Jim Starlin & Daina Graziunas, Among Madmen

First published back in 1990, ' Among Madmen 'was the joint accomplishment of the married couple Jim Starlin and Daina Graziunas. Both Starlin and Graziunas have a background in creating the writing and artwork stages for graphic novels, making a move literary based novel a slight change from their usual creative output.

' Among Madmen 'is set in the not too distant future, when a disease outbreak spreads throughout the earth turning it ' s victims into mindless vegetables. The vast majority of the world ' s population is as good as wiped out, leaving only a handful of fully functioning survivors. All of a sudden a change in the zombie-like victims begins to take place. From the mindless, incapable and totally defenceless vegetables they start to transform into uber-violent, rage filled psychopaths inherent on slaughtering as many survivors as possible.

The tale is centred around the character of Tom Laker, an ex-Vietnam veteran turned New York City cop. Laker departs from the city with his wife Maria, to take up residence in the small town of Shandaken where the builds up a protective home for him and the newly formed community there. But the madness spreads and it turns out that nowhere is safe forever from these blood crazed berserkers.

Very much a Mad Max esque post-apocalyptic novel, ' Among Madmen 'draws heavily from James Herbert ' s 1975 novel ' The Fog 'as well as Richard Laymon ' s 1990 novel ' One Rainy Night ' . Since the publication of ' Among Madmen 'the once original idea of a rage filled post-apocalyptic world due to some outbreak or another has seen itself re-used on a few occasions since. Indeed, you can easily draw further similarities from David Moody ' s dark and ultra violent novel first published in 2006 ' Hater ' , Stephen King ' s 2006 novel ' Cell 'or Danny Boyle ' s 2002 movie ' 28 days later ' .

With a similar concept to that of the majority of modern day zombie novels, ' Among Madmen 'delivers a refreshing spin on the idea, creating an intriguing and engrossing opening to the book as the scene is slowly set for this violent and dangerous new world.

With the writers roots within graphic novels, the characterization is very clich d with over the top and exaggerated personalities playing out their predictable and simplistic character roles. There is a clear attempt at injecting emotion into the principal characters on numerous occasions, by this unfortunately falls flat on its face due to the lack of adding any hint of depth in to the characters in the first place.

The novel follows a simplistic and dare I say slightly predictable storyline, building itself up until the grand finale where Laker takes on a whole army of these berserkers. The climax is action packed and thoroughly entertaining with tension that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

However shallow and clich d the characters are, or however simplistic and predictable the storyline is, ' Among Madmen 'still delivers an exciting and violence fuelled post-apocalyptic tale that keeps up page after page of non-stop fast paced action. For sheer enjoyment value alone this novel is a complete success. So as long as you expect nothing more than that, you won ' t be disappointed with ' Among Madmen ' .

The novel runs for a total of 268 pages and includes black and white illustrations throughout by Jim Starlin. The book also includes a very short page about the authors.