Resident Evil Book 3;City of the Dead Review

 Written by S.D. Perry
Published by Pocket Books, New York (1999)
ISBN: 9781781161791

City of the Dead is the novelisation of the classic Resident Evil 2 video game. It’s worth mentioning, that this is very much the plot of the classic 1998 Resident Evil 2, and not the 2019 Remake. City of the Dead also continues the story from S D Perry’s previous two novels within the Resident Evil universe. When this novel originally released in 1999, it was considered canon, but in the two plus decades since its publication, that has changed. Most fans, consider the S D Perry novels to exist in their own universe. This does make the most sense, considering how many little details from the remakes, and tie-in games that have released after this novel are missing or altered here. Yet this novel is fascinating from the perspective of a diehard fan.

Let’s take a deeper look at why this novel is so interesting.

Since the collapse of the Spencer Mansion within Perry’s novelisation of Resident Evil 1, The Umbrella Conspiracy, the S.T.A.R.S have been discredited and basically run out of Raccoon City. Rebecca Chambers is laying low after the raid of Caliban Cove within the last novel.

We begin this story with Jill, Chris, and Barry planning a new mission. An assault on the Umbrella HQ in Austria. This is different to the games universe where we learn from Code Veronica, that Umbrella’s HQ is in Paris, France, and not Austria.

I find it very interesting that Perry decided to have Jill leave Raccoon City during the first chapter. Any fans of Resident Evil 3 will know that Jill is very much still trapped within the doomed Raccoon City during the events of Resident Evil 2. It will be interesting to see how this change is rectified during Perry’s novelisation of Resident Evil 3.

"Some dark fluid gurgled out of the beefy man's nose and ran across his moving lips, and Leon was overwhelmed by the understanding that the terrible, shitty smell was decayed flesh, and it was coming from them."

- Extract from 'Resident Evil; City of the Dead' by S. D. Perry. 

After this first chapter, we skip forward a week, and swap perspective to Leon Kennedy, rookie police officer, running late to his first day within Raccoon City. Entering the city just after Leon is Clare Redfield, sister to Chris Redfield from the previous two novels. It’s been a month and half since Clare has been able to contact her brother, which is very unlike him. This panics Clare who then begins calling around to Chirs’ friends within Raccoon City. All the calls are unable to connect which worries Clare further. Fearing the worst, Clare decides to hop on her bike and go look for Chris herself.

Leon and Clare end up joining forces early on into their nightmarish trip into Raccoon City. After a nasty car crash the two are separated once again and they make their way towards the Raccoon Police Department or RPD. This is where the game starts, and the story follows mostly the same journey as the classic Resident Evil 2. Leon meets up with the mysterious Ada Wong, while Claire ends up looking after a little girl known as Sherry Birkin.

What’s interesting to me as a massive fan of the Resident Evil games is how this book tackles the difficult situation of canon scenarios. The 1998 Resident Evil 2 had two campaigns, based on which character you played as first. These are known as the Leon A/Claire B, or the Claire A/Leon B campaigns by fans. The canon order of the campaigns is Claire A/Leon B, this means that you play through Claire’s story first, then play Leon’s campaign second. Playing in this order, for example, sees Claire as the one to meet and interact with Officer Marvin Branagh.

In the City of the Dead, Leon talks to Officer Branagh. Great, so this novel follows the events of Leon A/Claire B then, right? Nope, because during the car crash at the beginning of the story, the car crashes head on into the street sign, whereas in Leon A/Claire B the car spins out of control and smacks into the street sign backwards. The events of City of the Dead are a jumbled mess of both possible scenarios. Any of the fans of the overarching Resident Evil narrative of the games will be surprised to learn that City of the Dead doesn’t see Sherry infected with the G-Virus. This means that within the Perry-universe, Sherry would be unable to gain her regenerative abilities that are present within Resident Evil 6.

This is only interesting to fans that obsess over these details, but I am very much one of those fans.

Screenshot from the 1998 video game 'Resident Evil 2'.

The most interesting changes to the story are not so much the merging of both possible scenarios, but instead the unique lore added by Perry. The previous two novels both featured the strange and mysterious character of Trent. During the Umbrella Conspiracy he handed Jill a PDA with the layout of the Spencer mansion and clues for the puzzles on it. Then in Caliban Cove Trent was the one who told the S.T.A.R.S about the facility that Rebecca Chambers and David Trapp investigated. Within this third novel, he’s the person who is paying Ada to retrieve a sample of the G-Virus. Within the games we learn that it was Albert Wesker who Ada was working for. When this novel was written, fans didn’t yet know that Wesker had survived his fate within the mansion. This means that there was no way that Perry could have known this. I like this strange Trent figure. He’s an interesting thread tying all the novels together even when they feel disconnected at times.

“He saw a faceless head, the long hair streaming around it in a cloud. A heavy woman’s decapitated trunk, one breast bobbing above the rippling darkness.”

- Extract from 'Resident Evil; City of the Dead' by S. D. Perry. 

The writing style is mostly good, with only a few odd moments that really ended up taking me out of the moment and horror. What I love about Perry’s writing style, and something I hope to adapt into my own style, is how they manage perspective. While we’re following Claire, for example, the writing will only ever talk about stuff that she knows from the perspective of how she knows it. This allows us, as the reader, to understand what it is that each character is aware of, how they feel about it, and the nuances of their ‘inner worlds’.

As much as I love this writing technique, I dislike the occasional moments of misplaced sexuality. Perry, for all their talent, does fall into the R/MenWritingWoman trope a few times. For example, during Leon’s mad dash towards the police station, the writing feels the need to mention that one of the zombies has her breasts exposed. This happens again, when Leon makes his way into the sewers and finds a pile of bodies. It’s really off-putting, and more than a little uncomfortable.

When it all comes together, I think that City of the Dead, like all of Perry’s Resident Evil novels stands as something that fans of the series will really appreciate. However, I don’t think these novels are good enough to recommend to anyone outside of the RE fanbase. While they’re not awful, they fail to do anything to stand out from the hoards of other, more interesting zombie horror novels. If you’re a fan of the Resident Evil games, like I am, then these are no doubt worth a read. If you’re just interested in a zombie novel then I’d recommend either ‘World War Z’ or ‘Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies’, before any of Perry’s Resident Evil Novels.

⭐⭐⭐☆☆