In reviving my Is that an Old Book? review series, I wanted to take a moment to look at a novel that breathed new life into the horror genre at the beginning of the Twenty-First Century and succeeded in becoming a contemporary classic. Before proceeding, it’s worth mentioning the idea behind this review series—the original description is linked here, however, in short, the idea behind Is that an Old Book? is as follows: The Iliad is an old book. Hrafnkels Saga and Genesis are old books. A book published in 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, is a new book, and reviewed as such.

First published in 2003, Brian Keene’s The Rising quickly became definitive for the renewal of what is popularly termed the ‘zombie craze’ in popular culture. While it may or may not be on the radar of those readers of the blog who aren’t horror fans, it is…