Book Review: Resident Evil Extinction by Keith RA DeCandido

Following the events of "Resident Evil: Apocalypse," the beautiful, dangerous, enigmatic Alice returns, and this time she and her fellow survivor Carlos Olivera are running with a pack of humans led by a new ally, Claire Redfield. Together they are cutting through the wastelands of the United Stateson a long trek to Alaska. Hunted by the minions of the scheming Dr. Isaacs, Alice has zombies hungry for her flesh and the Umbrella Corporation's monstrouslab rats hungry for her blood...while Alice herself hungers only for revenge.

My Review: 
This is the third and final book from the Resident Evil series that was written by this author as the films came out. I very much enjoyed the first two books in the series and their films. This was certainly the weakest book so far and I've already heard that it is the weakest film so I'm not going in to watching the film with any great expectation based on this plot. I've also been told through other reviews that this book includes background on characters which is only in the book and not the film. Right. I think I'm up to speed now!

After the nuclear bomb being dropped on Raccoon City, Umbrella think that they have dodged a bullet by declaring it as an accidental meltdown. They are confident that they have taken out the threat and covered up their mistakes-until a small outbreak occurs at their facility in San Fransisco. As they struggle to deal with that, other sporadic outbreaks start to pop up around the United States. Umbrella continue to search for a better cure and a way to get Project Alice back under their control but Sam Isaacs is secretly working on a new super zombie that he hopes to be able to domesticate, and an army of clones that he hopes can be just as good as the original Alice. Meanwhile the various survivors from the various outbreaks all try to survive in the new world.

The first issue with this book is the confusing timelines. In the bulk of the book, each chapter name is called either before or after. It took me a while to work out that this seemed to mean Before the US wide outbreak and After the US wide outbreak. The thing that was confusing is the timeline jumped around a lot in the Before part AND the After part so it was hard to work out in the Before chapters which events happened in which order. It was also the same in the After timeline, trying to work out what happened in what order then too. The final part of the book at last just deals with events of the present day which comes as something of a relief. I had to take notes on everything to give me a chance of writing a coherant review.

Alice was captured after the helicopter crash outside Raccoon City and awoke inside Sam's lab which she quickly escapes from. She is unaware that new alterations have been made to her including a way to track her and for Sam to exert control over her when needed. She rejoins Carlos, Jill, Angie and LJ and start planning a new way to expose what Umbrella did. But the group soon breaks up when Alice's recall is triggered and she is summoned to the Detroit HQ. Alice is stronger than he thinks and escapes again but not without consequences. After this Alice decides to go lone wolf so she cannot endanger her friends, while evading Umbrella and dealing with assorted zombies and psychos she encounters on the road. Jill is on the road on her own, no longer wanting to rely on other people but when she finds a situation that cries out for law enforcement, she can't turn away.

Before the big outbreak, Carlos tries to hold his little group together to fight back against the company but circumstances rip them all apart. Carlos and LJ start linking up with other survivors, trying out zombie strike teams alongside the big convoy. They believe that there is safety in numbers, and with new leader Claire, they set off across America trying to survive and gather the supplies that they need. However it is not just the zombies that are a problem as they have a horrific run in with some zombie wildlife. Now they hear of a possible safe compound in Alaska that they could go to but is it just a fantasy or will it really offer safe haven? And will Umbrella do something else to mess up their plans?

The San Fransisco outbreak occurs when a doctor who was working at the Raccoon City gates during their outbreak is evacuated to another facility and then turns. Sam is furious about the mistake but concentrates on his own medical experiements. He is trying to find the ultimate Alice clone to use as controlling the original is proving more problematic than expected. He tests them in a replica of the mansion and HIVE defences but so far all have failed. He is also having varied success with his super zombie experiment, making them stronger and faster but not being able to control them. However there are always uses for a super zombie and Sam has no qualms about using them to get what he wants.

I didn't like the timeline jumping around so much. When we got the start of each chapter I was having to stop and work out where we actually were in the overall story and I found that really annoying. It was confusing and stopped the flow of the story in its tracks. I've never been a great fan of this time jumping thing in books for that reason as it can be difficult to follow. The book suffers from confusion as well with the original group members being together and apart frequently through the two timelines-ugh it was really frustrating! I was also mad that this book reads more like a complete massacre. Yes I expect to lose characters in a zombie book but not to have virtually all of them die in one book. That was pretty disappointing. I don't know which of these scenes occur in the film but I'm now worried I'll hate the film. 

I've struggled over how to rate this book. I did actually enjoy watching what Sam was getting up to more than anything else in the book. I liked his replica HIVE experiments, the super zombie creation and his run ins with Alice. I liked the bits with LJ and Carlos but found the Jill storyline somewhat dull. Some of what Alice was doing was interesting and other bits not so much. I enjoyed the scenes with the dogs and the crows. There were a lot of things that did annoy me so my rating has dropped accordingly as this was an average zombie read compared to other books.

Read October 2019
2.5 stars.