Red Harvest Review

Red Harvest is a prequel to Death Troopers, but you can read either book and enjoy the story. Red Harvest deals with the creation of a plague by a Sith master seeking, you guessed it, immortality.

The Good
This book is a great addition to the Star Wars horror line and explains the origins of the plague the Sith created. I still think Death Troopers was better, but Red Harvest is definitely a good read once the contagion begins.

As a zombie story, Joe Schreiber does a great job of making the zombies new and still deadly, while adding plenty of sci-fi creep factor. New elements keep popping up that differ from traditional zombie lore, but I felt these added to the nightmare scenario.

The Bad
Red Harvest starts off a little slow, but when the epidemic actually does begin you're up to your elbows in zombie goodness. The locations for the book were awesome, but I felt Mr. Schreiber could have done a lot more to make it more immersive. The descriptions of the environment, while creepy, are too brief and should have been significantly beefed up to make it more of a character. I kept thinking, this book would be so much more scary if I was afraid to be on the planets they were on. The potential was there, but it wasn't fully exploited.

Additionally, I felt a little distracted by the 'librarian' storyline, but it wasn't enough to make it terribly detracting from the overall story.

The Spin
If you like horror or zombies, this book is for you. If you like both and Star Wars, then check out Red Harvest and Death Troopers. You'll be glad you did.