Review
“We have done it, ma cherie. We have achieved that which could not be done.” - Alain d'Arkville Alain d'Arkville is a coffee plantation owner working out of the French colony of Saint-Domingue, that will eventually become part of modern day Haiti. He is over joyed when his wife Elizabetta gives birth to their first son Charles. As the years pass an uprising amongst the slaves used to farm the plantations threatens Alain and family's lifestyle. With his slaves having run off to join the rebellion Alain is forced to turn to more drastic measures to bring in his crop else face ruin. He seeks the services of a local Mambo, a Voodoo Priestess, in raising a zombie to do the manual labour. The Mambo duly does the required black deed but warns Alain that their zombie must not eat meat of any sort else he will gain some rudimentary intelligence and a unquenchable need for human flesh. Naturally we have a blood thirsty zombie on the loose pretty soon after, and Charles is killed in the ensuing “shoot em in the head” scenario. Having not learnt his lesson Alain decides to raise Charles as a zombie and pretend nothing untoward has happened. Sometime later, and with Charles going meat-a-saurus, Alain overhears a plot to attack the Capital, reports it, and is then labelled a traitor when the point of attack of the rebel forces is not the Capital. Things get even more bizarre from this point onward, as the novel spirals out of control. I'm going to assume that Adrian Scott, common name did a google, is an Australian writer due to Child Of The Living Dead being entered in the Australian Shadows awards. The book is set primarily in Saint-Domingue and New Orleans, the publisher appears to be U.S, so that can be the only conclusion one can draw. If anyone knows differently then write on in and we'll move the review to another site. Okay so for the first block of the novel we get something of a crash course in Haitian colonial history, and the effect events in Europe had on the Island's political and economic make up. While this is probably of interest to some people it didn't really have me chopping at the bit. Still it provided the background needed for the zombie shenanigans that looked like making the second half of the book a good read. Unfortunately the second half of the novel goes in an entirely, yawn inducing, other direction with the whole zombie sub-plot, built up quite effectively, left high and dry. It's almost as if the Author got bored with the whole undead thing and decided to jettison the concept for some Satanic diversion. Not best pleased Jan, and have to say the second half of the book is a disappointment and travels the same ground as your average outing into black magic. This book doesn't have that whole “sum of the parts” being greater than the whole thing, it simply appears as two separate narratives held together by one of the more stretched plots that you are likely to run across. Besides the numerous plot holes that you could drive an undead mob through, what happened to the craving for human flesh and the ex-Priest suddenly finding he can use both arms, there's a feeling that the Author didn't really have the strength of idea to fix a central focus, rather he fragmented the good ideas. The d'Arkvilles as leading characters are done away with in pretty quick time, turning the novel into a tragedy at one stage, after numerous pages are spent fleshing out the characters of Alain and Elizabetta. It's from about this point that Readers are going to turn off what had promised to be a solid enough novel. The second block of the novel focusing on Mason Thurlow is pretty poorly written to be honest and doesn't really hold much in the way of resonance. Overall I was disappointed with the novel, thought we were being hit with some original ideas however, and have to wonder if the Author shouldn't restrict himself to some short stories and perhaps novellas before attempting a full length novel again. There were simply too many ideas being fired at the page that didn't get full justice in execution, with some sharp turns in the plot that didn't get fully developed in the prose. I managed to knock the book off in a couple of sittings, so on the bright side of the equation it isn't going to take much time out of your busy schedule if you decide to have a look. You might however be better off renting Pet Sematary, I'm assuming you have read the Stephen King source novel, as that movie basically covers the same ground while not loosing it's zombie intensity. Child of the Living Dead, that's some lurid title, is avaiable as an e-book from right here, the good news being a copy is only going to set you back $4.99. Personally I think that's about $4.50 too much, but hey invest if you feel you must.
ScaryMinds Rates this read as ... This one didn't really hit any high notes and lost the plot, pun intended.
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Disclaimer: Please note this review reflects the opinion of the team at ScaryMinds and should in no way be construed as
representing the views of the AHWA Shadows Award Judges. This review is for the edification of ScaryMinds readers and does not constitute a
“literary criticism” or any other criteria the Shadows Judging panel may take this year.