Review: dEaDINBURGH
dEaDINBURGH: Vantage by Mark Wilson
My rating: [rating=4]
Blurb:
Edinburgh, 1645:
The bubonic plague rages. In a desperate attempt to quarantine the infected, the city leaders seal the residents of Mary King’s Close in their underground homes.
2015:
Mary King’s Close is reopened, unleashing a mutated plague upon the city residents.
The UK government seals the entire city. Declaring it a dead zone they seal the survivors inside alongside the infected. dEaDINBURGH is declared a no man’s land, its residents left for dead and to the dead.
2050:
Joseph MacLeod, born onto the cobbles of the Royal Mile and stolen from the clutches of the infected is determined to escape the quarantined city. Under the guidance of former –marine Padre Jock, he leaves the confines of the city centre and hones his archery and free-running skills.
Alys Shephard, born into an all-women farming community believes a cure lies in the south of the quarantined zone. The finest combatant in the dead city, Alys burns with anger. The anger of an abandoned child.
Something much worse than the infected waits for them in the south, in the form of a religious cult led by a madman named Somna who collects gruesome trophies and worships the dead body of a former celebrity. Added to this, the enigmatic Bracha, a supreme sadistic survivalist with his own agenda stalks the teenagers.
Review:
Perhaps more a 3.5 than an actual 4. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this novel, and will very likely pick volume 2 at some point.
While the theme of zombies is nothing new and has been overdone, especially in the past couple of years, dEdINBURGH‘s approach on it is character-driven enough for me to care about Joey and Alys, and wonder about all the people left in the city. There were some quirky ones in there, Bracha not being the only one. (I kind of liked Bracha, with his golfer attire and posh accent. Completely mad, and utterly dangerous, in the way I liked reading about. I wonder what happened to make him this way?)
The city itself was another strong point for me. I admit I’m probably being partial here, for the mere reason that for once, I could relate to the setting (I live in Edinburgh). After so many books set in US cities, being able to picture every place clearly, to compare with what Edinburgh is right now, was delightful in its own, twisted way. Areas I go through every day to go to work, abandoned buses, the Princes Street Gardens converted into a community and devoted to keeping actual gardens, the way basement flats were included (there are so many here)… It definitely influenced my enjoyment of this book, and I’m not going to hide it; conversely, though, it means that other readers may not like it as much if relating to the setting was an important point for them. (I think the descriptions were good enough in general to help picturing the setting even if you’ve never been there.)
I was somewhat sceptical about a few things: a couple of fight scenes, how the protagonists were able to escape infection (shouldn’t it be too late as soon as you’ve been bitten?), some of the remnants of the former city–the plague spread 30 years prior to the beginning of the story, so should there still be ways of getting electricity or finding camping gear? On the other hand, the revelation at the end may also be an explanation: maybe those were actually left there with a purpose in mind (also, it’s small enough a city, and a lot of people died in the beginning, so it can’t be approached it with the usual “US setting with plenty of people left to loot stores” idea
I’m still balancing between 3 and 4 stars here, but for now, considering the genuine enjoyment it provided me with, and my undying love for Edinburgh that basically makes me squee every time the city’s involved, let’s round it up to 4.