Zombies scare me. I can barely sit through an episode of Walking Dead without getting up to walk around the room, yet I loved Jonathan Maberry's series that starts with Rot & Ruin. Benny Imura lives in a town fortified against the zombie plague. His famous brother Tom makes a living helping the locals arrange peaceful deaths for their zombified family members. Benny, raised by his older half-brother, has nothing but disdain for his quiet, respectful sibling. Instead he glorifies the local bounty hunters who fan the flames of adoration with stories of slaughter and near escape. At age 15, if you want to remain inside the fence, you have to choose a profession. Benny reluctantly follows Tom into the Rot & Ruin, as his apprentice.
Benny's experiences in the zombie wasteland, known as the Rot & Ruin, drag him kicking and screaming, into a new understanding of what it is to be a man. His friends Morgie, Chong and Nix, come along for the ride. Unlike the Walking Dead, Maberry gives us reason to hope for a better future for the characters who have become our friends. I usually don't read a series because I just don't have the time, but I made an exception for this one. Addicted, I read them one after the other. I even paid money to get the next book, rather than waiting, as I usually do, in the queue at the public library
Jonathan Maberry is a prolific author, thank goodness. He has a popular series of books featuring the former detective, Joe Ledger and several stand-alone books and graphic novels. I have loaded Ghost Road Blues onto my ipad to read over Rodeo. While he is here for the Tucson Festival of Books, Jonathan Maberry has graciously accepted an invitation to join the Salpointe Book Club during our March 13th meeting. If you have read any of his titles, feel free to join us.
