THE DEAD TIMES

RATING:

ZOMBIE RATING:

DESCRIPTION:

Long ago - decades before any concept of the Rebellion or Empire - a dark Sith Lord known as Darth Scabrous has a fantastic and terrible dream, one he intends to turn into nightmarish reality. Meanwhile, a young Jedi assigned to the Agricultural Corp., due to her remarkable Force talent of communication with plants, quietly tends to a supremely rare black orchid. It is this orchid which Darth Scabrous needs to achieve his chilling goal, the final ingredient in an ancient Sith formula. He dispatches a bounty hunter to retrieve the flower at once, instantly throwing the life of Hestizo Trace, the young peace-loving Jedi, into chaos. However, at the heart of the formula is not a device to wage war or to eliminate enemies. It is a virus. A virus that mutates, that changes all logic, that brings the dead back to life with a bloodthirsty hunger for the living. For Darth Scabrous, the ultimate prize is now within reach: immortality, no matter the cost.

MY VERDICT:

This novel is the prequel to Death Troopers, the Star Wars Zombie book which I enjoyed, despite its few flaws. The cover of Red Harvest, something I think does this marvellous novel a terrible injustice, turned me away from the next book in the series for quite some time. Looking at a rotting hand punching up from the snow, holding a lightsaber up in deadly triumph, filled my mind with the deeply disappointing vision of simply a retelling of the Death Troopers theme but with the virus infecting Jedi. However, having now read the book from cover to cover, I can both heartily recommend the title and dispel these disappointing feelings. This book has a fantastic story that blends into the extended Star Wars universe excellently, showing both a different side of the Jedi and a uniquely gothic Sith background. The Zombies, while not the slow shambling horrors I regard as the definitive Zombie but screaming, agile undead sprinters, are well-described in gruesome detail. The initial encounter with the first of these nightmarish ghouls to the hopeless 'overrun' state of the planet on which the virus is unleashed, happens quickly and with the realism you would expect. I believe Red Harvest would make an excellent movie if adapted to film, effortlessly bringing horror into the Star Wars mythos.