THE DEAD TIMES

RATING:

ZOMBIE RATING:

DESCRIPTION:

This second book in the Cadaver series continues the story started by the first. Our hero has now left the hospital which, authorities think, is the epicentre of the Zombie outbreak. Afterall, it was the place the boys who discovered the virus-harbouring, frozen corpse ended up - unknowingly bringing the infection with them and kickstarting the (possible) downfall of humanity. What further challenges lie in wait and can humanity stave of the Zombie menace?

MY VERDICT:

Despite really enjoying the first book for its storytelling and well-defined Zombie depictions, this sequel is disappointing; feeling like the joining section between two novels rather than a self-contained story. The book starts immediately where the first ended which is both good, for continuation, but also bad, giving an immediate impression that this novel is just the 'extra bits' which could not fit within the first book. The writing continues to be high-quality, as with the first book, and the pacing problems have been removed so you now just want to keep reading, to find out what happens next - devouring page after page until you reach the end. In fact, you'll breeze through the whole story relatively quickly thanks to its quite short length and extremely short chapters, which I would have really preferred to be a bit longer; it can feel jarring as one chapter about one set of characters very suddenly jumps to another chapter about another set of characters after such a short time. My main frustration though, comes from - and what seems to be a disturbing trend of late - the painful lack of Zombies. The ones that are there are described well, as is expected, but there really are very few when compared to the wandering herds of the first novelisation.