Review: Interesting Premise but Serious Editing Problems
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 10 30, 2013
2.5 starsThis book, which seems to be the start of a series, shows promise. It is a compilation of three stories, setting up an alternative history of such events as the Donner Party and the Civil War, in which zombies play a key role. Unfortunately, the atrocious editing (or lack thereof) prevented me from enjoying the storyline. If the authors don't care enough about their own work to even run their manuscript through grammar check, it's hard to understand why the reader should care, either.Of the three stories, I thought the first, "The Lost Party," was the best. Its ambiguity drew me in; when combined with its connection to the third entry, "The Last Rider," George Masterson's story peaked my interest. Masterson is also the most fully-developed of the characters in the book, although even he is still relatively two-dimensional.The second story, "Feud," is the weakest. It is an utterly predictable mash-up of a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western and "The Walking Dead." Dixon and Campbell also introduce too many plot threads which are subsequently dropped, interrupting the coherence of the main story which, given Griffin's appearance in "The Last Rider," should have been the consequences of his arrival in Little Rock.This same tendency to throw out too many subplots to see which one sticks is the major flaw of "The Last Rider." At one point, this story seems to set up an interesting alternative explanation for the rise of the KKK, but the episode then fizzles; I would like to see this idea developed in a subsequent story. The employer's medical condition in the same episode is too much; while he could be an intriguing character in his own right, tossing him into the mix without any back story just muddles the main action.Overall, I would not recommend Red Dust: The Fall in its current form, but the Red Dust series is worth watching to see where Dixon and Campbell take Masterson, Griffin, and Isaac next.I received a free copy of Red Dust: The Fall from the authors in exchange for an honest review.