• Rise Again

  • A Zombie Thriller
  • By: Ben Tripp
  • Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
  • Length: 16 hrs
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (690 ratings)

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Rise Again  By  cover art

Rise Again

By: Ben Tripp
Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
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Publisher's summary

Forest Peak, California. Fourth of July. Sheriff Danielle Adelman, a troubled war veteran, thinks she has all the problems she can handle in this all-American town after her kid sister runs away from home. But when a disease-stricken horde of panicked refugees fleeing the fall of Los Angeles swarms her small mountain community, Danny realizes her problems have only just begun—starting with what might very well be the end of the world. Danny thought she had seen humanity at its worst in war-torn Iraq, but nothing could prepare her for the remorseless struggle to survive in a dying world being overrun by the reanimated dead and men turned monster. Obsessed with finding her missing sister against all odds, Danny’s epic and dangerous journey across the California desert will challenge her spirit... and bring her to the precipice of sanity itself.

Filled with adventurous human drama—and shocking inhuman horror—Rise Again marks a vivid and powerful fiction debut.

©2011 Ben Tripp (P)2012 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Danny's journey through a land of death to find [her sister] Kelley makes for a remarkable character-driven story, and the final sentence takes it to another level." ( Library Journal)

What listeners say about Rise Again

Average customer ratings
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  • 4 out of 5 stars
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  • 3 Stars
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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

SHE TOOK A SPATULA AND SCRAPPED HIS FACE OFF THE

GRILL.
THE SHADOW OF THE NIGHT RETREATED FROM THE STREET, CURLING UP UNDER THE TREES.
Ben Tripp can write. He is no rookie stumbling through the zombie genre, thinking it is an easy sell. His use of the English language helps to make this literature. Academics should have nothing to complain about, while the common blue collar worker will not be overwhelmed with overly flowery language. The story is basic Zombie and any Zombie lover should have no problem with this addition to the genre.

THERE WAS NO SUCH THING AS ANOTHER DAY, ONLY ANOTHER DAY SURVIVED
Anyone looking for strong female characters will love this book. Danny has RED HAIR, LITTLE TITS and AN ASS YOU CAN CUT STEAK OFF OF. She is the main character and the sheriff. She is also a Veteran. She is respected and their is no big deal made over her being a female. She is very tough and a leader. There are a couple of other lead females. This book could serve as an example of how to handle female leads in a book. There is no sex or even flirting. I also was impressed with the fact that they used more than one vehicle, even had a convoy. This has been a complaint of mine of similar books. In an apocalypse, vehicles are going to be easy to get, but in all other books they always act as if they are scarce.

DANNY WAS GOING TO DIE (for the thousandth time)
I could not give the book five stars for a few glaring problems. The first being that Ben overused they main character is about to die, only to be rescued at the very last minute. I lost count of how many times the main character was about to bite the bullet and then she was rescued by Wolf or some other character. Several times she was about to oft herself. The book dragged a little in the middle. I would have liked to have seen more imagination with the Zombies. There is a different angle, involving a zombie coma state and a hint at some evolution in the zombies, but most of that comes pretty late in the book and seems more of a set up for book 2.

HIS BLOOD TURNED TO SNOW
Kristen Potter is a top tier narrator and I look forward to hearing more from her.

FAIR, WAS AN IMAGINARY IDEA, THAT HAD NO BASIS IN REALITY.
If book 2 goes on sale, I will buy it, but I am not going to go out of my way to get it.

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59 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Gives you your needed Zombie fix, but no more.

The story is original, great narraration, the inspired story, and the characters are fleshed out quite well. If you've already gotten through the first tier of MUST READ zombie books, then this shouldbe next on your list. WWZ, Day by Day Amrmageddon (series), Walking Dead, should be considered first tier.

The story is original, but I felt that it left something to be desired. The scope could have been much larger. Also, I did like the fact that most of the protagonists are from a small town, but i felt that that "small town" feel never really left. The story seemed confined, on the brink of greatness, but never quite crossing over. I know that sounds esoteric, but it's the best way I can describe it.

Overall, if you like Zombie stories, and you need a quick fix, go for this one!

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Kind of different

I liked the things about this story that were different from the typical zombie junk. Anytime an author can take a subject that has been so overdone and make me see it from a different perspective, it's a good thing. A lot of things about the story were unexpected, like the main character, Dannie. It's a lengthy listen. It starts slow, even a bit dull at first. I had to double check to make sure I was reading the right story because it took a while to get to the zombie stuff, but once things got going, I thought the story was pretty good. The ending was interesting enough that I am actually looking forward to the sequel.

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A zombie story that has real people in it.

So... you're thinking, yet another zombie book. Well, yes and no. It is another zombie book and zombies are bad, and people are bad when the world falls apart - at least many of them are... but... this one is actually better written than a lot of the more recent zombie schlock out there - particularly in how well the people are written. Of course, there is the standard zombie gore and hack-n-slash, and this part is not very different or unique, but... the characters are distinct and real, and they behave in mostly normal ways. They don't suddenly become super heroes, and the women are not just there to be raped then rescued (or rescued then raped)...

Sure, the women are rescued then raped - it is still a genre novel and the author relies heavily on the stereotype behaviour of humankind (dare I say "men"?) post-apocalypse - but the women are not ONLY there for that. The main character is a strong woman (non-lesbian too, nice change to see a female lead that isn't portrayed as a pseudo-man). Sure, she is flawed and damaged, but most male protagonists are as well...

The author actually made me care what happened to the people in the story - this doesn't happen very often in zombie books; normally I just read them for the action and zombie bashing and don't really care which of the "survivors" survive until the end of the book because we aren't usually able to tell them apart. In this case, however, we want at least the main character and her original entourage to survive... because... well, we like them.

The narration is seamless (you will forget it is being narrated). There is zombie gore but it isn't particularly graphic. There is some swearing and no sex. There is a bit of a twist at the end, but it isn't truly a cliff-hanger: I bought the next book in the series at full price on Audible as soon as I finished this one.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

This book is really good

This was a *really* good book and with a listening time of 16hrs, it is well worth your credit. The story was epic with a great narrator telling a tale of zombies right from the start, even before the infection and Tripp has his own take on how the zombie infection starts and spreads.

The narration is very good and easily fell into the background so I could focus on the tale she was telling. Different voices, male, female, all handled excellently. Interesting coincidence that there is a town in the book of the same name as the narrator.

As other reviewers have noted the big weakness in this story is that the main character isn't especially likeable. You end up taking the sides of the people arguing with her. Danni is slow to catch on that she is dealing with zombies and yeah, the whole "No looting" bit. Leaves me wondering what she has been eating all this time?

She also abandons her charges and goes off on a wild goose chase for her sister which is really stupid without specific information. Her sister could be in the abandoned building next to her, how would she know?

She is also sexless. The book has a lesbian and gay in it, but although there was a line or two in there that made clear Danni is hetero, she otherwise has no romantic interests and thinks like a dude with no testosterone. Its like the author doesn't know how to portray girls.

She does redeem herself in the end but as flawed heroes go, I couldn't find much to like about her, therefore the 4 stars for story.

The end was creepy and even though I don't like that mutation direction for zombies, I'd want to buy the next book that is due summer 2013; Rise Again: Below Zero.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Awesome Character developmen and action, okay plot

Zombie novels are a magnet for mediocre writers. There, I said it. If you don't agree, then this review probably doesn't have a lot to offer you. Still, I love the genre's potential, and this book comes the closest I've seen in a long while to realizing that potential. Rise Again spends a good while really developing Danny's character to the point that, despite the fact that she's a walking stereotype (although dark, drunk veterans with PTSD aren't usually played by women-- her only stand-out quality), I feel that I really understand and relate to her, so Tripp managed to not use her stereotype as a crutch. Good character development is insanely rare in this genre, so it was really refreshing and a very strong start to the book.

That being said, pretty much every other face you see in the book is as flat as a cutout from a magazine. Danny keeps it real and keeps you caring, but it seems like Tripp was lazy in designing his other characters so the rest have no depth. A few are sympathetic, but they're all just slightly more developed than cardboard cutouts (case in point: gay interior designer, empathetic and soft-hearted female veterinarian, a-hole lawyer).

The description, however, is magnificent throughout. Excellent prose, believable action and the avoidance of too many predictable plot developments (at least predictable by me) kept me interested to the point where I looked for housework to do just as an excuse to listen. There's a lot of gore, but it's not just a splatterhouse. Also, as a horror, it only really had one scary point for me, at the very beginning. The rest was sort of hum-drum zombie head-smashing.

So there's bad and there's good in it, but it's worth reading. I should make mention that another very refreshing thing about this book is that it's not just another thought experiment about how awesome and scary the idea of the zombie apocalypse is. The story is as it should be-- the zombies are the environment, not the main character.

The plot wasn't really that moving for me, however; Danny's character arc is decent but not earth-shattering, some people get saved from being eaten, world's still destroyed but they can start over. It's all a little canned. Rise Again does attempt to make a few statements about the nature of occupation forces like those we have in the middle east, but they're too heavy handed and that's not really what the book is about. The book is about Danny, someone who's gotten herself into a downward spiral that would probably end in death (we see the ghost of her future in Wolf, also a bit heavy handed), and the catastrophe gives her an opportunity to find the spark of purpose that might bring her some fulfillment and save her. In a word, the book is about redemption, but it's not strong enough to make you want to cry.

All in all, it was a great read. It wasn't The Road or World War Z (I know the two are in completely different leagues from one another, but I loved them both), but it was better than the rest that I've read. And I've read a LOT.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Dead on the Page

I'm a fan of zombie fiction, but Rise Again is not particularly well written. The first half is an absolute slog, with a meandering narrative full of non-events and plodding character busywork. I only kept listening out of obligation to the credit I spent.

The main character, for example, spends a lot of time ruminating about her sister or her opinions about things, but her thoughts are generally repetitive and dull. In fact, here's something I noticed while listening: Main character Danielle often "loses interest" in the topic at hand or the person she's talking to, right in the middle of the conversation. Once you notice it, you'll realize that Danielle loses interest in things over and over again throughout the entire book. The author seems to think that Danielle's lack of interest empowers her, but all it tells me is that if she's not interested in what's going on, then it's a fair bet that we aren't interested either.

Which brings me to my main gripe with the book. The author's writing style - and the story itself - lacks imagination. The story is serviceable, but I was never riveted. I never found myself hanging on the narrator's every word. The characters and locations and situations are not particularly creative or nuanced as written. The writing style gets the job done - and if you like zombies then there are plenty of zombies here - but that's about all Rise Again has going for it. Utilitarian writing and … zombies.

As for the main character, she doesn't have to be likable, but she should be at least be interesting. Danielle is rather dull. And she makes some ridiculous decisions in the story (at one point, with absolutely no proof, she tries to forcefully arrest a guy for murder in the middle of a zombie apocalypse). The author slants the narrative because he wants us to side with Danielle in these situations, but her actions are sometimes so silly that it's impossible. The result is an uneven main character that we never care much about.

The book comes in two downloadable parts. If you're going to listen, I would actually recommend skipping the first part entirely. You're not going to miss much, and though doing ths is not enough to save the story, the book only starts to realize its potential during the second half.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Unlikable "hero", good story just over the top

I just didn't care for this one too terrible much. I love a good flawed, strong lead character aka hero/heroine BUT Danni is is not only unlikable but over the top. I didn't find her to be a tough badass but a boozing tyrant. I mean come on. The world has ended, no government to speak of, Danni is the only "law" in the land. As her convoy looks for a safe place to hole up (though Danni is merely looking for her sister) she threatens to arrest them for breaking into an abandoned gas station/convenience store to find supplies. That is the dumbest thing I think I've ever read. Then there's the sheriff herself. Danni. A wounded war hero battling post traumatic stress syndrome and her need to wash her dreams away with liquor. I don't think she's an alcoholic as much as self medicating - which makes it worse. If she truly was a hero, smart leader she'd keep a clear head. Nope get drunk and bully everyone. Couldn't get into the story because I just simply didn't like the main character! Tone her down some Tripp will you!

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Zombie Adventure

What did you love best about Rise Again?

Different twist on Zombies with a strong, flawed hero

What did you like best about this story?

Excitement and action with unexpected developments

Which scene was your favorite?

Can't decide

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes

Any additional comments?

Some scenes were smoking!

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Mostly Meh

**SPOILER ALERT** It would be difficult to review this book without some spoilers.

The book starts slow, which is a nice change from the typical ZA story. The zombie events happens at a much slower pace, but it's almost too slow in parts and borders on too many mundane details not relevant to the story. Eventually, the zombies make an appearance, but not after several WTF moments in the story.

For example, there's a point where the general public has become aware of something awful happening and they begin to flee and panic. However, none of the main characters, including the protagonist, has any clue as to what it is. This happens despite the fact that everyone seems to be getting their info from phone calls and social media. No one who is clueless thinks to ask anyone for information.

Another example, the sheriff has no idea what's happening, but spontaneously decides to use her shotgun to stop the panicking people. Without having any knowledge of the larger looming crisis, the she considers shooting one of the runners in hopes it will stop the others. There are other points in the book like this that left me scratching my head, as they made no sense.

The sheriff has several convenient blackouts, where she awakens hours or days later. These seemed more like conveniences to the author, as they occurred at action points in the book and left me, again, scratching my head as to what just happened - or why the author chose this time to stop and skip ahead in the story. I found it annoying.

Much of the conversations and actions of characters are unrealistic. Remnants of civilization (buildings, roads, etc.) would deteriorate much faster than reasonable - dust would coat things in a matter of days or trees would grow in the middle of roads in a matter of a few months - all because there was no normal daly life; or the protagonist would have to relearn how to deal with people again, after being on her own for only a few days. All of these broke the suspension of disbelief for me.

I found the characters were rather flat and uninteresting and didn't especially care what happened to them. The main character was hard to like and I couldn't tell if that was on purpose or not.

This is the first time hearing this narrator, and she did a respectable job, overall. However, she didn't really bring the characters to life or put enough emphasis on the action or emotional parts of the story. All of the male voices didn't sound male, nor did they include the correct emotional context (tough angry males sounded like mildy-annoyed women).

Overall, the book was interesting enough to finish, but it's not one I'd recommend or listen to again, nor am I particularly interested in any sequels.

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