If there’s a monster that’s been underserved in the horror fiction market, it’s the zombie. There exists a wealth of zombie movies, but zombie books? Of late, Brian Keene has tried to help remedy that with THE RISING and its sequel, CITY OF THE DEAD, and now you can add another one to the short list: THE UNDEAD: ZOMBIE ANTHOLOGY.
Pay no attention to its Gahan Wilson-esque cover, because THE UNDEAD is the real deal, at turns creepy, thrilling, funny and – perhaps most importantly, given the subject at hand – gory. If you’ll pardon the pun, I devoured it. Edited by D.L. Snell and Elijah Hall, the collection presents 23 tales of the living dead, most penned by unknown/up-and-coming writers.
The influence of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD director George A. Romero is wildly (and rightfully) apparent on this one. Many adhere closely to the rules set forth in his DEAD quadrilogy, like Vince Churchill’s suburban-set “Hell and Back” and Eric Shapiro’s claustrophobic “Donovan’s Leg.” This would get old quick, if not for the authors’ decision to put a new perspective. For example, Brent Zirnheld’s “Ann at Twilight” takes the WAIT UNTIL DARK approach, centering on a blind woman left to fight for survival alone, while Rob Morganbesser wonders how Frankenstein’s monster would manage against the walking dead in “Undead Prometheus.” Meanwhile, “Dead World,” by Meghan Jurado, presents itself in the form of a daily diary, not from one of the apocalypse’s survivors, but from one of the zombies, in search of fresh meat. There’s even a spousal love story, in the form of C.M. Shevlin’s “Cold as He Wishes,” complete with chilling coda. Others set their stories in a range of settings, from a dank prison to outer space.
For a lighter touch, Russell Calhoun’s “Hotline” centers on those who man the phones for reporting zombie sightings, while Mike Watt gives us a glimpse of zombie-infestation-as-sitcom in “The Dead Life,” in which two warring exterminators of the undead – one a Mohawked toughie, the other an S&M-charged nun – bicker over a basement full of walking corpses as their client just hopes her soufflé won’t fall with all the ruckus. Both work surprisingly well, especially as comedic relief between the more hardcore offerings.
“13 Ways of Looking at the Dead” offers just that: a baker’s dozen of mini-stories that also work together well as a whole, thanks to a last-minute wrap-up by author Eric Pape. This is preceded by perhaps my favorite piece in the collection: E.W. Norton’s “Two Confessions.” This story is a rather ingenious juxtaposition of two confessions written a thousand years apart, one a letter from an English captain telling of an unbelievable discovery in India, the other a suicide note by a frat boy not wishing to go to jail for the murder of his girlfriend. Slowly learning how the two intersect is half the fun, eventually smashing together in a manner befitting “The Monkey’s Paw.”
As with any anthology, there are a couple of stories that either fall flat or go nowhere, but luckily, they are far outweighed by the good. It’s recommended for any horror fan, a small-press collection that’s as delectable as … well, brains! Eat it up. –Rod Lott
Buy it at Amazon or Permuted Press.
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