The Living Dead will be released August 4th, 2020. 

First off, it should be noted how great Daniel Kraus is. Both Rotters and Blood Sugar are absolute must reads. Romero apparently finished 60% of this book before his untimely death, and luckily for us, long-time Romero fan Daniel Kraus, was selected to complete the story.

Here is where I should admit I was underwhelmed at the first 2/3rds of the story and I wonder if that is a coincidence, considering this was mostly written by Romero. Now, don't get me wrong, there is plenty of action and zombie mayhem in this portion of the book.  But some of the descriptions of the action seemed...clinical?  Additionally, the book has a lot of characters, with tons of point-of-view changes, so there are a lot of subplots to keep track of.  Books written in this format are typically slower paced at the start, so I forgave this, hoping all of these threads would be wrapped up nicely in the end.

This story really shines in the final act, which actually brought me to tears multiple times. Fans of Jonathan Maberry's Rot and Ruin series will find a lot to love in this book. The final third is 5-star caliber stuff and ultimately redeems the weaker sections.  For the Romero fans, there are many Easter eggs from his zombie films in this book, so keep your eyes peeled.  

Grade:  B

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Review by Jason Cavallaro

jcavallaro42[at]gmail[dot]com

Twitter:  @pinheadspawn

I received a copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for review consideration.