What do you think?
Rate this book
Dead Bitch Army
Step into a world filled with racist teenagers, masked assassins, cannibals, a telekinetic hitman, 100 warped Uncle Sams, automobiles with razor-sharp teeth, living graffiti, cartoons that walk and talk, a steroid-addicted pro-athlete, an angry black chic, a washed-up Barbara Walters clone, the threat of a war to end all wars, and a pissed-off zombie bitch out for revenge. When the police finally capture the number one suspect in the Bloody Mary Murders, a single-mother named Natasha Armstrong, nobody believes her story about her twelve-year search for the real killer, a murderous walking corpse who has no eyes but can still see, who moves like a bad stop-motion incarnation, but does so with ethereal grace. Nobody believes her when she tells them about all the bodies, or the people they used as game for the military-style obstacle courses that Bloody Mary and her soldiers, a ragtag group made up mostly of runaways, would build wherever they'd settle in any given town to recruit more soldiers and prepare for the end of civilization as we know it.
337 pages, Paperback
First published October 12, 2004
3 people are currently reading
415 people want to read
About the author
Andre Duza
23 books56 followersAndre Duza is an actor, stuntman, screenwriter, and the author or co-author of over 10 novels, a graphic novel, Hollow-Eyed Mary, and the Star Trek comic book Outer Light, co-written with writer/producer Morgan Gendel. He has also contributed to several collections and anthologies, including Book of Lists: Horror, alongside the likes of Stephen King and Eli Roth.
Andre’s writing has been described as horrific, satirical, and fast-paced, with a unique voice and lush, finely-detailed prose.
Andre also wrote, co-produced, and starred in the award-winning short film Tagati, which is currently making the rounds on the festival circuit. You can view the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUZ6n...
Andre is also a Certified Fitness Trainer and a Kung Fu Instructor. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and four children.
Andre’s writing has been described as horrific, satirical, and fast-paced, with a unique voice and lush, finely-detailed prose.
Andre also wrote, co-produced, and starred in the award-winning short film Tagati, which is currently making the rounds on the festival circuit. You can view the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUZ6n...
Andre is also a Certified Fitness Trainer and a Kung Fu Instructor. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and four children.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 8, 2007
Andre Duza's first book. Actually a three and a half due to being not quite as good as Jesus Freaks, but definately an outstanding warm up.
So, there's revenge, a seriously fucked up guy who can control reality with his mind and a zombie queen named Mary Jane who wants to make the largest zombie army ever. Out of ravers. Eh, who would miss 'em anyway?
This book has the same problems *if not more* of needing a better copy editor, but it's also worth fighting through some painful typos. (Btw, that says a lot from me... I hate dealing with editting a book in my head while reading it.) Just as brutal as Jesus Freaks, with not quite as much humanity to balance it out. I still immensely love this book, but probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone with too weak of a stomach.
So, there's revenge, a seriously fucked up guy who can control reality with his mind and a zombie queen named Mary Jane who wants to make the largest zombie army ever. Out of ravers. Eh, who would miss 'em anyway?
This book has the same problems *if not more* of needing a better copy editor, but it's also worth fighting through some painful typos. (Btw, that says a lot from me... I hate dealing with editting a book in my head while reading it.) Just as brutal as Jesus Freaks, with not quite as much humanity to balance it out. I still immensely love this book, but probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone with too weak of a stomach.
March 29, 2011
I am torn, and this is one of those reviews that I hate giving because there is nothing worse for me than seeing the amazing potential of a book, recognizing clear talent, but feeling as if the potential was not realized and the talent needed a bit of redirection. There is also nothing worse than damning a writer with faint praise so let me just state plainly what didn’t work in this book and what did.
Brief plot summary: Natasha Armstrong has been tracking the Dead Bitch, a woman named Mary Jane Mezerak, also known as Bloody Mary, and her small but creepy collection of hangers-on for years. She believes the Dead Bitch Army kidnapped her son, and after years of brutal entanglements, Natasha is framed for some of the Dead Bitch Army murders and ends up in prison. She is exploited by a reporter, a sort of dogpatch Barbara Walters named Linda Ludlow, who is later shown in an extremely brutal way that Natasha, “Tasha,” was not deranged and that she especially was not a murderer. Linda helps Tasha break out of prison and Tasha confronts the Dead Bitch Army at a gothic gathering on New Years Eve, 1999. The confrontation does not go as planned, and the end of the book is both sad, sobering and a good set up for a sequel. Read my entire review here.
Brief plot summary: Natasha Armstrong has been tracking the Dead Bitch, a woman named Mary Jane Mezerak, also known as Bloody Mary, and her small but creepy collection of hangers-on for years. She believes the Dead Bitch Army kidnapped her son, and after years of brutal entanglements, Natasha is framed for some of the Dead Bitch Army murders and ends up in prison. She is exploited by a reporter, a sort of dogpatch Barbara Walters named Linda Ludlow, who is later shown in an extremely brutal way that Natasha, “Tasha,” was not deranged and that she especially was not a murderer. Linda helps Tasha break out of prison and Tasha confronts the Dead Bitch Army at a gothic gathering on New Years Eve, 1999. The confrontation does not go as planned, and the end of the book is both sad, sobering and a good set up for a sequel. Read my entire review here.
July 30, 2010
Duza wrote the story on note cards, half great material and half bad material. He them threw them all up into the air and published them as they lay.
The parts that are good are really good but the parts that are bad are just boring. The style is schizo and so you never know what style the next page will be. This is both good and bad.
The parts that are good are really good but the parts that are bad are just boring. The style is schizo and so you never know what style the next page will be. This is both good and bad.
January 24, 2013
Clean up on aisle one. Clean up on aisle two. Clean up on Aisles three and four… oh hell, clean up all over the store! Since I’m not exactly sure who is responsible for this mess, all must pay. I apologize for the inconvenience people, but this may take awhile.
The plot can be summed up it one word – gratuitous. I understand that the author may have been going for a “pulp” novel, but what he actually achieved was a story that lacked… well, story. Filling the pages with needless gore and violence, what you have is 337 pages of shallow, shock horror. Throwing the novel’s progression completely off-course, Duza crippled his book by assuming the only way to make it interesting was to overuse every taboo he could think of. Now it is important to state here that I do think Duza has talent and vision, he just needs some serious help in delivery. It’s almost like he had this great idea, and when he went to write - he winged it. The organization of events is scattered and chaotic. There are far too many unnecessary details, open-ended assumptions, and it lacks any direct flow. Just for fun I was going to count the obscenities in my freakish need to see just how many could be squeezed in, but really, who’s kidding who here. All I want to know is, do you kiss your mother with that mouth?
The pace is abrasive, nudging and poking you along. Instead of a good suspenseful build-up, you get hit upside your head from the first page and then dragged kicking and screaming throughout the book. With so much going on, too much in-fact, Duza shows no grace under-pressure. Instead of realistic characters with a genuine sincerity and realistic believability, we get uber-sterotypes. Those are the players that behave exactly as you would expect they would, they’re just more dramatic about it. Duza boxes in his cast by restricting any free thought, not one player acts or talks out of form. What a waste. The atmosphere is decently conveyed, though more could have been done to hype up the story. Having grown up in Philly, I will say that Duza captured the setting precisely, but failed to give it heart. You will be able to see the city rise up off the page and appear before you, but you will be denied interaction.
His style of writing is underdeveloped, tangled, and dissonant. Again, he does have talent; it’s just hard to see under all those rough edges. One of the major problems is the editing, it’s appalling. There are sentence fragments, run-on sentences, misspellings, and a few thousand comma splices. The spacing between each paragraph is unsystematic, and the words are an obstacle; comprehension is slow and very painful. Some sentences have no divide, one thought runs right into another one. Instead of the editor simply doing a spell-check, they should have read the book. Also please, I beg you, stop the expletory abuse. Unless I’m reading a comic book the following words should not be used: Click, thump, bam, bang, or snap. Next time use your imagination, and describe!
My rating? I give it 1. While I do have faith that Andre Duza will continue to get better, this book will not. Do what Snoop said, Drop it like it’s hot!!!
-As reviewed for Horror-Web.com
The plot can be summed up it one word – gratuitous. I understand that the author may have been going for a “pulp” novel, but what he actually achieved was a story that lacked… well, story. Filling the pages with needless gore and violence, what you have is 337 pages of shallow, shock horror. Throwing the novel’s progression completely off-course, Duza crippled his book by assuming the only way to make it interesting was to overuse every taboo he could think of. Now it is important to state here that I do think Duza has talent and vision, he just needs some serious help in delivery. It’s almost like he had this great idea, and when he went to write - he winged it. The organization of events is scattered and chaotic. There are far too many unnecessary details, open-ended assumptions, and it lacks any direct flow. Just for fun I was going to count the obscenities in my freakish need to see just how many could be squeezed in, but really, who’s kidding who here. All I want to know is, do you kiss your mother with that mouth?
The pace is abrasive, nudging and poking you along. Instead of a good suspenseful build-up, you get hit upside your head from the first page and then dragged kicking and screaming throughout the book. With so much going on, too much in-fact, Duza shows no grace under-pressure. Instead of realistic characters with a genuine sincerity and realistic believability, we get uber-sterotypes. Those are the players that behave exactly as you would expect they would, they’re just more dramatic about it. Duza boxes in his cast by restricting any free thought, not one player acts or talks out of form. What a waste. The atmosphere is decently conveyed, though more could have been done to hype up the story. Having grown up in Philly, I will say that Duza captured the setting precisely, but failed to give it heart. You will be able to see the city rise up off the page and appear before you, but you will be denied interaction.
His style of writing is underdeveloped, tangled, and dissonant. Again, he does have talent; it’s just hard to see under all those rough edges. One of the major problems is the editing, it’s appalling. There are sentence fragments, run-on sentences, misspellings, and a few thousand comma splices. The spacing between each paragraph is unsystematic, and the words are an obstacle; comprehension is slow and very painful. Some sentences have no divide, one thought runs right into another one. Instead of the editor simply doing a spell-check, they should have read the book. Also please, I beg you, stop the expletory abuse. Unless I’m reading a comic book the following words should not be used: Click, thump, bam, bang, or snap. Next time use your imagination, and describe!
My rating? I give it 1. While I do have faith that Andre Duza will continue to get better, this book will not. Do what Snoop said, Drop it like it’s hot!!!
-As reviewed for Horror-Web.com
February 4, 2016
First, let me say that this is an important bizarro work, because Duza is one of the few minority writers in this movement. His racial and social commentaries are unique and refreshing in this subgenre and I truthfully look forward to reading more of his work.
That being said, I wouldn't really classify this as a bizarro read. It's much more a horror novel with supernatural and well-written splattergore elements. Sure, there are bizarro-like moments, but these are psychic creations by one villain and not necessarily ever grounded in reality or weird for the sake of weird. Unfortunately, the plot is also completely senseless, plodding, and very seldom surprising or exciting.
There are very few nuggets of brilliance in this work, but when you find them, they make the book much more like-able, hence two stars from me, rather than one. You really have to dig for them, though, and this book takes some serious patience.
That being said, I wouldn't really classify this as a bizarro read. It's much more a horror novel with supernatural and well-written splattergore elements. Sure, there are bizarro-like moments, but these are psychic creations by one villain and not necessarily ever grounded in reality or weird for the sake of weird. Unfortunately, the plot is also completely senseless, plodding, and very seldom surprising or exciting.
There are very few nuggets of brilliance in this work, but when you find them, they make the book much more like-able, hence two stars from me, rather than one. You really have to dig for them, though, and this book takes some serious patience.
March 24, 2020
26 - Dead Bitch Army
That cover and that title, how could I resist. It certainly delivered on the suggestions made from that combo, although it maybe delivered too much. In fact, if you're uninterested in excessive violence involving women, I wouldnt even read this review, let alone the book.
The story follows a group of cult members led by a decaying zombie woman as they cut a path of unimaginable violence across America, followed closely by Natasha, a woman with revenge on her mind who has become the scapegoat for the crimes of the cult.
The violence here is incredibly brutal, even borderline for my horror loving tastes, and almost always against women, which starts to feel misogynistic after a few scenes. Even when the violence is directed towards men, there usually manages to be a woman present whose torment is worse.
On the flipside, the lead characters are mainly strong women, so it's an odd combination. Author Andre Duza does write some amazing moments looking at race and class, and the cast of characters is diverse and realistic. It's just buried in a lot of violence that could be unnecessary.
It all winds down to a surprising ending that embraces the dark tone of the book, but is then followed by somewhere around 40 more pages of random stories of violence that don't have a time or place in the story before. It's unclear if these were omitted from the original story or what, but they're highly unnecessary. It's just a pileup of gore for no reason and it left a bad taste in my mouth after a rather solid end.
I would not recommend this for anybody who dislikes excessive violence, especially when it's aimed mostly at women.
That cover and that title, how could I resist. It certainly delivered on the suggestions made from that combo, although it maybe delivered too much. In fact, if you're uninterested in excessive violence involving women, I wouldnt even read this review, let alone the book.
The story follows a group of cult members led by a decaying zombie woman as they cut a path of unimaginable violence across America, followed closely by Natasha, a woman with revenge on her mind who has become the scapegoat for the crimes of the cult.
The violence here is incredibly brutal, even borderline for my horror loving tastes, and almost always against women, which starts to feel misogynistic after a few scenes. Even when the violence is directed towards men, there usually manages to be a woman present whose torment is worse.
On the flipside, the lead characters are mainly strong women, so it's an odd combination. Author Andre Duza does write some amazing moments looking at race and class, and the cast of characters is diverse and realistic. It's just buried in a lot of violence that could be unnecessary.
It all winds down to a surprising ending that embraces the dark tone of the book, but is then followed by somewhere around 40 more pages of random stories of violence that don't have a time or place in the story before. It's unclear if these were omitted from the original story or what, but they're highly unnecessary. It's just a pileup of gore for no reason and it left a bad taste in my mouth after a rather solid end.
I would not recommend this for anybody who dislikes excessive violence, especially when it's aimed mostly at women.
January 11, 2021
First time I have read anything from this genre so I don't really want to rate it because I have nothing I can use as comparison. I will say I read with an open mind and a curiosity for how a story like this would progress. There were a few times the book held my attention with a particular passage and other times left me confused on the progression of the plot or relevance of a scene. I would love to read a highly rated title in this genre so I can understand what I should expect.
February 17, 2020
There are some legitimate scary scenes in this, particularly when a character is hiding and thinks the bad guy doesnt know they're there just to nonchalantly reveal he knows exactly where he is but overall it is kind of all over the place plot wise. Some nice twists and an unapologetic ending. If you like horror you should find enjoyment I'm this.
August 27, 2008
It starts out promising, and is interesting reading, but turns into gibberish at the end. I was especially appalled at the mistakes in the book; didn't an editor read this? Or run spellcheck? Sometimes I had to turn the page back to make sure that I the passage I was now reading was somehow connected to the one I just finished. I thought I turned to the wrong page. The sentences are missing syntax and punctuation; it isn't an affectation, it's just poor editing. The book would have been mediocre on its own merits, but with all the problems it just isn't very good at all. I liked the artwork.
September 2, 2014
Dead Bitch Army is full of interesting ideas and characters and the writing is quite dynamic. It is certainly one of the better books in the Bizarro genre.
However, it clearly wasn't proofread properly and contains numerous typos. On one page there is an unpunctuated sentence fragment dangling below a completed paragraph, which shouldn't be there at all. This lack of proper proofreading is unfortunate, because it really does distract the reader from fully enjoying the story.
However, it clearly wasn't proofread properly and contains numerous typos. On one page there is an unpunctuated sentence fragment dangling below a completed paragraph, which shouldn't be there at all. This lack of proper proofreading is unfortunate, because it really does distract the reader from fully enjoying the story.
June 18, 2011
It was an entertaining read, if not at all the hype-worthy and pop-culture icon Mr. Duza might have expected. If you're a grammar Nazi, though, be warned; there were moments where you wonder if there was an editor even involved.
June 5, 2010
Not my cup of tea. I read about 30 pages. Eh. Vengeful zombie chicks from hell. Lots of typos.
January 3, 2015
This is possibly the worst book I have ever read. I like things gross, dark and disturbing. This is just horrible writing and a book that is trying to be something it just isn't.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews