By Joe Hempel of Top of the Heap Reviews
I grabbed an advance copy of SPORE at Horror Hound Cincinnati, where I had the pleasure of meeting Tamara Jones and having her sign it for me. This book is very different from my usual books, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure if I would like it. However, Samhain rarely disappoints me, so if this novel is good enough for Don D’Auria, then it will probably be pretty good.
This concept is not common in fiction. It involves people coming back from the dead, but unlike typical zombie themes, these people appear normal and have all their senses. The only thing I’ve read that comes close to this concept is Dealing with the Undead By John Ajvide Lindqvist. The only thing missing here is the time between their death and when they “wake up” lying naked in Sean Casey’s backyard, instead of the typical “undead”.
As time passes, many of the people are transported into a new world. For example, the house they once lived in is now owned by someone else, the car is different, and the people in power are different. It’s a completely different life for a lot of people, and this is explored, but not enough to distract from the main part of the story.
The main part revolves around Sean, his girlfriend Mary, and her friend, the newly resurrected Mindy. While there’s a lot more going on in the world than the scope of this book allows, you really get sucked into the plot that revolves around Sean and company. Each character has their own quirks and reactions to what’s going on, but you’ll likely find yourself empathizing more with Mindy as a character. As the story progresses, you really start to wonder what her new life will be like, and even if she’ll have a new life at all. Like, will this new life contract ever expire? Will they die… again?
Another highlight of the book is the little social media quips at the beginning of each chapter. Through a small snapshot, you can really feel the impact of social media on the news. You can see how quickly lies and misinformation spread. It’s actually a clever little social media experiment.
These two examples could also be considered the downfall of the book. You get this glimpse of what the world looks like through social media, but you never really get to know everything else. You get to see this limited scope of the world that tries to combine sci-fi and horror with a fair amount of intense personal drama, but you never really find out the “why” or how much of an impact this has on the rest of the country. For this reason, I felt like the book lacked quite a bit of resolution. Sure, the main characters’ problems are resolved, for better or worse, but because you’re only seeing the wider picture, you’re left wanting to know more, and thus feel a little unsatisfied when closing the book because there’s nothing to see beyond the small town of Pinel.
Bottom Line: This book is brilliant. It pulls at the heartstrings and makes you really think about “what if” people really did come back from the dead, and were mostly normal. It feels like a great “first book” in a series, setting up Spore and getting a knee-jerk reaction out of people. Each subsequent book pulls the lens back like Scott Sigler’s Infected series until we get the full picture. I can’t say this is a book that is definitely worth buying, but I don’t think you’ll be completely disappointed either.
Book here.
score: As a standalone novel, it is rated 2.5/5 stars. If this were the first in a series, the rating would rise to 3.5/5 stars.
