Hissers 3: Fortress of Flesh by Ryan C. Thomas and Anthony Trevino
Paperback 247 pages
I am going to admit to some natural bias. I have known Ryan for a few years and Anthony are writing/podcast partners. Anthony and I talked about this novel quite a bit before he started his pass. I didn’t want to know much as I was looking forward to reading it. The first Hissers is one I have thought about a couple of times since I read it. So I was ready to dive back into this story.
Ryan C. Thomas if you are not familiar with is a San Diego author who I met hanging out at books events and author gatherings. His early novel The Summer I died is a bloody classic that is a bit of a survivalist horror. He has expanded it into a trilogy and all of them are entertaining but that first novel is savage. He also set a very high bar for himself.
Hissers on the other hand ejects the realism for gonzo over-the-top insanity but takes the zombie story and evolves it in a way that a novel can uniquely do. I mean maybe now with CGI a movie could but the hissers themselves are nuts. I mean Thomas didn’t have to worry about the effects budget. Zombies that meld together to become multi-limbed spider-like monsters is pretty fun stuff. This review is of the final book in this trilogy lets be honest I am selling you on the trilogy.
Hissers 3 works all by itself but the trilogy but it is a character-based monster mash that balances a new take on zombies with familiar story beats that will give genre purists what they are looking for. These books are not high art, they are written for fun, from time to time the expert storytelling skill elevates moments to make this the novel equivalent of a b-movie that shows hints of the author's skill. If you didn’t care about the characters it would just be a ball of mish-mash craziness.
One thing that separates Hissers (part 1) is how young the characters are. I don't remember a zombie story focused on middle school-aged kids. RCT does a bang-up job getting to the fears and hopes of kids this age and is expressed in a fantastic scene where the kids end hiding for a night in the high school they were dreading going to at the end of the summer.
Yes, there are crazy mutated zombies that grow together like giant spiders but the characters are the underrated tool in the RCT toolbox. The setting of the small fictional southern California town of Castor is very vivid and part of the appeal. So book 2…
Hissers 2: Death March continues the coming-of-age aspects of the novel and pairs the young people with slightly older misfits with a desperate struggle to make it to a military base near San Diego. Through events of the novel, they end up with an important thumb drive.
So why did RCT pick up a co-author for Hissers 3? It was clear the plan was a trilogy from the start. I am having the guys on the podcast to talk about the process. I know Ryan had started the book but felt something was missing.
Look I know Anthony is a smart writer and collaborator so from the start I thought this was a wise move. I know Anthony spent some effort on the Hawk brothers who were very interesting characters I won't spoil. The story itself is set up, but the earlier books so we dive right in. Connor and Amanita from the first two books are our main points of view, but the final stand for humanity is what we are dealing with here. Mirroring the granddaddy of zombie trilogies this part 3 starts at a military base. We have scientists looking for a cure.
Using the geography to the advantage of the story there is a mission to the San Diego Zoo to get a snake to create an anti-venom. Now I love a story built on a mission and I kind of wish the story was built around that, but it was only the first act.
The base seems secure but as the cracks in the defenses start showing they appear in the humans at the same time. Inside the base, the stresses begin to eat at the relationships and the tensions come to a boil. While they search for a cure the rest of the world has given up. The impatient nations of the world want to nuke America to be sure. The clock is ticking.
The challenges become the clock as much as the monsters. Also, we get a little glimpse into the origins of the whole thing. Well-intentioned science has gone bad.
“Well, I don’t think she meant to create anything this bad. She was trying to help wounded soldiers. I think what happened after was just…bad luck.”
These experiments were meant to help wounded soldiers create an inherent reversal that I thought could have been explored deeper but I was happy with this subtle reveal. But perhaps one of the moments with the greatest creep factor happened during an action scene. I was surprised that the Hissers actually learn. Retaining a degree of their humanity.
“…It’s playing with us. Probably saw us drive down the street.”
“They didn’t used to be this smart,” Squid said. “They used to just charge like mindless animals.”
“Now they hunt like real animals…”
This shift is important for adding suspense but writers know how to use tiny moments to build suspense…
“Sweat ran into Romero’s eyes but he didn’t dare rub it away.”
A very human moment amid the chaos that helps to color between the lines that real terror is in progress. It is these human moments that are peppered throughout the book that elevates the story beyond a B-movie feeling. I think Hissers 3 is fun. That is all it really needed to be so the moments of social themes and character depth feel like a bonus.
Pick it up!
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