This is how the world ends.
This is how the world ends.
This is how the world ends.
Not with a bang...but a bite.
Mr. Maberry has done it again. He’s made an awesome zombie novel that has sucked me in and had me begging for the sequel so that I could continue consuming the story. Alas, I’ll have to wait until September to see how this story ends (although since Maberry had stated that Fall of Night is the story of First Night (Rot & Ruin), I pretty much know that there’s no happy ending to be had).
Dead of Night follows Officers Dez Fox and JT and reporter Billy Trout through a horrific, roughly 24 hour period in a rural Pennsylvania county. You see, mass murderer Homer Gibbons had been put to death, and his only living relative, secretly requested that he be sent home for burial. Of course, the doctor administering his cocktail of death via IVs decided to play god, and we all know how well that turns out. So, does Homer Gibbons stay dead? Of course not, this is a freaking zombie novel, people! The bastard rises, and Stebbins County, Pennsylvania pays that ultimate price, with our MCs stuck right in the middle of it all.
Officer Dez Fox is a broken, damaged main character. She’s snarky and closed off, and she’s just not well liked, unless you’ve been able to get close to her. However, if you get too close to her, she’s going to fuck you over, as reporter Billy Trout knows only too well. And although she wasn’t likeable to the other characters in the novel, as the reader, I rooted for her. I loved her abrasiveness and her rough demeanor. I, however, didn’t really care for how she treated those that were considered her friends and close to her, especially in such a devastating situation.
Her partner JT, was the opposite of her. He was opened and a fatherly figure to her, and I loved him.
Billy Trout was a little bit of a blah at first for me. He felt weak, and I just wanted to smack the heck out of him in the beginning of the book. But, he really did a lot of good by the end of the book, and even though I still wasn’t a fan of the pining over Dez thing he did the entire novel, I just dismissed it as the bit of romance of the novel and moved on.
Now, what really irked me was the stupidity in this novel. Seriously, in this day and age, and this book was set in a present time, not unlike now, we have a zombie pop culture. And NO ONE, not one single person thought “hey, maybe these are zombies? I know it’s crazy, but these dead folk are getting up and eating people. I’ve seen Shaun of the Dead.”
Nope, they had no clue. Not when Dez is first attacked by the first dead person, not when they were checking vitals in the ambulance after one of the cops starts eating other cops’ faces, not when they’re at the hospital and that cop is still coding as DEAD. No, no one says zombie.
So word of advice: be the one to call zombie. Sure, it may make you look like a freak, but if anyone comes at me with their mouths opened and a moan, I’m bashing their skull in. I’ll beg forgiveness if they end up being jacked on some drug instead later. No way am I turning zom.
OH! I absolutely loved one part of Dead of Night in particular, and it was getting to see inside the zombies mind. I loved that. I thought it was clever, and wonderful, and fantastic. The main zombie who’s mind we see (aside from Gibbons, who’s not a mindless ghoul) is the mortician Lee Hartnup. He’s the first victim, but because he has knowledge of the human anatomy and death in general, it was just really awesome to witness these two sides of him. The scientist/doctor who knows he’s dead, and the brainless, useless body no longer taking commands from his brain. It was just always excellent to read, and it made me really feel sorry for the Doc by the end of the story. To read the torture he went through, begging his body to stop, but not being able to force it to stop, was just brilliantly done.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and it would have easily been a 4.5/5 Star book for me had zombie pop culture played a role in someone understanding what was happening faster than Trout digging for a story, and if Dez had been a more likeable character.
If you like zombie novels, give it a shot. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. And, if you’re like me, and just a huge Maberry fan, this is a definite must read!