciting, the novel was a fun break from anything else on my mind, I liked the characters and feared for their safety as the author took charge in making them run for their lives. I haven't read Keene's previous zombie books but I didn't feel that it took away from this story, on the contrary it makes me want to revisit his older boo...

In this relatively early Keene work, he returns to zombies with a vengeance. The Dead Sea's zombies are something of a hybrid of Romero's and 28 Days later; while they shuffle along like Romero's, they are highly contagious like 28 Days later-- any fluid from a zombie that gets in your eyes, and open wound, etc., means you get the bug. Further, like in his Rising, zombies are not confined to humans; at first some species seem immune, like horses and deer, but 'cross species contamination' seems

If you are looking for a great survival zombie novel, look no further. This is a very dark run for your life and keep moving type of story. The story is told in the first person narrative by a very likeable character.The protagonist is Lamar Reed, an African American gay man who spent all his life fighting stereotypes mostly succeeding. Even though he grew up in the worst part of the city he fought against becoming a criminal. He finished school. He lost his job a couple of months before the eve...

Brian Keene breathed new life into the zombie genre with The Rising and City of the Dead with an excellent slant on zombie lore.Dead Sea is apart from that world. Here we have the standard zombie we all know and love: slow, stupid, disgusting, and ravenous. There are also a few non-standards up his sleeve, but I'll leave that up to discovery.As always, Keene's pace is relentless, the story moves along like gangbusters. It's not my favorite of his (Ghoul takes that one, I think), but it's still v...

4.5 StarsThis is a tried and true straight up zombie horror novel. There is nothing really new, no unusual twists on the theme, and definitely no fantastical type ending. It is however very well written. Fast paced and filled with horror, action, and a bit of the human spirit too. I really enjoyed Keene's writing and felt that he created a top notch zombie book.Our protagonist Lamar, is a likable gay, African American, that has worked his whole life attempting to never give in to awful stereotyp...

wow!!!!! Completely blown away by this incredible zombie novel.-Basically me at the end of this book.After reading this, i've come to the very logical conclusion that in the event of a zombie apolcalypse i probably would not survive...Don't want to write too much and give the plot away but rest assured that if you're looking for something different in the zombie genre, this book ticks the box. It's heartbreaking, bleak and everything a good zombie book should have.Absolutely Loved it!!

Ghoul, was a mixed bag of sorts. At it's worst points, it came off as an overblown love letter to the 1980's. That, in and of itself, it not necessarily a bad thing, it's just that Keene felt the urgent need to over-explain his '80s pop cultural references -- so much so, that expository paragraphs began intruding on the narrative pace of the book, taking attention away from the characters and the dilemmas they faced. On the other hand, Keene had accomplished some interesting things with that boo...

I wanted to finish this book in one sitting, but work got in the way.At this point in history this is one of the best zombie books that I have read. Possible spoiler....Mr. Keene thank you for giving us a non-traditional main character who survives to the “end”. So if zombies or walkers are your thing give this book a go.

Fun kind of different take on a zombie apocalypse read, with the plus of a stand out very well written gay character. I didn’t love the ending, but that didn’t stop me from putting it on the best reads pile. If zombies are your thing then this is worth checking out.

As a huge horror fan of both films and novels, you may be surprised to find I'm not a big zombie addict. While most of my fellow horror hounds go that route, there has never been much to appeal to me about when it comes to rotting corpses stumbling around looking for brains. That being said, Keene has made quite a name for himself in the literary world as one of the best writers of the zombie sub-genre out there. Deciding to ignore the ending of his last and take it to a new direction, Dead Sea

Just call them The Dead, cause that's what they are. Different from the real dead though. These keep on moving. Stinky bastards too. They're rotting away (like all dead things should), but a little thing like that doesn't stop the Dead. If there's something of a brain left in that noggin of theirs, then they'll keep on coming...and coming.Keene's zombies are a tad different from the other guys. At first I thought that's due to the rotting nature of their bodies. A bit quicker to decay and such.

You might initially associate this with Brian's The Rising however Dead Sea is an altogether different kettle of fish. The zombies are much more traditional, the tone is far bleaker, and the characters have a very different dynamic. This book is a rather serious piece with emotive writing while The Rising was a blood-spattered zombie romp.  I adored this book and it worked really well as a standalone story; it's tense, suspenseful and utterly engrossing, I highly recommend it.

Poorly developed characters, same old zombie plot line and a certain callousness made Dead Sea a very disappointing read. I've never seen children act in the same way the two siblings do here. They are completely unbelievable, and by the end I could have cared less about their fate. I find having a gay character simply to provide a point of contention to be slightly offensive, though I don't get the impression Keene intended it that way. The bigots themselves are obviously cannon fodder, with no...

This is copy number 422 of 500 hardcover copies printed and is signed and numbered by Brian Keene.