Book Review: The Walking Dead Vol. 17: Something to Fear by Robert Kirkman

The Walking Dead, Volume 17: Something to Fear by Robert Kirkman et al.

A little Friday the 13th horror, anyone?

ZPAA rating

Adults only

Gore level

9.5 out of 10--Your standard human on zombie violence PLUS--human shot through head with an arrow (the arrow sticks out from the right eye and the arrow was shot from behind!); human skull beaten to a pulp with a baseball bat with very graphic images of the damage; other human-on-human violence with blood and gore including (but not limited to) gun shots, biting, punching.

Other offensive content

A ridiculous amount of f-bombs; one or two sex scenes, one of which has some naked backsides; bad attitudes; lying for the "greater good.".

How much zombie mythology/content

Nothing new on this front.

How much fun

Ugh, the gore is pretty bad, just under the level with the Governor way back when. I don't remember any laughter with this issue, though it has moved away from the more soap-opera like plots of earlier volumes and gets back to action.

Synopsis & Review

Rick contemplates the offer he's received from the Hilltop (a fortified community of 200 or so who are farming and trading with other groups of the living in the greater Washington DC area) to barter for supplies. He figures the best thing his group has to trade is combat skills. So he promises to deal with the Negan problem. Negan leads a band of roving marauders who demand half of the Hilltop's supplies as payment for not coming in and destroying everything and killing everyone. Negan's band is a bit like those blokes from the Mad Max movies, a motorized gang terrorizing whoever they can. Rick's group has a run-in with a small number of Negan's men and they leave one guy alive to tell Negan he is out of the protection business. This causes some severe reprisals against Rick's people.

Meanwhile, Glenn and Maggie decide to move to the Hilltop since Maggie is pregnant. They go with Rick and a few others who want to gather intelligence about Negan's gang. Things don't go according to plan which causes a lot of trouble for everyone.

Also, Rick and Andrea start a romantic relationship which has repercussions for Carl and for others in the group. The soap opera bits aren't entirely gone.

This particular book doesn't have any deep or profound ideas, it's more of an action-packed shift into higher drama. The gore was too much for me, definitely reminding me of when I thought about quitting after the Governor's torture sequences. I'm not sure if I will continue on with this or not, though the end of the book left an intriguing cliffhanger. It's like a car wreck from which you can't turn your eyes.