The classic that helped start a pop culture phenomenon – back in print and UNCUT!Since it’s 2003 debut, Brian Keene’s THE RISING is one of the best-selling zombie novels of all-time. It has been translated into over a dozen languages, inspired the works of other authors and filmmakers, and has become a cultural touchstone for an entire generation of horror fans.THE RISING is the story of Jim … the story of Jim Thurmond, a determined father battling his way across a post-apocalyptic zombie landscape, to find his young son. Accompanied by Martin, a preacher still holding to his faith, and Frankie, a recovering heroin addict with an indomitable will to survive, Jim travels from state to state and town to town, facing an endless onslaught of undead hordes, and the evils perpetrated by his fellow man.
This brand-new, author’s preferred edition, restores nearly 30,000 words of material that was cut from the original edition. These new chapters, which have never been seen by anyone before now, expand the original story, adding new depths to characters and more horrific situations.
You may think you’ve read THE RISING, but you haven’t read it all until you read this edition!
Deadite Press is proud to present this uncut, author’s preferred edition, which also includes a lengthy essay by the author about the novel’s genesis and history.
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A classic in the genre. Still an original. Love the ending.
When I first read The Rising five years ago, I didn’t much care for it. Here’s why: early on in Brian Keene’s zombie adventure, we discover that it’s not just humans that can become reanimated. Animals are fair game for zombification, too, and the demonic Siquissim that possess Earth’s corpses give all these zombies the ability to talk. This means that in addition to talking zombie humans, we also get talking zombie fish and talking zombie lions. My first encounter with these creatures seriously disrupted my suspension of disbelief. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a talking fish was enough to take me right out of this zombie novel.
Over the last few years, though, as the book marinated in my psyche and I’ve become a regular listener of Keene’s podcast and privy to the stories and behind-the-scenes discussions he’s given us about his books and influences, I grew tempted to give The Rising another shot. Joe Hempel’s narration of the audiobook edition sealed the deal. I love Joe (necessary disclaimer: I like Joe so much that I hired him to narrate my own novel, Mass Hysteria), and given the fandom and devotion surrounding The Rising, it was time to give it a second chance.
Boy am I glad I did! In fact, knowing what to expect out of this book helped me enjoy it a heck of a lot more. My prior reading gave me the inside track on what’s what here, and without any jarring surprises, like a talking fish, to snap me out of the reading I was able to really sink into the narrative and accept it for what it is. And what it is is a heck of a lot of dark, occasionally silly, pulpy fun.
Keene’s conceit for the zombie apocalypse is a nifty one. A Large Hadron Collider-like bit of science opens up a portal between this world and The Void, allowing the evil Siquissim entry into our dimension where they take up residence in our recently dearly departed. When a person shuffles off their mortal coil and their soul escapes the confines of the flesh and blood, a Siquissim takes its place. This is a zombie apocalypse by way of demonic possession and cosmic horror, and it’s an interesting, original take on the end of the world as we know it.
At the core of all this is our every-man hero, Jim, who just wants to make it to New Jersey to save his son. He’s joined along the way by other survivors, but when a rogue platoon of National Guardsmen begin rounding up and enslaving folks, it’s only a matter of time before everybody is set on a collision course. There’s an urgency to Jim’s situation, and the perils he faces on his road-trip serve to heighten the tension. Keene makes you feel his desperation as the clock ticks down, right from the opening chapter. I was surprised at just how emotionally resonant and earnest our introduction to Jim was, and Keene is sure to pull on our heartstrings every now and then, reminding us of the humanity of our small band of survivors even as he grips us in moments of true despair and shocking violence.
Joe Hempel’s narration is strong throughout, and I particularly liked the affectations he gave to the zombies, particularly Ob, the malevolent leader of the Siquissim. He voices each character well, providing enough subtle distinction and occasional accents or tones that each line of dialogue is unique to each speaker. Hempel’s narration is top-notch, and his reading makes for a truly compelling listen. He’s a great fit to Keene’s sensibilities, and I’m looking forward to listening to his reading of City of the Dead next.
While the text is the Author’s Preferred Edition, I think it’s safe to say the audiobook is my own preferred edition. Listening to Joe Hempel’s reading of Brian Keene’s Bram Stoker Award-winning debut horror novel was a terrific amount of fun, and it gave me a new appreciation for the work as a whole.
So I might be lying about the happily ever after…but it’s a great book! The only reasn I won’t give it the full 5 stars is because the ending isn’t for everyone. I liked it, and couldn’t see it ending any other way. But this is one of the books that kicked off the Zombie craze. It invented a lot of the tropes, and still has so much more to offer. It’s a great story, very well told, and a must read for anyone who likes horror
A classic. Not to be missed.
I read this book when it was first published in a small press hard cover. When this book was first published it changed the zombie traditions everyone accepted into an exciting new set of rules. It gave other authors, who came after, the courage to change zombie lore and in that way revitalize the dying thing that was zombie literature. It created many opportunities to turn up the fear factor that had become so ho-hum another zombie story. If you are a traditional zombie guy or gal this might not be your kind of book, but if you’re bored as I was, pick this up and have some scary fun.
Author drew a good picture, and kept up a good pace of action. Easy to follow even when jumping between characters.
Well written and fast paced. Perhaps one of the best zombie theories I have read.
A step away from your everyday zombie tale. Day if the dead meets invasion of the body snatchers
Have you ever read a book, and hated the author afterwards? If you have not, read this book and you will. The ending of it is so upsetting to me because it leaves so much unanswered and unknowing, after all the twists and turns, and I’m mad at the author for not giving us more! Grrr!
I love a good scary book
Now I have several disclaimers to state, right up front, which have important weight on my opinions of this book.
1: Brian Keene wrote this book, figuratively speaking, at least 100 years ago (in other words, I am coming – not only late to the party – but after the legend of the party has been made into a million spin-off movies) on stone tablets on some mountain near to a guy with a beard who took the credit for the work.
Honestly, Brian is pretty much the “goto” authority on zombies, so he has every right to produce this “Authors preferred copy”, which adds stuff to the original that was cut, but – not having read that original abbreviated edition – I can’t revue the comparison to the “original” – though I don’t feel the longer novel dragged, was overly wordy or lost its impact after those cut words were re-instated.
Also –
2: I am not a gore fan. I don’t watch horror movies because they scare me.
I know – that is a wuss thing to say, but it’s who I am – I want to be horrified, enthralled, enrapt in characterization, logic, and environment, but I don’t actually want to see it because, well, I am a wuss. I got through “Alien”, “Aliens”, and I think that is about it. I watched “I am legend” and “World War Z” because my son wanted to watch them, and I think I may have held his hand at some point in the movies, for me. Not him. So that’s my level of street cred. I have not watched any zombie tv series like “The walking dead” or “Znation” or “The golden girls”, it’s all too real and in my face and there is gore everywhere or at the very least aggressive perms.
If I read it, it’s somehow happening elsewhere, and I can deal with more or less anything. If I see it, I squirm at a paper cut on the big screen.
I know. It’s not cool.
So, after all of that, I was pretty much in the opening chapters of Brian’s book when I realized that this is gore/full-on slasher horror – only with thinking zombies. And that actually made a hell of a lot of difference to my enjoyment of the book. This is my first real full-on zombie gore horror book, and I embraced it as a new genre (for me) to explore. And it worked, and it read like popcorn cinema, held my attention for the full unabridged addition, and had some nice surprise brutal killings and character deaths.
I think in a book like this where the zombies have an overwhelmingly distinct advantage over the humans left alive, the focus can’t possibly be anything other than individual survival, and that focused on different groups of people, so Brian nailed his diversity of characters. Their personalities were all sufficiently different, their struggles real and their motivations (to the larger part), clear and believable. I liked that the author was brutal to his characters, there are main characters deaths in here, each getting its own distinct send-off, so the deaths were memorable, and the fact that those characters can then come back as re-animated zombies give the whole book a series feel – I feel positive that certain characters will be revisited in the following books in the series – that and the cliff hanger Brian leaves the book on make it definite “buy the next book now” kind of reading.
The writing is concise, clear, easy to read. Mr. Keene has won the Horror Grandmaster Award and two Bram Stoker Awards, and written way over 50 books, I mean, the man’s a legend, so what do I know (papercut guy here, remember)? Attempting to critique his work is akin to blasphemy, and I don’t have the benefit of a beard to hide behind (I have learned from the cinema that “with great beards, comes great responsibility”).
I’m glad that my first ever book from Mr. Keene was the first in the Rising series and his debut novel. It’s a world away from what I am used to, and what I have encountered before, and that’s a large part of what makes Horror such a fantastic genre to have settled into. I also loved the ending, yes, it’s frustrating but is a reflection on my own views that threads have to be left open if a fair representation of a believable world is to be made. And what a thread to leave open! Dammit.
Brian makes it look easy. And the confidence ringing throughout the book leaves me in no doubt that I am going to have to extend my collection.
5 out of 5 for the ballsy debut of a living legend, and a great week of snatching reading time and peeking through my fingers. Can’t wait for “With teeth”, coming up soon, and I’d love recommendations for reading orders from my peers and fellow readers, I’m the first in the humble-pie “just starting this stuff” queue. Just drop me a line on Twitter, I appreciate it.
Sorry, it took me so long to get to the party, Brian.
I’m not exactly sure when zombies came back into vogue but I’m glad for it. Or at least I’m glad that all the zombie books that I’ve been picking up have been well written. And THE RISING falls into that same category.
The zombies appear because souls or beings from another dimension are making it through a hole or a dimensional weakening created by a scientist. And in a nice tie up, this becomes an issue near the end of the novel. While being zombies and still wanting to kill the living (mostly so that their brethren can come through and take over the body), these zombies are intelligent and can shoot guns and strategize. Their main limitation is the usual zombie slowness. The bulk of the story though is about Jim Thurmond who is trying to travel across states to get to his ex-wife’s house and rescue his son. And in a nice pacing, the book does have sub-stories involving other characters that play an indirect part in Jim’s journey. The climax puts everyone at the same place at the same time but not necessarily interacting with each other.
The book itself is very involving and enjoyable. I found that I didn’t care positively for them as much as I should have but I did care negatively for everyone who delayed Jim’s travels. In the end, I think those work out to be the same thing. I am definitely looking forward to reading the next novel by Keene.
(read and review written in 2005)
2.5 stars rounded up to 3, because maybe I just didn’t get it the way I was supposed to?
Anyhoo…
I remember when I first saw Stargate, and marveled at how conveniently wormholes were used to explain religion, mysticism and other oddities in human history. When an author can take an overused theme, and give it a fresh explanation that enriches the myth, it’s priceless. That kind of enhancement is exactly what Brian Keene weaves into the world of The Rising.
We have a mixed bag of Thetan-style body occupiers, a la Scientology, mixed with evil Christian demons, jumbled up to give rise to zombies. We get the explanation for why zombies only maim then move on (hint: they need our bodies). We also get a lot of references to Stephen King’s works, through direct quotes (“Danny’s not here, Mrs. Torrance”) and characters with nods to popular ones in his novels, like John of Many Colors for The Stand’s Trashcan Man. It’s a whole lot of pop horror culture woven into one ultra-campy zombie novel.
And then all those cool ideas fizzle into half-developed characters, “off” dialogue and weird gore.
There was a sharp emphasis on how badly people behave during the apocalypse, mostly that men will immediately turn the clocks back a few hundred years and start gleefully raping and pillaging, and we lose focus on the zombies themselves. I get that this is supposed to be bloody and gory, but could the evil and bloody destruction have been at the hands of the bad guys (the zombies) and not mostly perpetrated by the humans trying to survive?
And while I’m complaining, what was with all the religious stuff? Seriously, all the Bible verses and prayers were too much. The Martin/preacher character and the constant discussion of God, Jesus, faith, and actual prayer recitations were tedious. I wish this book had been identified as Christian fiction, because I would have known it was not for me.
Even though I have the Author’s Preferred Edition in audio, which I hear is considerably cleaned up from the original publication, the writing could still use a great deal of editing and polish. It reads like a raw and unfinished self-published novel. There exist a multitude of forced, awkward or incorrect phrases, more than I could keep up with while listening:
“murmur of consent”, when it should have been assent
“delay that order”, when it should have been belay
We also endure a lot of one-liners that are way too cheesy, especially when coming from the zombies. Certainly nothing quotable or meaningful can be found in there, just a bunch of awkwardly campy dialogue.
As for the audio, the narrator, Joe Hempel, had a few mispronunciations, but overall did a more than admirable job of differentiating the characters’ voices. I was thankful for this, because the characters were not developed well enough for me to tell the difference between them without his addition of inflections and accents.
Frustratingly, the story ends very abruptly, literally on the threshold of resolving the single driving plot point of the novel. This is a huge pet peeve of mine, the manipulation of the reader to buy the next book in the series, so I guess I’ll never find out.