Book News: Lanherne Chronicles Prequel Released!

If you have been reading my blog for a while then you will know I read (and absolutely loved) the first two books of the Lanherne Chronicles. The first book was a refreshing take on the zombie genre (you can check out my review here). The second was equally amazing, with just the right balance of horror, evil and family (review here). So obviously I was excited to hear there was a prequel in progress and now, here it is! I'm so overjoyed, this is the next book I will be reading this month, followed by the final book, Last Days with the Dead. 

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Review: Five More Days With The Dead

Book Summary (from Amazon)

Almost eight years ago the world changed and the laws of nature were broken. By the hand of man or by God, no-one knew for sure but now the dead were forever denied the solace of their dark oblivion. It was simple, if you died you came back, if you got bitten you came back. It didn't matter who you once were or what you once did, that was all gone now. All would become just one more of the Dead, stalking the living with a desperate hunger for flesh. But hope blossomed and life found a way. In rural areas, small communities of survivors clung to each other for safety and comfort and rebuilt their lives. They farmed, they scavenged, they made the best of this life that had been thrust upon them. In the Cornish countryside two such communities worked together, so all could survive. The high stone walls of the Lanherne convent and the secure fences of the Sub-station kept the living safe and the Dead at bay but with the hungry rotting corpses forever at their gates, things could never be the same again… or could they?

Review

Five More Days With The Dead is the sequel to Six Days With The Dead by Stephen Charlick. My review for the first book can be found here.

I was eager to read this book because the first in the series was amazing and I hoped the second would be just as good - if not, better. In the first book Charlick used the archetype of a religious fanatic as the big baddie, this time we have a military archetype. Cruel, sadistic and all too capable, the big baddies in this book are a typical example of how the military is used in zombie media. Did this disappoint me? No. Why? Because they had a purpose besides being the evil that has to be overcome. SPOILER ALERT! The military bought with them a cure, of sorts. So for all the lack of humanity displayed by these living people, they did something amazing. With a cure the world can end the cycle of the Dead. After all, it's all well and good if you can fight back the numbers of the dead, but if new ones are joining the ranks it looks like a long, exhausting battle, which is unlucky to be won.

The book is kick started with a very dramatic opening. I loved it. And it gave you enough basic background to, perhaps, read this book without having read the first book. I would certainly suggest reading the first book though, the twists in it are great.

Charlick is great at character development and has a way of making readers really like characters. This time, with my old favourite Jackson dead, I found myself liking Phil (perhaps because he takes centre stage at some points). I realised, while reading this, that the inclusion of other races, sexualities and ages really makes this book diverse in a way that some zombie media really fails to be. From films and the occasional bit of television I've watched it seems as though the ingredients are as follows: a white majority cast, with women for show, damselling or 'wow I can't believe a woman could kick ass'  value, majority (if not all) heterosexual, and some old people or children thrown in to kill off and allow for heroic rescues (or heart wrenching failures). I think Charlick deviants well from this norm. Everyone plays an important role, from the elderly to the children. Even pregnant women are out doing their part in the dangerous world instead of living comfortably in seclusion.

However, I would have liked a little more Jen and Steve development. I was left wondering why Steve's mother married his father if he is such a detestable man. Was he always this way? If yes then wouldn't Steve dislike both parents? If not, then what changed? Why was he always a disappointment to his father? As for Jen I would have liked more development because she was a weak stranger who rescued children who were not her responsibility and then had the good sense to follow the wisdom of children. She risked a lot and is clearly a brave character. I feel that we'll see more of her in the next book, though, along with Leon and other members from Patrick's camp.

This is one of those books, like the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, that I find so engaging that I don't want to put it down. Ever. Until I'm done. Then I want to read the next one immediately. I'm up early to read this book, and up late to read some more. I can't get enough of Charlick's books, and I will be sad when the series ends. However, I greatly  look forward to more of Charlick's work because of his engaging writing style.

Once again I like the use of epilogue to follow up the story and tie up loose ends. It helps stem the 'oh no, it's over all ready' feeling when you reach the last page of the last chapter. What I did notice is that there were quite a few grammatical and spelling errors, particularly towards the middle and latter part of the book. I found some of these to be pretty distracting and they sometimes upset the flow of reading.

Overall, this is an amazing book. I would suggest this book for anyone who likes zombies and/or horror. Charlick's ability to engage all the senses and make good characters likeable  while making bad characters truly dislikeable is a talent that not every writer has. That Charlick can give each character of the cast an individual personality, role and background helps to immerse the reader deeper in the world of the Dead. In this book Charlick also plays with time, allowing the reader to experience two different places or situation at the same time, often converging at some point, with clear relation to the overall timeline to avoid confusion. I liked that characters and events from the previous book weren't entirely forgotten, this helped it feel like a natural continuation rather than a stand alone novel.

Star Rating

4.5 / 5

While I do often overlook spelling and grammar mistakes, some were glaringly obvious and interrupted the pace of my reading. For that reason I've deducted half a star. Otherwise, this is a brilliant, five star book, a great follow up to the first book Six Days With The Dead.  

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Review: Six Days with the Dead

Six Days with the Dead by Stephen Charlick is a gritty zombie novel which contrasts the monstrosity of the Dead with the evil of the living. 

What this novel does well is explain vividly the state of things. For starters Charlick establishes that difference between wanderers and newly turned zombies is speed. He is also not afraid to limit his characters. They are unable to take on a motorway full of the Dead and see the danger in even tackling a small group of four. Charlick also isn't afraid to describe the zombies as they should be - a real creature of horror. Typically the appearance of zombies is commented on to elicit a reaction from the reader and/or the characters.  When there is a zombie child we feel pity and good characters may find they have difficulty killing it or it may make them remember a loved one. Charlick goes beyond this and gruesomely describes their state of decay where necessary. As I'm a fan of horror and gore so I enjoyed this detail. The inclusion of maggots, mould and putrid decay helps to create an even greater sense of repulsion in the reader when characters encounter the Dead. It also adds a greater sense of time to the novel which made it feel more real and reminds the reader that seven years have passed since the first Dead.

I found that I really liked the characters in this book, even those who were minor. I have a particular liking for Jackson. I did notice that in the beginning of the book Liz, the main character, is established seeming to care most for her younger sister, Anne. However, when Liz is out travelling, away from her sister, she doesn't seem to think about her sister as much as I would expect a weary overprotective sister would. This could have been done to avoid the narrative getting a little repetitive, but it felt as though she was simply forgotten for a day or two. Charlick did a good job of making the book seem, dare I say it, realistic. The world is grim, there is no knight in shining armour, even dogs turn on living humans, seeing them as meals and even a small band of 'heroes' can't save the unnamed victim. This is not an action packed hack and slash where the good characters can rescue everyone. Good, innocent people die and as a reader it sometimes feels as frustrating for us as it does for the characters because, given such tragedy, we just want that little slice of Lanherne heaven to grow and become normal. I'm pretty sure if Charlick had tried to create a happy book about rebuilding society it would have been dull. It's the heartbreak in this book which makes it a great read.

Charlick's decision to use the days to separate the book was clever. It meant a sense of solid time was always in place and I really like that. Often in novels the space of a day can feel the same as a few weeks. By reading this book I found that I prefer and appreciate shorter chapters. It means there's a natural break point where I can stop, put down the book, and pick it up later. So these six chapters felt pretty huge. I think this book could have benefitted from being split into days the same way some author's separate their books into books, volumes, or parts. Then having shorter, more manageable chapters, would have been a possibility. Regardless of this, the long chapters work in the sense that the reader feels how long and drawn out each day living in that world is and how much happens.

Unfortunately, I did notice a couple of typos in each chapter. It was a shame, but I'm the sort of reader who knows what the writer means, so I don't often notice typos unless they are glaringly obvious. After seeing the first few, however, I found myself on the lookout for more. This was a little disappointing, but I expected this from books published on Amazon.

The ending was, at times, predictable such as the death of Mohammad (he's the single twin, so he's expendable and I sort of thought this would be the case since he was first introduced) and the death of  Charlie (though I had hope it wouldn't happen!). The majority of the ending I didn't see coming. The evil of manically judging children and even throwing a baby straight into a pit of zombies, was truly shocking. I like how, while the evil characters are motivated by religion, Lanherne is a covenant run by Catholic nuns who, despite their religion, accept all newcomers. This helps balance out the religious element in the novel.

Despite the things I have mentioned which I feel hold it back from being a truly polished novel, I really enjoyed this gruesome read and the use of all senses to create an immersive world.

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