Benjamin Percy’s new thriller re-tells the story of Lewis and Clark’s expedition, against a postapocalyptic future backdrop where the Mississippi has dried up and monsters roam the West.
All I saw when I opened this up was that the pair Lewis and Clark were back on the road, as a completely different set of characters, and the word “post-apocalyptic” –which to mean, meant that somewhere in this book, there would be zombies. So I dusted myself off, got back up, and read the first paragraph over. The Dead Lands totally sounds like another zombie book, but not necessarily a bad one, since Stephen King clearly believes in the story, and demands that we read it. And I was concerned too, that because it’s a re-telling of the Lewis and Clark adventure, that it was written by Seth Grahame-Smith, who… is not really my favorite person.
But no, there is no made up stupid shit about the “secret lives and deep mysteries” of Lewis and Clark in American history. Like there are for some of our other, well-known American heroes. Abolishing slavery wasn’t enough, Abe has to be a damn vampire killer too. Anyway, there are a ton of monsters in this book, including mutants, which, imo, are kid of like zombies since they shuffle around with like only one thought rattling around in their heads for easy access. I’m excited to read a book in which Lewis is a drug addled hermit with magic powers, and Clark is a female alcoholic who needs anger management classes. It sounds fantastic, –and there might not be zombies, but there are giant spiders! Any of you guys read the book already? Do you miss the zombies, and feel they would have made the book even better? Leave a comment, let us know what you thought!
source: www.npr.org