One of the best books I've read in a long time. The Stand meets Swan Song meets The Road. Full review at Cemetery Dance soon.

I can see why this book produces such mixed reviews, but, as a writer, I loved it. Percy has a talent for description, for painting pictures of people, settings and creatures that dance through my thoughts. I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Holter Graham, and Graham's performance may have played a factor in how much I enjoyed Percy's lyrical writing style. There are monsters galore in this a Lewis & Clark expedition across a shattered. There's even a Sacagawea (in this book, simply "Gawea...

I got to p 119 but am stopping here. A hundred years after an pandemic wipes out most of humanity, an isolated community struggles to survive in a harsh landscape, surrounded by dangerous creatures. A mysterious girl with superhuman powers arrives alone to the community and leads a band of people to...it doesn't matter. I've read this all before in The Passage. If you read The Passage and found it too long, perhaps Dead Lands is for you. Otherwise, stick to The Passage for well-developed charact...

This month's post-apocalyptic book club selection.At our meeting, this book elicited a pretty universal reaction of, "Well, it was OK." And I would have to agree.This is a pulp fiction story with literary pretensions. Honestly, I think it would've been better without the pretensions. Much has been made of the concept that it's a 'retelling of the story of Lewis and Clark' but in a post-apocalyptic landscape. But that's just a gimmick. The plot neither follows closely nor comments on American his...

Benjamin Percy’s novel is sort of a reimagining of the Lewis and Clark expedition, but across a 22nd century, post-apocalyptic landscape filled with strange mutated creatures and a devastated environment. I had a lot of fun with this book, apparently there are scientific inaccuracies in the book that some other reviewers have pointed out, but since I was reading the book to be entertained and not to be taught about evolution and science. If you enjoy picking apart the problems of science in a bo...

“The Dead Lands” is a post-apocalyptic novel in the sub-sub genre of science-fantasy (with a touch of steampunk as well), which prompted some readers to complain that the science of the novel made little sense. And I empathize with them – but only up to a certain degree. Because I felt that the science of the post-apocalyptic world was actually not inaccurate (excluding the mutant creatures, of course), and the weakness actually existed with the ungainly fantasy elements, which overshadowed the

Eh. Just not quite for me. A seemingly decent post-apocalyptic story ruined (as far as what I was hoping for) but a pretty bland and formulaic touch of fantasy as a means, in my opinion, to try and set it apart from other post-apoc books floating around these days. I'm sure this hybridization of genres works for a lot of people but it felt a bit lazy and forced to me, same in regards to the 'historic' flourish that just felt awkward (the naming convention that was used, etc.) and unnecessary. DN...

It’s All About the Spiders and the Bats, No ScienceOne of the most important science popularizers of our time, the late Stephen Jay Gould, began his scientific career by reviving the study of allometry – quite literally, the mathematics of body size and shape – while finishing his Ph. D. dissertation in invertebrate paleontology at Columbia University, and then as a young assistant professor of geology and assistant curator of invertebrate paleontology at Harvard University’s Museum of Comparati...

DNF @ 100 pages. It was just weird and the writing wasn't a style I enjoyed. I was very confused.

okay, so this book is fantastic. i mean, to me. it hit all my personal zing-buttons: sharp characters and a george r.r. martin-esque willingness to pare them down, well-described post-apocalyptic world, surprising twists, bleak atmosphere, and a chewy, cinematic quality to the writing that pans around and takes in everything. when it comes to horror, i can't appreciate that lovecraftian tradition that makes the reader work to "see" the horror. i'll work for any other kind of book, but with horro...

I FINALLY FINISHED THIS BOOK!Sorry... it takes me so long to finish books now days but I had to see this one through to the end. There's something about Benjamin Percy's writing that draws readers in. He's descriptive and paints the portrait vividly of a dystopian world that's been ruined by a flu-like disease. I was hoping The Dead Lands was a sequel to Red Moon which I enjoyed (for the most part). So SPOILER ALERT: It isn't! Insert sad face here.The Dead Lands is the story of a group of people...

There is noting in this book that would recommend it. Its structure is bad, the writing is poor, and we've seen it all prior and seen it better.

It’s been awhile since I’ve read something that I’ve enjoyed one moment, became frustrated and annoyed with the next, returned to enjoying, and alternated back and forth until the closing pages. What it comes down to is that I found I could stomach and enjoy The Dead Lands when I shut off my brain and simply let the thrill of a the post-apocalyptic adventure carry me. If I tried to analyze it as anything more, from themes to the language of the text, I felt like abandoning it.Percy’s novel has t...

Full disclosure: I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.I'll admit I'm a bit of a hypochondriac, but I have come a long way from being convinced I had the plague when I caught a bad cold while reading Stephen King's The Stand many years ago. If I hadn't, I certainly wouldn't be able to read many of the post-apocalyptic, dystopian novels out there that chronicle the world after major pandemics without convincing myself I had whatever illnesse...

I really enjoyed this one - it seems to have been a bit hit and miss with advanced reviewers but for me it was a big hit for several reasons.Firstly I was fascinated by the set up and the world building. Set in two locations if you like, firstly The Sanctuary which is anything but and secondly in The Dead Lands - the world outside The Sanctuary. The world has been decimated both by an epidemic and by nuclear explosions - in the world of The Sanctuary safety comes at a high cost, outside the wall...

In the vast sea that is the modern post-apocalyptic genre, Benjamin Percy’s “The Dead Lands” is a rarity: a novel that manages to traipse in practically every cliché known to the genre, yet somehow – against all odds – never manages to stumble upon one single original idea of its own. I’m not kidding – every single hallmark of the post-apocalyptic genre that you can imagine is here and accounted for:A catastrophe that brings the world to an abrupt end? Check. Huge walled-in cities, bustling with...

Read 4/6/15 - 4/9/153 Stars - Recommended to fans of post apocalyptic fiction that feels more like an epic fantasyPages: 400Publisher: Grand Central PublishingReleased: April 2015Let's get one thing straight right from the get-go. When I rated this book, I was really torn between three and four stars. A big part of me wanted to rate it four stars because I read the hell out of this thing in a matter of a few days. I didn't want to put it down and it's not very often that a book really pulls me i...

An exhausting feat of endurance and bravery. That's just me getting to page 308. I just didn't care about any of the characters, and I think the third-person omniscient viewpoint and present tense writing managed to distance me from them. And the almost complete lack of humour - even when the world has gone to shit, you'd expect the kind of people that survive to have a sense of humour. Or one of them, at least. Plus a lot of little niggly details about the world didn't seem to add up.

Love his writing and would have been a five star book, but like RED MOON, he rushes his endings too much for me.

The Dead Lands is a post-apocalyptic reimagining of the adventures of Lewis and Clark. This book is nothing like the adventure I imaged for Lewis and Clark. This tale includes dark leadership, America 150 years after a super-flu, living mutants, fierce love, indifference, theft, loyalty, friendship, thirst, affluence, and an adventure across a rugged terrain.Meriwether Lewis and Wilhelmina “Mina” Clark have been friends since childhood. She was always the stronger of the two, but there is someth...