Double Dead by Chuck Wendig,
Double Dead #1 (Tomes of the Dead)
Coburn’s been dead for close to a century, but
seeing how he’s a vampire and all, it doesn’t much bother him. Or at least it
didn’t not until he awoke form a forced five-year slumber to discover that most
of human civilization was now dead – but not dead like him, oh no.
See, Coburn likes blood. The rest of the
walking dead, they like flesh. He’s smart. Them, not so much. But they
outnumber him by about a million to one. And the clotted blood of the walking
dead cannot sustain him. Now he’s starving. And on the run. And more pissed-off
than a bee-stung rattlesnake. The campire not only has to find human survivors
(with their sweet, sweet blood), but now he has to transition from predator to
protector – after all, a man has to look after his food supply.
I have heard a lot about the
creative writing of Chuck Wendig. How he is one of the authors to watch out
for. I haven’t had the chance to read Blackbirds or any other books of him, but
I did find out that Double Dead is his first published novel for Abaddon Books.
Something counts similar for Abaddon Books, I also haven’t heard that much of
this imprint, only that it is from the same publishing house as Solaris, I have
read quite some books from Solaris and was just blown away with how a quality
their authors and moreover the quality of their stories. I was more than eager
to dig into Double Dead!
Now like I said, high
quality. Double Dead fits right up in that line. From the synopsis of the book
you can already make out a lot of which route Double Dead will steer in. Double
Dead is neither your classic vampire nor your classic zombie story. It’s a
mash-up of the two genres. And does fall in the lines of what Abaddon wants to
achieve with The Tomes of the Dead series. This series features several
stand-alone books that focus on re-writing and re-inventing the existing
zombie-horror genre. And Double Dead hits that mark.
Imagine that you are a
vampire, suddenly awakening after a few years of sleep to see that the world
surrounding you has changed. Dramatically. Well this is the case for the main
protagonist Coburn, a vampire. From his own re-telling, Coburn had it all when
the world was still “normal”. His hunting was without effort with enough prey
to serve as a food supply for his special dietary wishes. However his world has
moved on. And though Coburn is still the apex predator in this case, he is now
in for some problems of his own. Coburn is a vampire in a zombiepocalypse.
Though there are zombies a-plenty for him, they cannot sustain him. Coburn now
has to find living people to supply for his needs but are there any left? This
is more or less the idea behind the story of Double Dead and this premise of it
was really well executed and even further bolstered and enlivened by Coburn’s
character and Chuck Wendig’s writing.
As for Coburn, well what can
I say. It’s just one special guy. Double Dead is being told from his
perspectives so you clearly get to see how he thinks and
plans his actions and how he executes them. The introduction to Coburn just
screams: Bad ass. Owing to how Chuck Wendig explain more and more about his
character and his pasts. A few years ago he was the “man” he can do anything
with his vampire enhanced abilities, though napping during daytime is still a
must. Coburn is freaked out about the fact that there is no blood for him as he
is quickly thrown into the midst of the problem of America. Like I mention
Chuck Wendig has a way of enlivening the story and here is short excerpt of
Coburn when he stands in front of a window.
“If only it were like the movies, he could think real hard, squeeze his
butt-cheeks real tight and - poof – turn into a bat an flutter away without a
second thought. But vampires, they couldn’t fly.”
This is just one of the many
that are featured in Double Dead, most of them give a great humorous and funny
twist to the dark and gritty zombie infused vampire story. I do think the
intention was to produce on one side a dark “on the run” horror story and Chuck
Wendig achieved this superbly and on the other side producing a funny take on
it with Coburn. Both these sides were in perfect balance all throughout the
book and there is nice introduction of each of these themes. Not only making
the story that more livelier but also adding a nice pacing to the book.
I am not quite finished with
Coburn’s character because, he as well, goes into a transition from a bad guy
attitude towards a good guy? Possibly? Coburn does manage to meet up with a
band of living people, which changes his perspectives. Should he go for the
quick meal or should he protect them and so they can give him a steady supply.
This is just one of the decisions for him. However, Chuck Wendig introduced by
this group of still living human a lot more unknown parameters in the equation.
I really like how this part of the story was written up, it gave a certain
broadening of the scope and an importance to how Coburn’s character and his
gradual transition. Really great to see his overall development.
The storyline of Double Dead
is quite unexpected and it’s not only based on zombie killing by Coburn, though
there is plenty of that happening: machete’s, shooting, drive-by’s, grenades,
crossbows if I forgot any, sorry but there is a lot of action. There are two
other storyline that was being told in Double Dead one focusing Kayla from the
human survivors which will I hope be followed up in the second book in this
series Bad Blood and the other that Coburn might not be the apex predator any
longer… the tables are being turned..
Double Dead is a
recommendation if you are into the horror zombie-vampire stories. I have
recently read a couple of vampire based stories but haven’t encountered any on
this level. It is a new and fresh take on two existing genre. Double Dead shows
a great mash-up of zombie and vampire fiction and thereby creating a dark and
gritty but by the personality of Cobrun also humorous story. Chuck Wendig’s
ideas, shown by his writing are of a high degree that really set him apart from
other writers, its catchy and very addictive, I definitely plan to read more of
his books.