REVIEW: Rise And Walk by: Gregory Solis

PLOT

Up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, it’s a glorious summer weekend. Families are camping, fishermen are out in force, and a regional paintball tournament has brought in players from out of town. Nothing could wreck such a fabulous weekend, right?

Think again…

REVIEW

I love camping. I find the whole getting-away-from-civilization thing to be highly underrated. The feeling of waking up as the sun peeks up over the trees is a feeling that just can’t be beat. I may have to re-assess my feelings, however, after RISE AND WALK, the whiz-bang debut novel by Gregory Solis.

RISE AND WALK is the literary equivalent of a Jack and Coke. Take a stellar zombie story, and combine it with a sturdy action adventure that revolves around a regional paintball tournament, and you have two great tastes that taste great together. Take a popular but isolated lake somewhere high up in the Sierra Nevada’s, surround it with campers and fishermen and other assorted characters, and then just open up a giant can of zombie mayhem, and that is pretty much what you can expect. Being caught out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to defend yourself against the endless zombie hordes was pretty damn freaky, especially considering I have spent lots of time in areas just as Solis describes.

The story zips along nicely, never bogging down or really even slowing down. The zombie mayhem is intense and definitely one of the book’s strong suits. When the bodies start rising, the carnage is wonderfully brutal. As someone who has played outdoor paintball, the action sequences are great and brought back great memories. And without going too much into spoiler mode, let me just say the ending was brilliant and absolutely perfect.

So what’s keeping this from being a world-class entry into the world of zombiedom? Personally, I thought some of the characters, especially the two male protagonists just felt a little off. There were too many coincidences to be truly believable. These two dudes just happened to have guns in their truck and be handy with hand-to-hand combat? A wee bit too convenient for me to fully get into. That’s really the only fault I had with the story. RISE AND WALK is an intense, zip line-quick read that goes down smooth, like a good whiskey. As this is his debut novel, I look forward to more of Mr. Solis’ stuff.

Available at Amazon