The Walking Dead: Rise Of The Governor Review

This is a book I got the day of release, October 11th 2011, and didn’t read it until now for two reasons that couldn’t be more diametrically opposed if they tried.
1. I know when this was announced that they said it was the first of a trilogy (it ended up being a quadrilogy), and I always wanted to wait until I had at least one of the other books because I knew if I liked it I would be hungry for more, ASAP.
And 2. Though I love a Tie-In novel, I have a long and winding history with zombie horror novels and short stories, in that for the most part, at least in my experience, they can be duller than dogshit while maintaining a relatively similar quality as the aforementioned tightly coiled pile.

So now, eleven years on and with the show shambling towards its conclusion, I have finally read this plague infected book.
Which one of my two reasons for delay will end up being closer to the mark?
Gather round and keep quiet, we’re about to battle hordes of chompy dead fucks to find out.

This is your surprisingly bitey, but mostly expected official ***SPOILER ALERT***

Now this is the story all about how a life got flipped-turned upside down, I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there, to tell you about the Rise Of The Govern…air…
Before he ran the quiet, and demented, little hamlet of Woodbury, The Governor was a recently divorced, meek, dude named Brian Blake that got more than a bit queasy at the sight of blood.
Travelling with his brother Phillip, Phil’s two friends Nick and Bobby, as well as Phil’s daughter Penny, Brian is struggling with the new harsh reality of the recently dead now roaming the earth again and all of the new rules that brings with it.

Starting a week after the fall, the group scavenges their way from an upscale neighborhood, to the heart of Atlanta, to Woodbury, while meeting fellow survivors, battling drug addicted bandits, and facing off with power hungry military groups.
Brian learns that the world is harsh and if he’s going to survive he may just have to emulate his brother by embracing and harnessing that ever-apparent harshness.

I want to get to what is probably the thing that was hardest for me to get past at first.
The narrative perspective kind of threw me for a loop because its not your standard past tense omniscient narrator.
At points, particularly early on, it felt more like the reader was supposed to be a member of the group that they all just decide to ignore, and it was difficult for me to wrap my head around.
BUT, I was actually surprised at how remarkably it worked, especially in a horror novel.
In an odd way, that is a little difficult to convey, it feels like a quasi-documentarian style of delivering the story that is a bit more visceral.
By the end I fully bought into the delivery and style, and was able to breeze through forty pages or more at a clip.

As I said in my opening, I have read many zombie short stories and novels in my day and I can count on one hand how many I have loved.
Before I get too deep, I should clarify, because I’m sure some of you are saying “One hand? But you’ve read and reviewed a shit ton of Dan Shamble on this site, fool! Including earlier this month, ya dumb dumb dippy fuck!” and, well, first off, drop the hostility down a notch, skippy, ‘fore I bust you in your lippy.
And secondly, though that is true, I’d count Shamble as a franchise as well as say that’s more of a mystery/detective series with horror seasoning than a straight up horror series.
So now that we have that all cleared up, I have found that a solid zombie story has long been difficult to find, but this one thankfully breaks the streak.
There is a tremendous amount of tension, from the bitey types as well as the living, that stacks up well from beginning to end with enough down beats to make the encounters with the monsters have a strong impact.
I will warn you though that there is quite a bit of sexual assault throughout, so steer clear if that’s something that is a hard pass for you in fiction, but that does add to the overall tension.

To wrap up, I think one of the things that I, and probably a good amount of people, love the most about zombie media is the constant uneasy balance of the struggles between the hordes of undead and the living survivors, even against themselves.
Add in the creativity and ingenuity that those struggles bring and you have a fascinating look at how humanity copes under tremendous pressure.
Bonansinga and Kirkman really nail what makes a compelling zombie story, but it’s also a solid story of horror and perseverance.
The second entry in my Halloween themed reviews for this year has been damn enjoyable.
The hunt has begun for at least the next novel because I desperately want to read more and see what else they can do with this tale in this specific format.

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And finally, given the state of the world, do what you can to leave it a little bit better than you found it.
As difficult as that may be currently, it can have an impact far greater than you know.
Until next time, stay safe out there, gang.