Review: Portlandtown by Rob DeBorde

Pabkin’s One Liner: Zombies that don’t quite get your heart racing.

Welcome to Portlandtown, where no secret is safe—not even those buried beneath six feet of Oregon mud.

Joseph Wylde isn’t afraid of the past, but he knows some truths are better left unspoken. When his father-in-law’s grave-digging awakens more than just ghosts, Joseph invites him into their home hoping that a booming metropolis and two curious grandtwins will be enough to keep the former marshal out of trouble. Unfortunately, the old man’s past soon follows, unleashing a terrible storm on a city already knee deep in floodwaters. As the dead mysteriously begin to rise, the Wyldes must find the truth before an unspeakable evil can spread across the West and beyond.

Rob DeBorde’s Portlandtown is a supernatural western, a fantastic blend of horror, magic, and zombies sure to excite even the most demanding genre fan.

This tale features the Wylde family. A blind husband that isn’t blind, a wife that can make herself seemingly disappear into her surroundings, their twins that can communicate without words and sense how things are going to turn out, and their grandfather, a famously retired US Marshall.

Throw in a voodoo Shaman, a enigmatic native American girl, a bumbling young would be sorcerer and a deadly Hanged Man with a bunch of zombies – and I thought I would have one hell of a read. Sadly I was wrong.

Don’t be mistaken, essentially I think all of the elements to make a great story were there it just did not wow me. I think some of that might have been because I expected more of a western feel than what I got. Mostly, it is because absolutely nothing is resolved in Portlandtown. Most stories have several major plot points, and if it is to become a series, it is expected that some of these things will remain unresolved to be continued in the next installment. I expect some point to be resolved. That our what the struggles through a story are about to me. This left me feeling like I was still on page one. In that respect it was a complete let down to me. I don’t like it when an entire book turns out to be a probable set up for a series.

Oh yes and something that really bugs me is what the heck was the point of that storm totem really? I don’t see that it added anything helpful to the plot at all. Unfortunately, I don’t plan on continuing.

Portlandtown

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