Coldbrook

Starred review from February 3, 2014
Lebbon creates a complex tapestry of myth, science, and horror, with an intricate plot strengthened by charismatic characters. Scientists at Coldbrook, a secret lab in the Appalachians, discover a gate to an alternate Earth. After a drooling, singing zombie tears into our reality, team member Vic Pearson breaks lockdown to rescue his family, freeing the infected dead from the underground facility, while aging project head Jonah Jones struggles to orchestrate man’s salvation from the overrun bunker. Technician Holly Wright plunges through the gate to avoid becoming zombie chow and encounters a warped reflection of our world, stumbling on the source of the dimension-crossing plague. Amid incredibly violent carnage, Jayne Woodhams, a woman suffering from a rare disease, discovers that she is resistant to the zombie infection. Will Vic and other desperate survivors find salvation in her bloodstream, or does humankind’s end come with the finality of grinding teeth? Archetypal themes of love, sacrifice, and guilt add emotional vigor and intellectual substance to what can also be enjoyed simply as a gutsy horror show.

March 15, 2014

It was Jonah Jones's dream to open a portal to another world, and in the scientific facility known as Coldbrook he and his team have achieved that dream. But despite all their safety precautions, something comes through the breach in the worlds. A shambling, undead creature gets loose, and soon the world is in the grips of a pandemic that turns people into zombie-like predators. Jonah and others try to fix what they unleashed, but their only hope might be a young woman who is mysteriously immune. VERDICT Those who can't get enough of zombies will enjoy this original take on the monster, and sf fans will enjoy the exploration of parallel worlds. The story goes off the rails a little with a mystical subplot of interdimensional "Inquisitors" who may be responsible for the infection and its spread, but that's a minor quibble in what is otherwise a solidly plotted, well-written zombie thriller.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2014
Lebbon, who's won some prestigious awards for his horror and fantasy fiction, packs a lot into this new novel: multiple universes, a plague that threatens to wipe out human life, heroes and villains from an alternate Earth, a group of cutting-edge scientists desperate to find a cure for the plagueoh, and zombies, too. This is a zombie-apocalypse story quite unlike any other, one based in science and technology (the walking dead in this book are the product of a deliberate infection by an unknown entity). Its characters are richly detailed, its story imaginative and filled with surprises. The plot shifts back and forth from a top-secret underground lab to the alternate Earth, following several characters (among them, the lab's chief, battling zombies all by himself and fearing he's going insane; a scientist who was instrumental in creating the breach between this universe and another; and a morally conflicted man who escaped from the lab and unleashed the zombie plague upon the world). An exciting, thought-provoking novel that will definitely appeal to zombie fans but should also do well with fans of hard sf and technothrillers, too.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)