The Book of All Flesh

All Flesh Must Be Eaten #1

by James Lowder (Editor), Matt Forbeck, L.H. Maynard

The dead have risen. God help the living.

It's too late to run. The zombies are everywhere. They stalk through urban jungles and across the carefully manicured lawns of suburbia. They shudder to unlife on the bloodiest battlefields of the Civil War and in the deepest tunnels of interstellar mining colonies. They lurk on your street, in you company boardroom, in your own bedroom. And they hunger.

Genres: Zombies, Horror, Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies

320 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2001

About the author

aka Richard Awlinson, J D Lowder, Jim Lowder

James Lowder has worked extensively in fantasy and horror fiction on both sides of the editorial blotter. He's authored several best-selling dark fantasy novels, including Prince of Lies and Knight of the Black Rose, and has had short fiction appear in such anthologies as Shadows Over Baker Street and Genius Loci. He's penned comic book scripts for several companies and the city of Boston. His book and film reviews, feature articles, and role-playing game design work can be found in such diverse publications as Amazing Stories, Milwaukee Magazine, and The New England Journal of History. As an editor, he's directed lines or series for TSR, Green Knight Publishing, Chaosium, and CDS Books. He's helmed more than twenty anthologies, including Hobby Games: The 100 Best and Curse of the Full Moon. In the media, he is a regular contributor to the Public Radio show "Lake Effect" in Milwaukee, provided werewolf lore on the TV show Weird or What? and tabletop game industry lore for the documentary The Dreams in Gary's Basement, and served as a puppeteer on the indie film Misfit Heights.

Reviews

[Jason Medina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love reading anthology books. I plan to write a few myself in the future. The last one I read was not so great, but this one was okay. I liked most of the stories. I am just not a fan of intelligent zombies and there was more than one story in here like that. Not all were bad. If told right, it could work. That being said, there are some pretty good authors who loaned their stories to this book.

[Karl Drinkwater · Rating 4 out of 5]

With any anthology you'll have a mix of stories you like, and stories you are less bothered about. In this collection of 25 zombie horror stories there were 12 that I really appreciated, enjoyed or admired, which is a greater success ratio than many other anthologies I have read. That's praise. Many of the other 13 stories I enjoyed, just not quite as much.

My favourites were:

- Consumption by Steve Eller (terse and fittingly emotionally dead)
- Susan by Robin D. Laws (incredibly nasty)
- Number of the Beast by Kenneth Lightner (interesting framing)
- Trinkets by Tobias S. Buckell (an unexpected approach to zombies)
- Prometheus Unwound by Matt Forbeck (interesting framing and concept)
- Salvation by L.H. Maynard and M.P.N. Sims (very British feel and rounded story)
- The Other Side of Theory by Daniel Ksenych (coldly scientific horror)
- Inspecting the Workers by Jim C. Hines (classic zombie fiction of science backfiring)
- Last Resort by Michael Laimo (desert-sparse writing that implies a lot)
- Same Night, Different Farmhouse by Gregory G. Kurczynski (pulp nastiness)
- The Cold, Gray Fingers of My Love by Pete D. Manison (unexpected and moon-cold)
- Scenes From a Foreign Horror Video, with Zombies and Tasteful Nudity by Mark McLaughlin (imaginative and dreamlike)

In general the collection was well edited (though there is a particular glaring zombie fiction error which appeared once here: "zombie hoards". HORDES. ZOMBIE HORDES. Hordes are large groups. Hoards are secret stores.)

Overall a mix of styles, settings, tones and outcomes gave the collection real variety. If you like zombies, you'll like this.

[Miguel Angel Pedrajas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Este recopilatorio de historias de zombies me ha dejado frío. Aunque tiene un montón de ellas, la calidad es bastante irregular, empeorando de mitad hacia el final. El problema que tiene es la poco originalidad de las propuestas y la repetición de finales similares. Aunque hay alguna historia que destaca sobre las demás, hay otras que tienen una calidad muy mediocre que incluso no he llegado a entender del todo su propuesta. Cabe destacar la historia que nos situa en una especie de san Fermín realizado en un pueblo de México, donde en lugar de toros hay zombies. Lleno de topicazos y chorradas de medio pelo.

[Bill Borre]

“Live People Don’t Understand” by Scott Edelman - Dead Emily is shocked to discover her husband poisoned her when she had believed that she died in childbirth. She returns to her husband and slays him so that his guilt no longer calls out to her.

"Consumption" by Steve Eller - wc
"Inspecting the Workers" by Jim C. Hines - wc
"Same Night, Different Farmhouse" by Gregory G. Kurczynski - wc
"Last Resort" by Michael Laimo - wc
"The Cold, Gray Fingers of My Love" by Pete D. Manison - wc
"Electric Jesus and the Living Dead" by Jeremy Zoss - wc

[Lana Brown]

This is an anthology of zombie stories. Wait, wait. It's good. Also, my only published story appears in it. "Sifting Out the Hearts of Men," written with my husband, is about a zombie invasion in the midst of the American Civil War.

[Cameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great zombie anthology. Don't read it if you're squeamish about necrophilia, though I'll charge that the story with the broad getting gang raped by zombies was distasteful.

[Brian Sammons · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice collection of zombie stories. That's all, but what more do you want?

[Thankful · Rating 4 out of 5]

Plenty of variations on zombies between behavior, locations, and reasons for reanimation. Lots of stories in this tome!

[Jacob O'connor · Rating 3 out of 5]

300 pages, and only one chase. These writers have no clue what makes zombies fun.