The Deading
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- USD 14.99
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- USD 14.99
Descripción editorial
“Dystopian eco-horror that perfectly balances social critique, lyricism and ghastliness. It’s a claustrophobic mosaic of a novel, and an outstanding debut." —New York Times Book Review
Stephen King’s Under the Dome meets The Last of Us in this harrowing dystopian novel about the downward spiral of a seaside town that becomes infected by a mysterious ocean-borne contagion.
If you want to stay, you have to die.
In a small fishing town known for its aging birding community and the local oyster farm, a hidden evil emerges from the depths of the ocean. It begins with sea snails washing ashore, attacking whatever they cling to. This mysterious infection starts transforming the wildlife, the seascapes, and finally, the people.
Once infected, residents of Baywood start “deading”: collapsing and dying, only to rise again, changed in ways both fanatical and physical. As the government cuts the town off from the rest of the world, the uninfected, including the introverted bird-loving Blas and his jaded older brother Chango, realize their town could be ground zero for a fundamental shift in all living things.
Soon, disturbing beliefs and autocratic rituals emerge, overseen by the death-worshiping Risers. People must choose how to survive, how to find home, and whether or not to betray those closest to them. Stoked by paranoia and isolation, tensions escalate until Blas, Chango, and the survivors of Baywood must make their escape or become subsumed by this terrifying new normal.
At points claustrophobic and haunting, soulful and melancholic, The Deading lyrically explores the disintegration of society, the horror of survival and adaptation, and the unexpected solace found through connections in nature and between humans.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A small California town is cut off from the rest of the country by a catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions in Belardes's uneven debut horror novel. Bayside oyster farmer Bernhard Vestinos first notices something amiss when a rampant snail infestation overruns his beds, forcing him to take deadly measures. What appears to be a manmade eco-disaster ultimately proves to have an otherworldly component as a contagion with an inexplicable side effect spreads through town: people begin "deading," dropping to the ground in apparent death throes, only to revive minutes later and obliviously go about their business. That's enough weirdness for a government drone squadron to enforce a protective perimeter around the town. Within that inescapably sealed environment, the social glue of Bayside quickly gives way to the ascent of the Risers, a quasireligious cult violently hostile to the non-deading minority. Belardes toggles between the perspectives of a variety of townspeople, including the Enriquez brothers—Chango and Blas—but his efforts to give the horrors a human dimension bog down in the minutiae of their lives (especially the details of Blas's amateur birding). Still, this patchwork of familiar horror plot motifs offers some fun scares.
