I couldn’t get into this book, and I’m a huge fan of Romero’s films. Unfortunately, the book is too long and dense to hold my attention. It’s more of an epic zombie tale, whereas I prefer more instant gratification, I appreciate the writing and descriptions, so I give it 3 stars.

George Romero's legacy is cemented with this novel--a chilling, suspenseful account of a zombie pandemic. It begins with a single body in a coroner's office. In the midst of an autopsy, that body begins to move. There have been many zombie accounts, many versions of what happens when the dead begin to walk again, but there is something wonderfully modern and fresh about this take, begun by George Romero and ably finished by Daniel Kraus.

George A. Romero, the author of the recently released The Living Dead, was a legend in the horror industry. His work defined the genre and influenced the next generation of horror filmmakers, horror writers, and zombified horror lovers. We have stories like Mira Grant's Newsflesh series, The Girl With All The Gifts by Mike Carey, and World War Z by Max Brooks because of his work. In the new generation of horror writers, zombies' ideas have changed and grown: do they shuffle, run fast, eat your brains, or come together in a mob.

But the concept remains the same; it is man vs. the unknown or supernatural. And, zombies are just that, entirely outside of the human condition. Something is born, lives, and then dies. It is usually the natural order of things. Through Romero's extensive zombie catalog of both screen and novels, I always feel like his primary question is, "But what if things didn't just die but came back as other? What does that mean for society and humanity at large?" I think that is why zombies as an antagonist are such a successful thing. It goes against everything humans know and understand, and that by itself is terrifying.

"Now the vulture has eaten the dove, the wolf has eaten the lamb; the lion has devoured the sharp-horned buffalo; man has killed the lion with the arrow, with the sword, with the powder; but the Horla will make man into what we made the horse and the steer: his thing, his servant and his food, by the simple power of his will. Our woe is upon us." —Guy de Maupassant, The Horla

Sadly, Romero did not live to see his final work finished and published. It was picked up by best selling author Daniel Kraus to pull together from the existing writing and notes and complete the task. Not a small job to be sure with its size and gravitas. With Kraus's writing skill, The Living Dead turned into an amalgamation of both their voices that complemented each other and melded into a strong narrative.

The book begins with an outbreak of a sort on 11/23. We do not get the why of things or much of a "before." We start with the descent into societal chaos and madness where the dead have begun fighting their body bags like a moth battles its chrysalis. It is a terrifying visual. In one of the first scenes, a morgue where two forensic scientists are working on a recently deceased John Doe. The scientists, Luis and Charleen, are startled when the partially flayed body throws itself off the medical examining table and slowly begins dragging its body toward Luis.

"The dull light that had animated John Doe's white eyes dimmed. The body sagged to the floor, limp as a steak, except for the head, which was still noosed in computer cables. Bloody drool, the last thing John Doe would ever offer, skimmed down a power cord."

As if these risings are led by a conductor, hell is breaking loose all across the world, and bodies are rising at once. Screams are heard. Cars are crashing. The dead are rising, with only one hunger, and that is for humans flesh.

Structure wise, The Living Dead is a series of character vignettes. Each character has what amounts to a short story about their initial experiences with the zombie rising. Some are longer than others, but mostly we get an in-depth look into these character's reactions. But, I spent a lot of time when reading this mammoth of a book attempting to figure out why all these characters were necessary. Don't get me wrong; there are many interesting characters we learn a lot about. For instance, we have Greer, an African American high school student living in a trailer park. Ghouls trap her in the trailer and try to eat her. We have Chuck Corso, a vain journalist, stuck in a newsroom trying to get the news out for as long as possible. We learn why he is arrogant and how that vanity played out in his life pre-zombies. He goes through an epiphany at the newsdesk, realizing that narcissism is not as important as information. And, my favorite scenes take place on an aircraft carrier. You could imagine what that looks like—the dead wreaking havoc on a floating city.

There are more essential viewpoints scattered throughout the book. Some are long and some just a few pages—all designed to paint a grim picture of humanity's final days. However, one of the quibbles I have with this story is that even though we have multiple viewpoints and over a 15-year timeframe, none of it felt cohesive. Why are we reading about this character? Why is this character's experience highlighted, and what part do they play in the grand scheme of things? There are obvious similarities to Stephen King's The Stand. Both are character-heavy end of the world type stories. Both start with character vignettes. But, where The Living Dead goes from the apocalypse, a sharp demarcation line, and then 15 years later, The Stand incorporates each character's journey in meeting the other ones on a destination to the end of the story. There is a solid middle of that story, and this middle solidified why these characters are essential and what role they play. The Living Dead does not do that, not really, and I found that to be a missed opportunity and would have increased the story's cohesion.

That being said, The Living Dead does make some small attempts at showing some of the story's middles and how the characters got from point A to point Z. This is done in the form of interviews written and kept for posterity. The interviews attempt to fill in the blanks, but it didn't explain many the whys? Why did everyone end up where they did? Maybe the middle wasn't necessary for this narrative because it was a lot of darkness and struggle. The authors tried to explain how everything happened, but I never felt like that was very clear, and I am still not sure. I don't completely understand how the zombie plague occurred.

Another quibble I have is that this book is overly long. The detail that Kraus and Romero put in is both enjoyable and, at times, wholly unnecessary. Again, we get to the question of why. I have thoughts on why this may have happened. A lot of this novel is written from notes from Romero. Maybe, Kraus wanted to use EVERYTHING that Romero had written. I am not saying that the pacing was off or anything because of its length. The Living Dead kept up breakneck pacing through much of the book. But it was a lot of breakneck pacing, and after the first 500 pages or so, it got a bit exhausting.

".. keep fighting, keep surviving until the end."

Even with both of the quibbles, it was still an exciting and well-written zombie book. It is a perfect farewell from the horror master, George Romero, and undoubtedly will become part of the zombie enthusiast's lexicon. It is right up there with other zombie titles. Kraus did a solid job distilling Romero's ideas and breaking them into usable parts, even if those parts were numerous and vast. It has the same flair as many of Romero's movies, but we have a deeper understanding of the characters with its character-focused writing. More then we could ever have from a two-hour film. All in all, The Living Dead is a celebration of Romero and his influence on modern horror, and we horror enthusiasts are better for having this book in the world.

Thank you for everything, George. We will miss you.

The Living Dead is as long as death itself. The tome is 650 pages long and you feel every one of them. Paper cuts and eye strain and all. The read is also entertaining and fun and possesses the feel of an intricate TV show with its weaving plot threads and deep character dives. Even though The Living Dead presents nothing more than mere standard zombie fare, this is definitively George Romero’s last word on the zombie lore he helped propagate and is worthy of that honor alone.

Romero’s Alpha and Omega tale comprehensively chronicles the zombie plague from start to ever-loving finish. Along for the ride is author Daniel Kraus, a self-stylized Romero fiend on his own who was handed the keys to the kingdom, along with around two hundred pages drafted by the king himself. Those pages dive full force into day one and does not come up for breath until the plague dies out twelve years later. Half reboot of what has gone on before, half re-imagining of the genre itself, this novel might have worked out better as two separate volumes, yet Kraus fully plays in and presents Romero’s world in way that maybe the entire narrative needed that single breath.

Kraus starts at Day One, with the first recorded reanimation occurring in San Diego. Charlie Rutkowski, an assistant with the city morgue, encounters the ghoul, who happens to be a body she and her partner are attending. Surprise! Instances quick arise country-wide: Washington DC, St Louis, Atlanta, even within the decks of a US Navy aircraft carrier.

No one is safe and as slow as the ghouls move, they work fast. Death, after all, is prevalent.

Similar to Romero’s movies, as well as the pop-culture tales of The Walking Dead, the outbreak quickly descends into chaos until rules are established; time honored rules that are by now known to all. Kraus uses this time to build his characters – historian Etta Hoffman, high schooler Greer Morgan, newsman Chuck Corso, Naval officer Karl Nishimura – but outside of the gory devouring time, these lapses pace at a zombie crawl. As does much of the novel.

Kraus no doubt takes huge delight at working within Romero’s universe. In setting his own mark, he looks to flesh out the traditional fare bringing substance to the style. This is all well and good. Kraus relates a deep, thought out, and entertaining story. Sometimes, though? Sometimes you want wonton zombie destruction. The Living Dead only whets that appetite.


Ghoulish greetings to NetGalley and Macmillan/Tor Books for The Living Dead advance experience.

In 2017, the man known as the father of the zombie film George A. Romero passed away from lung cancer, leaving his novel unfinished. But thanks to the efforts of his estate and co-author Daniel Kraus, this final project, the 700-page opus that is The Living Dead was able to find its way into readers’ hands.

Like so many big things, this book’s story started out small: with a single death. On the night of October 23, like any other night, medical examiner Dr. Luis Accocola and his assistant Charlene “Charlie” Rutkowski headed in to work at the morgue to see to a John Doe who was brought in earlier in the evening. But as it turns out, there is something wrong with this particular body—namely, the fact that it isn’t exactly…well, dead.

Soon, this crisis of the dead coming back to life begins spreading across the globe, with the reanimated corpses relentlessly targeted the living, adding to their numbers. In Washington DC, a statistician and researcher named Etta Hoffman receives news of patient zero and, recognizing it as the spark that creates a wildfire, begins to put together a detailed timeline documenting what is the beginning of the end of the world. Meanwhile, in a trailer park in Missouri, teenager Greer Morgan steps out her door on the way to school, only to find a scene of nightmare unfolding on her front steps. As her neighbors tear each other apart, she barely manages to escape. Elsewhere, in a newsroom in Atlanta, anchorman Chuck Corso is barely holding it together as he watches the complete destruction of the country happening right in front his eyes, but undead hordes be damned, he resolves to continue broadcasting the news as it comes in, even if doesn’t know whether his reports will reach anyone. And finally, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, US Navy officer Karl Nishimura also watches in horror as he and his crew aboard the aircraft carrier Olympia become overrun by zombies, leading to a complete breakdown of the chain of command.

Although there are many more viewpoints scattered here and there to flesh out the narrative, most of the novel’s sprawling scope is provided by this handful of main characters. From the way you are made to care about them, to the way we’re allowed to witness the undead apocalypse from its beginning to its aftermath, I was somewhat reminded of Stephen King’s The Stand in terms of the story’s sheer scale and complexity. And the more I thought about it, the fact that this book was written by two authors, with Kraus completing what Romero started, became more and more impressive. For the most part, things flowed well with far fewer hiccups than you would expect from a project published posthumously after the main creator’s death. While Kraus is no stranger to collaborations, this one must have presented unique challenges, the least of them being to decide what Romero might have intended for the direction of his novel. Because of this, the author’s note at the end was a fascinating read into the process.

As for my thoughts on The Living Dead, I am one of course to enjoy a good zombie story every now and then, but what I loved most about this one was the way it felt so personal. Sure, with regards to the amount of blood and gore we have our share of both and more, but what I also delighted in was the intimate treatment of the individual characters and moments spent with them in their quieter, more introspective moments. This is a story about how our society might react to a horrible crisis, but it also explores actions and motivations of the individual. The result is a fuller experience with a book that’s as much about people as it is the zombie apocalypse, and if you’ve ever watched a zombie film wishing there had been more of that balance, then this is most certainly for you.

In terms of criticisms, well, there’s no getting around the fact that this is a long book, and as with most veritable tomes following an ensemble cast, you inevitably run into issues with pacing and maybe a few time jumps that don’t go so swimmingly. To be fair, many of these issues also stem from the novel’s structure, which is both a strength and a weakness. Comprised of multiple parts, it reads like a retrospective chronicling of events long past, allowing for the level of attention to detail I enjoyed, though it also robs the storytelling of a sense of urgency. While some of these problems can’t be helped, a few sections didn’t even feel like they had much of a plot, floating around like lost little islands in a great narrative sea (though I did wonder if this might just be an unavoidable side effect trying to put together a whole from unfinished pieces) and when you follow so many characters, some of them will also start to feel more interesting than others.

Still, I always try to evaluate a book as a whole, and I think there’s a beauty to the way all these disparate threads ultimately came together for the climax. The ending is raw, bitter, harsh…and in my opinion, completely apt. Plus, it’s not difficult to overlook a few faults when the overall the novel is so diligently put together and epic.

All in all, even in the face of its hefty length, The Living Dead was a worthwhile read and a must-have for every zombie enthusiast and George A. Romero fan, which probably doesn’t need to be said. Offering a deeper, more expansive and intricate story than anything you could show on a movie screen, this novel represents an incredible effort by Daniel Kraus to interpret and consolidate Romero’s ideas, which culminated in a final product that lives up to the legendary filmmaker’s vision.

THE LIVING DEAD
George A. Romero and Daniel Kraus
Tor Books
ISBN-13: 978-1250305121
Hardcover
Horror/Thriller

The Night of the Living Dead is one of those movies that virtually everyone has either heard of or watched. It to this very day influences modern cinema and television. Anyone who has ever produced, written, and/or enjoyed a work dealing with zombies/undead/walkers/reanimators owns a nod of thanks to George A. Romero, who with co-creator John A. Russo originally conceived, wrote, and directed the work which for all intents and purposes singlehandedly launched the zombie subgenre of horror fiction, including several successor films spread over a number of franchises. Romero felt constrained by the limitations of film and had for several years worked on a novel dealing with the topics (and much, much more) raised in the source material. It was sadly uncompleted at the time of Romero’s death in 2017. Romero’s widow asked author and screenwriter Daniel Kraus --- a lifelong fan of Romero’s work --- to finish the novel. THE LIVING DEAD is the result, one that should satisfy fans of horror fans in general and aficionados of the movie franchises in particular.

THE LIVING DEAD, which reboots Romero’s Living Dead franchise, is divided into three acts. Act One, the longest by far, is titled “The Birth of Death,” and tells several separate stories moving forward in various claustrophobic settings from October 23, 2020, ranging from a government census data gathering and collating office in Washington, D.C. and a trailer park in Missouri to a cable news station, a morgue in San Diego, and a battleship in the Pacific Ocean. Ground Zero for the Zombie Apocalypse appears to take place in that aforementioned morgue though as the situation devolves it becomes obvious that the reanimation of the dead most certainly isn’t limited to that location. Things quickly deteriorate across the world, though North America is almost exclusively the focus of Act One and THE LIVING DEAD in general. There is plenty of blood and viscera to go around, as one might expect in a horror novel in general and a zombie book in particular. Romero and Kraus, however, have produced a very literary work, one which is more about the living than the living dead. Even as both teams behave as one might expect them to (though there are plenty of surprises), the authors take the time to stop and smell the roses, however briefly, as folks do what folks will do, which is to form relationships of all sorts even in the worst of times. Those moments are as interesting as those which you might expect in a horror novel, and even the most bloodthirsty reader won’t be disappointed as long as one doesn’t expect an idyllic denouement, or at least what ordinarily passes for one. Act Two, “The Life of Death,” is the shortest of the three. It acts as a sort of Interlude between the first and third acts, focusing almost entirely on that data gathering office in Washington whose sole occupant rides out the ongoing chaos while writing case histories. The conclusion of that section is quietly chilling, as what Robert Burns described in “To a Louse “ as the power which the gift gives us is manifested in the third person. “The Death of Death,” Act Three, takes place some fifteen years after the events of October 23. Things are, as one might expect, different. The majority of the story takes place in a woke dystopian community that checks off all of the politically correct boxes while occasional flashbacks inform the reader how the various characters found their way to it. One suspects that the idyllic co-existence which is presented within and without the community will not last long, and one might be right, as the authors demonstrate that bloodletting rampages are not confined to the undead, even as this doorstopper of a book concludes on a poignant if bittersweet note.

I’m not sure how much interest THE LIVING DEAD will garner outside of the zombie watching community. It certainly deserves a wider audience due to the authors’ literary style, which almost improbably waxes poetic at times. The occasional forays into the zombie thought processes and explanation of what occurs with mammals other than humans (a subject that a certain long-running television series has never quite answered, at least while I was still keeping up with it) are worth your time and lucre all by themselves, whether horror novels find themselves on your must-read pile or otherwise. Fans of Romero’s work absolutely must take the time to read “Stay Scared: A Co-Author’s Note” in which Kraus expounds at great length as to how THE LIVING DEAD came to be and pays tribute to Romero in fitting and proper fashion. Regardless of your usual genre reading, you should set aside a few days to read this expansive, nightmarish work to see how the job of writing an epic novel in any genre is exquisitely done.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
© Copyright 2020, The Book Report, Inc. All rights reserved.

I found Daniel Kraus by way of his Shape of Water novelization with Guillermo del Toro and knew immediately I had discovered someone with a truly unique gift for writing empathy. I came to George Romero’s beloved Night of the Living Dead not long after, and found in it the gift of a unique brand of social awareness. Duane Jones’ casting as Ben was simply because he was best for the part, not part of some intentional move to create a particular message. Yet the message sent by his presence as the only Black man we see in a world ravaged by a disease that turns its infected into mindless murderers is clear to us, and was immediately clear even to viewers of the time. Accidental social commentary is often some of the most poignant around, after all. It means the things about the world we’d like to criticize are so deeply burned into our brains that we connect it to what we watch without ever having to be told to.

While Daniel Kraus’ efforts may be a little more intentional, they are no less impactful for it. Indeed, The Living Dead gives us two masters of their respective crafts coming together to weave a tale of empathy in a time of apparent hopelessness, light in a time of immeasurable darkness. And what a timely release it got, eh?

The Living Dead presents us with the origin story of that mysterious disease that turned people the world over into mindless undead cannibals, unable to think of anything but the pursuit of their next meal: any living human they can find. It weaves varying perspectives from all across the world, age, and class spectrums to present as full a picture as possible of the sheer terror of this unexplainable societal trauma. It shakes the world as we know it to its very core, forcing each person to make seemingly unfathomable decisions all for the sake of survival.

By turns vibrantly upsetting, heartbreaking, and filled with hope, this completed version of George Romero’s idea for his magnum opus of a series could not have been put into better hands than Kraus. If anyone could write eloquently about the undead ravaging the world while the outcasts of society look on and cobble a way of survival together, desperately seeking bright spots in an all-consumingly depressing world. Seeking connection in a barren world ravaged by blind hunger that comes across with striking similarities to blind hatred. All the world around them wants is to consume them, all they want is to stay alive and remember the people they’ve lost to this decimating virus with as much love as they can muster.

And we were given this gift from Romero and Kraus in a time when we might have needed it most: amidst our own desolate, mind-numbingly traumatic pandemic. We may not be undead, but we certainly needed this spark to remind us of the value of hope in a dead world.

This was a slog to get through. I love zombie anything. I have watched all of the Living Dead movies. I have watched the lesser remakes and rip offs. I think George Romero was incredibly talented and creative world builder. To see his name on the cover built up my expectations. The are very few zombie related things I end up hating. This is one of them. It was entirely too long with characters that I cared little about. The only character that piqued my interest was Etta Hoffman. Unfortunately, after her introduction, she disappeared for huge chunks of the book. It would have been more interesting to follow an autistic character having to survive an apocalyptic event than to follow various characters and threads that quickly lost my interest. This book should have way shorter. It probably would have helped.

The Living Dead by George A Romero and Daniel Krause is a great zombie epic! It's scary as hell, in its graphic descriptions that make you see, smell, hear, and even taste the gore. The first 200 pages don't read while eating please take my advice. This novel is so much more than just a gore fest, it there is heartbreak, love and betrayal. The Living Dead is a morale tale that ask what is living really? Is it a person going through the motions more glued to their phone than the real world? Or is it a Zombie that longs for a connection. This book is a huge 600 hundred pages, and I was entertained the whole time, the book went in directions I was not expecting, it kills more main character than I was expecting, which is a little fun and adds to the thrill that no one is safe. The first 400 pages are total zombie madness, the book jumps forward in time and deals with the aftermath of survival and attempting to live and be good people in the Zombie Apocalypse. This book is written by the grandaddy of the zombie genre, when he wrote and directed The Night of the Living Dead in 1968. He would continue making zombie movies until his death making such classics as Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. The Living Dead was an unfinished screenplay that got turned into a novel by writer Daniel Krause. Krause is known for working with another writer/director named Guillermo del Toro he wrote the novelization of the Oscar winning film The Shape of Water and he is the co-creator of Trollhunters on Netflix, which I love so much. I was super excited when I received a copy for review thanks to Netgalley and Macmillion Publishing. The Living Dead by George A Romero and Daniel Krause was published on August 4th 2020.

The Plot: A statistical analyst sees a glitch in the system, which is the start of a full blown Zombie attack. Two forensic pathologists make the horrifying discovery that the dead rise as they are doing an examination, and tweet out head shots are the only way to kill. Crew members on the aircraft carrier Olympia try to survive a zombie out break in the middle of the ocean. We get a first hand experience at a zombie attack at a trailer park, and we get to experience a news team making the tough call of what exactly to report. All face life and limb to survive without being bit and become part of the living dead?

What I Liked: The descriptions and sounds will paint a vivid picture in your mind that you will not be able to soon forget. The characters are plenty about the same amount as Steven Kings The Stand, and they are all so well defined that I knew exactly who they were, and liked almost every one of them. The body count was so high and unexpected deaths kept me on pins and needles. The bad guy, I kept imaging as a clone to Robert Blake's character in David Lynch's Lost Highway. The writing is really great and it balances horror to morality really well. I'm really sad this is going to be the last collaboration between Romero and Krause. Hopefully a lost script is found somewhere.

What I Disliked: The ending was a great idea, but after the first three fourths was so awesome, I have to admit I was a little letdown. I wanted it to be bigger, and epic like the start.

Recommendations: I totally recommend this epic tale of zombie horror from the master of undead fiction George A. Romero. This book has every gross gore-tastic description you could ever want in a zombie story. The characters are diverse and all over the spectrum of people. If you are looking for raw zombie horror then you will get it, and if you are looking for a morality tale then you will get that too. This book has my full recommendation. I rated The Living Dead by George A Romero and Daniel Krause 5 out of 5 stars. It's one of my top reads of books published this year

George A. Romero’s movie “Night of the Living Dead” is such an amazing movie. When I saw this book circling around bookstagram I had to read it!

The Living Dead was a zombie novel of epic proportions with a cast of characters that spanned the United States. The differing story lines eventually converge into one epic story.

What stood out about this novel was the flawless combination of zombie and an apocalyptic world into one epic story. The book had a lot of traditional zombie gore but I was also able to see how humans dealt with the end of the world.


The book broken up into three parts with relatively short chapters, covering everything in this 650 page book. It was long; very long. I would have liked to have seen some pages cut out but I do understand why it was so lengthy. There probably was some details and tangents that could have been whittled away. Nevertheless, it is a masterpiece that was published at the right time...during a real-life pandemic.




Kraus and Romero told the ultimate zombie story which brings the undead to life. The end left me wondering about what happens next.
The Living Dead is a book I would read again in the future.

George A. Romero, if he didn’t create the genre, has made it what it is today. Put his name on it and anyone and everyone who loves zombies will be on it like stink on…well you know what.

But this story wasn’t written by George A. Romero, it was written by Daniel Kraus. It is, however, based on the world created by Romero and crafted using some of his works. As a reader I had to let that part go and read The Living Dead like this was Romero’s book.

Image if you will that some Hollywood studio had given Romero an Independence Day budget and told him that they felt like Gone With the Wind was too short. That is what you have with The Living Dead.

This story follows a large cast of dispersed characters over fifteen years of Romero’s zombie apocalypse. It is epic in scale and ambition; this is exactly the type of story for me. I love it when an author can take their time, develop their characters, and make me care. Kraus created a connection between me and every member of the cast. I was saddened by the losses and joyful for the survivors.

Kraus really demonstrated respect for Romero, his opinions on life and how The Dead tell us about the living; The Living Dead felt like an authentic part of Romero’s portfolio. It was a full-fledged commentary on us, how we live and how disconnected we are in our lives in this time when we are able to be so “connected.” I’d like to share a quote that I found truly profound.

“The problem with so-called smart devices was you could personalize them. You could follow who you wanted to follow. See and gear things you already liked. They were hand mirrors. Of course we were obsessed with them.”

If this isn’t true, I don’t know what is.

It may sound strange in a story this long but there were a few things I found a bit rushed. I wanted to spend more time with the characters, but I’m sure that the publisher wanted to get from here to there without going on for too long.

Like most of Romero’s works The Living Dead didn’t so much finish as it ended.

*4 Stars

2 out of 5 stars

I was excited to read this book, because I loved the Dawn of the Living Dead and I think that George Romero pretty much invented the zombie apocalypse genre. So I was eager to start the book as soon as I got the ARC from NetGalley, but my excitement soon turned into bewilderment, the disappointment.

First of all, this book is way too long at 700 pages and it feels a lot longer when you read it. At least 250 pages could have been safely cut without loosing any plot, which says something. In all the chapters, action scenes are constantly interrupted by characters' introspection, flashbacks, and philosophical musings. The worst offender is the scene of their "softie" recovery towards the end of the book which is interspersed verbal accounts by all characters present of how they got to that particular point in time. This makes this one scene last over 100 pages! It could have been tense and heart-pounding, or even deep and poignant, considering their mission, instead it's a snooze fest. When we finally reached the end of that scene, I wasn't even sure why the characters were there anymore or why I should have cared.

That's another problem - of all the impressive cast or characters, I could maybe sorta care for about one or two, and even that is pushing it. To my growing disappointment, almost all the characters I cared about died in the early stages of the book. I would have much rather followed Jenny than Nakamura, especially considering the stupid way she died and that we had to then follow the story of the person who killed her.

The biggest problem though is that when George Romero died, somebody else had to finish the book, and the two parts do no gel well, at least in my opinion. And you can clearly see where the original book ended and the new chapters began - instead of continuing the story in its logical progression, the new author chose to jump 15 years ahead. That wouldn't have been too bad. A lot of books use this plot device, after all. Unfortunately, it doesn't work well here.

I was expecting at least some kind of character growth or change between the two parts of the book. After all, nobody stays the same during 15 years. Heck, I'm not the same person I was 15 years ago, and I didn't have to live through a zombie apocalypse. But these characters, it's like they were frozen in time for those 15 years. NOTHING changed for them. They still act the same, have the same motivations or quirks, heck, some of them are still hung up about a lover they lost 15 years ago. That's why the two parts don't gel for me. You tell us over a decade has past, yet you don't SHOW us that, not with your characters.

And that's the biggest problem of the second part of the book for me. Because of that time jump, instead of following the characters through their struggles in this brave new world past the initial days of the zombie uprising, we have to listen to them recount the experience... as a series of interviews. This is the classic mistake of tell, not show. Sure, some authors managed to use this technique brilliantly (just think of World War Z, which is nothing but interviews and verbal accounts of things that already happened), but it DOESN'T WORK here. Sure, the characters are telling these stories, but as a reader, I am not emotionally invested in them, especially considering that the sometimes horrible things they recount didn't seem to change them at all.

So by the time I got through the interviews and the slog of a "softie" recovery scene, I wasn't really invested in the book anymore. Why should I care about Richard and the vote for the leader of Old Muddy? I didn't get a chance to follow the characters while they met and bonded and built that settlement, so I wasn't emotionally invested in the stakes anymore. I finished the book, but at that point it was out of cheer stubbornness - I was 85% done and didn't want to quit this close to the end.

To summarize, this is an over-written, disjointed and disappointing book. The only reason I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 is because there was one glorious chapter that I absolutely loved - the chapter with Greer at the trailer park in the very beginning of the book. That was scary, heart-pounding and horrible just like the best zombie books should be. Too bad that nothing that happened afterwards would even come close.

Definitely a large novel but worth the read! I was in the mood for some horror which is funny given the state of the world right now but this did not disappoint. I would recommend this for anyone looking for a good ole zombie horror novel. Thanks so much to netgalley and the publisher for my copy!

The Living Dead was one of the first movies I watched as a child. I automatically requested this book and I'm glad I did! I plan on reading this during October for Halloween!

This was a beast of a book but I enjoyed it so much I a hard time putting it down! I don’t want to give anything away.. if you’re a fan of the genre just read it! If not, read it and you may just change your mind.

Many thanks to NegGalley, the publishers, and of course, the author, for the opportunity to review this book in exchange for my honest review.

The living dead by George A Romero and Daniel Kraus.
First thanks to macmillan-tor/forge and netgalley for this book.
An ok read. Very long and very gory. I do love my zombie reads but this was long and took me a week to read it. Good story. This could've been made smaller and they could've done a few books out of it. I would've loved that. 4*.

‘The zombie virus isn’t cannibalistic, it’s antihuman.’

First of all, this is a LONG book (656 pages) and it seemed even longer than that. I don't know that it's ever taken me as long to finish a single book. That's not to say it isn't a great book because it is. It just took me forever to make my way through it.

Most of us know author George Romero's name from the zombie movies he made, starting with NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD back in the late 1960s. But he also wrote on this book over the years, not quite finishing it before he passed away in 2017.

Daniel Kraus, his co-author, had met Romero while he was alive and felt honored when Romero's widow contacted him to see if he was interested in finishing the book. Well, heck yes, he was.

The writing was pretty seamless, at least to me. I am not sure at all which author wrote which parts of the book. Kraus spent a lot of time researching Romero's works and he definitely paid a great homage to Romero with this finished book.

There is never a reason given for the dead coming back to life in this book. I'm glad about that because, as a reader, you're able to draw your own conclusions.

The story goes back and forth among different living characters - a black teenage girl, the San Diego coroner and his assistant coroner, a naval officer about an aircraft carrier, a statistician, and more. I enjoyed this approach because each character added their own perspective on the undead - and the living.

I enjoyed the characters. I enjoyed the story - even as long as it is. The ending chapters were a surprise that I didn't see coming but I enjoyed that too.

It reminded me in some ways of WORLD WAR Z but it's unique in its own way.

If you've watched Romero's films over the years and/or a zombie fan, you owe it to yourself to read this Romero/Kraus collaboration.

I received this book from Tor Books through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.

Man on man I cringed when I saw this book was over 600 freaking pages. It almost I say "almost" unnerved me to the point of not attempting it but I'm like no I got to read this I am a zombie freak. I live for this stuff!

Despite my reserves I moved quite quickly thru it and have to say it kept me engaged pretty much all the way. I feel for the most part because it was told from so many perspectives covering the years meaning I didnt get bogged down on just one subject. I was able to explore many characters, angles and things going on.

While it is full of the zombie things I have come to enjoy, The Living Dead is about so much more. It's not only about the dead but about the living and our way of rationalization. Yes, I would like to believe that I could survive a zombie apocalypse!

I was all set to love this book since I love Zombies and Romero movies. However, I found it to be too gory for my taste. I usually don’t mind zombie gore, since zombies are never going to become a reality I ,our world. I felt that, particularly the sequences In the trailer park, were just in such bad taste that I couldn’t enjoy the book. It is too bad, since I really wanted to love this book.

The Living Dead by George Romero and Daniel Kraus was a beautifully long horror story. Thank you Netgalley for the early access. The movie by the same name and directed by Romero was so amazing and created a whole new genre. It was so ahead of it's time with it's choice of characters and the last survivor. The book is even more intense. Romero/Kraus pull from our environment and situational atmosphere and turn our reality on a dime. They create such beautiful tension as they visit a morgue, a data plant, a news enter and more. In each place you see how the people there deal, or don't with the living dead. Wonderful book.