The Rising

Author - Brian Keene (City of the Dead, The Conqueror Worms)
Release Date - 2003
Genre - Horror
Format - Paperback (Personal Collection)

Rating (out of 5):

     Growing up I was an avid reader but I was not something you would call a "bookworm."  I still spent most of my time watching movies and playing Sega Genesis.  This was the time when R.L. Stine gave the world the greatest children's horror series of all time with Goosebumps.  I would slowly read a book a week for a few years when those were released.  They came out when I was in 4th grade and I was a fan of them until I was in the 6th grade (I know I was a little too old for them by that point but I liked them!).  After that point horror comics consumed my life and I didn't really read novels anymore.  I did randomly pick one up here and there but nothing like I was before.  During my life I have read my fair share of books but I have never had the urge to re-read any of them.  When I was in high school my accounting teacher was at a festival here in the state of West Virginia and purchased a horror novel by West Virginia author Brian Keene.  Keene is well known in the horror genre for his novels but at the time his book The Rising was just released and that was the book she grabbed.  She originally purchased the book for herself but after reading a few short pages decided to give it to me.  I read the book and liked it but forgot about it with time.  However, I recently dusted off my Kindle after reading two stories by Terry M. West and decided it was time to work my way through Keene's bibliography starting with The Rising.
     The story follows Jim, a West Virginia construction worker, who has been hiding out in his homemade bunker as the undead begin to take over the world.  He recently lost his second wife and unborn child to the undead hordes.  He is questioning his sanity when his cell phone rings and discovers that his son, who now lives in New Jersey with his mother and step-father, is still alive and his parents have been turned.  Jim sets out on a journey that brings him up close and personal with hundreds of the undead who can talk and reason just like the living.  Eventually he meets an elderly black priest names Father Martin. Martins accompanies Jim on his travels where they encounter cannibals and even more zombies brandishing guns and driving vehicles.  Eventually Jim and Martin cross paths with a military outfit who force survivors to joins their ranks.  They make the able bodied men work and turn the women into whores and rape them.  The military group eventually finds a survivor, Professor Baker, who is the unknown reason that all hell has broke loose on Earth.  He was working on an experiment when he opened a black hole which released ancient beings from "The Void" that inhabits the recently deceased.  Their numbers are more than the stars and were put in the void by God.  The are now breaking free and taking over the minds of the undead.  Their leader, Ob, is now free on the world and stages an attack on the military convey freeing Frankie the junkie, Jim, and Martin to continue on their mission.  After many close calls and a lot of bloodshed Jim finally reaches the home of his son in New Jersey but is it too late?
      When I first read this book I enjoyed it but now after reading it a second time I have a whole new appreciation for it.  The idea of a zombie apocalypse has been ran through the ringer endlessly with so many films, television shows, books, comics, and even games out there for mass consumption.  However, after reading The Rising, which was released the same year as issue #1 of The Walking Dead, I realized that this is a brand new take on the zombie apocalypse and to be honest I was really creeped out by it.  The idea of the undead shambling around eating the flesh of the living was never one that scared me or gave me chills.  I grew up with Night of the Living Dead '68 and NotLD 90's, Day of the Dead, and Dawn of the Dead so the idea of zombies never terrified me.  However, Keene's version of the zombie mythos really sent a chill down my spine.  The thought of the undead communicating and using weapons is down right dastardly and extremely frightening.  I would often read a few pages and pause thinking about the hell the living were truly going through.  I also liked how Keene threw in undead animals.  That also knocked the scares up a notch.  Killer rabbits sounds silly when saying it out loud but Keene took all the humor out of it and made it a concept to make sissies shit their pants.  That being said, this is a story we have heard numerous times by now but in 2003 it was still something familiar but not run in the ground like it is now.  Keene did not set out to re-invent the wheel but show it another way of spinning.  The book is very well written.  Keene has a way with words and makes his story very descriptive.  Unlike King, who can spend pages upon pages to describe a door, Keene is able to be very detailed without taking the readers mind off the story at hand.  The book also was very easy to read and follow which is a plus for a novice reader like myself.  I am not one to read literary classics so when I sit down to read a book I need it to flow very well and be easily read and that is what Keene did.  Overall, this is pure terror and horror on paper.  Keene demonstrates that he is a true horror god and I highly recommend this classic.