The Burning World

October 31, 2016
Marion’s third Warm Bodies zombie novel (after 2013’s series prequel, The New Hunger) continues the story of a postapocalyptic world where some of the walking dead have achieved a sentient state—a conceit that some readers will have trouble buying into. The protagonist, known simply as R, is one of those evolved zombies; 67 days before the book begins, he found an “exit” from an unremembered number of years spent as a mindless flesh eater. During those two months, R’s mind has somehow reached the point where he can narrate his biography with luminous prose: “In simpler times, life was a one-act play, and when it was over we took our bows and caught our roses and enjoyed any applause we earned; then the spotlight faded and we shuffled backstage to nibble crackers in the greenroom of eternity.” The unconvincing central premise is coupled with a conventional story line, in which R and his allies are confronted by a threat from a militant group of human survivors, and underdeveloped characters, including R’s human love interest.

December 1, 2016
A reanimated zombie must fill in the pieces of his missing past in this doorstopper sequel to Warm Bodies (2011).To recap, Marion (The New Hunger, 2015, etc.) penned a clever zom-rom-com in his previous books, set during a zombie apocalypse and starring a hunky young zombie named R. Weirdly, our boy starts to regain his humanity when he falls for Julie, a still-living survivor (after making a snack of her boyfriend, Perry Kelvin, as one does). This first of multiple planned sequels picks up immediately afterward and quickly goes off the rails. In the beginning, R is still the blank slate from the first book. "Whatever past lives return to me and whatever other names they bring, this is the one that matters," he says. "My first life fled without a fight and left nothing behind, so I doubt it was a loss worth mourning." The living are settled into an unsteady truce with the dead, their new animations explained by a gimmicky plot device called "the Gleam." "Every once in a while it just...happens, and the Dead get a little less dead." Their settlement quickly comes under siege from a corporate militant group called Axiom, while other rumors spread of a religious group called the Fire Church. R, Julie, R's buddy Marcus, and the rest of their crew escape with the help of--surprise! --Abram Kelvin, the older brother of the boyfriend whose brains R wolfed down. From there, it's a cross-country journey to a scorched Helena, Montana; on to Detroit, where Julie frees her chained-up, zombified mother; assaulting an Axiom facility in Pittsburgh; and finally, on to New York City to face not the big bad Axiom but the inevitable cliffhanger. We do get the full back story on R's background, although fans of the character may be disappointed by some pretty manipulative twists. Still, Marion has ambitiously expanded on his original tale, offering a dramatic amount of mythology and worldbuilding to flesh out his murky world. An ambitious if somewhat meandering addition to one of the more successful zombie franchises.

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Starred review from December 1, 2016
Marion's Warm Bodies (2011) was a refreshingly unique zombie novel. It told the love story of R, a recovering zombie, and Julie, a human girl. The book's popularity led to a movie and a clamoring for a sequel, but it was clear that in order to continue R and Julie's story, Marion would have to deepen the world building and charactersso, instead, he wrote a prequel, The New Hunger (2013). Now, Marion has finally returned with that much-desired sequel. R and Julie are still helping recovering zombies rejoin the slowly healing world, but a new threat flies ina corporate entity known as Axiom, with henchmen, secrecy, and violent domination on their minds. R, Julie, and their friends, including an Axiom employee, end up on the run. What follows is a cross-country journey to discover the truth about just how much of humanity is left out there, but along the way, our heroes also begin to understand more about themselves, their pasts, and how they each fit into the story of the end of the world. With exciting action sequences, intriguing characters, and a much more epic scale to the story, this will leave readers satisfied but eagerly anticipating book four. Suggest to fans of Justin Cronin's Passage trilogy or Mira Grant's Newsflesh series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

December 1, 2016

In the postapocalyptic world established in Warm Bodies, some of the undead are returning to life, like R. But while a few are only "Nearlies"--zombies who are continuing their journeys, R is truly alive. Slowly regaining human memories and skills, R continues to pursue the relationship that grows between him and new love interest Julie. Then the helicopters arrive: the Axiom Group has risen from the ashes to restore order. R, Julie, her best friend Nora, and a few others are on the run, traveling the country looking for answers to this new crisis. But R's recollections may hold clues, and the past may resurface to bite him harder than any zombie could. VERDICT This sequel to Warm Bodies (The New Hunger was a prequel) continues R's quest to personhood and relearning how to function in a world forever changed. [See Prepub Alert, 8/22/16.]--KC

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2016

A Romeo and Juliet-like story of an undead boy and a living girl, 2011's Warm Bodies was a No. 5 New York Times best seller, a Discover Great New Writers pick, and the basis for a movie. Julie and a revived R are back, but so are the baddies who tried to dominate the world with the undead as their shock troops. Third in the series; 2015's The New Hunger was a prequel.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.