The Hungry 2: The Wrath of God by Harry Shannon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I was a kid, I loved movies like Aliens and Predator. A big reason for this was the awesome monsters that the military heroes had to kill. Another big reason was the character of the heroes themselves. At that time in my life, I had dreams of joining the military so I could go on similar adventures, albeit without the monsters, because in these movies along with some books I was reading, the heroic military men and woman were a lot like the monsters: bigger than life and stronger than any mortal man. Even when and if they died.

The beginning to Steven Booth’s and Harry Shannon’s sequel to the great The Hungry made me reminisce of those older movies and the emotions they summoned within my impressionable and young heart. In Wrath of God we first meet Rat and her team of military mercenaries who are on their way to Nevada for a mission with an odd catch. There are zombies in the desert, and their mission is of the upmost importance.

When we rejoin Penny Miller and crew, they are held up in a Las Vegas hotel by the military. General Gifford, however, has other plans for them. He offers the crew a deal that will see them out of Las Vegas with a crap load of money. All they have to do is join up with the mercenaries and return to the scene of the crime from the climax of the first book to retrieve some data.

Sounds easy, right? Penny doesn’t think so. In fact, she thinks that the deal stinks, and what follows is a one crazy and fun and entertaining moment after another.

What I liked most about Wrath of God is the fun factor. I would even go so far as to say that this volume is even more fun than the first. The characters remain true to themselves as they did in the first, and the new characters, mainly Rat, another hard-edged, ass-kicking female protagonist, was a lot of fun to read. Yet, some of the mercenary’s felt a little flat to me, reminding me of hulk-like men, doing what their told while grunting their displeasure and scratching at their privates.

There were also a few scenes at the end that just didn’t seem very realistic to me, but with that said, I am reminded of Sigourney Weaver hanging from one arm in a decompression airlock opened to the big black abyss of space. Large metal crates whip quickly by her head from the vacuum, and yet Sigourney’s harm does not tear off at the shoulder. I also remember Arnold Swartzaneggar stumbling out of the remnants of an explosion equal to that of a nuclear bomb with nothing more than a limp. Sure, his mind was completely gone, but he was relatively unharmed. Right?

It’s these things that made these heroes larger than life and worth every inch of my childhood admiration. And I would argue that it’s the same with the heroes in The Wrath of God. They’re as tough as metal, and one would want to double check their sanity in messing with them.

Oh yeah, and there’s lots of Zombies.

How could you possibly want more?




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