The characters were better, and easier to root for/hate. This novel had all the details we felt were missing from the short story. Enjoying the short story did absolutely nothing to diminish our enjoyment of the novel. Mostly.Īs good as the short story was, the novel ROT & RUIN is the definitive edition of the story. Then the story goes back to its short story roots to end the way that short story did. As it turns out, Tom is far more than just a zombie hunter, and he wants Benny to be a part of 'the Family Business.' The first part of the novel follows pretty closely with the short story, after which it deviates into a huge, detailed and horrific adventure. Tom Imura is famous as a zombie hunter, but Benny doesn't want to be a part of that legacy. Benny's older brother Tom Imura escaped with Benny, and they all now live in a small settlement with other people. His parents were killed on First Night, the day that started the unstoppable zombie apocalypse. In case you don't know, this story is about young Benny Imura. YA with all sorts of awesome violence and a solid coming-of-age story. YA with no TWILIGHT-esque romances involved. After all, how much could we enjoy a novel where we already knew most of the story? Maberry then dropped the bomb on us that he was expanding that short story into a full novel. In that anthology, Maberry's YA zombie story was one of our favorites. It ranks as one of our absolute favorite anthologies of the year, and we said so in the review we wrote.

ROT & RUIN is an expansion of the short story 'The Family Business' that was found in the anthology THE NEW DEAD. With that said, we feel we should mention how completely awesome ROT & RUIN is.

So, we offer our sincere apologies to one of the greats in the Horror genre. We feel pretty awful, because Jonathan Maberry is one of our favorite authors. We confused the release of this novel with that of another.

Rot & ruin book series