Review

"You sure as hell can't talk to her on a stupid phone." - Carl Grimes

Rick and his team have settled into community life with a view to full integration, though Rick harbours doubts about the current Administration. With Glenn's help he steals back some of the weapons they surrendered on joining the community. Rick may have taken up his old job as a Policeman but he still harbours a survival instinct. Meanwhile Abraham has pretty much taken over as boss of the outside construction crew, who are tasked with extending the fence lines to envelope more housing for growth. He develops a relationship with fellow worker Holly after saving her from some roamers. Complicating matters, Father Gabriel appeals to Douglas to throw out Rick's group due to their past actions to survive, there's trouble coming from that direction folks. Glenn is back scavenging outside the walls and happens upon another group, who put the "ruth" in ruthless.

Rick confronts Douglas over another citizen, Pete, who he believes is beating on his wife and son. When he doesn't get support Rick takes things into his own hands and perhaps goes over the top. We learn Rick is concerned that Douglas is going to ruin the relative safety they have all found. This is brought into focus when Pete seeks revenge and kills Douglas' wife Regina in the process. Douglas finally agrees to Rick executing Pete summarily, unfortunately the shot wakes a number of zombies from their slumber and they head in the community's direction.

Proving Rick is across the survival deal, his decision for Andrea to be a sniper in a church tower - giving early warning proves correct as the band Glenn ran into arrive and start threatening dire consequences if Rick and the defenders don't roll over. It doesn't end well for the marauders. Unfortunately the fire fight that develops attracts the attention of even more zombies and we have a herd forming and moving toward the community. With the zombie threat arriving at the gates Michonne takes up her blade again. Unfortunately the wall doesn't prove as solid as we all thought it was, and a zombie horde breaks into the community overwhelming the defenders. In the subsequent mayhem Morgan, amongst others goes down, Carl is shot in the head, and things are looking hopeless. In a final rally lead by Abraham the zombie horde is massacred and safety is restored, but at what cost?

Sorry for the rather long winded plot description, but I wanted to cover most of the events in Book 7 as they have direct bearing on the development of a number of characters through the two plot arcs we are presented with. While dangers from without and within seemingly lurk around every corner, the two story arcs in the book take time out for some character development. Sorry might just be getting over this aspect of Kirkman's script, rather than being a what happens next zombie romp The Walking Dead is edging into Days of Our Lives of The Dead.

Rick Grimes, who pretty much has been our focal character, breaks his actions down into a pretty simple philosophy. Everything he does is for his family, regardless of the cost to others, if a few people benefit via his actions then that's an added bonus rather than being the sole focus of his endeavours. How's that working out Rick? Thus far his wife and daughter have been killed, and Carl has been shot twice, sterling work by the former Deputy! In the second story arc presented in Book 7 Rick is pretty ruthless when Carl is put in danger, leading directly to at least one death. Of course by the end of the book Rick comes to the sort of epiphany which was bloody obvious to anyone not so self obsessed. For mine, Rick is more the tragic fall guy then the square jawed hero we all expected him to be from the first few pages of this epic saga. Will be interesting to see how Kirkman develops the character from here.

Perhaps the most interesting character in the story thus far, Michonne aside, is the much put upon Carl. If Rick thinks he is a hard bastard then he should sit down and learn from Carl. The Kid does what is needed, speaks the chilling truth, and fully realises that anyone who thinks they are safe are deluding themselves and worse yet, putting those around them at risk. Carl has the spark needed to survive, if he can avoid being accidently shot that is. Anyone else noting Kirkman has started to repeat some plot angles?

As eluded to above Book 7 spends quite some time with characters in reflective mode, and I got to say this was pretty fracking poor scripting. There's a general feeling that Seppos are self absorbed twats, and I have to say that the two story lines presented here, Too Far Gone and No Way Out, does nothing to dispel that urban myth. At stages I was thinking someone needed to tell Rick to "toughen up Princess", we get he is uncomfortable with leadership being thrust upon him, the point is being hammered ad nausea, has Kirkman never heard the adage "action speaks louder than words"? Got to say I'm slightly over the syrupy chick moments here and am hand passing the next review of the series to someone else. There's only so much self reflection a bloke can take before he has to pop Predator on the player and hit a few brews.

Charlie Adlard and team, running out of words here, are on fire once again with the artwork. Love the full two page panels they throw on from time to time, detailed without unnecessary detail distracting from the impact they are trying to deliver. This might be considered blasphemy by the Walking Dead fan club, but would be keen on seeing Adlard tackling another story in the horror genre, he's all over the requirements for the current saga, but you have to wonder when it's going to go from being love of what he does to simply being a job.

I'm not out of The Walking Dead by any means, but the whole introspection thing is starting to get old, especially when it's the same old same old being covered. Book 7 lost me to some extent as we really aren't covering anything new, there's no central goal to the epic story, it simply stumbles from one plot development to the next, without having a morning after or a fall of night. I mentioned sometime ago that Kirkman runs the risk of boring his audience with "what happened next" and I have to say I'm starting to see that. While I would still recommend Book 7 to readers who have been following events from the beginning, I'm starting to note things are moving from the horror end of town to some sort of weird chick flick hybrid. Kirkman is in real danger here of having to hand in his man card. Still I'll see someone else's take on the next book, fingers crossed we get something of a plot movement and not simply more Rick being a bit of a bitch in the debris of the apocalypse aftermath.

[Editor's Note : The Jman will pick up the baton on this one for Book 8.