No Mere Zombie (Deathless #2) by Chris Fox
My rating: 6 out of 10 stars
Nearly all technology has been wiped out by the sun’s largest coronal mass ejection in history. In its wake comes the zombie apocalypse. The dead have risen, and they are hungry.
Yet there are greater threats than the walking dead. The deathless have returned, slumbering in the same Arks that carried the werewolves into the present. If they are not stopped they will build a massive necropolis in the remains of San Francisco, and the entire continent will pay the price.
Only the few werewolves created before the apocalypse stand between humanity and annihilation. They stand against the deathless, but they are outnumbered and alone. Their only hope of victory comes from the very enemy that sough to stop their creation, Mohn Corp.
After the werewolf gore feast in the previous instalment we now add zombies to the mix. These zombies follow in the path of the werewolves in the previous book in that they are in no way the usual zombies that have been found in all too many books and movies. Well, they are pretty dumb when they start but then when they feed they get smarter. You can of course guess which parts of the human body they feed on for their “education”. Of course the entire idea is utterly ridiculous but it makes for some nice gory parts in the book.
Then there are some zombies that start off already being on the higher steps of the evolutionary ladder. This is of course be the old enemies of the “Mother” and the werewolves who now also have awaken. These are of course nasty customers and, just like the werewolves, they have a few more abilities than just dealing with their enemies through brute force.
The core of the story and the fresh take on werewolves and zombies are quite entertaining. The book is fairly loaded with action although there are more quiet parts as well were we get to learn more about the history of the werewolves and the zombies or “deathless” as they are supposed to be called.
Mohn Corp is back as well although most of them are more making a mess of things instead of helping. Having said that, this is not entirely out of stupidity as you will learn if you read the book. Nevertheless I felt those bits rather annoying for the most part. Actually, this is part of the parts of the book that I do not like so much. As with the previous book this one also degenerates a lot into a mediocre TV-show type of story where the actual twists in the story are mostly just throwing one deceit, treachery or simply downright stupid and unintelligent behaviour after another at the viewer, or in this case the reader. No faction seems to be spared this. Humans, werewolves and deathless are equally bad. The end of the book is really a classical, silly and very predictable TV-show style cliff-hanger and I really do not like cliff-hangers.
The book was quite entertaining but I also feel that it could have been a lot better, especially given the really nice core story idea.
PG's Ramblings 