The plan is to reread all of Brian Keene’s available works in roughly the order that they were published. I’m doing it because I’m an author in need of improvement and a reader who enjoys a storyteller willing to bleed out on the page in a powerful and interesting way. I’m a fan of Keene’s work. I think there is something to be learned through this process.

You can also go back to the Introductory Post: A Gathering of Books to read more about the how and the why of this or any of my other posts up through this one and beyond by checking out the Master List of all my #BrianKeeneRevisited posts.

If The Rising had never been written, then Dead Sea by Brian Keene could have easily been his seminal work. There might be an argument for Dead Sea being a better story by a few different measures. It’s a tight story and narrative. The philosophical discussions of the characters tie into the story in interesting ways. The key characters are strong and have dimension. The minor characters are handled well even when the confines of the story require them to be more flat.

I reread this one from the old yellowed copy of the Leisure book release that I picked up as soon as it hit bookstores back in the day. 2007, I believe? I had read The Rising and City of the Dead and was stoked to get another zombie book from this author. It’s a shame it would take me many years to discover everything else he had written. Hopefully, buying one copy of everything he’s published for this revisit makes up for that.

This is a different world with different rules from Keene’s typical signature universe of zombies. He utilized Romero style zombies for this story. I think it gave this novel and its characters more room to shine on their own apart from his other work. Infection spread faster and easier in this world because Keene can’t make life easy for his characters. Hamlin’s Revenge is a dangerous and evolving disease that sneaks its way further and further under the security of these characters just trying to survive.

I remember when Fear the Walking Dead season 2 came out, Keene reacted to the fact that they had employed the idea of facing a zombie apocalypse on the ocean after he had written the story years earlier.

The man with a spoon in the grocery store was the sickest part of the outbreak up to that point in the story, and we’re not even on the boat yet. A very devious detail to include. All the way through, the story uses gritty detail and sharp action to move the story along. I get the impression from rereading this work in its order in the catalog that Keene had become more comfortable with the details of storytelling than he might have been in the past.

God “the world’s most omnipotent bigot” is a great line. The later comparisons to “God is dead” and “God is a zombie” in more complex discussions add a lot to this story and the struggles of the characters.

When the main character lectures the kids on the ship about what it means to be gay and how to treat people, it read a little ham handed to me when I first read it years ago. I think it is written better than I remembered it from the first reading. It pairs with a later discussion in the room where the men talk to the kids about what it means to be a family. Again, in the first reading I found it more awkward than I did in this revisit. Maybe I’ve changed as a person since then, but I think also the text was ahead of its time. I think, in my quick reading as a person just enjoying the ride of a zombie story, I glossed over the sophistication of the dialogue and the depth of the characters. Over the years, as certain pockets of readers accused Keene of virtue signaling in his books, mostly for simply including gay or trans characters in his work, I thought back to these scenes. Upon my revisit, I’m concluding that he simply wrote these characters in realistic ways and a certain segment of the population is bothered by that reality. The passages aren’t perfect, but I find them much better written than I recalled. By any objective measure, I don’t think these scenes can be reduced to simple virtue signaling as some have accused.

The discussion of where to go to look for supplies is interesting and well written. The dialogue alone reveals details about the characters and makes the world feel fuller.

The zoo scenes harken back to The Rising. Things go a little differently there in this universe. Frankie herself in this universe also has a connection to Mitch and his family.

We get a Leisure Horror Book Club card in the middle of the shore expedition. Many people look back on this club and those days fondly.

The rant about a Fallout Boy CD is funny to me.

We come across some comic books including an issue of The Walking Dead. I remember buzzing right past that in my first reading. It wouldn’t be until some time later that I would discover those comics for myself. I really dove into them hard and was super excited when they decided to make a show out of it.

The discussions of life, death, and giving up are great in and of themselves, but also in the context of the story. The meta discussion of archetypes like the hero and the warrior was an interesting approach to developing and paying off the characters.

“Then he screamed and we were a family no more.” Great line and a great scene made so much stronger by ending it this way. When things start unraveling in a Brian Keene story, they fall apart fast. Keene gives you hope over and over, but then takes it away over and over in the story. No smooth sailing on this hero’s journey. It makes the next achievement of hope better for earning it and then Keene has you where he wants you again.

“Then maybe I’ll just open the door.”

Brilliant stuff.

I’ve noticed I have a tendency to downplay books in my mind over time. I love them when I initially read them, but given enough years, I have a tendency to try to modulate my feelings and critique of them. Maybe they weren’t quite as good as I thought them to be in the moment. Upon rereads, I tend to be surprised by how good they really were. This happened to me in my revisit of It by Stephen King. It has happened again with Dead Sea. This is a book that is highly regarding by readers for good reason and I think it may deserve even more regard than that. The story had so much more to it at every phase than I recalled. Such a good book.

My next post in this series will be Shades #BrianKeeneRevisited which can be found on the Master List of all my #BrianKeeneRevisited posts. Note: The photo of Brian Keene used in the banner image of these blog posts was taken by John Urbancik and used by permission of both Keene and Urbancik.

Jay Wilburn

Jay Wilburn has a Masters Degree in Education that goes mostly unused since he quit teaching to write about zombies. Jay writes horror because he tends to find the light by facing down the darkness. His is doing well following a life saving kidney transplant. Jay is the author of Maidens of Zombie Kingdom a young adult fantasy trilogy, Lake Scatter Wood Tales adventure books for elementary and middle school readers, Vampire Christ a trilogy of political and religious satire, and The Dead Song Legend. He cowrote The Enemy Held Near, Yard Full of Bones, and The Hidden Truth with Armand Rosamilia. You can also find Jay's work in Best Horror of the Year volume 5. He is a staff writer with Dark Moon Digest, LitReactor, and the Still Water Bay series with Crystal Lake Publishing.

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