Dead Set by Richard Kadrey - Book Review

By Adam Armstrong On May 13, 2014 In Reviews: Books, Sci-Fi & Fantasy Movie and Book Reviews No Comments

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Dead Set
Author: Richard Kadrey
Publisher: Harper Voyager (October 29, 2013)
320 pages
ISBN: 9780062283016

A certain amount of despair washes over me every time I think about the young adult book market. Though it really shouldn’t. The tired regurgitated plots and the trend following that is seemingly so transparent in YA fiction also exists in popular adult fiction. I just feel that there aren’t enough YA writers going for the jugular. Teens don’t need to be handled with kid gloves. And to see some authors kick them the real deal and not lob some slow-pitch at them is refreshing.

Zoe lives in two worlds: one world is the world of dreams she shares with her dream friend Valentine, the other is the real world, a world where her father has died and her life is falling apart. We start off with a bit of a cliché of the dead parent (or friend or other family member) that seems to plague YA fiction. Zoe has to move to a different school, without her friends, and her mother can’t find a job. Zoe wonders away from all of these tired plot points and finds a rare record store. She runs her fingers over all of the old punk bands that her parents used to work with before selling out to have a normal life. The owner, Ammut Emmett to people who don’t know him, shows her the secret room where for small sacrifices, Zoe can see and experience the dead including her father.

At night, Valentine tells Zoe that someone is in their dreamworld but she is too excited about seeing her father. Ammut asks for a sacrifice that Zoe thinks is too much, so she decides she’ll just follow him instead. He takes her to a world called Iphigene. Iphigene is where the dead go to wait before traveling onward. Only there is no traveling onward and the dead are stuck, including her father. Worse, it was no accident that Zoe found her way to Iphigene. In fact she may be the key to a great evil escaping into the living world to destroy it.

The book reminded me of Edward Lee’s City Infernal series only with Egyptian mythology in place of hell and demons. Overall it was a mix of tired story lines with predictable outcomes, but it was nice to introduce a new overall theme with the Egyptian gods injected in. Kadrey doesn’t shy away from the dark either. Though the characters remain safe from any permanent damage he does deal a nice dose or reality that is lacking with a lot of YA writing. The introduction, in some cases, of the older punk bands was nice to an old fan like me and I don’t think it would hurt younger generations to be exposed to some of these bands, but it felt like pandering to adults like myself and the trend to listen to these bands that is going on now (then again, I could be wrong and Kadrey could just be inserting the bands he likes).

A big chunk of the YA market is now aimed at adults, freshly out of their teens, but I don’t think this book is going to pull in any new fans for those of us that remember when the punk bands listed in the book were still around. It is something a little different and a little darker for teens to get their hands on and explore. Dead Set could open their eyes to a few things and maybe act as an introduction to Kadrey’s Sandman Slim series as they get older.

Reviewed by Adam Armstrong

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Adam Armstrong

Adam Armstrong is a life-long native to Northern Kentucky. He lives with his long-time girlfriend, Melissa, and their son, Dylan. He has had several short stories and hundreds of articles published in the past. When he is not writing he enjoys exploring the world around him.