Title - The Words of their RoaringAuthor - Matthew Smith
Year - 2007
Stand Alone or series - Second of Tomes of the Dead Series but Stand Alone
Pages - 338
Reading Time - 6 days (June 2008)
Rating - 7/10
After reading the first book in these new series called Tomes of the Dead published by Abaddon I knew I would enjoy each title (well the premises were good... the transformation of that premises into novels is another matter). The first book was Death Hulk by Matthew Sprange that dealt with the Age of Sail and the battles between the french and brittons. It was somewhat innovanting and it was a good addition to the zombie fiction.
Summary
London's Falling!
London - a city overrun by the zombie hordes. Most of the human survivors live from day to day, scraping together an existence amongst the ruins, avoiding the shambling, flesh-hungry undead that stalk the streets. But for others the situation is an opportunity, a chance to establish a powerbase within the capital now that all authority has virtually collapsed. For gang lord Harry Flowers, the plague is his chance to finally rule the city unopposed.
Operating out of his well-protected mansion on London's outskirts, Flowers sees a chance to use the zombies and the havoc they wreak for his own ends. The way he sees it, the ghouls aren't going to be around forever, and when he re-establishes a functioning society, it's going to be on his own terms. All he needs is a way to control the dead. But Flowers is not the only one with designs on the city...
Review
First thing I've got to say is that as all other covers by the same artist are truly great. I think Abaddon Books have one of the most brillaint fiction painters on role. Then the font and font size inside are good as well. Not to small for my poor eyes but not to large just to fill a book with pages. Another good thing is the inside always one blurb (is that the way the english say?) or preview of a another novel. In several novels are also short stories from the same author or another. I think that's great. The first thought that I had when I read this novel was the english film called 28 days later (highly reccommend) and the sequel 28 weeks. I don't know why but one reminds me of the other.
One thing that got me hooked was the new way of seeing zombies. The book is divided in three parts and besides the protagonists changing we also see the zombie changing... changing too much in my humble opinion. This tale is not for all zombies fans. Some of the "old school" if you can say that will not like these zombies.
The main protagonist is Gabe who works for Flowers, a crimelord in control of some parts of London. This tale begins some years after the zombies have overrun the nation and that's another different thing from other novels who like to write about the beginning of this infestation. The Reapers are the Angels was the last book I read that the author began the narrative several years after the plague outbreak. Well returning to our tale Flowers have some scientists working for him to help him control the undead and serve his own needs.
The tale then steps back into the past when Gabe was not working for Flowers, just before the undead rose. Here we get to see a lot more of the story of both characters and even of a woman who is not a major important character in these tale but is an important to understand the story behind Gabe and Flowers and also of the creation of the zombies. Then the story steps into the future and we see the change that has occurred in the zombies from mindless ones to something more advanced beings. The weaker part of the novel was the epilogue. It was desnecessary. I like the book as I said before but I don't like the idea of zombies that are able to ride cars or shoot people or things like that. A different kind of zombies are nice but going so far that they are humans but undead it's not that great. Nevertheless I would advice reading this book to anyone who likes zombie fiction.
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