Dead Reckoning was the second book I read. It was written by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill. Ok, so it was about zombies and I don’t like actually like zombies. They are gross, dead, and ridiculous. There is no explanation out there that makes any sense. And the truth is that this one was particularly bad. It was superstition and magic trying to masquerade as science. Oh beautiful science, how you have been butchered and twisted with each illogical scenario.

Book Cover – I actually found the cover interesting enough to want to read the book – despite the zombies.

I think if one has to do zombies, then really the use of a virus is the best explanation one can give. Not some cocktail of plant derivatives combined with music to make these lovely walking corpses both docile and obedient. I suppose the army of dead was not too bad. It was just silly the way they were made.

The other thing that through me off, right from the very beginning, was the intro indicating the author’s desire to create an authentic historic period. Again, there is nothing wrong with the desire, but it certainly created an expectation that was not followed through. Not when the author then tried to weave magic and steam-powered mechanicals into the telling. Why could they not simply bill the novel as a Western Steampunk?

I can’t really put my finger on the reason I actually finished reading this book. It wasn’t the not-so-very-gripping tale of zombies (though the army of undead did start to grow on me). It wasn’t really the characters either. While I was drawn to Jett, one of three main characters, there was certain flatness to the ensemble as a whole.

Jett appealed most as she was a cross dressing female. The twin sister to a missing brother, she dressed and acted as a rough and tumble, sharp-shooting, card-shark as she tried to locate her absent sibling.

Gibbons was supposed to be everything Jett was not: socially progressive, intellectual and not afraid to be the unconventional female. She was an inventor, creating a steam-powered car; a scientist determined to find a rational explanation about the apparent zombies and courageous as she walks boldly into all situations.

Rounding out the trio was White Fox. As a child four he was rescued by a Native American tribe when his entire family and wagon train were slaughtered. While he may appear to be a white man he has the manners and thinking of a Native. Really, what this boils down to is a closed, emotionally isolated (tough?) and largely silent character.

Jett plays the tough guy, but to be different from White Fox talks and cusses more. Gibbons rambles. Though of course she would hate to be thought of as a girly chatterbox, most of her dialogue falls into the lecture style.

I appreciate the attempt made to craft three unique individuals, but they were really three stock characters. Strangely enough with some much book spent just following their lives over the few short days the novel covers I feel oddly disconnected from them. They should have been an intergral part of the story, with the zombies working in the back ground. While the zombies remain in the background, so do the main characters. Actually nothing about the story really sticks out.

The manner of writing was good, but not great. There was some use of old west slang, but even that didn’t seem fully realized. I am left with a lack luster impression of the entire thing. What would have made this better? Well, more character development – perhaps more character conflict? I could concede the zombies, and I liked the western flare (though that too could be enriched), but why pretend to ground this story in American history when you are changing so much anyway. Create your own world, then the potion for zombification won’t seem so grating the narrative.