The Words of Their Roaring

The Words of their Roaring
Matthew Smith
Abaddon Books

First and foremost, thanks to the nice people at Abaddon, for sending me a box full of what seems to be their entire back catalogue of books. Nice!

When a top-secret, Government Military Research Lab creates an infection that can bring the recently deceased back to life (the perfect soldiers) they have no idea of the side-effects... or trouble, that it is going to cause...

Soon, all over England, the dead are awakening, and, well... consuming the living.

For some, this is promised Armageddon. For others, this is an opportunity to rule unopposed. One of those men is Harry Flowers, gang lord and ruthless tyrant. Gathering around him the best of what's left: body guards, soldiers, scientists, etc, he seeks a way to control the zombies, to control the country.

I really liked the way some things were done in this book, adding new twists and turns to the zombie legend. The idea of a Government research lab, creating an infection, etc, etc, is fairly cliché , but the rest of the book does its best to be original.

One of the ideas--certain zombies being cleverer than the rest of the shambling hordes, and developing the same emotions and ways of thinking as they had when they were human, was, I thought, brilliant. It was great to also see interaction between characters that had been human and were now zombie. But, I tread close to Spoiler...

There were several interesting developments that had been set up right from the beginning, but, in most cases, I didn't see them coming. Matthew Smith has a talent for keeping people guessing.

I seem to be suddenly getting very fussy over endings, though, because it seemed to me, that the last chapter added nothing to the story, and it existed only to give some relevance to the book's title.

One of a few flaws in an otherwise excellent book. The Words of their Roaring is one of the best-written zombie books I've read. 8 out of 10.

For more info:

Amazon UK
Amazon US

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September: In the post this morning was, The One Kingdom by Sean Russell, The Princes of the Golden Cage by Nathalie Mallet. I've still got that huge box of Abaddon books, some more coming over from the US, a few more Voyager books hopefully, and many more to review!

I've also got an interview with Peadar Ó Guilín (answers are in, and they are fantastic!), a few more competition type things, etc.

The blog should also be getting a revamp sometime soon :) Thoughts, please! If anyone wishes to contact me use the email on the right-hand side of the page, or just comment.