Dead City

It is official, after reading Dead City, Joe McKinney is the "Texas Zombie Guy." Now Mr. McKinney if you are reading this, don't feel bad. I've only read two of your novels and they were both about zombies in Texas. Although to be completely honest, Savage Dead does take place on a cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico, but that ship embarked from Galveston so..... it still counts. Now Mr. McKinney I have not yet read the other three novels in your "Dead World" series, but based on the book descriptions, I think it is safe to say that they are also about Zombies in Texas.

Now Mr. McKinney; May I call you Joe?... I'll take your silence as agreement. Now Joe, I know this is your first novel, and young writers are told to write what they know. I just want you to know I think it is great that you have embraced this ideal. I understand from your author bio that you were a police officer from... Let's say it together... TEXAS! Well it just so happens that your hero in this novel is also a law enforcement officer from that great "Lone star State." Specifically San Antonio. I truly hope for your sake that that is as far as the similarities go. I think I would have heard about a massive zombie attack on a major US town even in these backwoods of Tennessee. But I was actually talking about your character April. Eddies is married to April who, and it pains me to say this Joe, is one of the shrewiest women I have ever read in literature. Oh Yes Joe, I DO consider the zombie genre to contain "Literature" (notice the capitol "L"), but I digress. April. Man is she a Bitch. She is introduced on the first page complaining to Eddie on the phone about the shift he has to work. You know the job Eddie does to pay the bills. It seems that Eddie was transferred from 3rd to 2nd shift on an emergency basis due to the birth of his child, and April who will be henceforth referred to as "The Princess" does not like that he will be forced to move back to 3rd shift when the emergency is over. It seems she want Eddie to be home with her and the "Little Prince." Oh yeah and The Princess does not like him on the 2nd shift either because he has to work in a bad part of town. And then the zombies arrive. And all hell breaks loose. And Eddie spends the rest of the novel trying to get back to The Princess and the Little Prince.

Unfortunately Eddies seems to have the focus of a tween girl at a new mall. Now Joe, I'm sure we both can agree that there will be many distracting things in a zombie uprising. What with all the dead walking and the biting and the screaming and the gun fire, it would be only natural for someone to have difficulty giving their 100% all the time. But I would hope that someone who has had police training and who is also trying to locate his missing wife and only child would be better able to focus on the task at hand. I'm sure you meant to show that Eddie was sensitive to the needs of others and was unable to stop being a cop even when his family was in danger. But to be honest it sort of came off as him acting like that dog from the Disney movie "Up!" you know "Squirrel" or maybe that he suffered from some serious ADHD. Now if that was what Eddie had let me just express my heartfelt apology. I would never belittle someone suffering from a true disorder.

Now to provide you with positive feedback. I loved the ideas that you character Ken Stoler. A zombie "expert" whose knowledge came from zombie chat rooms and forums GENIOUS! He brings up the intriguing concept that those San Antonio citizens out there mindlessly chomping away on each other might not actually be the reanimated dead, but are just so infected by the virus that they act dead. If that was true, well gosh darn it they wouldn't be zombies, they would be those folks from "28 Days Later." I appreciate that you never answer that question. It leads the reader to question whether Eddie was really just killing a bunch of sick people all night.

Because I feel we have made a sort of connection Joe, it pains me to say that this novel is never going to win any awards. It's not that it is a bad novel. It's just that it has been done before. Never fear, Dean Koontz had to write four novel(la)s before he got his first nomination. Something, namely isfdb.org, tells me that you will do better that.