Just another rotting face

This Walking Dead tie-in novel is fast-paced but its story is sorely lacking in ambition.

The Walking Dead: The Road To Woodbury Authors: Robert Kirkman & Jay Bonansinga Publisher: Tor, 277 pages

ZOMBIE novels are getting to be like the hordes of the undead, packed together like sardines on bookstore shelves, hungry for your cash and oblivious to, if not disdainful of, the vampire romances also jostling for shelf space. And more than a few of them stink.

(Though given the choice between drivel that makes me imagine my brain being eaten, and drivel that will melt my brain and cause it to drip slowly out of my nose, Ill pick the flesh-eaters any day.)

The Road To Woodbury is one such shambler, a tie-in novel that has showed up just in time for Season Three of The Walking Dead TV show. Timely, because it deals in large part with the series arch-villain, The Governor, who just made his debut in the episode screened on Astro on Nov 4.

Co-author Kirkman created the comic-book upon which the TV show is based, and this novel is closer to the comics depiction of both the Governor and his town of Woodbury (they really put the graphic in graphic novel).

For the uninitiated, The Walking Dead is the story of a small group of people trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. The TV show has just reached the point in the saga where they take refuge in a (largely) abandoned prison, while some of their number encounter the despotic Governor, who leads a well organised community of survivors in Woodbury.

This novel is mostly the story of young Lilly Caul, a character who may be known to readers of the comic for pulling the trigger on a major character. Well, two characters actually ... but lets not get ahead of ourselves. When we meet Lilly, Woodbury is still some distance in her future and she is part of a large group of survivors trying to rally together into a community of sorts, just a few months after the start of the zombie outbreak.

With all the death and slaughter in its pages, The Road To Woodbury is no better or worse than any other survivors tale from this series. As such, dont expect too much in the way of substance and story.

Its a pretty lightweight read, but the authors do well to keep the pace fast and the proceedings absorbing enough to make you keep turning the page even if its just to find out how much worse things can get. The book also springs numerous undead surprises on its characters, giving the reader a sense of unease throughout, no matter how safe or tranquil the setting of any given chapter may be.

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Just another rotting face