The Dark Trilogy Ends

I struggled while writing this as to which would be the most appropriate format: reviewing the two books in the same post, or separating them as I would normally. The books I am referring to happen to be Into The Dark, and Beyond the Dark, both by Patrick D’Orazio. They are part of a three part series, if you are interested in the first review it is Comes The Dark.  I’ve decided, after deliberate deliberation, that the final two reviews (and a quick synapse of the first) belong together.  Not just because they are all the same series, but as the author informed me, they were in fact, written as one book.    (Shortened for printing purposes)

So we start with Comes The Dark (Check out the review) which introduced us to our primary characters.  Jeff watched his family being eaten and turn into zombies, Megan joined up with Jeff as he was trying to escape suburbia, George and Jason were together surviving and eventually saved Jeff & Megan’s rumps.  This part of the story follows their struggles while driving the post apocalyptic landscape in a van, through looting, running into some absolutely wacko humans, and ends with them being essentially captured by another group. Cliffhanger, on to the second book.

The second book, Into The Dark, transitions rather smoothly from where the first left off.  They are captured by Michael and his group, have their supplies taken from them, and are expected to assimilate to their way of life.  Michael is what I would define an insane, sadomasochist who does relatively well at holding authority over his group.  I’m using the term sadomasochist loosely here as we can only assume with his girlfriend, Cindy, his intimate life must be rather interesting.  Cindy is psychotic and hyper-aggressive.  She adores causing pain, teasing, and being a bitch to just about everyone.  Michael keeps her on a short leash however, so besides her freaking out on Megan and trying to intimidate people, we don’t see much of her acting out in Into The Dark.

The rest of the group is just as important, of course, as Michael and Cindy, but if you want some expansion on them, you’ll just have to read the books.  Into The Dark follows the way the two groups live together for the duration of the book and during a looting mission things go terribly awry and they are followed back to camp by hordes of the flesh eating beasts.  Yet another cliffhanger, and you now feel that you MUST get to the next book faster.

Beyond The Dark, the third in the series, the zombies have found the groups camp and jumps to action almost right away.  (Prologue explains what happened briefly)  They manage to escape the wave of undead that followed them back to camp and start out into the world in a large camper.  Things get rougher and more difficult as the group gets split up into smaller factions, and even end up being pitted against each other.  (Hint, Jeff, Megan, George and Jason are not the aggressors)

And on to the review we go!
As I mentioned before, I find Megan to be a bit of a flake.  Her flakiness held strong throughout the rest of the books.  One minute shes a just-rescued lamb, then a growling lion, then crying over life, and it seems to be a viscous cycle.  Normally, her character would have put me off the book entirely.  However (since I know someone who is just that melodramatic) the way it is presented in the book causes her mood swings to fit in rather nicely.

The zombies were your classic “Romero style” slow moving puss buckets.  The first book didn’t hold much for gore, and the second was just slightly heavier, but the third really dosed it out as a required medication.  The action in Beyond The Dark was almost non-stop throughout the book, and in contrast to the action scenes from the first book, these are well written, tight fight scenes.  They aren’t as believable in some instances, but this is fiction so far, isn’t it?

D’Orazio did a fantastic job of stringing me along through the first two books until I got myself into the explosive, bloody, gruesome finale.  He did a very good job of describing the landscapes, situations and grit of the characters in these books.  I’m glad he jumped feet first into a righting career, and look forward to seeing what projects he will have on his table later.

Buy the books on Amazon:
Comes The Dark
Into The Dark
Beyond The Dark