TITLE: Dust and Decay
AUTHOR: Jonathan Maberry
PUBLISHER: Simon and Schuster
PRICE: $17.99
RELEASED: August 30, 2011

By Lora Van Marel
Staff Writer, One-Woman Show

Last year Jonathan Maberry wrote Rot and Ruin, which I thoroughly enjoyed. He’s back this year with its sequel, Dust and Decay.

This story picks up just a few months after the first book ends and has Benny, Nix, Lilah, and Tom prepared to leave behind their town of Mountainside and go in search of the jet they saw. They see the jet as a sign that there is more out in the Rot and Ruin, and wonder if someone else has gotten technology to work again and civilization is really rebuilding itself. A tragic event in Mountainside pushes their departure date up, and they end up in the Ruin earlier then expected. This earlier journey comes with unforeseen challenges. When the group gets separated out in the Rot and Ruin each panics and copes in their own way, and not everyone survives this story…

What I was expecting to be a book about a long journey in search of answers turned into a slight repeat of Rot and Ruin. Instead of moving forward, the reader gets more zombies and killing, the return of Gameland, and maybe Charlie Mathias. While the first book was heavy on the ethical discussion of killing zombies (one of the things I loved the most about it), this book doesn’t address that much at all.

What stands out the most in this story is the strong character development.  Everyone that was introduced in the first book thoroughly grows and becomes someone the reader cares about. Benny is becoming “warrior smart” just like Tom taught him. Romance is one of the tools that Maberry uses to build his character development, making the romantic storylines a much heavier focus then before.

I did enjoy this book, even though it wasn’t what I was expecting. It was more of a typical zombie book. There was a lot of fighting and escaping zombies, which was certainly the focus. However, there were still some surprises along the way, like a battle with a freakin’ rhinoceros! We also saw the introduction of many new characters including some awesome bounty hunters that I want to know more about. Some of these new characters have zombie cards (a concept introduced in the first book) shown on the end pages too.

Though a majority of the book consisted of battles, there was still huge emotion behind each page. This was something that Maberry did so well in his first Benny Imura book, so I was very glad to see that again. The reader can feel fear, sadness, and guilt the whole way through. The combination of violence and emotion make this a very fun read.

Dust and Decay reads like a lot of second novels in trilogies. There are a lot of unanswered questions, so I would be very surprised if Maberry doesn’t write another Benny Imura book.  I liked reading this book and I read it fast, though I was a bit disappointed that this was almost a repeat of Rot and Ruin with a few tweaks. I’m holding out hope that a third book is on the way that will make this second book worthwhile.

RATING: 7/10

Front page image from more2read.net. Maberry image from chicagoreader.blogspot.com.