[Werthead]

The village sits alone in the forest. Ringed by ancient fences and barricades that stand between the people of the village and the Unconsecrated, it is a haven of civilisation against the horrors that lurk in the Forest of Hands and Teeth. The Guardians defend the village and the Sisterhood leads it, ensuring the people pray for salvation and do not question the order of things. When Mary's mother is taken by the Unconsecrated and Returns as a mindless beast, she stops believing in God and her questioning of the facts of her life leads her to some shocking discoveries about her world and her place in it.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth is the debut novel by American author Carrie Ryan and is the first in a series set in a post-zombie-apocalypse world. The small community ringed by danger recalls the works of George Romero, whilst the forbidding forest surrounding the small, seemingly idyllic commune brings to mind the movie The Village (in a good way). The way people try to carry on with ordinary lives but having to take precautions against the threats of the world is also reminiscent of Peter Brett's recent The Painted Man as well (except, obviously, with zombies rather than demons). The book also has a feel of its own as well, due to the role that religion plays in affairs and the obsession of the main character in finding the truth about the world.

The book is told in the first person from the point-of-view of teenager Mary, who faces entering adulthood and searching for a prospective husband at the same time her family is laid low by tragedy. Mary is a deeply flawed protagonist, angry at the world and by turns obsessed with finding 'the ocean' (a strange concept her mother told her about as a child) and also with a young man, Travis, who is betrothed to another. In short, Mary is a very convincing teenager whose stubbornness and jealousy sometimes gets her and her friends into trouble. This makes her often an unlikable character, such as when she withholds important information from her friends for no really comprehensible reason, but also a very convincing one.

The setting of the first book is intriguing, with a creepy and mysterious atmosphere pervading the besieged village and its enigmatic cathedral. Characterisation is solid, and most importantly the writer can write, with a flowing and engaging prose style that keeps the action moving along nicely. However, there is definitely too much emphasis on the doomed romance storyline, which is appropriate in the first half of the book but under the much more desperate and dangerous circumstances of the second begins to get a little grating and occasionally threatens to bog down the pace, although usually the author seems to realise this and gets the action underway again with a nicely-written moment of horror or an interesting backstory revelation.

The ending is mildly disappointing, partially for being a little bit too familiar to readers of The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, and also for its extreme ambiguity. There will be a companion novel focusing on other characters, The Dead-Tossed Waves, out next year, with further books promised, so I'm guessing we'll eventually learn the fates of the characters left hanging at the end of this book, but a little bit more solid closure would have been appreciated.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth (***½) is a debut novel beset by some of the normal teething problems associated with a debut work, but Carrie Ryan's prose and pacing skills are impressive. I'm looking forward to seeing what she can do with more experience. In the meantime, this is an enjoyable book that will pass the time nicely. The novel will be published by Gollancz in the UK on 1 July 2009 and is available now in the USA from Delacorte.

Oh yeah, and to those worried by this being a 'YA' novel, it isn't. It's instead a book that doesn't feature any sex or swearing, which seems to automatically make a book 'YA' these days even when it features some gruesome imagery and violent deaths (as this book does).

[Zanth13]

oooo, I love zombies I will have to check this out eventually...


Thanks

[Werthead]

Book II: The Dead-Tossed Waves

Gabry lives a quiet life in the lighthouse overlooking the town of Vice. Many years ago her mother came out of the Forest of Hands and Teeth and made a new life here for herself and her young daughter. But a rash decision triggers unforeseen circumstances, and as Gabry's life disintegrates she realises she must flee her home just as her mother did long ago.

The Dead-Tossed Waves is the follow-up to Carrie Ryan's enjoyable debut novel from last year, The Forest of Hands and Teeth, taking place more than a decade after the end of that book. It can be read satisfyingly either as a sequel or a stand-alone, although the backstory is more easily understood if you have read the first book.

There are strong similarities between the two volumes. In the first book, a young woman flees her home as it is overrun by the Unconsecrated (zombies, basically) and escapes with a band of friends through the undead-infested forest, surviving only thanks to walled-off and protected paths through the wilderness. In the second book her teenage daughter faces a similar situation, although the opening sequence in the home town is significantly longer and more complex.

The novel also reveals much more of the history of the apocalypse and how the world survived it. Many questions from the first book are answered, and it is revealed that a sense of civilisation has indeed survived. The first book's sometimes overwhelming sense of isolation and mystery (akin to the atmosphere of the film The Village) is therefore missing, replaced by a somewhat more traditional form of post-apocalyptic worldbuilding. A sequence set on a crumbling overpass bridge with the ruins of civilisation strewn about it is reminiscent of the Fallout games (although at no point does the main character construct a steam-powered, railway sleeper-firing hand-cannon) or, more appropriately, The Road, though with more teenage angst.

Ryan continues to give us good zombie. The Unconsecrated are a constant, threatening force and Ryan cleverly expands the mythology about them and shows us they have many interesting capabilities not previously revealed. They're a constant, threatening force and not diminished (yet) by over-familiarity.

The characters are mostly well-sketched, but there are some weak elements here. Gabry eventually becomes a rootable heroine, but spends much of the opening of the book as a pretty passive figure. Even long after she becomes an active protagonist driving the action, she still frets over being so weak and helpless and not living up to her mother's badass-zombie-fighting reputation (her mum spends every a couple of hours every night battling off the zombie hordes washing up on the beach with the tide), which is understandable at the start but a little bit wearying after she's dispatched her third or fourth zombie of the book and swum through undead-infested waters to rescue her injured boyfriend from certain undeath twice before breakfast. She needs a bit more validation and positive reinforcement, I think. Also, being a first-person narrative, the other characters tend to be a bit more remote and distant and it's not always easy to get a handle on their motivations (aside from Mary, whom we know from the first book). Gabry's also inherited her mother's tendency to ponder and fret over her love life at inopportune zombie-related moments.

However, the story has enough of a good momentum to overcome these issues, the prose is solid rising to occasionally disturbing (Ryan does gruesome very well), and the pacing is good. It will probably surprise no-one to learn there is a cliffhanger ending, with a third book due next year.

The Dead-Tossed Waves (***½) is an effective follow-up to the first novel, enjoyable and disturbing by turns. The novel will be published on 8 April 2010 in the UK and 9 March 2010 in the USA.

[Abyss]

 Werthead, on 11 April 2009 - 01:29 AM, said:

... a debut novel beset by some of the normal teething problems ...

I saw what you did there.

- Abyss, ...grrr. argh.

[Werthead]

 Abyss, on 14 December 2009 - 09:15 PM, said:

 Werthead, on 11 April 2009 - 01:29 AM, said:

... a debut novel beset by some of the normal teething problems ...

I saw what you did there.

- Abyss, ...grrr. argh.

After eight months, you're the first so far to notice that