The Walking Dead: The Fall of the Governor - Part 1

The Walking Dead: The Fall of the Governor – Part 1 by Jay Bonansinga

Review by Gerti

I love the television series “The Walking Dead” on AMC, but I don’t like reading graphic novels, so Jay Bonansinga’s novelized books about “The Walking Dead” with Robert Kirkman are a wonderful way to check in on my favorite characters and settings, as well as see some action the TV series ignores or changes to make it more palatable for a wide audience.

For example, in “The Walking Dead” on AMC, the treatment of the katana-wielding female character Michonne is very different than what happens to her in the graphic novels, and also here in “The FOTG – Part One”. I understand why, because the sex and violence in these books is way beyond what you could or would want to show on TV, given the wide age-range of the series’ fans. There are several protracted scenes here where the Governor, Philip Blake, takes revenge on Michonne after she, Rick and Glenn stumble into Woodbury. When she is finally freed by one of the Governor’s henchmen, instead of escaping, she sets out to find the Governor and gets her own perverse payback from him. It’s that kind of a world after the zombie apocalypse, but it’s definitely more “Fifty Shades of Gray” than the made-for-TV revenge viewers get on AMC.

This book also stays true to the graphic novel plot, where the Governor takes off one of Rick Grimes’ hands, which also does not happen on TV. In this book, Rick spends time in the infirmary with Dr. Stevens and nurse Alice, who show him that Woodbury is an evil place, and the Governor is a madman. Therefore when the opportunity to escape arises, the whole group follows Martinez, the Governor’s unhappy henchmen, out of the complex after rescuing Glenn and Michonne.

A character completely ignored by the TV series is Lilly Caul, who takes center stage in Bonansinga’s “Descent”, which shows Woodbury after the Governor. In this book, unlike others by Bonansinga, she is lulled into a false sense of security by the Governor, and spends her time sleeping with her boy toy, and getting pregnant. I’ll have to read “The FOTG – Part Two” to see why she isn’t pregnant in “Descent”. Here, however, she is not a likeable character at all, and could have been completely written out without me missing her.

“The Fall of the Governor – Part One” is a terrific read, although like so many “part one’s” these days (Harry Potter and The Hobbit, for example), there is a sense of dissatisfaction when it ends. Bonansinga writes in a clear, exciting way, and I felt swept along with the action, although the graphic sex and violence are not for pre-teen or sensitive readers. I can’t wait to read “Part Two”, but still resent that what should have been one book was split into two parts, probably just to garner the authors more money. It’s a great storyline and they deserve to be paid for their creativity, but why rip off the audience?