‘The Words of Their Roaring’ – Matthew Smith

Abaddon Books look to have all bases covered in the pulp fiction genre with a little something for everyone. Whether you’re into post-apocalypse fiction or alternate history, they can cater for you. The series I’ve really been looking forward to getting into is ‘The Tomes of the Dead’, books about zombie outbreaks at various points in history. You see, I’m a big fan of zombies…
‘The Words of Their Roaring’ is set in a very near future London (perhaps nearer than you think), a blasted shell that is crawling with the undead but is also alive with opportunity for the right person to exploit. Gang boss Harry Flowers thinks he is the right person and prepares for the day when the zombie menace is over and he can take charge. However, he is not the only person with designs on the city and other people have a more personal agenda…
There is nothing I love more in the horror genre than those pesky humans outnumbered and fighting for their lives against a horde of ravenous zombies, non-stop suspense coupled with the inevitable stomach churning gore… ‘The Words of Their Roaring’ delivers this in style along with some irreverent peeks at life in an England brimming with zombies (the landed gentry hunting zombies made me laugh and also reminded me of ‘The Planet of the Apes’ in a weird kind of way). The danger with zombies is that there is only so much story that you can write for a walking corpse that has bits drop off it every now and then. Smith gets round this by having the zombie virus ‘evolve’ in its host. This sets up some great ‘zombie on zombie warfare’ right at the end but may upset the purists who like their zombies just the way they are.
‘The Words of Their Roaring’ is a very quick read (just over three hundred pages) but one that will suck you in right until the end. If you’re into Brian Keene then I recommend you give this a go. The only thing I didn’t quite get was the epilogue, I’m not really sure what relevance it had to the rest of the story.

Seven out of Ten