AnythingHorror Central

***Just as I was about to post this review I learned some very sad news.  Author Z. A. Recht passed away in his home on December 10, 2009.  He was 26 years old.  The world of horror lost a promising writer; one I’m positive would have matured to produce some truly horrifying literature.  With this said, I have not gone through and altered any of my review after finding out the author had passed away.  My condolences go to his surviving family members but his passing away has no bearing on my review.

R.I.P. Z. A. Recht

Rest in Peace Z. A. Recht.

* * * * *

What do The Empire Strikes Back, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Matrix Reloaded, and The Morningstar Strain:  Thunder and Ashes have in common?  Give up?  They’re all the second and, as it is, weakest installment out of their respective trilogies.  Now I’m not saying these are bad movies or that Thunder and Ashes is a bad book; just that out of the trilogy’s they were part of they were all easily the weakest installments.  Ok ok; let me back up before I get too far ahead of myself …

The Morningstar Saga is the name of the (soon to be completed) trilogy written by Z. A. Recht.  The first two books are completed and he’s currently working on the third and final part.  The first in the series is Plague of the Dead (2006) and begins the trilogy with the outbreak of the Morningstar virus.  The second in the series is Thunder and Ashes (2008) in which we follow the survivors from the first book as they make their way to Omaha, Nebraska believing they can develop a vaccination.  At first I was unaware that this was a trilogy and was extremely disappointed with the ending of Thunder (I thought it was more like Brian Keene’s two book zombie series The Rising and City of the Dead).  But then I read that Recht is writing the third part, Survivors, and it all made sense.  This is when the “trilogy theory” hit me:  Almost without fail, the second part of any trilogy seems to be the weakest.  The only two exceptions to this theory that immediately comes to mind is Brian Lumley’s The Last Aerie which was the second book in his Vampire World Trilogy (and am amazing book); and Evil Dead II.  EDII is hands down the best movie of that trilogy (although the argument can be made that EDII is more of a remake of the first ED rather than a sequel.  What do you think?).

Generally the first story of a trilogy (assuming it is well written) is quick paced and full of action as we’re introduced to the main characters and as the story is establishing the plot that is going to sustain two more installments.  But it always seems the second part of trilogies drags on as we get bombarded with more sub-plots and more marginal characters that may or may not have anything to do with the third installment.

Plague of the Dead is a pretty decent read.  The story starts in Africa at the Mombasa Airstrip where four strange figures come out of the woods and onto the runway of the airport.  We watch this unfold through the eyes of Mbutu Ngasy, an air traffic controller.  From this seemingly insignificant event the Morningstar virus sweeps across Africa and into Egypt and most of the other Mid-East countries.  Plague is your typical first book in a zombie trilogy:  We see how the virus is spreading and little by little come to understand just how deadly it is.  The Morningstar virus doesn’t immediately kill its victims.  Once infected the rate of infection takes about a week.  This primary infection is extremely contagious but doesn’t turn the victim into a zombie.  People in this first stage, called “runners”, exist solely to spread the virus.  They retain all motor skills and a certain level of intelligence (albeit a low intelligence).  When the runners are killed the infection essentially goes into its second stage and reanimates the dead body.  The runners become “shamblers”, or zombies, and the only way to kill a shambler is to shoot it in the Romero … er, head.  Recht does a good job with explaining the virus and how it works.  It’s a completely believable virus, and we get so much detail about the virus that it almost becomes a character itself.

Besides getting a lot of knowledge about the virus in the beginning of Plague we also meet the cast of characters.  Recht divides up the characters into various groups.  The first group includes Rebecca Hall (who works for the Red Cross), General Sherman (who’s trying to stop the spread of the virus in the Mid-East), Sergeant Thomas (Sherman’s right-hand man), and a bunch of other soldiers under Sherman’s command.  In another group are Julie Ortiz (a newscaster), Mason (an ex-NSA agent), and Colonel Anna Demilio (the world’s foremost expert on the Morningstar virus).  Another group of survivors is the crew of the USS Ramage and the last main group is an NSA agent, Sawyer (who’s looking for Mason and Demillo), and his group of rogue ex-government agents.  By Recht only going into a few of these characters in any depth he unintentionally gives away which ones are going to live and which will be the zombie’s lunch.  And that was one problem I had here:  There was never any uncertainty as to which characters would die and which would survive.  I like horror novels where you have no idea who is gonna live or die, and in which no character is safe.

Plague does have a kind of epic feel to it (which is lost in Thunder).  We start in the Mid-East, which becomes overrun with the infected, follow the survivors as they board the USS Ramage, which is making its way back to America’s West coast to help try and contain the virus in San Francisco, and ultimately ends in Hyattsburg, Oregon, where our group led by Sherman is cornered by the infected.  Sherman and Demillio’s group (which is starting off in Washington, DC) are planning on meeting up in Omaha which has a state-of-the-art research facility where Demilio believes she can create a vaccine.  The first half of Plague moves along at a nice pace.  But as soon as Sherman’s group hits Hyattsburg, the narrative seems to bog down a bit.  Recht spends a little too much time in Hyattsburg and loses that “epic feel” he had in the beginning.  But there are a lot of encounters with both runners and zombies.  Plague really isn’t all that gory and his descriptions stay “on the surface” (i.e., there are no explicitly detailed violent scenes).  If a choirboy were to write a zombie novel, Plague of the Dead would be it.  Besides knowing which characters are going to be safe, I also felt the story wasn’t edgy enough.  The plot goes from point A to point B and you know without a doubt that point C is next.

Thunder and Ashes picks up right where Plague ends; following the Sherman and Demillio groups heading to Omaha to rendezvous and develop a vaccine.  Recht takes a few pages to re-familiarize us with the main characters and then gets down to it.  And by the time you get 25-30 pages in you will realize that this is the second book of a trilogy.  The set ups are a little more obvious and the overall action is less.  But something else happens after around the first 50 pages or so:  The zombies disappear.  No, they didn’t find a cure; Recht marginalizes the zombies in the story in favor of examining how the real threat are other human survivors.  Kinda like a “the evil that men do” theme.  Sherman’s group comes up against a bunch of desperados and bandits.  So the focus of the majority of the violence becomes that of man vs. man and not zombie vs. man.  And even though there are some pretty exciting combat scenes, they involve humans fighting and killing other humans, not zombies.  I was really disappointed.  I think Recht forgot he was writing a zombie novel.

I wrongly assumed that as I got closer to the end of the novel that the zombies would resurface and reclaim their status as the novel’s primary antagonists.  They do reappear near the end but they are more of an inconvenience to the humans rather than a threat.  Sawyer and his group of NSA and government rogues become the main villains.  We also get next to no character development in Thunder.  All the characters pretty much stay the way they were from Plague.

Overall the entire middle section of Thunder seemed to drag on.  Just like in Plague Recht keeps us in one location for too long.  He started off on an epic scale (with Plague) but kept everything too stagnant by keeping the action in one location for too long a time.

All in all these are both well written horror novels that suffer only from poor character development and stagnant action.  Thunder definitely needed way more zombies, but I’m hoping he was saving up the zombie mayhem for the third book in the trilogy, Survivors (as of writing this review there is no release date set for Survivors).  I’ll definitely read Survivors even though I have a feeling I know exactly what’s gonna happen, who’s gonna live, and who’s gonna die.

At the end of the day I marginally recommend the first two books of this trilogy.  This doesn’t redefine the zombie genre or take it to new places; you won’t be

1st zombies at the airport in Africa

blown away with these books but you’ll be entertained.

My Summary:

Author:  Z. A. Recht

Plot:  Plague: 3.5 out of 5 starts

Thunder: 3 out of 5 stars

Gore:  4 out of 10 skulls (for both parts)

Zombie Mayhem: Plague: 3.5 out of 5 brains

Thunder: 1.5 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer