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The Morning Star Strain: Plague of The Dead By Z.A Recht
The Morningstar Strain: Plague of The Dead
reviewed by Wayne Simmons author of 'Drop Dead Gorgeous.'
Author Z.A Recht
Publisher: Permuted Press
Specifications: Paperback 308 pages
There’s something to be said for innovation. Especially in the horror genre, where tired-and-tested formulae such as The Slasher Movie TM, The Remake TM or, the industry’s current little toe-tagged darling, The Torture Movie TM can get happy-slapped in our faces to the point where we hear ourselves scream with tedium as opposed to fear.
Take, for example, the hugely inspirational j-horror classic, Ring. Once
the bed-wetter supreme amongst even the most cynical of fanboys, it wasn’t
long before every Tom, Dick and Samara were donning a white dress and
combing their hair forward to creep around our screens. Soon, the Koji
Suzuki/ Hideo Nakata classic became a cliché. And so the cycle
continues.
It happens in literature too. Take the vamp scene, for example. 1816 saw
what was, perhaps, the first popular vamp tale in print – John Polidori
(or was it really Byron?) published The Vampyre. Irish writer, Le Fanu,
followed with Carmilla before the classic Dracula hit the shelves a little
later. Now, of course, we have the Anne Rices leading a foppish army of
frilly-shirted hack-from-hell’s sucking gallons of blood out of
the genre. No wonder The good Count looks a bit pale on it, these days...
But sometimes, it must be said, a traditionally modelled book or film
comes along to remind us, again, why we liked the cliches so much in the
first place. Like Dawn Of The Dead (2004) or even, it must be said, the
likes of Wesley Snipe’s first outing as Blade. Something that, whilst
bringing little new to the table, still sates our horror-hungry blood-and-guts
the way we liked it in the good old days.
Plague Of The Dead, a zombie novel by ZA Recht, is one of those rare jewels.
Promising nothing but a good ol’ zombie romp with all the cliché
boxes ticked (military: CHECK, virus: CHECK, bare-chested wrestling between
token good-guy and token bad-guy: CHECK) Recht’s apocalyptic horror
novel brings zero new to the table. But what it does, it does fairly well.
Published through Permuted Press, fast becoming one of the most popular
underground horror publishers, Plague starts off with your average virus
spreading through your average Middle East. Scientists and military are
wheeled out as we learn of a typically terrifying strain known as Morning
Star that has taken grip of the human race, spreading through traditional
Romero means to turn the world’s infected into flesh hungry zombies.
Our retreating GI s find themselves onboard the USS Ramage, sailing away
from an overrun Middle East towards the good ol’ US of A, where
things aren’t faring much better for the human race.
Nothing new here, then. We’ve seen all of that before. Hell, we’ve
even played it on our Playstations (Dead Aim, anyone? Cold Fear?) yet,
what separates Plague from much of the ever-increasing pile, is the quality
of writing on display. Recht’s description of the Middle East’s
meltdown, for a start, is a delight for apocalyptic fans everywhere. His
cocktail of medical and military fumbling around in the chaos is indulgently
played out, boasting second-to-none research to beat contemporaries hands-down
in terms of setting the scene. Things progress in a similarly vivid fashion,
infection gripping the motley crew of HSS Ramage with the kind of pistol-waving
paranoia we’ve all come to know and love over the years.
Of course, not all’s rosey here. The book’s climax becomes
something of a fiasco with our previously po-faced military turning somewhat
slapstick. Character development is limited to a few key players, with
many of the military simply blending into one-another. Oh, and then there’s
that cheese-fest wrestling match that I was alluding to earlier. It does
actually happen. And, yes, a beautiful woman stands by gasping suitably.
But with sequels in the offing, we can only hope that Recht irons out
the creases and gets, what could be a very promising franchise, back in
order.
Plague Of The Dead is a good debut from a promising author who, whilst
not bringing anything (at all) new to the genre, will certainly satisfy
the more traditional zombie fan. This book does for zombie literature
what Robert Kirkman has done for zombie comics, teaching the many, many
imitators of Romero in the horror industry, today, how bare-faced rehashing
should be done.