Jan 19 - Jan 24, 2012

Zone One
Colson Whitehead
Horror
Published 2011
259 pages

8/10

  The Zombie Plague has ripped through the nation, but the survivors are beginning to pick up the pieces; a tentative government has been established, rules are being put into place, and trained teams of volunteers are clearing out the undead, section by section.  As Mark Spitz exterminates the stragglers, the horror of the past and the horror of the present create a pervasive static trauma, but he's well prepared when the shit REALLY hits the fan...

  I don't know how to feel about Zone One; it's a unique take on the zombie novel, terrifically intellectual and quite unlike anything I've read before. 
  This is the first zombie novel I've read that focuses on the AFTERMATH of the living dead apocalypse - the slow treacherous rebuilding of society.  Truthfully, that's why I picked it up in the first place; who doesn't want to prepare themselves for their own eventual survival after the escape, the slaughter, and the small triumphs? 
  The fact that the author also brought up the mental and emotional effects of facing a zombie apocalypse was terrifically thoughtful and insightful.  Sure, other books have touched on the few crazies this or that character may have come across, but I kind of assume that ANY survivor would be a few cheese slices short of their tray of crackers after outrunning, outmaneuvering, and out-killing the living dead... and the living.  If you catch my drift.  Even our protagonist of Zone One was a leetle beet weeird and tough to follow at times, though this is chalked up to the trauma, and expertly so.
  But you know what else was hard to understand?  THE ENTIRE BOOK.
  Besides the fact that we zoned in and out of flashbacks without warning, and besides the fact that the protagonist did a fuck of a lot of thinking in his incredibly disjointed manner, and besides the fact that I needed my dictionary every page or so, it was just too... intellectual.  I mean, instead of splattering rotting brains to smithereens and rescuing enclaved survivors (we did do a little of that, but not much) we spent a lot of time in the head of Mark Spitz, with his incredibly intelligent (but incredibly obtuse) thoughts and feelings.
  This is a thinking man's zombie novel, but how many thinking men put down their Chaucer and pick up a contemporary undead horror book instead?  If I wanted to be entertained by thinking, I'd use my own freaky brain (or read an Oprah book) instead.  I read to escape the doldrums of my reality, not to step into the doldrums of someone else's.  
  So while it was good, and different, it's not what I expected or particularly in a zombie book.  But you can't argue with great writing, either.

Jan 10 - Jan 13, 2012

Day By Day Armageddon: Beyond Exile
J. L. Bourne
Horror
Published July 2010
249 pages

6.5/10

  Our hero is back, with more responsibility than ever.

  THE FUCK.  The first book in this series was definitely badass; while it seemed male-centric, the protagonist was fuckin' SMART, and I respected that.  NOW?  This book?  Buddy's transformed from clever survivalist with a military background to total military robot.  Really, he doesn't even seem human anymore.  He's completely detached from everything going on around him; even though he's got a hot survivor woman who wants a piece, she's relegated to being mentioned a few times in a couple of paragraphs.  Like I said, our protagonist is a robot.  No fun.
  On top of that, this book is so liberally encrusted with military terms that, half the time, I had no idea what the fuck I was reading about.  I'm not an idiot; I know the difference between a pistol and a shotgun, but an MP4 and an MP5?  Why?  What can't the author just focus on one?  Why does the protagonist have to have both in this book?   Does it really matter that he has the first, gets the second, and then debates between the two without really giving any pertinent info on either one?  Totally unnecessary.  And then they go into experimental weaponry and technology... I was totally lost and just ended up feeling ambivalent about it after a while.  You want to throw dozens of technical terms at me without even a goddamn diagram to help me?  Fine.  See this?

Now I'm I'm just skimming, dude.
  I felt like there were some really rad plot lines that were going to be developed; we got the first little bit of them, I got all excited about some real action, and then... NADA.  Maybe the author is saving the good stuff for his next book, but I don't think I'll be running out to the bookstore to get it.  You know what this book gets from me?  One of these:

Because it got my hopes up for another badass book, turned the protagonist into a robot, started to get into some seriously interesting plot lines and then left me hanging, and didn't even bother to refer me to Future Weapons so I could grasp at least an IDEA of what the fuck the author kept going on and on about.

Jan 6 - Jan 9, 2012

Day By Day Armageddon
J. L. Bourne
Horror
Published Sep 29, 2009   
263 pages

8/10

  A military man faces the Zombie Apocalypse, and must do whatever necessary to ensure the preservation of himself, and his soul.

  This is one of the first zombie books I've read where the human protagonist isn't a complete mess of an idiot. 
  This guy is a military man, intent on survival and actually possessing the skills to make it happen.  He knows how to handle guns, clear a room, fly a plane, and rescue others who aren't as adept at fending off the undead as himself.  He's willing to take risks I wouldn't (Rescue trapped survivors?  Well, those zombie hordes look mighty hungry, and my bunker here at Chapters is pretty cozy... maybe I'll just turn this radio off...) but this wasn't like most zombie books where I would find myself yelling, "Why are you leaving safety to look for your wife?!  She was trapped in the city 100 miles away when this whole thing went down 3 weeks ago!  You're going to get eaten, or lose friends who stupidly agree to go with you on this suicide mission, asshole!  In fact, I guarantee one will get bitten but hide it from all of you until the last minute, and then make an idiot 'Noble Sacrifice' to save you all, but most of you will die anyways, until there's no one left but you and possibly a sexy sidekick!  And your wife will probably be dead!  Or happy to see you, but that'll make things awkward for your sexy sidekick that you probably shared a kiss with after everyone else died.  Fuck.  This book sucks."  And though I probably just ruined every zombie book ever written out there (or ever will be written) you guys all know what I'm talking about.  In fact, our protagonist chose NOT to go looking for his parents, because he knew it would be suicide.  This is my kind of dude.  Yes, he did go looking for survivors, but based on logic and planning, not stupid love.
  Sure, the writing was a little under developed, the author repeated himself of occasion, and there were a fuckload of technical terms that meant little to me (I have never been in the military, after all) but it was such a quick easy read that all was forgiven.  I was too busy burning through this to really focus on the negative aspects, which is how a book should go.  If you're going to make a book draggy as fuck, make sure your writing skills are top-notch.  If you're new to writing and maybe have some bugs to work out, make it non-stop action so no one notices if your character thinks the same thought twice.
  Finally, a zombie book where I don't have to scream at it because the characters are idiots.  I'm sure that'll make my bus rides a lot less unnerving for the other passengers...

  Just imagine that nice little old lady is a book, and that'll be a pretty accurate representation of me reading most zombie novels.  For real.  Don't ride public transit.

Jan 3 - Jan 4, 2012

Wake Wood
K. A. John
Horror
Published 2011
295 pages

7/10

  In the tiny Irish village of Wake Wood, the residents welcome newcomers only if they're a certain type of people, as they live in a very... special place.  Patrick and Louise have just lost their daughter in a horrific accident, and are living shattered shells of their former lives, barely hanging on to any semblance of their former selves.  And Wake Wood is welcoming them with open arms.

  This book is what would happen if Pet Sematary and Village of the Damned got together for a cheap one night stand and had a baby made of paper and ink.  Literally.  Only the names seem to be different.  I mean, I don't think I can really complain; when I read the synopsis on the back of the book, I thought, "This sounds just like Pet Sematary!  I LOVED that shit!" and then whisked it up to the insane Boxing Day line-up at Chapters, where I then witnessed a crazy lady scream, "I'm not leaving without my KKKOOOOOBBBBBOOOOO!" and then got chased by the managers and security as she ran screaming through the store, and eventually got dragged out to the waiting police.    It was a good time.
  The problem is, because I've already seen and read Pet Sematary, and seen (but not read) Village of the Damned (I've actually seen that one multiple times, because hot ass Kirstie Alley is hot) I was easily able to predict where the story was going.  I mean, I pretty much figured out where shit was going once I read the back, so I just had to wait for the book to catch up with my *ahem* stunning intellect, which, luckily, didn't take too long.  It was a super quick and easy read, and it required very little brain power to get through it, so even when I gapped out over the course of a page or two, all I had to do was a quick re-skim to get the gist of what was happening.  I literally blasted through this in less than 24 hours, which is pretty fuckin' good for me these days.  Hey, I have a busy social life, including themes such as ferret playdates, Thirsty Thursday, and recovering from Thirsty Thursday. 
  There was enough blood and guts and horror to get me interested, and it was weird enough to keep me going.  There was most definitely some bizarre scenarios being played out on the regular, and I like weird.  I wouldn't have been interested in the first place if there was no weirdness to draw me in.  And I have to admit, K. A. John can paint a ruined, crushed, and utterly destroyed female protagonist pretty damn well.
  The part that bothered me the most though ( besides the blatant disregard for animal welfare) was that it ended so abruptly and without explanation.  It was as though the author was under deadline, was supposed to have the last 50 pages done for the next day, got shit-hammered (possibly at Thirsty Thursday?) and threw the epilogue together while she was hungover.  It made little sense, and would have benefited from longer treatment.
  My opinion?  A good beach or camping read, but hardly literature.
   

Aug 26 - Aug 31, 2011

The Ones That Got Away
Stephen Graham Jones
Horror Anthology
Published 2010
251 pages

10/10

  This excellent anthology of Jones' collected work ranges from humorous, to disgusting, to outright heartbreaking, all while maintaining a common theme of superb originality.

  In "Father, Son, Holy Rabbit", a father and son are lost in the woods during a snowstorm, and must do everything necessary to survive.
  What a great way to start the collection - I found it to be a perfect representation of Jones' style.  He turned a horrific, but everyday situation into a horror story, with a gut-wrenching revelation at the very last moment that was still ambiguous enough to make everything that was happening feel kind of dreamy and surreal.  I liked this one in particular because it was so eerie, and kind of beautiful, in a really disgusting way.  Really, REALLY disgusting.

  In "Till the Morning Comes", a young boy is terrorized by his Uncle's Grateful Dead posters.

 
  I'm just going to start this off by saying that Grateful Dead posters are not scary for me, per se.  In the light of day, anyways.  But my buddy has a huge Grateful Dead beach towel from my workplace tacked up on the wall, across from his bed.  If I had that creepin' on me during my sleepy time, I'd be having some pretty messed up dreams.  For a kid?  Wow.  I have to assume that all kids are already living in a constant state of trippin' balls (If you've ever watched a show for really little kids, you'll understand what I mean) so I'd think this kind of ornamentation would have to do a number on their impressionable little brains.  So I can emphasize.  I'd be scared too.
  But this one was almost TOO ambiguous for me; I had no idea where it was going.  I didn't actually know who the antagonist was.  I wasn't quite sure what elements I was supposed to be focusing on for horror expectations.
  What saved it and made it enjoyable for me was the superb writing skill.  The imagery was top notch, and everything came together and whalloped you at the end.

  In "The Sons of Billy Clay", a couple of prison guards discuss a very unique rodeo bull.
  I don't think I got this one.  I mean, I understand what happened physically, but I don't understand the how, or especially the why.  Definitely too ambiguous.  The characters were also hard to relate to because they were so mercurial - maybe they were supposed to be surprising, but in a short story, when a character has little time to develop and acts erratically, it hard not to see it as a continuity or convenience (as in deux ex machina") issue.   I just couldn't get a good handle on either of the guards , or the story itself.

  A couple of teenage girls go to extreme lengths to become "So Perfect".
  This was so macabrely (Is that a word?  Spell check doesn't think so, but Google does) hilarious to start out, and could have continued on in that vein and still been a good funny story; but instead it veered off into the realm of completely grotesque, and ended just disgustingly - which is just the way I like my literature.

  In "Lonegan's Luck", a traveling salesman offers his unique wares to some very eager towns.
  I've already read this before in another anthology, and normally I don't particularly enjoy reading things more than once, as I get too antsy to get to the end that I know is coming.  This was actually just as entertaining as the first time I read it, which was an unexpected and pleasant surprise.  In my opinion, that means it's better than just good.
  It seemed really complete and straightforward - it had all the necessary elements of information at the right moments, so it was easy to follow and get into.
  When I read in the notes that Jones would consider doing a Lonegan collection, I was totally stoked; I would snatch that shizz up in a heartbeat!  I love the character, and I LOVED this story.  Bring on the Lonegan book!

  Two youngins and an ex-police dog come face to face with REAL "Monsters" during the summer in a quaint vacation town.
  This was AWFUL.  Not awful bad though; I mean awful as in you felt awful reading it because it was so nice to begin with, and it just kept creeping and creeping up on you as you got closer and closer to the end, until it all got to be almost too much.  By the culmination, it had all happened so fast that it was almost overwhelming, because it was so sad and disturbing.  Any story that takes you from a pair of gradeschoolers walking the neighbor's friendly dog, to... well... all that horror that happened at the end... It'll definitely do a number on any reader's psyche.

  There's far worse things than just being shipwrecked when you find yourself on "Wolf Island". 
  I basically thought this story was over before it really even began.  "OK, lone werewolf on an Island.  Yawn."  Then it just went completely out of this realm to conclude with an ending that defies all author formula.  Totally bizarre elements with a strange plot to bring them all together.  Definite points for creativity.

  In "Teeth", a detective bites off more than he can chew (See what I did there?  Ha ha, aren't I the witty one) when he takes a case revolving around owl shit, severed fingers, and an amputee.
  Honestly, this was so surreal and cryptic that I just got kind of lost, and found myself reading words one after the other, as opposed to reading an actual story.  The final scene though, that was a doozy, and my experience with the work as a whole didn't take away from the ending, if that makes any sense at all.

  In "Raphael", a group of misfits take turns trying to give themselves the ultimate scare, and unexpectedly succeed with dire consequences.
  This has got to have been one of the EERIEST scenes in literary history.  I'd equate it to the first time I saw that dead kid climb out of the TV in "The Ring". 

  I won't ruin it for you, but if you've read this, and I wholeheartedly suggest that you do, you'll know exactly what scene I'm talking about.  Ugh.  Just thinking about it gives me the willies.  And not the good kind. 
  Really, the whole story is remarkable in it's entirety.  Good show.

  The "Captain's Lament" is a story as old as any in our society.
  This one was BADASS.  Again, as with the previous one, but even more so, I can't tell you SFA (that's Sweet Fuck All for all you uninformed types) about this without ruining the whole thing.  But I can tell you this: it was fantastically written, with a great protagonist, and a concept that BLEW MY FRICKIN' MIND, MAN.  Loved it!  It was so clear, so concise, and so utterly sad, especially in comparison to it's well known literary (and oral) counterpart.  Now I bet you're REALLY wondering...

  If you're lost in the woods, and come across "The Meat Tree", you might want to think twice before you decide to sample it's offerings.
  I love how this starts off with one premise, and then leads you somewhere completely different right under your nose. 
  It was a little obscure at the end, but it was cleared up for me, for the most part, once I put all the info from the story AND the notes together.

  "The Ones Who Got Away" aren't necessarily the luckiest.
  As soon as you started this, from the very first sentence, you KNEW something awful was coming.  It's just that you can't imagine how awful.  It's not even the supernatural kind of horror, it's just plain old, totally probable, every day horror.  Disturbing as fuck, I say.
  It helped that it was so refreshingly clear; it was simple to understand, and it was so much more visceral because you could get right into it.  Great idea, great story.

  In "Crawlspace", a man is slowly being tortured by his inner demons, his conscience, and maybe by something more dangerous.
  I really got into this last story.  The characters were very real, very believable, which is so huge when reading anything.  You want to be able to understand them, feel what they're feeling, so you can just get lost in what's happening.  This was just mesmerizing because the main character was so SO developed.
  The end got a little out there for me, and I may not quite have gotten all there was to be got, but Jones proved with this that he could just as easily write straight fiction (you know, the kind Oprah likes).  What I'm saying is, he's skilled enough not to have to rely on gore to get entertainment points.  But I'm ecstatic that he chose this genre.  Because the imagery that he puts out... Jesus.  It's dark as hell, and it's GOOD.

  To top it all off, Jones included notes on all of his stories.  I LOVE it when authors do this.  It ties everything together, usually answers all those questions you've got wiggling around after the story is finished, and you just get to get into their head space.  Neat-O.  I'm glad he did this, and the notes are totally worth extra brownie points.

  All in all, this was  great collection.
  While a little too generally ambiguous for my personal taste, I recognize great writing when I see it.  Jones gives me everything I want in a reading experience: original ideas, characters I can identify with, and therefore care about, disturbing imagery, and always a punch at the end to make sure the story is smashed into your brain and leaves an impression.   Seriously, this guy is the master of great endings.
  And when I finished the book, I had a legit case of the heebie-jeebies.
  Stephen Graham Jones?  Good work. 
  Although all your stories start on the wrong page number.
  Or is that just to mess with me?
 

May 19 - May 24, 2011

Just Before Night
Joe Tonzelli & Anthony Giangregorio
Horror/Zombie Anthology
Published 2010
177 pages

8.5/10

  A collection of snippits detailing a zombie outbreak from the perspective of ordinary, county-type citizens.

  I LOVE me some zombies - as the most plausible, and therefore scariest monster, they freak me out, which means I always pick up zombie books when I get the chance.  The only problem is that when you've read one zombie book, you've kind of read them all.  For the most part, it's the same formula: people eating other people that don't want to be eaten.  Generally there aren't really going to be any groundbreaking shockers, so it's up to the author to draw me in with a character driven plot, believable dialogue, and writing that is at least good, if not above average.  If you can throw some really innovative gore in, I'm laughing all the way to the army surplus store for non-perishable canned food and porno for my bunker.  But I digress.  What I'm trying to say is that all those elements need to come together to draw me in and keep me interested in a book where I would otherwise know the general plot.
  Choosing this book was a gamble, because independent publishing usually goes one of two ways - it's either tragically awful, or fantastically good.  To my pleasant surprise, this one was the latter.  And while it is an anthology (which I love in the zombie genre) all the stories are interconnected via the county the story is set in, which is even more awesome!  It had all the elements I need in a good zombie book.
  The opening story, "Bill", was OK enough.  It could've been the opening for just about any zombie book, and it wasn't particularly remarkable.  But it wasn't... bad.
  "The Diner", however, was BADASS.  As one of the longer stories, if gave me time to get to know and care about the characters, who are all average Joes, including our reluctant hero.  There were ridiculous amounts of violence, including the breaking of one of the cardinal rules of classic horror cinema, which is always delightfully obscene.  And it ended with a bang, both figuratively and literally.
  "The Awakening" was just about as good as "The Diner" but for the fact that I didn't particularly care much for any of the protagonists, as they were all cunty whiners.  Otherwise, I really enjoyed it because it felt like I was seeing the back story behind every zombie movie scene where the frightened, desperate family bursts in.  Very cool.
  "The Picnic" left me cold.  It consisted of wieners stumbling around in the dark with little action to draw the story along.  No thank you.
  Finishing it all up, "Right Between the Eyes" was pretty bang on.  As the longest of the stories, there was plenty of time for development, as well as lots of action and suspense.  Unfortunately, the main protagonist was the kind of gruff, older, man-in-charge type that I couldn't really identify with, and the ending made him out to be that much more of an unpleasant dick face.  The culmination was all wrong, in my humble opinion.  But it was definitely different.
  Just Before Night was a fun read, and a fairly original zombie book, without going into ridiculous scenarios.

Mar 24 - Apr 11, 2011

Zombie, Ohio
Scott Kenemore
Horror
Published 2011
240 pages

3/10

    When the Zombie Apocalypse goes down, I know how I'll handle it (run, shoot, hole up at Chapters) - but how will the zombies react?  What will be going through their minds (besides my bullets, ha)?  Zombie, Ohio shows us how it plays out for one sentient member of the undead.
  
    This book took me two weeks to read.
    TWO.  WEEKS.
    Reading is my life, my being, my identity, and I've had two shitty books one right after the other.  I've seen so many goddamn movies on Netflix over these last two books... I actually watched 'Spawn' last night before getting up the gumption to pick this up again.  John Leguizamo in clown makeup is what it took for me to finish this book.  Yeah.  It was THAT bad.
    I was just so uninspired by Zombie, Ohio.  Every aspect of it seemed... retarded.  Yes, retarded, at least in comparison to great (or even good) reading.
    The characters were immature.  It wasn't that they acted like a bunch of fresh-out-of-High-School girls tittering away in a corner, pointing and laughing, and cuntishly excluding me from a staffer bowling night (you know who you are), it was that they weren't fleshed out (ha!) in any way.  No one was really brave, or stupid, or whiny, or nurturing.  The characters instead were a collection of actions and phrases suitable at the time to move the storyline in a certain direction.  The dialogue was all the same tone and style; throw a sentence out and it could have been anyone talking.  No one stuck with any particular traits, not even our protagonist (whom we spend ALL of our time with) the sentient zombie Peter Mellor.
    You'd think that somewhere within 240 some-odd pages ol' Pete would get himself some... I dunno... opinions, personality, a mind of his own, maybe.  He's so... wishy-washy.  And too easily influenced.  He's the type of weak-ass character that would jump off the Brooklyn Bridge just because all the other undead boys and girls were doing it.  He likes humans, he hates humans, he eats humans, he helps humans; whatever.  There's hardly any rhyme or reason to it, other than the fact that he assumes he wants to bang his old girlfriend.  He isn't even driven by the lust for BRRAAAAAAIIIIII-NNNNSSS.  He just goes in the direction that the author sends him to best drive the plot along.
    Though I use the term "plot" loosely.  The story is basically just a collection of... undead evolutionary points.  Shock at becoming a zombie.  The revels of the zombie lifestyle.  The eventual redemption that ultimately comes at the end of your average "summer beach read!" throwaway book that Cosmo endlessly touts... but with zombies.  And there's this lame subtheme where we're supposed to wonder "Who murdered the zombie?" that was brought up maybe three times and therefore I didn't really give a shit about.
    There was also this weird device the author used, kind of akin to Stephen King's trademark style (to me anyways) where every paragraph or so, Kenemore threw in  a little aside in parenthesis.  They were so plentiful though, that sometimes there were parenthesis within parenthesis.  Like here:
    " 'You look like a walking bomb,' Vanessa said at one point.  It was a lousy analogy.  (Yeah, I thought, I'm carrying a lot of guns...  Just like a bomb.  [Still, I took the essence of her point.  It was a lot of firepower.])"
    On that page alone, I counted FOUR asides in parenthesis, and I'm counting my above  example as one... example.  Fuck.  I'm all for witty asides, but they happened with such relentless fury that they became jarring at times.  JARRING!  And yes, I'm aware that it's a device I employ on the regular, but I don't presume myself to be a published author with glowing recommendations all over my shizz.  And I don't have an editor.  Or a big fat author cheque, either (I'd accept one though).
    Sure, there was gore, and ask anyone who knows me - gore is the lube that helps my brain run smoothly.  I don't just like it, I REQUIRE it.  Possibly to live.  But one cannot subsist on gore (or lube) alone.  I require sustenance!  Meaty, thick, throbbing, turgid SUSTENANCE.  This book had little.  Maybe three inches worth.
    As a whole, it was an immature work.  Not up to my standards, but I could see how it could amuse some folk.
    Honestly, I almost feel like I need an Oprah book or best seller to fulfill my need for multi-faceted characters and a strong storyline.  Gah.

Feb 5 - Feb 17, 2011

Dust
Joan Frances Turner
Horror
Published September 2010
474 pages

2/10

    In the near future, zombies, although still terrifying, have become a commonality.  However, where our story begins, the Zombie Plague is evolving into an epidemic of far greater consequence, for us and for them.  And did I mention, the zombies are emo?  Now THAT'S a terrifying plague of the undead!
    Like a Libertine college student with a successful career ahead of her and a dopey boyfriend who can't work a condom, every brain cell was screaming "ABORT!  ABORT!" before I was halfway through this story, it was so dull and insipid.  But, like a Catholic schoolgirl with overbearing parents and a boyfriend who really REALLY loves her, I let my moral complex get the best of me and I carried on until the bitter end. 
    I haven't NOT finished a book since I was 16 (it was Kushiel's Dart - long book, longer story).  Honestly though, this has to be the most disappointing zombie book I've ever read.  I mean, our author graduated from BROWN and HARVARD LAW.  Are they letting just anyone in, now?  Because this book had to be written by the saddest, most lonely emo EVER.  She made ZOMBIES EMO.  All our undead characters did was stand about mournfully or indignantly (or indignantly mournful) and talk about their feelings and the shitty situations that suck for them.  "I'm so angry the new leader killed the old leader."  "I miss being alive, and my family; if only I could see them again..."  "One of our zombie companions died; lets bury him and have a funeral and cry about it."  "Eating people just feels so wrong!" ad nauseam.  You know what zombies should be talking about?  BRRRAAAAIIIIIIIIIIII-IIIIIIIINNNNNNSSSS. 
    The only emotional plot line of any interest was the zombie romance (for the obvious reasons, of course; i.e. zombie fetuses) and it didn't even pan out (and don't get me started on how much that unexpected exit disappointed me). 
    The book only started to pick up three quarters of the way through with the somewhat original storyline arc, but by then it was too little, too late for an attempted redemption. 
    This was probably the saddest excuse for a zombie novel I've ever read.  You could easily replace any word related to the word "zombie" with "emo" and any reference to flesh eating with drinking black coffee and smoking cloves and menthols.  GOD, this book was lame.

Dec 20 - Dec 28 2010

The New Dead
Edited by Christopher Golden
Zombie Horror Anthology
Published 2010
384 pages

7.5/10

  A veritable cornucopia of Zombie tales, all with a slightly (or not-so-slightly) different bent.
  The New Dead is exactly what it implies: a new take on Zombie stories; less blood, more brains (the using kind, not the eating kind).
  I can see why they started with "Lazarus" (the whole Christ being the beginning of time, ergo Lazarus being the beginning of the book parallel kind of deal) but I probably would have liked it more if I was more familiar with the bible.
  I liked "What Masie Knew" for how pitiable the Zombies were.  The scene with Johnny Boy is INTENSE and I highly recommend this story for that scene as a stand alone.  Unfortunately, I saw the "twist" coming a mile away.
  "Copper" was a little hard to grasp because of it's ambiguity (stylistically and metaphorically) but it WORKED (for once) in this case, so I liked it.
  I did not, however, like "In the Dust".  It took me 4 DAYS to slog through.  So British.  So dry.  So dull.  No action.  No fun.
  "Life Sentence" was pretty cheesy, and not gore cheesy, but teen novel cheesy.   Overpoweringly so, even.  It made everything predictable and it was totally uninspiring.
  "Delice" had a beautiful setting, and was very well written, with enough gore to keep me entertained.  It was one of those stories that I wished was longer.
  "The Wind Cries Mary" is rad for the title alone.  It was also despairing (emotionally stirring is a plus in my books) and had a pleasantly surprising (not because it was pleasant but because it was unexpected) twist.  I like a twist to sneak up behind me send shivers down my spine, not bash my over the head with it's obviousness.
  One of the longest and best in the bunch was "Family Business".  There was a real opportunity to become invested in the story and see some real, honest-to-goodness character development.  And it was a fairly realistic (I think) take on what could happen should the Zombie Plague strike.
  "The Zombie Who Fell From the Sky" was one of those weird, ambiguous, not-my-bag-AT-ALL kind of stories.  Ugh.
  "My Dolly" was written well enough (suicide in the Zombie Apocalypse interests me for some morbid reason) but besides the obvious that actually occurred, there wasn't really much of an ending that I got.  I just felt kind of confused.
  I couldn't really identify with the protagonist in "Second Wind", so it really kind of fell flat for me.
  "Closure Limited" was nice because Max Books does peeks into people's lives so dang well.  Everyone is always so realistic.
  Super disjointed and vague, "Among Us" was uber lame, but for the last anecdote.
  "Ghost Trap" was alright because you felt bad for the protagonist, but it was also lame because it was unrealistic (TWO zombie outbreaks over the span of someone's lifetime?!  Yeah, right!) and that kind of put a taint on the whole thing.
  "The Storm Door" was... OK.  A reasonable twist, but that's all that was noteworthy.
  "Kids and Their Toys" was, overall, the most disturbing out of the lot, and probably the most thought provoking.  Finding cruelty and good old-fashioned human evil in such everyday occurrences is a trait I love in authors.
  "Shooting Pool" was a genius addition to this collection.  It was written well, and acted as a good balance to weigh the other stories against.
  Though I generally don't like war stories, "Weaponized"  because it focused on the people (the living ones AND the dead ones) and I really liked the ending.
  To cap it all off, "Twittering From the Circus of the Dead" was neat and fast-paced.  The circus was wonderfully gruesome and the ending was decent.
  Overall, The New Dead could have employed more gore, guts, and horror, but it was a valiant thrust at a different style of Zombie novel.

Dec 14 - Dec 19 2010

Pariah
Bob Fingerman
Horror
Published August 2010
365 pages

7.5/10

  It's your typical end-of-the-world Zombie Apocalypse: a group of folks are holed up in an apartment building and suffering from in-fighting, cabin fever, an overly aggressive closeted penis-touche that can't cope with his bromance who makes up for it by being a huge douchebag, and slow torturous starvation.  Now lets throw in a freak with Zombie immunity and see who screws it up first!
  There aren't too many places one can go with the Zombie Apocalypse: You're either Team Evade and Survive or Team Pursue and Unlive.  You're either a person doing people stuff (running in terror, looking for a missing loved one, being a wiener or possibly badass) or a Zombie doing undead stuff (eating brains, moaning, shuffling slowly or possibly fast).  Basically.
  So your Zombie story can either be a good old-fashioned (haha, "old-fashioned" ) pow pow shoot-em-up "I'm going to cross hell's half acre to find my lost family/cure/barista from Starbucks who always remembered to put extra cinnamon in my latte and, oh yeah, had a sweet rack, I mean, those things had to be Double D's AT LEAST" while evading Zombie scum kind of adventure story, or you can try to throw together something a little more original.  Pariah gave it a shot.
  I mean, immunity; that's pretty new.  It's a good concept.  And with the book being so well written, it definitely could have worked out.  It was alright, but it had some problems for me.  First off, just because it's an original concept, it doesn't mean that we have to eschew ALL traditional Zombie vehicles and skip out on so much action.  There were a few awesome gory deaths, most of which where surprisingly unexpected, but not a lot else to get the old blood pumping.  There was a whole lot of blah blah blah and soul searching.  And for how much blah blah blah there was, the whole immunity thing wasn't very well explained at all.  She's a crack baby?  OK, fine.  But how is she the only one like this so far?  Our locale is the upper East Side... there HAS to be more than one crack baby.  Hell, there has to be more than one mutant crack baby.  But there's only Mona.   Unrealistic!  And I felt it could have ended on a less cheesy note.  It should have been more like the illustration on the last page, and less like a modern-day Norman Rockwell painting.
  But to be fair, the actual bits of horror that I did find were actually pretty gross.  Eddie's behavior in general was particularly note-worthy.  And the art was fantastic.
  So while it was technically a well done book, it was just too drawn out for me.
  It's hard to find a happy medium between intelligence and action in Zombie fiction.