This Dark Earth
Paperback l Kindle
By John Horner Jacobs
Gallery Books
Release date: July 3, 2012
Once in a great long while, a book that you absolutely cannot put down upon pain of death comes along. All the stars and planets align. The Universe is in agreement that you do, in fact, need to read this book from start to finish. It creates things like a sinus infection to keep you curled up in your Lay-Z-Boy, thunderstorms to keep your 60 pound normally active dog stuck to your chest on said Lay-Z-Boy and better things for your Facebook friends to do. This is precisely how I spent two days with John Hornor Jacobs‘ This Dark Earth.
While there are countless zombie novels on the market (half of which I may have read) you’d be hard pressed to find one that’s utterly unique in its approach to the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it theme. This Dark Earth is really no different in that respect. The world falls apart; a virus is mysteriously unleashed that turns normal dead people into the shuffling, moaning, hungry undead; survivors are wary of each other but a tentative trust forms desperately out of the sheer mutual will to live. But what makes Jacobs’ book such a worthy read is how sparklingly, refreshingly, goddamned good the writing is.
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