In assembling THE NEW DEAD: A ZOMBIE ANTHOLOGY, Christopher Golden not only has rounded up a bunch of original stories from a bunch of big names, but also has restored my faith in the viability of the undead-fic genre. No same ol’ same ol’, formula-following entries here; in the idea department, the contributors actually live up to the “new” of the title.
John Connolly kicks things off with his take on perhaps the first zombie story in the history of the world: “Lazarus.” It’s your one and only warning that the contents of NEW DEAD aren’t itching to play it safe — a fact made painfully clear in the next at bat, “What Maisie Knew,” in which David Liss’ narrator keeps a female zombie as a sex slave, but worries she might recall their past together — more specifically, the circumstances surrounding her passing.
Legendary comics scribe Stephen R. Bissette treads darker territory with the lowlife players of his “Copper,” while Brian Keene examines lasting love when a husband pledges his eternal devotion to his wife, even in her reanimated state, in the touching, albeit twisted “The Wind Cries Mary.”
M.B. Hombler is a name that is new to me, but he makes quite an impression with “The Zombie Who Fell from the Sky.” It’s about just that, and the cruelty that humans greeting this strange sight then inflict. It asks, who’s the real monster? Its brethren can be found later in “Kids and Their Toys” by James A. Moore; imagine STAND BY ME, only if the boys decided to conduct experiments on the body they stumbled across.
For a change of pace, Derek Nikitas goes a little crime-capery in “My Dolly,” in which a guy just trying to do his job — retrieve a frozen body from a butcher shop — is met with obstacle after obstacle. Aimee Bender gets poetic with “Among Us,” one of the collection’s shortest and most literary pieces. And also one of the best. It’s followed by a good old-fashioned ghost story in Rick Hautala’s water-based “Ghost Trap.”
In terms of unique structure, Joe Hill has that sewn up with “Twittering from the Circus of the Dead,” which is set up — even visually — as a disaffected, rebellious teen’s Twitter feed during a dysfunctional family vacation. But if I were casting my ballot for the anthology’s best story overall, Joe R. Lansdale would win it handily. His “Shooting Pool” made me break out in a sweat. Ironically, it’s not really a zombie tale. Golden even admits as much in the introduction, but the story is so expertly told, I don’t care if it’s guilty of theme deviation.
Other notable names shuffling about THE NEW DEAD include David Wellington, Mike Carey, Jonathan Maberry, Tim Lebbon and Kelley Armstrong, none of whom are strangers to strange fiction. Even Max Brooks pops in for a few minutes with “Closure, Limited,” set in his WORLD WAR Z milieu. All are part of an outstanding volume that breathes life back into an otherwise ailing subgenre. —Rod Lott
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• BLOODSTAINED OZ by Christopher Golden and James A. Moore
• BRITISH INVASION edited by Christopher Golden, Tim Lebbon and James A. Moore
• FOUR DARK NIGHTS by Bentley Little, Douglas Clegg, Christopher Golden and Tom Piccirilli
• HELLBOY: ODDEST JOBS edited by Christopher Golden
• THE HISS OF ESCAPING AIR by Christopher Golden
• THE MYTH HUNTERS: BOOK ONE OF THE VEIL by Christopher Golden
• PRINCE OF STORIES: THE MANY WORLDS OF NEIL GAIMAN by Hank Wagner, Christopher Golden and Stephen R. Bissette
Related posts:
- The Undead: Zombie Anthology
- British Invasion
- The Mammoth Book of Zombie Comics
- The Everlasting
- Dead Cat’s Traveling Circus of Wonders and Miracle Medicine Show
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Female zombie as sex slave?! Dammit, I had that story idea 15 years ago. Oh well. This collection does sound pretty good, I hafta admit.
I agree with your total assessment of the book, but disagree with your assessment of certain stories. Family Business was by far the best of the tales in the book. It’s a great tale of two brothers coming full circle in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. I thought Landsdales story was good, but had no business in the book and was a waste of pages, as was Hombler and Bender’s tales. Both felt like bad and lazy writing in that order.