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Double Dead

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.

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