By the Blood of Heroes: The Great Undead War: Book I by Joseph Nassise

By the Blood of Heroes by Joseph Nassise

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


While I'm not a big zombie fiction fan, I couldn't resist reading this book about WWI with a supernatural/steampunk twist. And Joseph Nassise doesn't disappoint.  It's high caliber action that brings to mind movies like The Dirty Dozen, but twenty plus years sooner.  I don't know a lot about WWI, to be honest, but what Nassise writes seems credible.  I like that he takes what is known about WWI fighting and integrates some steampunkish and supernatural elements.  I think that he builds on the ever-present sense of horror that war inherently has, and that's a firm foundation for a supernatural suspense novel.  I can't verify this, but the Germans seemed kind of Nazish already, especially in the blatant defiance of human rights and experimentation on humans.  That part was rather disturbing.

  I felt the suspense element was a huge appeal of this book. I literally didn't know what would happen and I even had to put it down a few times to get a break. Although I wanted to keep reading. I find zombies really disturbing, and the fact that the Germans are using gas to turn people into zombies is pretty darn awful. I wanted the heroes to open up a can of whip@$$ all over them.

If anything could have improved this was more dialogue and interaction with the members of Burke's team. I cared about all these guys, but I think I would have liked to know more about them. I realize that this book occurs over a short period of time, but this would have enhanced my reading experience.  The main villain Richthofen was a "real you know what". He's the kind of villain you want to see get his butt handed to him. But he's a credible villain in that he's not easily defeated.  He's enough to give you nightmares, actually.  I don't think I'll have any, I hope. But just in case, I tried not to read this before I went to sleep. This book is so much scary as unnerving in that I can put myself in the soldiers' shoes and imagine that sense of constant fear that dealt with in the trenches.  If being blown up or shot or gassed to death isn't enough.  That's a chance they will be turned into zombies or see their fellow soldiers come back to try to eat them to death!  Yeah, that's pretty disturbing. 

Overall, this was a very good book. Great action moments.  I liked the lead characters, especially Burke.  The villain is nasty enough to make him a worthy antagonist.  The supernatural/steampunk parts are excellent. They tie into the WWI setting very well.  I think with more development of the secondary characters, this book would have been even more effective as a read. I will definitely continue this series, but when I'm in the mood for a creepy zombie novel with good action.

Recommended.



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