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SCE - are The Walking Dead novels any good/worth the read?

 Alpharius wrote:
SCE - are The Walking Dead novels any good/worth the read?

The earlier ones are. I'd say the first 3 are essential reading for anyone that wants more on the backstory of Brian Blake (the Governor), Woodbury and Lilly Caul, the Woodbury resident who killed the Governor in the chaos of the Prison Battle and took over as the leader of Woodbury and its survivors. (her TV analogue being Lilly Chambler, the mother of the little girl and Tara's older sister, who bonked the Governor and later killed him and fed herself to walkers after her daughter died during the prison battle).

But the later books are falling into the same repetitive pattern every book. Town is attacked, most of the residents are killed, Lilly rallys the survivors, overcomes the threat to Woodbury and begins to rebuild and recruit new groups of residents. Ad nauseam. The town has been almost wiped out 3 times now, not including the conflict with Rick's group at the Prison.

A brief spoiler free synopsis of the first 3 books.




So, definitely get Rise of the Governor, Road to Woodbury, Fall of the Governor (parts 1 & 2). You can skip the later books entirely (Descent, Invasion, Search and Destroy). They're all basically the same book.

Although, the latest book (S&D) seems to have broken the pattern at last. The town is destroyed yet again, but this time they actually leave Woodbury and Lilly goes back to the city Atlanta to rescue some kidnapped residents. And its actually impressive how well they were beginning to rebuild this time around...

I never bothered with the books because they seem to focus on The Governor. I don't like The Governor and don't want to learn anymore about him....because he's a jerk.

Thank you for the summary/review - much appreciated!

I'll put those books on my 'to be read eventually!' list...

Thanks for the reviews - I enjoyed the first few and like Lily but that sounds disapointing :(

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:
I never bothered with the books because they seem to focus on The Governor. I don't like The Governor and don't want to learn anymore about him....because he's a jerk.

Well no gak. He's a villain, villains tend to be jerks. The books tell you how he became a jerk.

Only the first one is from his POV iirc. The retpst are from Lilly's POV.


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 Mr Morden wrote:
Thanks for the reviews - I enjoyed the first few and like Lily but that sounds disapointing :(

The books aren't particularly bad... They just repeat the same story over and over,with different variations.

Pretty solid episode this time around. Eugene was one of my least favorite characters, but this episode demonstrates that the boy has some practical survival skills. He is tricksy! Also, he showed a strong character streak by refusing the chips and not liking the girls being forced to be companions.

The Dwight bit was a bit weaker, especially since he basically set up a (relatively) innocent man to die horribly. And Negan was typical over the top, Mambo leaning Negan.

Negan was an idiot this episode. He just burned his only medical doctor. Sure Eugene is smart, but he's not that kind of doctor. Or a doctor at all, if he was lying about having PhDs.

The show continues on a disappointing run of episodes - this has not been a good season...

I liked this episode but I don't get why Dwight framed the Doctor guy. Also, its one thing for Negan to be all evil and stuff but what he did to the doctor is just straight up stupid. I've never gotten the impression Negan was stupid in the show or comic until that happened.

The implications was that he had another doctor. I think he even said something about that specifically.

If nothing else, he could grab the Hilltop doc.

Plus, since infections from wounds (even gunshot wounds to the eye) don't seem to be a thing, who needs doctors? Except for plot things like pregnancy, of course.

TV Negan is...not well done.

He's just not believable 'as is' right now - and last night's episode didn't help.

Someone would have already gotten rid of him by this point!

I think Dwight is running a wider, smarter game here.

The Doctor is/was important to Neagan's crew. His loss definitely weakens them, whether Neagan realises or not.

And it is nice to see Eugene finding his place - though one wonders if he is indeed Neagan...

Oh feth. Just read the latest comic issue, #165. I'm calling it now...

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Oh feth. Just read the latest comic issue, #165. I'm calling it now...

Spoiler:

...I think Andrea has been bit.

Her plot line has pretty much been, "ride you horse from this place. Now ride it over there! Now ride back!" lately.

 Alpharius wrote:
TV Negan is...not well done.

Unlike the doctor, oh ho ho ho!

He's just not believable 'as is' right now - and last night's episode didn't help.

Someone would have already gotten rid of him by this point!

Maybe. Maybe not. A lot of the Saviors seem to be buying what he's selling.

What's he selling? A strong yet "fair"-ish leader, who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty.


Look at it from the viewpoint of Negan. Sherry has already escaped twice. Once with Dwight and her sister(who Negan fancied), where she offered herself up as one of his wives to keep Dwight from being killed. Extenuating circumstances(read: the sister dying) caused Negan to go a bit "easy" on her.
Now? There's nothing to hold him back. Dwight's still "his"(for all he knows...), Sherry's sister is long since dead and to top it off?
She let Daryl out.

What MDG says is, at this moment, what the actor playing Dwight was saying on Talking Dead this week. He's playing a long game, prepping for Negan to get brought down.

Yup.

Undermining position, forcing Neagan to be the author of his own downfall.

In the run up to the mid-season break, they spent some time showing that Neagan's position whilst strong, isn't unassailable within his own community.

Compare and contrast with Rick. Rick doesn't always get it right. Some could argue he never really gets it right. But he always does his best - and he seems to own his mistakes.

That to me makes him a better leader than one who hides behind extreme violence and a sea of goons.

The 'problem' comes from 'knowing' "Comics Negan" - who actually 'makes sense' and is, for lack of a better term, 'believable' vs. "TV Negan".

And please note, it is NEGAN, not NEAGAN!

NEagan neagan neagan :p

Sorry.

I acknowledge my error and will take steps to correct it.

 jmurph wrote:
The implications was that he had another doctor. I think he even said something about that specifically.

If nothing else, he could grab the Hilltop doc.

Plus, since infections from wounds (even gunshot wounds to the eye) don't seem to be a thing, who needs doctors? Except for plot things like pregnancy, of course.

Every other disease out there? Surgeries, accidents, every reason you normally need a doctor.

 Frazzled wrote:

 jmurph wrote:
The implications was that he had another doctor. I think he even said something about that specifically.

If nothing else, he could grab the Hilltop doc.

Plus, since infections from wounds (even gunshot wounds to the eye) don't seem to be a thing, who needs doctors? Except for plot things like pregnancy, of course.

Every other disease out there? Surgeries, accidents, every reason you normally need a doctor.

Pretty sure his point was that we never see anything like that. We haven't seen a serious medical issue since the flu in season 4A. Rick had a rusty metal spike go straight through his hand a couple of weeks back, then slashed up his leg pretty bad, and he just walked it off. The only doctoring stuff we've really seen is Dwight getting a few stitches and Maggie's tedious pregnancy arc.

Have to disagree:

Well the in universe has doctors skilled in dealing with infections.

We have an in universe version of the CDC.

We had a flu epidemic that killed a whole lot of people post Z virus.

We have confirmed Z virus is in fact a virus so others exist.

Plus we have confirmed the group would have been much better off if Shane were in charge...

I would say that curing that mega-ultra-hyper-ludicrous-flu virus with antibiotics is one helluva piece of doctorin'.


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 MarsNZ wrote:
Pretty sure his point was that we never see anything like that. We haven't seen a serious medical issue since the flu in season 4A. Rick had a rusty metal spike go straight through his hand a couple of weeks back, then slashed up his leg pretty bad, and he just walked it off. The only doctoring stuff we've really seen is Dwight getting a few stitches and Maggie's tedious pregnancy arc.

You're going to laugh, but in a "realistic" post-apoc setting, even stuff like dental care would be important.

For the most part, medicine -- like most aspects of the zombie virus -- just gets the handwave treatment from Kirkman. We just need to know that there are doctors around who fix gak up. Kirkman is interested in telling stories about characters and not in turning it all into some kind of survival manual. Which I get.

Honestly, I'm glad they haven't gone over the top with medical stuff. They've dabbled with it. If they did more, we'd be watching a medical show.
Honestly, they've shown this version of Negan to solve the here and now problem, and not be a big picture thinker. And he rules through fear and instability. People are too afraid to cross him, thinking if they fail, they'll get themselves (or more likely someone they care about) killed. We're seeing it now because we're seeing into the community. If we just heard about it happening previously, it wouldn't have the same impact.
Also, people allow it because these people are one of two types; the type that LIKES hurting others and doesn't mind who says to do it, or they're the type who wouldn't survive this world without the guidance of somebody who commands authority; they NEED to be told what to do. But they're going to see a possibility where somebody who rules the way Negan does isn't the only way to live. And that's coming. And that's when he falls.

Frazzled wrote:Have to disagree:

Well the in universe has doctors skilled in dealing with infections.

We have an in universe version of the CDC.

We had a flu epidemic that killed a whole lot of people post Z virus.

We have confirmed Z virus is in fact a virus so others exist.

Plus we have confirmed the group would have been much better off if Shane were in charge...

Then lets agree to disagree, we apparently watch two different shows.

gorgon wrote:I would say that curing that mega-ultra-hyper-ludicrous-flu virus with antibiotics is one helluva piece of doctorin'.

You're going to laugh, but in a "realistic" post-apoc setting, even stuff like dental care would be important.

Not sure why that would make me laugh? I don't really want to see Rick flossing regularly, but some of the injuries the characters sustain with almost no medial attention is pretty out there. Not sure why the counter to this argument is bascially "We don't want to watch post-apoc E.R." I'd rather see a bit of realism instead of Morgan and Carol endlessly switching roles every season while the writers figure out how to develop a character.

The counter is that we see it once in a while. We don't need to see it all the time. I'm not saying some of the episodes aren't slow; the midsession return has been wicked slow up until this recent one. But watching Rick floss or visit a dentist every other episode is gonna get real stale, real quick. We know they have doctors. They get shown occasionally and we've learned Negan doesn't care if doctors (and fat people) get snuffed out. We don't need to get beaten over the head with it. My counter was completely valid.

Just caught up with the show

Really good epsiode - lots of good character stuff - so much better than the snore fest of last week. Good Negan stuff - even if killing a doc is foolish - guess they can just take the one from Hilltop though.

Jeesh Eugene just always lands on his feet whatever the circumstances (and whatever it costs others)

Next week looks like same old same old filler.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
The counter is that we see it once in a while. We don't need to see it all the time. I'm not saying some of the episodes aren't slow; the midsession return has been wicked slow up until this recent one. But watching Rick floss or visit a dentist every other episode is gonna get real stale, real quick. We know they have doctors. They get shown occasionally and we've learned Negan doesn't care if doctors (and fat people) get snuffed out. We don't need to get beaten over the head with it. My counter was completely valid.

I wouldn't be so sure. Judging by the promo, it looks like Rick and Michonne discover some sort of military or Federal site and find at least one firearm (that we see in the promo). My guess is this is the episode in which they finally find their stockpile of weapons to arm their new army.

So, it might be filler, but at least it'll finally get the ball rolling.

I think you're going to be...slightly disappointed!

Oh please somebody kill that b**** Rosita already.

"I had a gun. I was going to use it to kill Negan. Eugene would still be here if I had. But I was stupid enough to listen to you [Gabriel]".

No, you fething idiot. Eugene is not here because you fething MISSED. And if you had killed or simply slightly grazed Negan, the entire population of Alexandria including Eugene would have been massacred on the spot by the vengeful and very heavily armed gang inside the walls.