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Reviews for Rise and Walk

 Rise and Walk magazine reviews

The average rating for Rise and Walk based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.has a rating of 3.5 stars

Review # 1 was written on 2010-01-07 00:00:00
2007was given a rating of 3 stars Otto Maan
Gregory Solis, Rise and Walk (Hadrian Publishing, 2007) Consider this book in light of the one above it in this issue, Jason Pinter's The Fury. Both of these books ended up with the same rating. And both of them are getting "yes, but..." reviews (in the sense that the rating and the review don't really go together unless you read between some lines). The same rating and the same motivation for the rating, but coming from entirely opposite sides of the coin. Why is this? A lot of it has to do with the expectations of the reviewer, and the impossibility of objectivity when coming to a book; we all carry our personal baggage onto every literary flight we take. But even then, such an analysis (and aren't we all facile when analyzing our own motives?) seems a bit wrong, because at the end of the day I wasn't expecting a great deal from either book (Rise and Walk vanity-published, and The Fury published by Mira; both those ways lie madness, in my experience). Even more to the point, what I liked and hated about each book is roughly similar. And now that I've talked my way through this, both of them getting the same rating makes perfect sense. And still, in many ways, I simply liked Rise and Walk so much better than I liked The Fury, but its flaws were also much, much bigger. The action opens in a small California mountain community; a glorified campground, really, where a general store has sprung up that seems a little more permanent than the kind of thing you'd normally find in such a place. This may have something to do with the ammunition plant just over the mountain; many of its workers spend a lot of time there, as well as the rich, spoiled son of its owner. As the book opens, a meteorite crashes to earth, and when it splits open, a noxious green has is released. (Yes, you last saw this in The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill, happening to Stephen King.) Unfortunately, it's in the midst of a number of geology students on a field trip when this happens, and pretty soon, the entire batch, save one kid who collects some of it and runs off to turn it in to the cops, are ravenous zombies hunting for human flesh. And what do you know, there's a campground halfway down the mountain. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, um, campground, a paintball competition is about to take place, one the aforementioned lazy rich kid fully intends to fix in order to hand a defeat to Team Blackjack, the perennial winners of competitions such as this one. Blackjack are led by two lifelong friends, Jack and Tony, who eventually become the main characters in our story. What happens when you get a bunch of paintball hooligans with weapons fixations together with a horde of ravenous zombies? Let the blood fly, folks. I remember, back in late 2006 and early 2007, for a while Rise and Walk was the only book anyone talked about in the horror underground. Yeah, it was being vanity published (Hadrian Press' parent company is Lulu), but so what? Look how David Moody started out. The comparison isn't unwarranted, despite Moody and Solis coming at the zombie thing from opposite ends of the spectrum; Rise and Walk was supposed to be the next coming of local-undead-boy-makes-good. But where Autumn's reputation has only grown as time has gone on, once Rise and Walk was published, the buzz stopped, and the book sank into obscurity with lightning speed. The sequel, which is promised for mid-2007 in the back of the book, has yet to materialize. Now, I understand the reasons for all of this, and will detail them, probably more exhaustively than I intend to, below. But I will say right now that despite everything, I started this book less than twenty-four hours before I am writing these words. That's gotta count for something. If you're a grammar snob, or even a casual user of the stuff, Gregory Solis will get on your every last nerve. It doesn't matter what your hot button is, he will press it. Repeatedly. (Mine is the substitution of "loose" for "lose", but those who abhor comma misplacement will want to gouge their eyes out. And I'm just touching the very tip of this iceberg.) There is an art to writing, and there is a craft. Mr. Solis is in desperate need of some work on the craft bit. The writing here is barely competent at best, hideous at worst. The man has never met a contraction he likes, which makes the dialogue stilted and Edwardian much of the time. Amusing for a few pages, annoying thereafter. And yet the art he's got down like nobody's business. Gregory Solis has two speeds: breakneck and faster-than-that, and while his attempts at characterization are stumbling, you've got to give the man points for trying. (In many ways, especially the pacing, Rise and Walk reminds me of the novels of Jack Priest, except that Solis' characters are much deeper. Not better-written, mind you, but you know they all have backstories.) And yeah, it's silly and cheesy and oftentimes outright stupid. It only shies away from the conventions of half the zombie books/movies since Night of the Living Dead once (though that once is one of those scenes that I have gotta see on film some day), and depending on your point of view, there's one subplot that just kind of ends. (I give Solis the benefit of the doubt, and assume the ominous ending of the last chapter of that subplot was meant to say "th-th-th-that's all, folks!" about the characters involved'which would make it graduate-level work, if you consider the rest of the novel to be, say, on a third-grade level.) But despite all this, once the book gets its hooks into you, which takes only a few pages, it will not stop until it disgorges you on the other side. If you're lucky, you won't catch the clues Solis throws out about the ending, but I did, and that made it no less fun. I was very surprised at how enjoyable this book was, awful grammar and all; if you can put that sort of thing aside, this one's a must-read for zombie fans. ** ½
Review # 2 was written on 2010-11-02 00:00:00
2007was given a rating of 4 stars Bill Boden
Solid zombie story, I hope a sequel comes out one day (the end built to it). The four main characters were well developed, and the side characters were as well before meeting their demise. Only problem I had was the main characters were pretty much supermen. Weapons trained, outdoor adept, just a little too much.


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