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RISE
In May of 2004 the dead return to life and begin to hunt the living. Within a few weeks nations have fallen and the few survivors are scattered and desperate. Rise follows a group of survivors on their journey through the apocalyptic Canadian Rockies, the desolate and empty lands of northern British Columbia and Alberta.
276 pages, Paperback
First published January 2, 2012
8 people are currently reading
243 people want to read
About the author
Gareth Wood
12 books24 followersFound as a baby inside the smoldering husk of a meteorite that fell to Earth somewhere in the south of England, Gareth Wood grew to a facsimile of adulthood in western Canada.
His interest in apocalyptic fiction began early on, when as a child he read The Hobbit. The Battle of Five Armies was a world changer for young Gareth, leading him into fantasy, SF, horror and post-apocalypse fiction.
In 2004 Gareth sat down at his computer pondering writing a novella. Despite his better judgement, he did just that and then kept on going.
One day Gareth will sing the song that ends the world, but that day is not today.
His interest in apocalyptic fiction began early on, when as a child he read The Hobbit. The Battle of Five Armies was a world changer for young Gareth, leading him into fantasy, SF, horror and post-apocalypse fiction.
In 2004 Gareth sat down at his computer pondering writing a novella. Despite his better judgement, he did just that and then kept on going.
One day Gareth will sing the song that ends the world, but that day is not today.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
March 25, 2012
Rise was written as a blog online originally and as the author mentions in the prolog, he wrote it as the days passed in 2004-2005 when the story takes place. He paid attention to the weather patterns, studied the environments he was leading his characters through, etc. So essentially, this book was fairly early to the zombie writing party-before the onslaught of books started showing up in places like Amazon and on bookshelves at bookstores. Of course, with its introduction via Permuted Press to a wider audience in 2012, it comes during the thick of things-when journal type tales of the apocalypse have been done on a regular basis over the past six or so years, along with a wide array of other first person and third person zombie sagas. Credit to the author for crafting this piece before so many others had taken a swipe at the genre-I wish I had read it when it had originally come out because I am sure it would have felt truly fresh and new at that time.
Like other journal format tales, this story goes through the daily struggles of a survivor (this time a man named Brian who lives in western Canada) from just before until almost a year after the dead have risen. The journey we are treated to takes us on a wandering path where Brian and his sister meet up with other survivors, avoid the undead, try to gather supplies, avoid other desperate humans, interact with the military, go on rescue missions, and just try to cope with a world turned upside down. Journal writing gives an author an opportunity to detail out all the minor details that many other tales would leave out simply because they tend to focus on the elements that move the story forward at every step of the way. Journals do this too, but the whole idea seems to more or less be focused on giving you a real flavor of how people cope, which requires getting down to the nitty gritty.
Most of my criticisms of this tale would stem from the journal format and not the author’s writing, which is solid and keeps things moving. One of the things that seem almost impossible to do with this format is allowing the reader to get into the moment with the characters on the page. This happens because there is virtually no dialogue-nothing that anchors the action and relationships in the present moment. Almost always, the story is being written a day, or even several days, after the events being chronicled have occurred. This author, like others, tends to announce critical details in the first sentence of every new entry, which allows you to know, in vague terms, what is about to happen on the next few pages of the story, and in the next few days of the lives of the characters. Journal entries lack tension, though they provide you with a detailed picture of events. This is the blessing and the curse of this writing format.
If there was a genuine criticism that I have for this tale, unrelated to the journal format, is the fact that the story seems to carry on beyond its natural ending point through several more adventures of the main character. My guess is that in the original writing of the blog, the author was trying to determine a stopping point and picked one at a place where there is a relative lull in action and perhaps when he grew tired with relating the saga. With that said, the story could have stopped much earlier, or could have carried on for months and even years beyond the point where things are concluded-through the course of the apocalypse. I suppose that is another challenge related to journaling; the days of your life are not set up in neat, tidy condensed tales that will fit perfectly into a book-like story. Instead, it moves on, with different story lines always happening and intertwining at all times. In essence, this story could have gone on for another hundred pages or more, and could have ended fifty plus pages earlier, with the same result.
I don’t intend for my criticism of the journal format to speak as a negative about the authors writing capability-he has written an entertaining story in a format that is challenging, to say the least. It kept me reading from start to finish and I was definitely entertained. Rise is a solid entry into the zombie genre, and I hope to see more (perhaps in another format) from this author.
Like other journal format tales, this story goes through the daily struggles of a survivor (this time a man named Brian who lives in western Canada) from just before until almost a year after the dead have risen. The journey we are treated to takes us on a wandering path where Brian and his sister meet up with other survivors, avoid the undead, try to gather supplies, avoid other desperate humans, interact with the military, go on rescue missions, and just try to cope with a world turned upside down. Journal writing gives an author an opportunity to detail out all the minor details that many other tales would leave out simply because they tend to focus on the elements that move the story forward at every step of the way. Journals do this too, but the whole idea seems to more or less be focused on giving you a real flavor of how people cope, which requires getting down to the nitty gritty.
Most of my criticisms of this tale would stem from the journal format and not the author’s writing, which is solid and keeps things moving. One of the things that seem almost impossible to do with this format is allowing the reader to get into the moment with the characters on the page. This happens because there is virtually no dialogue-nothing that anchors the action and relationships in the present moment. Almost always, the story is being written a day, or even several days, after the events being chronicled have occurred. This author, like others, tends to announce critical details in the first sentence of every new entry, which allows you to know, in vague terms, what is about to happen on the next few pages of the story, and in the next few days of the lives of the characters. Journal entries lack tension, though they provide you with a detailed picture of events. This is the blessing and the curse of this writing format.
If there was a genuine criticism that I have for this tale, unrelated to the journal format, is the fact that the story seems to carry on beyond its natural ending point through several more adventures of the main character. My guess is that in the original writing of the blog, the author was trying to determine a stopping point and picked one at a place where there is a relative lull in action and perhaps when he grew tired with relating the saga. With that said, the story could have stopped much earlier, or could have carried on for months and even years beyond the point where things are concluded-through the course of the apocalypse. I suppose that is another challenge related to journaling; the days of your life are not set up in neat, tidy condensed tales that will fit perfectly into a book-like story. Instead, it moves on, with different story lines always happening and intertwining at all times. In essence, this story could have gone on for another hundred pages or more, and could have ended fifty plus pages earlier, with the same result.
I don’t intend for my criticism of the journal format to speak as a negative about the authors writing capability-he has written an entertaining story in a format that is challenging, to say the least. It kept me reading from start to finish and I was definitely entertained. Rise is a solid entry into the zombie genre, and I hope to see more (perhaps in another format) from this author.
June 13, 2013
3 stars for the format. As a journal entry looking back at the zombie events, it doesn't have the immediacy that a good zombie novel requires. It all felt so passive and too much like reporting. I would love to see this author do a more slam bang story with dialogue.
February 20, 2013
Received this for Xmas 2012 - just an FYI, staying up to 1:00 was not in my to do list. I finally got around to picking up Rise and had to force myself to put it down cause morning comes early. Best book I've had the pleasure to read in years!!!!
June 15, 2018
Love this book. One of the only books to ever give me nightmares it was so good! Not just scary, great characters.
February 9, 2024
It's a great book, it just needs to be 50 pages shorter and then I would give it 5 stars. Too repetitive.
November 28, 2016
Previously published in installments online, Rise tells the story of Brian, a regular (Canadian) Joe who, in the company of a few fellow survivors, heads out across the country in search of safety from the zombie apocalypse. Author Gareth Wood presents Brian's tale in the form of journal entries, which chronicle events from the early stages of the outbreak through the group's harrowing cross-country trek.
Zombie 411: Wood's zombies are more or less the Romero-style undead. They seem to move a bit faster, but they're not full-on "sprinters." Wood makes a point of leaving some unknowns and inconsistencies, so we never really know all there is to know about the zombies. I thought this was a nice touch.
The good - Wood does a very good job introducing and developing his characters. That's no easy feat when using the journal format, but by the end you have a pretty good feel for both the main and the supporting characters. He also pays attention to various details and observations that sometimes get overlooked in zombie novels. And of course there was a lot of gruesome zombie action.
The not so good - There are a ton of zombie novels out there, most of which are told in the first person. A good number of those are in journal format. It takes a special story to really stand out in that format, and Rise didn't quite manage that. The book ran long and, it seemed, aimlessly at times. Wood hit a logical ending point (when they finally encountered the military) but instead he had them go back out into the wild not once but twice, and without a really compelling reason. Then there was the group's uncanny ability to find generators, guns and ammo and working SUVs wherever they holed up for the night. Deus was working hard in that machina. There were a lot of little inconsistencies as well that became harder to overlook as the story dragged on.
I think if Rise was a bit shorter and the stakes a bit higher for the main characters, it might have been a lot more effective. As is, it's a solid zombie novel, but as journal-style zombie tales go, it's definitely not at the Day by Day Armageddon level.
Zombie 411: Wood's zombies are more or less the Romero-style undead. They seem to move a bit faster, but they're not full-on "sprinters." Wood makes a point of leaving some unknowns and inconsistencies, so we never really know all there is to know about the zombies. I thought this was a nice touch.
The good - Wood does a very good job introducing and developing his characters. That's no easy feat when using the journal format, but by the end you have a pretty good feel for both the main and the supporting characters. He also pays attention to various details and observations that sometimes get overlooked in zombie novels. And of course there was a lot of gruesome zombie action.
The not so good - There are a ton of zombie novels out there, most of which are told in the first person. A good number of those are in journal format. It takes a special story to really stand out in that format, and Rise didn't quite manage that. The book ran long and, it seemed, aimlessly at times. Wood hit a logical ending point (when they finally encountered the military) but instead he had them go back out into the wild not once but twice, and without a really compelling reason. Then there was the group's uncanny ability to find generators, guns and ammo and working SUVs wherever they holed up for the night. Deus was working hard in that machina. There were a lot of little inconsistencies as well that became harder to overlook as the story dragged on.
I think if Rise was a bit shorter and the stakes a bit higher for the main characters, it might have been a lot more effective. As is, it's a solid zombie novel, but as journal-style zombie tales go, it's definitely not at the Day by Day Armageddon level.
January 12, 2014
I really enjoyed this book. I picked it up because I was curious, and going through a little "Walking Dead" withdrawal, and I was hooked from the first few pages. It was awesome. The characters are well developed and the story is as intense as any story within this genre. I really enjoyed the concept of the journal as a means of telling the story because while it is "fantasy" the journal made it more realistic. The only downside might be that this book is hard to find in paper form as it started life as a blog before a lot of the other zombie stories started comeing out. It is a bit like "World War Z" in this regard, only instead of being something written after the event, it is written as the event occured. It's not very long and it reads fast. Definitely worth the $3 bucks at Barnes and Noble. Can't wait to read the sequel.
February 17, 2013
This was among the first zombie books I read. I like it. Even if you can easily see that this is not the highest orm of literature, the story is quite solid and entertaining, there are good charactersto care about and a lot of adventures. In particular I love how the book takes us to several scenes like a rescue mission to save some srvivors who locked themselves inside buildings. Also the way the autor manages to include details of everyday life and give hope to the characters is quite charming and atypical in this kind of book.
I recommend it for those who, like me, enjoy stories about zombies and survival.
I recommend it for those who, like me, enjoy stories about zombies and survival.
September 25, 2014
Read this years ago for the first time, back when it was on his website for free. Recently bought the Kindle edition of this book, so I felt a review was in order:
This is a good book. It isn't great, it won't be a classic, but it is good. I feel like the journal style in which it's presented really helps. I like that the characters aren't automatically paramilitary bad-asses, just supremely lucky in certain situations and incredibly unlucky in others. It's a very basic journal about a zombie apocalypse, but the simplicity is what makes it good.
This is a good book. It isn't great, it won't be a classic, but it is good. I feel like the journal style in which it's presented really helps. I like that the characters aren't automatically paramilitary bad-asses, just supremely lucky in certain situations and incredibly unlucky in others. It's a very basic journal about a zombie apocalypse, but the simplicity is what makes it good.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 16, 2012
At first I was interested in this for the fact that it was a journal, but the audiobook possibly ruins the novelty of this because there's only one time that the voice is changed in the story to provide a bit of variety. Hearing the same character recap days within the journal just gets old and boring fairly quickly.
June 20, 2014
This is my third or fourth read of "Rise" and it just gets better and richer each time. I hate to admit it, but this author has converted me: I refused to read zombocalypse fiction prior to this. Great starting novel from a new author. Now, on to his second book, "Age of the Dead," while waiting for the third book of the series to hit the presses.
January 5, 2012
YAYYYYY!!! Another editing project is now a published book! Rise, by Gareth Wood (Permuted Press) is now available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble! Even more zombie goodness....
(Sequel, Age of the Dead, will be published later in 2012!)
(Sequel, Age of the Dead, will be published later in 2012!)
July 7, 2012
Gareth Wood's Rise is a unique experience. It is an epic story, told from the point of view of one man making his way through a zombie-infested Canada. In his search for survivors, he truly comes into his own. This is a great story, and I highly recommend it to anybody who is a fan of the genre.
January 29, 2013
I really enjoyed this book. Found it hard to put down, kept my attention the whole time...found he wrote a sequel to it (Age of the Dead) and read it as well. Can hardly wait for his next book. Well worth the read!!!
May 14, 2014
Everyone wants to write a book where the character journals now. It wasn't bad, but I've read better. I purchased the first and second book together, so I'm moving on.
February 20, 2012
Really liked it. Looking forward to the follow up.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews