I kind of can't even handle how ridiculously pulpy this series is so far. Patient Zero pretends to a kind of scientrism, wherein the zombie outbreak our intrepid heroes race to thwart has, like, a modicum of scientific plausibility, I guess. Baltimore cop and chiseled jaw hero Joe Ledger gets tapped by one of those shadowy X filesy governmental organizations to track down a terrorist with a name like The Jackal. The leader of said alphabet soup organization eats cookies as his ominous tic; Joe has to murder a terrorist twice in a week; international pharma phuckers are the absolute worst. Patient Zero is good fun, with lots of kickass and a fullblown zombie outbreak to salve your need for bloodshed. 

 

But it's The Dragon Factory which really swings for the cheap seats. There's literal Nazis, genetically engineered chimera, Neanderthals, evil albino twins with a side of incest, clones, and more, so much more. SO MUCH MORE. I kept cackling through this novel, unable to believe how fucking bonkers everything was, and just when I got a handle on it, it would get MORE BONKERS. Uff da, I haven't had as much fun with something this silly in a long time. I'm going to read the shit out every single Joe Ledger novel as long as they stay this goofy, 

The follow up to Patient Zero is pretty solid, but I did miss the zombies. Our villain this time is a mad scientist using weaponized genetic diseases to destroy the world. He's creepy and the reveal of his identity

he's Josef Mengele

(spoiler show)

is pretty good. There are multiple threads and sub-plots in this installment, along with suspense and plenty of action.

Overall it's a good thriller - the type of book that's well plotted (no huge, obvious holes), interesting characters and lots of action. Basically, the type of book that often gets turned into big summer blockbuster-style action movies. There was only one thing that made me roll my eyes -

when Grace is locked in the Chamber of Mysteries with Cyrus/Mengele, the twins, Otto, the assassin and the genetically modified Berserker bodyguard, she has the drop on them but doesn't shoot. No, instead, she stands up and tells them to do what she wants. Who does that? I'm pretty sure elite military training includes shooting the gorilla-man and assassin holding a gun as quickly and quietly as possible to neutralize the immediate threats, not popping up to say "hey everybody, drop your guns and do what I say."

(spoiler show)

and for that, it loses half a star.

A slam bang opening leads into a slow development which bogged down a bit before things really got going again, but still, a strong entry in a fun, dynamic series.

Fascinating. Disturbing. A unicorn! A dragon! Ledger is a badass. Sniffle moments.

Well here we are a little over a month past since I last read Joe Ledger, that being the first book in the series titled Patient Zero. I picked up the first book because it was highly rated on a lot of zombie fiction lists and I thought I would give it a shot, and I was so surprised at how awesome it was that I hadn't had enough yet. Thus, The Dragon Factory was picked up and read and now I need even more Ledger. This book was to prove that I didn't just like the first one because of the zombies, and seemingly that wasn't the case. Jonathan Maberry has created one hell of an action-packed and suspenseful series with Joe Ledger and continues to impress me with his writing.

It's just another day on the block with Joe Ledger in The Dragon Factory, dragged into a world and life-threatening situation when old Nazi science finds a home in the hands of modern terrorists. The best thing about these books are the plausible and scientific explanation to the terrorist plots dreamed up to take out the world. It's not as simple as "there was a virus, and then everyone's corpse re-animated" and "they put some gorilla in the guy, now he's strong". There are legitimate, but still fictional, explanations of the terrors that the villains committ in these books. Joe Ledger, Mr. Church, and the DMS never back down from a fight though, and even going against aspiring Nazi scientists they find a way to do their jobs.

This book is, to me, much more terrifying than the first book. The concept of resurrected Nazi science has always intrigued me, especially after reading and seeing the movie Hellboy (directed by Guillermo del Toro who has Pacific Rim opening this weekend, by the way). Nazis and Nazi theories have pretty much become extinct in our day and age, but the thought that there are probably people out there that desire to bring those ideals back to our modern world is definitely disturbing. Whether this is fiction or not, one can imagine a world threatened by Nazi idealists and truly capable terrorists. Science is such a scary thing to most because it's hard to understand if you don't know the science behind the science, but with it almost anything can be possible and I think that's what this book tries to show. Stuff that happens in this book, could not be so far off in the real world (not talking my lifetime, but possibly my children or children's children). I think that's what makes The Dragon Factory so unsettling at times, because you know crazy genetically enhanced people with a white supremacist agenda could committ such a violent and evil act against the human race. There are real people in the world today that kill others for their beliefs and for the people they are, and Maberry does an excellent job of putting that fear that we keep in the back of our minds, into the front.

The villains in the book are great, Hecate and Paris Jakoby along with their father Cyrus are a group of radical terrorists hellbent on causing destruction and mayhem with their newfound technologies and sciences. It's so crazy to see the things they come up with in the book, and the first genetically created creature from the villains in the book is a unicorn. Yes, The Dragon Factory utilizes unicorns and that's only a small taste of what else it has to offer. I highly recommend the Joe Ledger series to anyone who's a fan of badassery ranging from Jack Bauer to Jack Reacher, and you would have to read Patient Zero at all to understand the goings on in The Dragon Factory. Next up is The King of Plagues, book 3 in the series, as I continue to work my way up to the latest entry in the series Extinction Machine! Which I know wonder if it has anything to do with the Extinction Wave, in The Dragon Factory! Jonathan Maberry, continue to write and amaze me, wow.

Originally posted at sixthreezy at the movies & more!