In February earlier this year I put up a review of Cutthroat Express, the seventh book in author Bryan Cassiday's Zombie Apocalypse: The Chad Halverson Series. Perhaps slightly confusingly, the next title of his I have read for review is actually the novel that came before that one. Horde is that book, and was an award winning one, having picked up the Independent Press Award for Best Horror Novel of 2022. I will try and keep spoilers to a minimum, especially seeing as how I knew how this one was going to end.
Out in the Arizona desert, a bedraggled man is discovered by Porter and his colleague out on a mission from their nearby compound. This person is in a poor condition, and with him suffering amnesia (bad enough that he isn't even aware that zombie apocalypse has been unleashed across the world going on for ten years), Porter gives him the nickname of 'Box'. Wanting to help the man (as well as a woman named Marta who is also discovered), Porter brings him back to the compound, which sits on the edge of the desert near some dense woodland. The leader of the compound, a lady named Hilda, is distrustful of the new arrivals and convinced they might be unaware carriers of the zombie virus, so they get placed into quarantine. Not long later sees the arrival of Zodiac, the leader of a group of thugs who have a grand plan to march to the seat of American government and take it over. First however, the psycho decides to take over the compound, with his harsh rule causing a division within the group, especially with his treatment of Box, Porter, Marta, and a few others that he sees as troublesome to his new rule. The arrival of another outsider brings with him news of a horde of undead massing in the nearby woodland, as well as a clue as to who Box might really be...
I knew what to expect going into Horde, as Cutthroat Express was such a pulpy and action packed zombie story. That took the form of a road trip, with this novel being set almost entirely at the compound of survivors. I had no fear that I would be lost, despite this being the sixth book in a series, it helped that the protagonist has amnesia, so there isn't a large amount of backstory to get clued up on. I guessed his identity quite early on, but I think if I had read earlier books that reveal would have been really obvious anyway. I enjoyed that aspect, having a lead character who is constantly discovering disturbing things about the skills he appears to have, while the amnesia part meant he was as fresh a pair of eyes on this rotting world as me reading it. With Zodiac you have a nasty antagonist, though he felt comfortably crazy, there is lots of random killings by the guy, but all weren't too surprising, and compared to killers in other series, such as Negan in The Walking Dead, he felt a little more calm and collected, even if his ideas were crazy.
With much of the novel taking place in the relative safety of the compound, this was lighter on zombie action than the follow up, but that isn't to say there aren't thousands of undead here. Many of the action scenes revolve around Box and his acquaintances being sent out beyond the safety of the fences to dispatch zombies in hand to hand combat. One sequence that took place in a sand storm really stood out as something fresh and exciting. A thing I always appreciate when reading a novel is when it gives me a strong visual image of the events playing out, and that is certainly the case here. There were a few chapters set in a different location entirely, and these were the parts were I felt a broader knowledge of the overall story in the series would have benefitted. The main back and forth story is the belief that the undead release spores that can infect people without them even getting bitten. This was a topic returned back to time and time again, and wasn't something I recalled being a factor in Cutthroat Express, but seemed to be an actual way for people to become infected. Knowing where this story would end up, I expected the change of scenery, but that last act of the book was also the shortest, covering lots of ground in a way that felt slightly too swift.
I enjoyed reading Horde just as much as I enjoyed Cutthroat Express. The B-movie action here was never anything less than entertaining to read, and unified the feel of this insane world, while the ever present short and moresome chapters often found me struggling to put this down.
SCORE:
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