The Walking Dead: Rise of The Governor

Have listened to every book in this genre on audible. No joke. This book is hard to grade. The story is good. The narration is ok. But somethings missing. Its not as good as Day by day or Morningstar. Or the Joe Ledger novels. And I mean nowhere near as good. But its alot better than The Infection, Haters, or The Undead Situation. And I mean alot better.

Ok bare with me here. I am one of those HUGE Walking Dead fans. You know the ones who have each single issue, variant, and limited edition omnibus. The fan who counts down the days until the monthly comes out, just so I can DOWNLOAD it right away to get my “fix,” and later buy the issues when time suffices. Well, needless to say, if you are like me (and you probably are if you’re reading this) or even just a casual fan of the comic of TV show, you probably are going to be looking to check out Rise of the Governor.
First off, if you’re just a TV fan, just stay away period. This is not worth your time, you won’t know how this pertains to TWD, and will get pretty bored with it. There is better stuff out there. Now, being the fan that I am, I have been trying to read my hardcover (signed by Kirkman/Bonasinga at NYCC….sigh) for quite some time, but being a high school teacher with zero free time, I turned to audio-book instead. This book is ULTRA-descriptive, to the point where it is a glaring flaw. Think of THIS review that your fine self is reading, and I just NOW began talking about the book! You’re probably saying “I don’t care about your fan-dom, your profession, or frankly you cyber man….just talk about the book!” Yes, all that stuff was purposefully included to make my point, but you need to know the gravity of the situation. “The zombie was gnashing like a BLANK which was BLANK. The gnashing was so BLANK that it reminded Brian of a BLANK. ……“ It’s difficult to express how much this book suffers from this in words.
Unfortunately, the ending was predictable after the first 25% of the book, which wasn’t all that jarring, yet still the biggest highlight of this book. Not that much happened looking back, just descriptions of EVERYTHING including the word “arterial” maybe 35 times. Yes TWD is a slow burn, but still there’s supposed to be that “OH S***” moment, which sadly, never came. The narrarator’s voices were okay at best, but during heated conversations, they all sounded too similar.
My biggest quam will be yours too if you’re a fan of the comics. Only the last 10% of the book is in Woodbury. So if you were expecting to see crazy “Governor stuff” it totally lacked. They could have added maybe 3 more chapters and made it 100% more satisfying.
Anyhow, what can I say, it was TWD….in book form…so it still gets 3 stars, but apparently a Michonne book is next in the trilogy, I just hope it is a bit more memorable.

There are several silly technical mistakes in this book that should have been caught and corrected before it was published. Just a few examples, Ford doesn't make the S10... Try Chevy... Glock Handguns don't have a manual safety. The safety is incorporated into the trigger. Oh, and a mistake made by so many writers... CORDITE... Bullets haven't contained Cordite as a propellant since 1945. It's production stopped at the end of WWII, yet writers continue to refer to the air hanging heavy with the smell of Cordite. Unless your shooters are using Vintage WWII bullets, it's not Cordite they are smelling :-)

I am a fan of the series and so picking up this book was a no-brainer. (Pun intended...)

But the book takes on a "they run...they kill zombies...then they run to a different place" feel that is tedious after a while. If you're looking for backstory on "the Governor" don't expect much. Because it only comes out in the last few minutes.

Author tries to create tension but in the end we're left with one-dimensional completely predictable (although sometimes gross) character actions and motivations.

The narrator is excellent -- trying to do his best with an essentially flatlined story.

Is it listen-able. Sure.

Are there better options? Absolutely.

I felt the writing to be pretentious. The story was okay…

As an avid Walking Dead fan I felt a huge disconnect with this book. I felt that the writers there in a few $10.00 words to make them selves seem smarter and felt the story to be a bit unbelievable.

No I don't, However I do hope that after reading it I will get a better sense of “The Governor” when he is introduced in Season three of the series. If not then I fear this purchase would have been a total waste.

I felt that this book could have been a bit better. I found myself having to force myself to listen to the story just to finish the book.

The Walking Dead TV series was the first thing that got me into the zombie genre. The Walking Dead was not at all what I expected and I had no expectations that this genre would be so extremely addictive. The outcome in this story & who would actually develop into 'the Governor' totally caught me by surprise until the last 1/4 or so of the story. It is definitely filled with lots of suspense and surprises.

This would have to be my 3rd favorite zombie story. Only J.L. Bourne's "Day By Day Armageddon" series tops it in my opinion. Hopefully more of TWD series will be made into audio book version with the huge success of the TV show proving that TWD is something that people want more of.

Not having any familiarity with the comic book series, I keep wondering & waiting for when the Governor will cross paths with the group that is displayed on the TV series.

For anyone who has enjoyed the Walking Dead graphic novels or TV series - or who just loves a good Zombie Apocolypse - this book is great. It's a good story with great descriptions and a real human factor.

The authors also did a superb job of depicting what it might take to make a pretty normal person become truly ruthless and to embrace evil.

If you've read the graphic novels, though, the ending just might blow your mind. I know it did mine.

Highly recommended!!

The narrator was great. Emotion, voice changes for different characters.

The surprise at the end, was worth the whole book.

The narrator continues to deliver in each book.

Yes

I may listen again, I don't usually listen or read books twice, I feel I got everything out of this I needed to. The story was non stop, A thriller for sure. The reason I may listen again is because of the big twist ( which I don't want to give away) so I observe the chapters before it for clues or hint, also I have not read all of the comics, so I may read it again after I do that. I feel like it did not matter much that I had only read a few of the comic books. Before going into this novel, I knew nothing of the Governor. I think the timing of this novels release was great, it gave us walking dead fans something to do while waiting for the next season.

There were many memorable moments. The ending was for sure the best, but it left me wanting much more, so I hope they write another novel.

The description of the zombies, biters, walkers,whatever you call them was astounding. I have no fear of the living dead, but at certain moments I was a bit freaked out.

Fred Berman gave a brilliant performance. I cannot say enough great things. Every character had a very distinct voice, never had any problem knowing who was narrating. He even did an awesome job with penny's voice, and the other females in the novel. He made this story even more memorable.

Yes. If you're a fan of the graphic novels or just caught the bug from the TV — you'll eventually run across the "Governor" in the story lines and this book fills in the back story.

SInce it is a story about zombies, the author expertly describes each encounter and destruction of the Walkers in a way that kept the narrative from growing stale. It sounds/reads as if the authors did their forensic research and that only adds to the drama of this story. Also unlike Hollywood movie productions, this books pulls no punches (no pun intended) and all characters are vulnerable — which makes for a more satisfying and rewarding listening/reading expereince.

Fred Berman added an extra dimension of drama, heartache and action to the written words by physically inhabiting all of the characters in the book, making the listening experience a delight.This is what old radio shows must have been like when the producers allowed you to create the images in your head while augmenting the narrative with the requisite audio cues.