On October 23rd, John Doe arrives at San Diego’s morgue dead. An autopsy is performed, but cause of death is ambiguous. Certainly not the gunshot wounds on his body. Yet, despite being declared dead, and with his heart in Charlie Rutkowski, the morgue’s diener, John Doe starts to move.
All around the world, the dead start to rise and fall on their still breathing fellow humans, fuelled by a primordial need to feed. Any who are bitten die but return to a sort of life, spreading the sickness further until humanity is divided into pockets, fighting for survival.
The Living Dead follows the stories of a handful of survivors; an 18-year-old girl, a morgue diener, a naval officer, a new presenter, and a data analyst, from day one, exploring the lengths humanity will go to in order to survive.
For anyone who regularly reads my reviews, I don’t need to confess that I love zombies. It isn’t the zombies themselves, it’s the survivors and the challenges they face. Sometimes, the survivors are more terrifying than the zombies. The Living Dead shows humanity at its best and its worst.
A few different points of view are used to tell this story, but it’s handled well. A couple of characters will be together in a moment, and we live that moment with both of them, the highs, the lows and the bits in the middle where survival is as good as it gets.
The central theme is around the almost tribal nature of humanity, banding together based on common traits. The Living Dead demonstrates there are no Them or They, there are just humans. Each of the characters reflects this theme, men and women who all face racism and prejudice every day because of the colour of their skin, gender or sexuality. The situation demonstrates that people have the same fears and concerns, and scope for compassion regardless of the surface, superficial differences such as skin tone. A very relevant message during these times.
In fact, the only male Caucasian of any real note is a Catholic chaplin on an aircraft carrier, and for me, he is the least rounded character. White men of religion going mad in times of crises and ruling plots of land like bloodthirsty dictators is not new and my only criticism of the entire book.
A little while ago I read a short story by Jonathon Maberry who wrote Dead of Night and Fall of Night. In George A. Romero ’s opinion, they were the official explanation as to how the dead came back to life and Maberry to write a short story to connect everything together. A Cold War Russian bioweapon is tested on a prison inmate, genetically engineered parasites that take over a person’s brain, cutting off the consciousness from the physical. A person would be aware of what they were doing, but unable to stop themselves.
This is an uncomfortable concept, and The Living Dead contains some scenes written from the zombies’s points of view. They are aware on a primitive level and have some limited memories. These scenes are fascinating, the hive mind of the zombies, what they remember and do not, and do as much to challenge the reader’s perception of zombies as the choice of characters.
Another interesting point about this book is the two authors, Daniel Kraus finishing what George A. Romero started. Even though there were two people involved in it, its impossible to tell who had a hand in what. It is seamless throughout making for an enjoyable, fast paced read. Recommended.

This is not my usual genre, although I am a fan of Stephen King, master of the macabre. The book initially concerns the fact that the dead are no longer staying so, and the reader is taken through the developments from the standpoint of five groups - a statistician Etta, the medical examiner Luis and his diener Charlene who deal with patient zero, a media presenter, a senior officer on a military aircraft carrier and a young black girl living in a trailer park. For the first third of the book, I was puzzled why these stories did not mesh - it was like reading vignettes, but the characters did not intersect.

However, once the authors had established the parameters of what had happened, the tale becomes even more interesting as we are taken 15 years further on, to see how humans and zombies are managing together - some enslaved, some cared for, some ignored. The story is very complex, and makes the reader think a lot about humanity and what it is doing. Some passages are incredibly beautiful.

The one character who outshines them all in terms of being a really evil individual is Richard Lindof - not only out for himself, he is willing to drag down everyone else around him to achieve his aims. A typical Trumpesque character, he mocks everyone's efforts, while offering no sensible solutions at all - only prejudice and violence. More dangerous than any zombie.

The book was written by George Romero who made many films about the zombie apocalypse, but it was incomplete at the time of his death so was finished by Daniel Kraus. I think it is a clever and interesting book, far more than a gore-fest, and I think it is one I shall re-read and be able to see new perspectives.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers and Bantam Press for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

George A Romero essentially created the iconography of the modern zombie myth via his string of legendary movies. When he died in 2017, he left an incomplete novel, a story he wished to tell that he could never get the budget or funding for. This manuscript has been taken up and completed by Daniel Kraus. It’s hard to guess what’s Romero and what’s Kraus (although the fascinating Afterword goes some way towards this), but the most important thing is, it feels authentic. Just like the movies, there are lashings of gore, mixed with trenchant social commentary. The atmosphere is right and the settings feel faithful to the films without slavishly reproducing them. George’s trademark pessimism is there in spades as well. Fans are also going to dig the nods to other Romero films, and some other post apocalyptic scenarios (I’m sure there was a reference to The Last Of Us).
As a quibble, I’d like to have seen more of a global perspective, but maybe that’s a different book. This is highly recommended for anyone who enjoyed Romero’s classic films.

DNF at 58%
For me the trailer park scene was the first real glimpse of what I was getting into with The Living Dead...

However when we came to the naval ship I really struggled and almost slumped entirely. I felt there was far too much unnecessary detail added- think American Psycho. Some people enjoy that kind of depth but I had to skim large chunks of information including types of equipment and military speak that added nothing to the story. Even as a woman who works in military aerospace manufacture I barely understood or had use for all the technological garb. I felt the same about the unnecessary statistics among other things. A heavy edit is needed imo.

It seemed to me like the writers were trying to emulate the style of The Stand with the deep dive to introduce each character, but in this case it doesn't pay off. Of the several we are introduced to it was only Greer I was ever invested in.

I will say the conflicts are fantastic. Whether it be rivalry on the ship, outbreak at the trailer park or outrage at the news station. The action is nail biting and brilliantly imagined, so for these moments I give top marks. Unfortunately any tension built by the violent zombie outbreaks is swiftly erased by my disinterest in the afore mentioned details and shallow characters.

The Living Dead can stand to be at least 200 pages shorter to hold peak reader interest and if it were I'm sure I'd be singing a different tune.

For me, great writing, inconsistent content. Better to watch any feature length zombie movie, I've slipped into a reading slump and given up on the book.

To put it into context how much I was anticipating the release of The Living Dead and therefore give this review some context I will mention up front that I gave my son the middle name Romero. I was introduced to George’s universe in my early teens through Dawn of the Dead. Initially the obvious appealed; the gore, the violence, the surreal sight of what felt like thousands of undead undead flood a shopping mall. I went out and purchased my own copy of the extended cut on VHS (which I still have, probably very worn out), then I read in a horror film encyclopaedia that not only was there another two films in the trilogy but that the director had many other films for me to explore. I remember the encyclopaedia’s comments on Dawn mentioned, what is so obvious now, that the film was a response to consumerism taking hold at the time with many of these modern shopping malls popping up to meet the demand for a place that people could flock to and dump their new disposable cash. This little bit of text (and totally paraphrased on my part; I’ve never been able to find this film encyclopaedia again) started me thinking before I had even saw another Romero film; if Dawn had a deeper meaning what does the rest of his films mean? This thought sat in the back of my head as I explored the canon of Romero, which I will tell you was much harder to do pre-internet before everything was easily available on DVD at the click of a button!

I want to avoid spoilers as much as possible with The Living Dead so I’ll try and dance around things I have to say. First of all, the book is good, it’s very good. If you read a lot of zombie fiction you will soon find out that a lot of it is apocalyptic fantasy dreams put down in writing, this was true before the zombie boom of the last two decades and is even more true now when fiction around the undead is ten a penny (so many books on kindle; you’d never read them all). That’s one of the reasons why World War Z was such a punch to the face, it wasn’t simply a book about zombies it was a clever take on Max Brooks’ part to deep dive at how each country with its unique history, background, political environment and religion would respond to something such as far fetched as an outbreak of the undead. It took what Romero did and put it on a massive canvas. What The Living Dead has in common with World War Z (outside the fact that both are extremely well written) is that it is large both in its size (I read the digital version but I can imagine the physical version is quite a doorstop) and the concepts & themes it plays with. The scope covers day one outbreak through to far into the future; way past population numbers you see mentioned in Day of the Dead’s estimations. The book starts with sizeable chapters dedicated to seemingly unrelated characters as the outbreak happens (this book hits the reset button once again as he did with Diary of the Dead) the narratives of which are brought together masterfully in the latter section of the book. The same key themes that Romero leaned into are here and explored in other films; race (a repeating occurrence here; too many to mention), religion & military power (the section the aircraft carrier was extremely claustrophobic, I was glad when it was over) and the fall of government & society (the Trump stand-in here makes the guests who appear in the TV segments of Dawn of the Dead appear sane).

Which leads to me to the subject of Romero’s voice and involvement in this novel, what is obvious in large amounts of the text is that the key voice in this story is of Daniel Kraus’, there’s things that immediately stood out to me; I doubt that George would do a deep dive in The X Files including specific episode titles, J.J’s Jamboree doesn’t feel like something Romero would create, the soundtrack use of The Quiet Man was too on the nose for me (there are other references to the man himself such as Carnegie Mellon), naming a character Hoffman (after Romero’s favourite Tales of..) and so much as quoting lines e.g. “another one for the fire”.
There are other things which are references to George’s films (in one section there are brief synopsis of Romero’s non-zombie films in quick succession in the forms of reports that are happening) that often feel like obligatory fanboy references (though bonus points for getting Season of the Witch in here!). Initially much of this bugged me but on reflection that was because I realised that I wanted George’s voice, something that we were never going to get (the manuscript he left behind was far from complete), once I’d made peace with that, and asked myself if I was a writer given the task to complete this novel (which I would not like to do!) would I be able to prevent myself from squeezing in references to George and his work? Definitely not.

Trying to sum up this book in a star rating is equal parts asinine and difficult for me. The Living Dead should not be primarily seen as the last true Romero work (that still is the underrated and misunderstood Survival of the Dead) but a traditional collaboration of two authors but also a celebration of George’s work. I doubt that any other creative mind will have the same impact as the friendly giant of George did to me at how I look film or fiction, which is has what led to the longest review I have written on here (I could have went deeper and mentioned the new ground it truly breaks new ground in the genre with characters such as The Chief but I want it to remain spoiler free as possible!).

Although I was provided with an advance review copy of this book I will be purchasing the audiobook so I can I go through the novel one more time.

I'm a fan of Romero's cinematic works, and was very excited to get the opportunity to read an advanced reader copy via Netgalley in return for an honest review. I think Daniel Kraus has done an excellent job of working with the manuscript and completing the novel following George's death.

From a slow start, we are drawn into a rapidly deteriorating world. With a masterful use of rising tension we discover at the same as the many POV characters that the dead are rising.

The characters are for the most part well developed (I'd be interested in the perspective of an autistic person on one of the characters, which grated for me) and I was invested in their survival. The prose is cinematic in it's detail - which is to be expected, coming as it does from Romero. I would not be at all surprised to see this picked up and developed into a movie.

I was in parts reminded of Max Brooks World War Z, with the individual accounts of each character first encountering the dead.

This book has been 50 years in the making and my expectations were always going be impossibly high. George A. Romero's films will always have personal and cultural resonance and the themes of racism, rampant consumerism and a lack of communication between humans as a species, that run through his movies are all present here but ratcheted up to ten. The inclusion of class struggles, Immigration, the rise of Trumpism and American isolationism bring a sense of now and a freshness I was worried would be missing. Daniel Kraus is a great writer, I've enjoyed everything I've read from him and was a fantastic choice to continue Romero's universe. The story is strong with an actual conclusion which is often difficult to do when the subject matter is the undead and has some genuinely unsettling scenes, the one near the beginning involving chicken wire was a particular stand out moment. As I said at the start my expectations were maybe ridiculously high but overall I really enjoyed this and its a good 4 stars

This is an EPIC book, in every sense of the word it's a huge journey through the lives of various characters during a zombie/ghoul apocalypse. It's extremely character driven - and by this I mean there are chapters devoted to characters, their lives, the situations they find themselves in and everything in between and in some cases, afterwards. And I could not stop wanting to read it! I needed to find out more about these people. I lived and breathed every moment with every one of them.

The take on zombies/ghouls was a really interesting one. The general gore and horror you would expect is there but there is so much more to it than meets the eye.

There are racial, political and social nuances throughout, but it has at its core an extreme sense of what it is to be human, and it is that aspect that threads through this novel connecting everything together.

I have never read a zombie novel before this one, though I've seen plenty of zombie movies and shows. This book played out before my reading eyes like a movie, and left something behind with me that will stay, just as those many movies and shows have. It has heart, character, nail biting intensity, cringeworthy gory scenes, heartbreaking tearful losses, and triumphant cries of victory. It does not ask all the questions, it does not give all the answers. But it doesn't need to. Etta, Greer, Chuck, Charlene, Luis, Nishimura, Muse, Jenny, Fadi, and Annie Teller. And so many, many more. Their stories build the foundation for this epic, and the superb writing draws you right in to their lives and it's fabulous.

Thank you to the authors, publishers and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was looking forward to reading The Living Dead. I am a fan of zombie books and films and will always jump at the chance at apocalyptic and end of the world stories, and having seen Romero's films, especially the first three classics what could go wrong.
The Living Dead started so well. The coroner and assistant, the federal worker, the young girl fighting for survival at the trailer park, there was the newsroom and then the aircraft carrier. A lot of characters each with their backstories. So much backstory.
By now I am 40% into The Living Dead and starting to skip pages. I was becoming less interested in the book or where it was going to take us and felt I could not face another lengthy character backstory. I carried on as I hate not finishing books and things started to pick. But it was a long read and one I nearly put to one side so many times.
The Living Dead is well written and has all the gore you would expect from a zombie book but almost every character has a fully fleshed out story which occasionally gets in the way.

The Living Dead is a book I expected a lot from. From a George Romero manuscript, Daniel Kraus was finally going to let us witness how it all happened.

My first disappointment came right at the beginning. It’s set in contemporary times, and not in the sixties. So, if we’re about to witness the start of a zombie apocalypse, it’s not the start of George Romero epic series of movies. It’s a reinterpretation.

However, the base principle is the same : The dead won’t stay dead. And that’s a problem. This first part of the book is very interesting. Indeed, we do get to witness what happened.

Aside of that, we get zombies we’re used to, good and bad humans than we’re used to, as well, and survivors surviving (or not) perils we’ve already seen or read. Your basic zombie fare. Some humans being more despicable than their dead relatives.

The narrative reminded me of Max Brooks’ World War Z, as if we were collecting pieces of information from the future. So, I was also expecting to see the events unfolding worldwide, but the story stubbornly remained relatively local. We were also promised horror, and horrific it is. I have no problem with that, and Daniel Kraus delivers.

The characters are well fleshed out, and you get invested in them (big mistake, as we all know). So, in the end, this is good zombie story, but I was expecting more in 700 pages, and not more of the same.

Thanks to Random House UK, Transworld Publishers and Netgalley for the ARC provided in exchange for this unbiased review.

Yet another book ruined by awful copy formatting, whilst I am ever grateful to be given the opportunity to read books via netgalley the publishers really should look at they release them as this is just awful to try and read