An alright book, but I just felt like we were running around from place to place the whole book. Takes place in one night, and the descriptions aren't always that clear.

A pretty good book, I am probably going to continue the series. But this is definitely a series book, could not work as a stand alone. ( )

I definitely could use more zombie fiction in my life, but I found the author's style impenetrable, I tried several times to read this but could not get into this. I scanned random spots in the first third of the book and no matter what, I just kept mashing my head into a wall. So, my only conclusion can be, it's terrible, so do not waste your time. If you can get into the text despite the author, then good on you. My opinion on this book, author, and series is set (unfortunately). I'm done trying to read it. ( )

One star for the inclusion of a zombie baby and one star for the guy who stole the truck. ( )

(Re-posted from http://theturnedbrain.blogspot.com)

"These aren't your mother's zombies!" cries the tagline on the front of Joe McKinney's 'Dead City.' Which leads me to believe that reading the book is not actually a part of a tagwriter's job description. To me, 'these aren't your mother's zombies' is a way of saying, 'check it, these zombies are new and different and unlike the zombies of your mother's day.' Except that I can't remember the last time I encountered a zombie story as old school as 'Dead City.' These are your mother's zombies. Your mum went to high school with these zombies, and when she sees them in the supermarket she stops to catch up for, like, hours.

But it's not a bad thing! In fact, the "tradionalness," if you will, of Dead City was probably my favourite aspect of the book. It seems that as zombies have grown increasingly fashionable authors have been trying to put a new spin on them. It's like zombies alone aren't enough any more, it has to be steampunk zombies (Boneshaker), or blogger zombies (Alison Hewitt is Trapped) or thinking zombies (Warm Bodies) which is fine and good, but you know, sometimes you just want to read about zombies.

And on that, McKinney delivers. The book is set in San Antonio and follows policeman Eddie through the first night of a sweeping zombie invasion. He wants to get back to his wife and kid, and there are a bazillion zombies to get past first.

What can I say about this book? If you like zombies, you'll enjoy it. If you're sick of zombies, you probably won't. McKinney's skill lies in writing tense and effective action scenes. He doesn't fall into the repetitive traps of some zombie novels, instead he thrusts Eddie into a number of different situations that keep things interesting and exciting.

McKinney is also very, very skilled at scene setting. He has that rare ability to paint a detailed mind picture in your head with just a single sentence. I can't remember the last time I encountered such vivid scenes in any book. McKinney has a knack for capturing quiet moments amidst all the zombie carnage, I really can't praise his descriptive skill highly enough.

He's less skillful when it comes to dialogue. Nothing the character's said ever rang entirely true, and he had a habit of using characters as an excuse to launch into hamfisted philosophising. (Are zombies people too? Did mankind bring them on themselves? Blah, blah, get to the brains!) There were also some inconsistencies in his plotting. Some things just seemed too convenient or easy, there were a few ideas that just didn't go anywhere, and the ending was way sudden.

Really, the ending didn't seem like the end of a book so much as it did the end of a really long prologue. Which normally I would hate like nothing else (it's the reason I never read beyond Charlie Higson's 'The Enemy...'), but by the end of Dead City I found myself more intrigued than annoyed and I can easily see myself picking up the next book in the series.

McKinney may not has written a book that offers a new twist on zombies, but that's exactly what I liked so much about it. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.
( )

The gulf coast of Texas suffers five hurricanes in three weeks, leaving thousands dead and displacing even more. San Antonio was thankfully spared much of the devastation, but even so, Office Eddie Hudson and the rest of the police force face a busy night with the influx of survivors...and something else. During a routine call about a possibly burglary, Eddie and his partner Chris spot a lone woman, disoriented, moving slowly, with something spilled across the front of her shirt. As they watch, a few more people stumble out of a nearby building, with the same slow movements, but they don't notice the officers. Then, Eddie and Chris call out to them, and the group shambles toward them, paying no attention to the officers' calls to stop. They fire bean bags rounds at the advancing group without so much as slowing them down and soon find themselves surrounded.

The situation goes from bad to worse when Chris is knocked to the ground by a woman who begins clawing and biting him. With some effort, Eddie frees his partner and they manage to escape for a time. All the while, Chris begins to show signs of sickness and quickly deteriorates. It's only when he dies then comes back to life that Eddie realizes how truly horrific the situation is.

Racing against time -- and a horde of the waling dead -- Eddie's only thought as he fights his way across San Antonio is for his wife and newborn son's safety.

"Dead City" is full of a relentless (and gruesome) zombie goodness. Just when you hope Eddie's safe, more of those slow-moving terrors somehow rat him out of his hiding hole, and you wonder right along with him where the hell they keep coming from. The story moves at an incredibly fast pace, keeping me riveted at this one night in the life of Eddie Hudson trying to reach his family. And I wouldn't want to run into Eddie -- any survivors he found wound up as zombie food.

If you're in the mood for a quick zombie fix, this is a great book to satisfy your cravings. ( )