Those Poor, Poor Bastards (Dead West, #1) in Adventures in SciFi Publishing

Apr 30, 2014 Timothy Ward rated it really liked it

Shelves: horror, zombies, 2014

Reviewed at Adventures in SciFi Publishing

I love when I find a publisher who consistently delivers a professional, entertaining story. It makes picking up unfamiliar authors and genres so much easier. With all the books I’m trying to read, I tire starting ones that end up putting down, so thank you to Ragnarok Publications for making my life easier and giving me another cool story to pass the time. Those Poor, Poor Bastards by Marquitz, Martin, and Soward was a pleasant surprise to a reader unsu Reviewed at Adventures in SciFi Publishing

I love when I find a publisher who consistently delivers a professional, entertaining story. It makes picking up unfamiliar authors and genres so much easier. With all the books I’m trying to read, I tire starting ones that end up putting down, so thank you to Ragnarok Publications for making my life easier and giving me another cool story to pass the time. Those Poor, Poor Bastards by Marquitz, Martin, and Soward was a pleasant surprise to a reader unsure about this kind of genre fiction. I came in thinking it would be a gritty, gory, weird west battle against zombies. I was right, but found that if written this well, I can enjoy such a mixture of elements. The editing is tight, the voice for the dead west time period is authentic, the violence is clearly written and effectively exciting, and there’s enough character and worldbuilding to make me leave the story wanting more. On top of that, the book is short, with Goodreads saying it is only 210 pages. With some of the Epic Fantasies I’ve been trying lately, it was really nice to read through a book I enjoyed in one day and want to pick the next one up immediately.

Ragnarok dubs this book as ‘The Walking Dead and Hell on Wheels Collide.’ Those Poor, Poor Bastards is more fast paced than either of those shows, but still manages to create a cast of characters with enough personality to make the action matter. Nina, our main character, is half-Native American, with her White father her only family left alive.

Nina’s story begins with the desire to

“do something other than scavenge abandoned sites and dicker for fixins with brown-toothed backwoodsmen.”

Guess what, Nina, you’re about to get your wish, kinda. How about a demon-type zombie apocalypse that starts with horses and dogs running rampage on the small town you just entered. But, while trying to find a place to hole up, you’ll get stuck with some racist backwoodsmen.

Here’s a sample of the action to come:

A ball of fire plumed. The concussion rocked the ground. Nina felt the heat all the way to their hiding spot. Debris whizzed by, landing in the mud with thunks. The smells of charred wood, powder, and cooked horse burned her eyes. The livery office blazed; the stable roof was on fire, too.
…
“Ain’t all we got to worry about, Lincoln.”
They followed Manning’s nod, looked down the street where a dark shadow came pressing down from the west. Beneath its oppressiveness, folks ambled in the capering fog, forty or fifty strong; men and women, gunshot or hacked, afflicted with grievous wounds that should have killed them; they stood, bleeding and warped, teeth gnashing like those sick dogs and horses, a small army of persistent flesh. Some looked recently dug up, skin glowing gray in the mist, hair hanging in patches from skull-bare heads.
Nina felt sick. Her gut screamed at her to flee. “Pa. Mister Manning…”
“I’m there with ya, darlin’,” Manning said.
The three of them backed away, boots creaking on the wooden boards. Several pairs of rheumy eyes among the legion of…undead…turned their way. Nina cupped her hands over her ears as a collective moan went up.
Pa took aim, but then drew back. “Too many. Whatever the hell they are.”
Nina looked at her father. “What do we do?”
“Run,” he said.
Then two cadaverous claws broke through the store window behind James Manning and took hold of his shoulders.

The action and fear amp up from this early sample, but it is a good picture of what’s to come. The prose doesn’t get in its own way so you can fly through what happens, but still manages to keep us in Nina’s senses and fear. Looking back, she comes off as almost juvenile in this sample, which goes to show how much she’ll grow up by the time this story is finished. Her story is about keeping her older father alive, meeting people she’ll care for and hate, and discovering her spiritual gift while being skeptical of the spiritual world.

The action and plot provided enough surprises to keep me in suspense, but there is room for growth in future stories. Those Poor, Poor Bastards takes our cast of heroes into an abandoned outpost where they get surrounded by deaduns and a mystical figure who may be responsible from raising them to undead life. This semi-stationary aspect gives us time to see that the deaduns are not the only threat, and to root us in the characters we’ll cheer for and against in future books, but also gets exciting as the wave crashes over them.

I knew what I was getting into right away and if this is your thing, you'll really enjoy it. I'd say it gets better as the story moves in, adding character stuff and emotion just enough to make this more than a escape the zombies book.

I will definitely read the next one, and may struggle not to read it right away. ...more

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Feb 25, 2014 Mr. Matt rated it liked it

Shelves: 2014, horror, zombies, western

Those Poor, Poor Bastards felt like yet another cowboys versus zombies book - which is unfortunate. There are some funny moments and the characters are very real - especially Nina Weaver. The writing was also crisp and more or less enjoyable. My problem with the book was with the Zombie Outbreak itself.

In this book the zombie outbreak starts with a bang. Nina and her father roll up in town and, just as they are leaving, wave after wave of first animals and then infected people blow through town. ...more

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Aug 22, 2014 Lori Parker rated it liked it · review of another edition

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Feb 09, 2015 Andy marked it as to-read

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