I'm a gothic romantic at heart, which means I can easily lose myself in flowing, self-indulgent horror prose (if it is well written) that reaches up through the pages and slowly drags you into its world with thorny tendrils of darkness. However, there is another aspect of my personality, the analytical, eccentric, left-brained lover of hardcore science fiction, especially of the post-apocalyptic sort. I tend to be quite the stickler for details when it comes to any novel set on a futuristic war-torn or plague-ravaged Earth. I have the highest admiration for those authors who can craft a post-apocalyptic world, which is completely, undeniably believable. It is a no small feat to accomplish. Not only does one have to take into consideration the smaller aspects of societal life such as the availability of food, water, etc., but the world, as a whole, must be fleshed out basically from the ground up. What are the infrastructures, the political landscape, transportation, societal rankings, jobs, electricity, and so forth, so on. Any inconsistency in the underlying structure of this new world can create a major fracture in the story itself, which, more often than not, spiders out into multiple cracks through which the credibility seeps. And that is about the time that my attention span begins to wander. No matter how strong the voice might within the words, no matter how action-packed a novel might be, it is always the inconsistencies that leave me feeling disappointed. Unfortunately, this is the case with the new zombie novel EMPIRE by David Dunwoody.

Honestly, when I received the package from Permuted Press containing several of their new zombie titles, I was thrilled! I just couldn't wait to get my hands on them considering the Permuted authors Kim Paffenroth and Jason S. Hornsby are the reason I am now a zombie fan. I pulled out the copy of EMPIRE and read the back. I was instantly intrigued by the concept of the undead having been born of an "otherworldy energy fused with a deadly virus". Another tidbit that caught my eye within the synopsis was the introduction of the actual Grim Reaper himself and the idea that he was on a campaign to bring an end to the legions of undead and a man bent on cultivating them for his own personal empire. It was an interesting twist on the classic zombie tale, one that I hadn't exactly heard before. So, without hesitation, I dove in.

However, within a couple of chapters certain things simply weren't adding up for me with the creation of this new world. At times the story has a voice that speaks as if it were mere months after the breakout of the virus; at other times, Dunwoody speaks of how it has been over a century since those first horrible days, yet somehow, the people still living in the hot zones near the source of the virus are still living, still reproducing and somehow still obtaining items like food, water, electricity and "personal hygiene items", but there is no real explanation as to how or why. Yes, I realize that perhaps these were allocated by the Army troops stationed in the city and rationed out, but a century after such a massively disastrous epidemic what would be the actuality of the production of such items? In EMPIRE the United States has been reduced to seven states in the Midwest officially recognized by the government with all other areas deemed as uninhabitable. Would production be feasible if both coasts were cut off from import or export? These are the types of questions that sincerely irk me and, inevitably, drive me to madness when reading a book such as this. Reading the novel then becomes about making a mental checklist of all of the details, which are either missing or implausible to me instead of just enjoying the work. I wish I could be a reader who can dismiss these details and flow with the story, but I can't. Just as the zombie's nature is to eat humans, my nature is to be distracted by implausible story settings.

I wish I could say that the flaws in the Dunwoody's post-apocalyptic world were the only issues I had with the novel, but unfortunately, there were others. While it is obvious Dunwoody has a tremendous imagination, for me the novel EMPIRE felt too much like it was written with the sole purpose of being adapted to a action film script one day. Too many characters overlapping too quickly, too much repetitive gore, too many dialogue lines that sounded like they could be pulled from the next Die Hard sequel. Part of what I have come to love about the zombie genre is the intense philosophical aspect of the stories, the scrutinizing dissection of life versus death, man versus nature, heaven versus hell on earth. In truth, it is the backbone of the genre from which all other details are supported. Without it, the story feels a bit empty, a bit too much like a low-budget slasher film. Dunwoody brings a bit of this philosophy into the novel, but not enough to support the continual gore. Perhaps if he had taken to time to flesh-out (no pun intended) the characters a bit more in order to create a personal connection with the reader, this could have been achieved. However, unfortunately the book moves so quickly through the various plots that the philosophical aspect is almost ignored and the ability for the reader to connect on a deeper level with the characters nearly impossible, at least for me.

While David Dunwoody's work has appeared in nearly a dozen anthologies, EMPIRE is his first full-length novel. Seeing as how he is quite a prolific writer, no doubt EMPIRE will not be his last novel. I will be quite interested to see what his next creation will consist of. More information about David Dunwoody and EMPIRE can be found on his website: www.daviddunwoody.com.