The Peeling Trilogy (Iain Rob Wright)

The self publishing industry is a whole lot like Goodwill, the Salvation Army, or any other second hand thrift depot. You dig through the refuse looking for gold, sometimes running into a half eaten sandwich in the process, or cutting yourself on a chipped teacup. There are times when the digging really pays off. You locate the missing piece of a rare set you collect, or something so bizarre that you fail to have the words to accurately describe your findings.

The Peeling Trilogy caught my attention amid the detritus of self published muck. Being a trilogy of short novella about the end of the world, it took an approach that was unusual. As with King and McCammon, a global erasure of human life is in process. Fingers are being pointed, countries are being blamed. The opening was well built, showing the onset and progress of a disease as it melts away the flesh of a man, bubbling and stripping it away until bone glistens under loose gore. The mind though, beneath the pain of the flesh the mind is still active.

The Peeling is a fresh take on global pandemics. Like a reverse zombie novel, humans are eaten away until they are begging for release. They are aware till the end, slowly spinning into an insanity as their bodies fail.

Not council the intro, this trilogy follows three separate plot lines housed in the UK. Set in varying degrees of the disease cycle, the first shows the initial days, when people still have hope of redemption and a cure. Parts two and three follow after the fall of society, with a band of refugees intent on survival and a roving military squad working to maintain the peace even after the upper brass become unresponsive.

The trilogy was highly enjoyable from my perspective but was left on a blue note when the final few pages laid out an extra-worldly spin on the science behind the plague. If Ian Rob Wright plans to extend the series to expand on the plague source it could be solid. As it is, it takes away from the
story by adding an unneeded layer to the story.

Pages -158
Publisher: SalGad Publishing Group (2012)
ASIN: B00A03DN24

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