Review: No Flesh Shall Be Spared by: Thom Carnell
Do you know what I hate? Putting a book away and realizing that I read one a year ago and never ended up doing a review. Oops. It’s a real shame too since No Flesh Shall be Spared is one of the better zombie books I had read for quite some time when it had come out.
Within No Flesh Shall be Spared, Thom Carnell put together an absolute masterpiece mixing the undead outbreak with America’s need for Reality Television. He isn’t just a random horror author either. Carnell is a voice in our genre and has written for Fangoria, Dread Central, and Carpe Noctem Magazine. He knows about horror and his writing shows it off perfectly.
The novel itself? Well it takes place in the world after the fall where America has been ‘rebuilt’ but is not quite as civilized in some areas as it used to be. The concept is that there is a reality show that pit people against zombies. The payouts, if someone can survive, are HUGE. Everyone watches the show. The problem is that being able to survive is almost impossible (and not just because fighting zombies is deadly, lets just say that the guy who runs the show is a sleezeball and would prefer not sharing the profits.)
The main character is named Cleese and while he is not one that you can emphasize with exactly, he’s an anti-hero, he is one that by the end you are rooting for. He apparently is a known hard ass who is only good at fighting so when he’s not fighting he’s a drunk. That’s how the network that runs the show finds him, drunk and out of shape.
We see Cleese go thorugh training to become a warrior. We see him get fit and strong, find out the lay of the land, the social struction, everything. We even see Carnell find a way to show him fall in love in a closed off place where his life consists of killing zombies for money.
Cleese “grows” as a person and finds not only a reason to act like an adult but also multiple reasons to move forward with his life. While he’s by no means a child when this starts he matures into an actual man.
While the action sequences are amazingly well written they are not in the majority of the novel. It’s a shame because while we see Cleese fighting for his life he’s not only nearly unstoppable but you can visualize every second of what’s happening.
This is an absolute must buy for someone looking for the undead in a non-outbreak situation.
Available at Kobo Books.
