New & Current Releases
Archives: A-Z By Title
Archives: A-Z By Author
Advanced Search

All-Time High Scores
Best Of 2006
Best Of 2005
Best Of 2004
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Books In Our Forums

The Brief History Of The Dead
by Kevin Brockmeier

7.3 based on 16 reviews read critic reviews how did we calculate this? based on 8 votes read user comments rate this book

Compare prices at pricegrabber.com

Buy it at powells.com

Buy it at amazon.com

Buy it at amazon.co.uk

• Official Publisher Site

'Dead' interweaves the stories of the dead people who inhabit an Earth-like afterlife known as "the City," with the story of living scientist Laura Byrd, who is stranded alone at her Antarctic research station after a deadly virus sweeps through Earth's population.

Pantheon, 272 pages
02/14/2006
$22.95

ISBN: 0375423699

Fiction
General Literature & Fiction
Science Fiction & Fantasy

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Library Journal Barbara Hoffert

Beautifully written and brilliantly realized, this imaginative work... delivers a startling sense of what it really means to be alive. [15 Feb 2006, p. 106]

Publishers Weekly

[The] subplots are... convincing and reflect on relationships in a beautiful, delicate manner.

The Guardian Colin Greenland

The Brief History is both formal and heartfelt, an elegiac fabulation on the fragile, ignorant beauty of human life.

USA Today Anita Sama

Brockmeier's roots in the tradition of science fiction and fantasy are evident, although in this relatively brief book, he reaches wider than merely charting the apocalypse. There are many levels, each interesting.

Los Angeles Times Laurel Maury

Brockmeier's book is the only modern thriller I've read that's literary and scary too. [11 Mar 2006]

PopMatters Gerry Donaghy

In Brockmeier's prose, the characters are not forged by the infrequent trial or tribulation they experienced in life, rather they are defined by the accumulation of the small details they never bothered to notice. The slow-motion apocalypse that the characters experience gives these memories, as well as the reading experience, added poignancy. Another terrific aspect of this book, and one that keeps its lugubrious subject matter from veering into saccharine sentiment, is the author's vision of the future. It's a future mired more in corporate hubris and idiocy than it is fascistic dystopia.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Gathman

Can we imagine the struggle to find a radio transmitter is enough to fill Laura Byrd's heart? Is she happy in Camus' sense? It is a flaw in Brockmeier's control of his novel that we feel he is never really sure of the answer to that; it is a virtue of the novel that it makes us intensely feel the question

Chicago Tribune Brian Bouldrey

One might think that, given the subject of Brockmeier's tales, his task of separating grief and grievance is a morbid preoccupation. But this writer has nothing but an enthusiasm for life, and the marvelous inventions of his stories, both lovely and loving, are a tremendous infusion of energy in an often exhausted and exhausting world. [19 Feb 2006, p. 8]

Entertainment Weekly Gregory Kirschling

The Brief History of the Dead... is meticulously imagined. And his writing is as elegant as it was in 2003's The Truth About Celia, even if the end result isn't as wrenching.

Kirkus Reviews

After a charming first chapter that imagines highly individual "crossings" to the other side, a novelistic virus called "The Flicks" debilitates the rest.

Booklist Allison Block

Although it never quite lives up to its promising premise, the novel's Borges-like spirit will appeal to select readers. [1 Jan 2006, p. 52]

Boston Globe Gail Caldwell

The Antarctic sections are rendered in fierce detail, so that Laura's story becomes an emotionally grounded adventure tale... The city narratives of the novel are more problematic, perhaps a victim of their own success. Brockmeier has realized his city of the dead with arresting clarity, but there's something odd, or slightly woozy, about getting involved with a bunch of ghostly transients.

Washington Post Andrew Sean Greer

Brockmeier has teased some intriguing new ideas out of the last-man-on-Earth genre -- especially tying in the fate of the afterlife to the fate of those living -- but he has missed out on the great beauty of imaginative literature: metaphor.

The Onion A.V. Club Keith Phipps

The only trouble is that the book, like life in the city itself, starts to repeat itself, and after a tour de force opening chapter, it crawls toward an inevitable conclusion. Brockmeier's prose never loses its lyricism, however, and his slow-motion fade-to-black has such a beguiling sadness that it's easy to want to savor even life's most mundane pleasures after leaving its pages.

The Independent Murrough O'Brien

For all its foibles, The Brief History of the Dead must be accounted a prodigy of imagination, insight and overwhelming tenderness.

The New York Times Book Review Patrick McGrath

The bold premise at the heart of "The Brief History of the Dead" could have offered the best sorts of complex pleasures, narrative and metaphysical, that science fiction has to offer. Instead it merely flounders, a waste of a perfectly good idea.

The average user rating for this book is 7.3 (out of 10) based on 8 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Kristina gave it a9:
LOVED this book! The last two chapters were a slight let-down for me, in that they tipped over into the surreal rather than balancing on the line as the rest of the novel had done. However, although my preference would have been for the book to keep balancing on that line, I did feel that it was an intentional choice by the author to tip over that way.

Paul D gave it a0:
This ranks as possibly the most tiresome and boring book I have ever read! The premise is unique and could be an interesting vehicle for a taut and engrossing story. But the author has masterfully turned this opportunity into a long series of unintersting and tediuos flashbacks mixed with characters who are almost devoid of any substance and for whom we ultimately care nothing. I actually discovered that I was mumbling to myself during this reading..."can this get much worse?"...and amazingly it did! This ranks as a novel which should find printed on its flyleaf the admonition ..."A must NOT read". Spare yourself and flee from this pulp.

Shana B gave it a9:
Sad sad utterly heart-stopping book that shook me over and over in my full day of reading it. Have copied so many half pages and paragraphs of quotes and the last chapter is a stand-alone.

Joseph P gave it a6:
Brockmeier's new novel, The Brief History of the Dead, is a curious affair that may not appeal to all readers, especially those readers who like their narratives straightforward and as unconvoluted as possible. Although the novel's set-up is amazingly obnoxious (alternating chapters of the "living" - Laura Byrd, a biologist trapped and alone in Antarctica - and the "dead" - a population of recently passed souls who reside in The City), Brockmeier controls both sides quite well with a few missteps along the way. Initially it was the stories of the dead that were more interesting, but as Byrd's situation becomes bleaker (and, quite honestly, more terrifying), I found myself wanting to skip the odd chapters and follow only her journey. Brockmeier's pacing during Byrd's ordeal is phenomenal. As she comes to terms with her situation, he casually unpeels her psychological state, which only creates more dread and concern for her - we, the reader, can sense her fate, but we can do nothing to stop it. These chapters propel the book with a tremendous amount of humanity. Perhaps the book's fatal flaw is devoting entire chapters to inconsequential characters who reside in the City: specifically those of a prophet and a corrupt white collar businessman. Those in the City whose stories were interesting (Byrd's best friend, a professor, and Byrd's parents) are dropped as quickly as they're introduced, which made me feel like the book was populated with a lot of padding to support its ambitious premise. Overall, The Brief History of the Dead is an average (but engaging) read that, for those inclined to mull over its arching philosophical questions, will encourage discussions of mortality, fate, and the necessity of human contact.

Discuss this book in our forums