Book Review – This Dark Earth

John Hornor Jacobs has written a powerful novel of the Zombie Apocalypse. In his just-published second novel, the zombie virus is a biological weapon that is accidentally released from the installation in Whitehall, Arkansas. The opening scenes take place at a Little Rock hospital. After the government drops nuclear bombs intended to eradicate the outbreak, a doctor and a truck driver join forces with a military unit to set up a local government and defend against the hungry hordes of undead. They soon find themselves in conflict with a megalomaniac who wants to take over what remains of the still-living world.

Well written and fast-paced, the first-person voices of survivors shape this novel into an exposition of how some people survive and many others die when society falls completely apart. This Dark Earth is more robust than an ordinary zombie novel. It deserves classification with the exceptional novels of catastrophic social change, including Steven King’s The Stand, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and Pat Frank’s Alas, Babylon.

Last Updated on October 16, 2024 by