Me cuesta un gran esfuerzo leer literatura de terror, a pesar de haberlo intentando en ocasiones por aquello de ampliar miras. De entre todas las criaturas que campan a sus anchas por el género los zombies no son los que más odio (ese lugar me temo que está reservado para los vampiros), pero tampoco es que la casquería me agrade. Y sin embargo, pensé darle una oportunidad a Special Purposes : First Strike Weapon, por si el componente militar y de acción compensaba la otra parte. Grave error por mi parte.

La acción se sitúa en plena Guerra Fría, lo que permite a Gavin Smith hablar del conflicto entre EE.UU. y la U.R.S.S. Entiendo que esta situación temporal es una apuesta segura, para escenificar con facilidad quiénes son los "malos" y los "buenos", sobre todo teniendo en cuenta quién realiza el ataque que causa el apocalipsis zombie. Este maniqueísmo tiene cierta modulación con los protagonistas de la historia, pero realmente lo que queda de manifiesto es la maldad intrínseca del ser humano, oculta bajo una ligera capa de civilización.

Sin ser una experta en la materia como ya digo, pero hablándolo con alguien que sí lo es, las situaciones del libro van de tópico en tópico. La huida por las calles de la ciudad, la reclusión en un recinto cerrado sin posibilidad de escapatoria, el campamento donde los ataques zombis sirven de espectáculo... todo ya conocido.

Quizá pueda resultar más interesante la panoplia de armamento de la que hacen uso los soldados. Si se hace una búsqueda de las distintos rifles de asalto, lanzagranadas o ametralladoras veremos que Smith ha hecho un buen trabajo de documentación en la materia.

En cuanto al gore, pues es abundante, como corresponde a un libro de este subgénero. Afortudanamente para mí, está concentrado en ciertas escenas de "acción" mientras que en otros momentos de reflexión o de tranquilidad hay incluso diálogos. Bastante secos y cortantes, pero adecuados a los personajes.

Con Special Purposes : First Strike Weapon se me han quitado las ganas de leer más libros de este tipo. Puede que a algún seguidor de los zombies le interese, pero está claro que conmigo no ha conseguido superar la barrera de entrada.

Since I visibly can’t read blurbs correctly (I really hate spoilers), I didn’t really expect this book to be a zombie book. Let’s just say that I was a bit suprised when, as the first chapter open, Vadim, the quiet yet very bloody Russian Force squad’s leader, wakes up, with blood all over him and meat in his mouth and, it might be worth mentionning, feeling quite dead.

This book was an unexpected surprise, the kind you don’t know you need until you have it on your hands and the only thing you are thinking is “where has this been all my life?”. Reading this after mid-term exams was the perfect time, it was an engrossing read, I read this book in about two sittings and it never felt boring or repetitive.

Special Purposes is bloody, gory and fun.

However, I wouldn’t recommend Special Purposes just for the blood, I mean, it is entertaining but what really made this book works for me was the characters, the writing and the setting. It wasn’t just action scenes after action scenes, the characters and their internal struggles were my favorite aspect of the book. Smith makes his characters humans in small things. Vadim is a perfect example of that, his constant struggle to remain as human as he can, his regrets for the things he had to for his country, his feelings for his squad reallymanaged to fully flesh him out. For me this book was more than “just another zombie book” because it did have some interesting discussions about things humans could do at their best, or at their worst.

The book has some incoherences that prevented me from rating it more highly but still, I would really recommend this, it’s fun yes, but you are not going to lose brain cells reading it.

1987, THE HEIGHT OF THE COLD WAR. For Captain Vadim Scorlenski and the rest of the 15th Spetsnaz Brigade, being scrambled to unfamiliar territory at no notice, without a brief or proper equipment, is more or less expected; but even by his standards, their mission to one of the United States’ busiest cities stinks…

World War III was over in a matter of hours, and Vadim and most of his squad are dead, but not done. What’s happened to them, and to millions of civilians around the world, goes beyond any war crime; and Vadim and his team – Skull, Mongol, Farm Boy, Princess, Gulag, the Fräulein and New Boy – won’t rest until they’ve seen justice done.

This week’s flavour of armageddon is brought to you by a splash of nineteen eighties nostalgia, a dash of Cold War paranoia, and a big old chunk of flesh eating zombies. The latest from Gavin Smith pits a squad of mismatched soldiers against, well, just about everyone frankly. Let the madness commence!

Captain Vadim Scorleski is the consummate professional soldier. He has spent years honing his craft and is now a killing machine. The captain will follow orders to the letter because that is what a good soldier would do. I found myself picturing him as a world-weary Dolph Lundgren-esque type. He has seen better days but he has nothing outside the military, he has nowhere else to go. The army, and more specifically Spetsnaz, are his de-facto family. It’s only after he dies and is then reanimated that he begins to question his purpose. All that is keeping him and his team from being the same as all the other mindless rampaging ghouls is the fact that they have already been trained to be monsters. The draw of fresh blood and brains may be strong, but the iron will of self-discipline is far stronger…at least for now.

The other members of the unit are also pretty cool. Gulag is the mouthy one, all bluster and barely contained violence. I’ll admit he was a personal favourite. Skull and Princess are the snipers, both silent and both equally deadly. Farm Boy is just unlucky. Mongol is the dependable medic and I’m sure you can guess hazard a guess how New Boy got his name. Finally there is the Fraulein, Vadim’s loyal second in command. If there is one member of the team who comes close to being as much of a badass as the Captain, it would be her. While reading I had a niggling thought that the easy camaraderie/bitchy snarking between the team members reminded me of something. I couldn’t think for the life of me what it was but eventually the penny dropped. The members of the 15th Spetsnaz Brigade put me in mind of the ABC Warriors from 2000AD. Ignoring the fact that the ABC Warriors are all robots, and that Vadim and his soldiers are undead, at least the majority are, the comparison seems apt. There are characters that fit similar roles in each team. Vadim is the leader and could quite easily be the equivalent of Hammerstein, both are blind to almost everything but their sense of duty. Gulag and Blackblood share the same potentially treacherous nature. Skull could easily be Joe Pineapples, the strong silent type (perhaps minus the cross dressing). The Fraulein could be Deadlock. The list goes on and on. My ultimate point is that Smith does a great job of creating a believable team dynamic. I never doubted for a second that the ABC Warriors were a perfect team and the same is true here. There is that simple, playful banter between comrades who know one another well and work together as a cohesive unit. They squabble and snap at one another from time to time but they’ll also do anything for their teammates. Just because the majority of them are now dead doesn’t mean anything is going to change.

After the dawning realisation that the world has changed irrevocably finally sinks in our anti-heroes set out to discover who is responsible. They have been used, abused and then left for (un)dead. Time for some good old fashioned hard-core vengeance. The rest of the novel follows their journey, tracking the first steps towards them achieving that goal. From New York they travel, via the Atlantic, to the Great Britain. Good news everyone, our country is completely screwed as well.

Special Purposes needed a soundtrack recommendation that perfectly captured the insanity and madness of the plot. Hell, the lead characters are heroes one minute and eating someone’s entrails the next. The music needed to be something special. I ended up listening to the wonderfully named “Viking Warriors from Outer Space” by Epic North. It’s chock full of heavy industrial noise that fits neatly with the idea of heavily armed un-dead Spetsnaz rampaging through the streets of the US and the UK.

This book is the sort of thing you need to be reading when you crave all the action, all the explosions and more than a little bit of horror. I do hope there will be other novels featuring these characters. The story ends with the suggestion that there is likely to be more. Sometimes when you reading you want nothing more complicated than out and out mayhem and a breakneck plot. This book has all that in spades.

Special Purposes: First Strike Weapon is published by rebellion and is available from 6th April

Special Purpose: First Strike Weapon by Gavin Smith- I pretty much gave up on Zombie stories a couple of years ago when the glut of them started piling up and it was hard to determine what was good, what was copied and what was bad. I had read several of them but they started becoming predictable and boring. This is a zombie story and it is good, very good! A team of Russian commandos (Spetsnaz) is tasked to an undercover mission to New York city. It is 1987 in an alternate reality from our own. Glasnost has never happened. Russia and the USA are at odds with each other still. The team is suppose to go to Grande Central Station to retrieve a package- that's all they know. About a hundred Swat officers are there to greet them and the package turns out to be a cylinder holding a deadly virus. During the ensuing shootout, the team leader notices people on both sides, including himself, getting killed, then getting right back up again, but now they have an insatiable blood lust and will kill anyone they get near. For some reason, he and his team are able to hold their humanity somewhat intact through their training and discipline. Then nuclear bombs start falling and it's time to leave America.
This book starts off at a breakneck, relentless pace and keeps on moving. Yes it's bloody. Yes it's exciting and mesmerizing at the same time! I recommend it!