Zombies: Shambling Through the Ages

by Steve Berman (Editor), Victoria Janssen, Alex Dally MacFarlane

It's a wonder humanity ever survived into the twenty-first century. Even Neanderthals knew to bury the dead beneath stones to prevent corpses from rising. Ancient civilizations feared slain warriors would return from battlefields, medieval physicians worried that bodies would rise from plague pits, many cultures buried the dead at crossroads to prevent the dead from walking. In Zombies: Shambling Through the Ages, editor Steve Berman has collected stories that reveal the threat of revenants and the living dead is far from recent. From the Bronze Age to World War II, this anthology guides us through millennia of thrills, chills, kills, carnage, horror, and havoc wreaked throughout history by the walking dead.

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

368 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2013

About the author

Some tidbits about me...

I turned down a scholarship to Miskatonic University because I heard of the high rate of incidents against the student population.

I briefly worked for Omni Consumer Products in their Marketing Department. Great benefits, nice cafeteria, sadly too prone to executive whim.

Last year I stayed at the noted Mauna Pele resort in Hawaii. The accommodations were impressive but my traveling companion disappeared soon after wanting to attend a pig roast.

I've slept with one minor porn star and with a guy who later became one.

And I happen to have written some fanfic that inspired the memorable holodeck scene in Star Trek: Hidden Frontiers episode "Vigil"

Reviews

[H. Anne Stoj · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best anthologies I've read in a while. The zombies were really just a secondary element, maybe a theme, that brings the stories together as a whole. Every story was compelling. There were some great flash pieces that really had emotional impact.

[Anastasia Guiler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was not impressed with how many feminist figures somehow ended up being zombies in this book.
One maybe but when you make a point of it, starts to get a little weird.

[Aine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whew... It was work getting through this. The two stars are for the few stories that were awesome, in particular those by Elaine Pascale, Jonathan Maberry, Joe McKinney, Ed Kurtz and Stephen Graham Jones.

Mostly, this was a weird jumble of a sub genre I was sick of a decade ago, and more than one story had detailed descriptions of children being raped and murdered, which is definitely not something I want to read about.