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Zombies: More Recent Dead
The living dead are more alive than ever! Zombies have become more than an iconic monster for the 21st They are now a phenomenon constantly revealing as much about ourselves - and our fascination with death, resurrection, and survival - as our love for the supernatural or post-apocalyptic speculation. Our most imaginative literary minds have been devoured by these incredible creatures and produced exciting, insightful, and unflinching new works of zombie fiction. We've again dug up the best stories published in the last few years and compiled them into an anthology to feed your insatiable hunger….2014 Paula Guran (P)2014 Audible Inc. Joanne Anderton, “Trail of Dead” Michael Arnzen, “Rigormarole” (poem) Marie Brennan, “What Still Abides Mike Carey, “Iphigenia in Aulis” Jacques L. Condor (Mak a Tai Meh), “Those Beneath the Bog” Neil Gaiman, “The Day the Saucers Came” (poem) Roxane Gay, “There is No ‘E' in Zombi Which Means There Can Be No You Or We” Ron Goulart, “I Waltzed with a Zombie” Eric Gregory, “The Harrowers” William Jablonsky, “The Death and Life of Bob” Shaun Jeffrey, “Til Death Do Us Part” Matthew Johnson, “The Afflicted” Stephen Graham Jones, “Rocket Man” Joy Kennedy-O'Neill “Aftermath” Caitlín R. Kiernan, “In The Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection” Nicole Kornher-Stace, “Present” Joe R. Lansdale, “The Before and The Aftermath” Shira Lipkin, “Becca at the End of the World” David Liss, “What Maisie Knew” Jonathan Maberry, “Jack & Jill” Alex Dally MacFarlane, “Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead (572-571 BCE)” Maureen McHugh, “The Naturalist” Lisa Mannetti, “Resurgam” Joe McKinney, “The Day the Music Died” Tamsyn Muir, “Chew” Holly Newstein, “Delice” Cat Rambo, “Love, Resurrected” Carrie Ryan, “What We Once Feared” Marge Simon, “The Children’s Hour” (poem) Maggie Slater, “A Shepherd of the Valley” Simon Strantzas, “Stemming the Tide” Charles Stross, “Bit Rot” Genevieve Valentine, “The Gravedigger of Konstan Spring” Carrie Vaughn, “Kitty’s Zombie New Year” Don Webb, “Pollution” Jay Wilburn, “Dead Song”
480 pages, Paperback
First published August 5, 2014
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789 people want to read
About the author
Paula Guran
97 books211 followersPaula Guran is senior editor for Prime Books. She edited the Juno fantasy imprint from its small press inception through its incarnation as an imprint of Pocket Books. She is also senior editor of Prime's soon-to-launch digital imprint Masque Books. Guran edits the annual Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror series as well as a growing number of other anthologies. In an earlier life she produced weekly email newsletter DarkEcho (winning two Stokers, an IHG award, and a World Fantasy Award nomination), edited Horror Garage (earning another IHG and a second World Fantasy nomination), and has contributed reviews, interviews, and articles to numerous professional publications.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
October 3, 2014
More zombie stories here than you can shake a gnawed leg bone at. Every zombie fan is bound to find something to their taste here. Let this anthology entertain your braaaiiinnns.....
**** Matthew Johnson, “The Afflicted”
Well, we're looking for zombies here, and this is a very good zombie story. Here, the elderly persons who were first infested with the zombie virus were packed off to FEMA quarantine camps - along with the healthy care workers assigned to look after them. To stay alive, one nurse has become a bad-ass survivor. And then, one day, she finds a little girl wandering alone in the wilderness...
** Jay Wilburn, “Dead Song”
Hmm,I wasn't much for this one. A voice-over actor narrates a script for a musicology documentary on the topic of the subgenres of performance styles that sprang up after the zombie apocalypse. Some creepy hints of doom both past and impending are thrown in, but overall I felt like it thought it was more clever than it was.
**** Mike Carey, “Iphigenia in Aulis”
Interesting! (If a little bit misleading to those who were expecting a new Mike Carey zombie story.) This is, apparently, the 'first draft' of the opening of Carey's 'Girl With All the Gifts.' Having read that novel (and loved it), it was interesting to read this and see how Carey's ideas developed and changed. For what it's worth, I like the later, expanded version better. But this is still pretty darn good.
*** Don Webb, “Pollution”
A geeky young man, obsessed with all things Japanese, is fascinated by the custom, which has become very popular in Japan, of creating zombies to use as servants and menial laborers. I very much liked the author's history regarding how and why this situation came to pass - but I found the use of pop culture tropes unconvincing. Some 'trends' of today are mentioned as being very out-of-date, but others are presented as if they're 'new' and 'cool' in this future. (I suspect that future generations of teenagers are not actually going to be obsessed with japanime.)
*** Shira Lipkin, “Becca at the End of the World”
This piece would've been more effective, I feel, if it were longer. It's only a couple of pages, and I didn't feel emotionally invested enough.
A mother records the last moments of her zombie-bitten daughter's life, for posterity...
*****Maureen McHugh, “The Naturalist”
I've read this one twice before, in McHugh's 'After The Apocalypse' and in Strahan’s ‘Best SF&F of the year #5.’ As I said last time I read it: A good, nasty zombie story, with shades of 'Escape From New York.' You can read this for free, online: http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine.
*** Alex Dally MacFarlane, “Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead (572-571 BCE)”
The translated text of Babylonian clay tablets gives an insight into a zombie plague of antiquity. Not bad, I give it points for the unusual setting - but it lacked urgency.
**** David Liss, “What Maisie Knew”
Disturbing, unpleasant, and very well done. The narrator here assures us, repeatedly, that he's really quite a nice guy. His actions, as described by himself, tell a different story. Why, after all, does he have a secret apartment with a black-market reanimate (zombie) in it?
Excellent writing, with gradual reveals leading up to a sickening climax.
I'm not sure if this story has any connection to the Henry James classic of the same title - I haven't read it.
** Stephen Graham Jones, “Rocket Man”
Zombie baseball. I'm just not that much for sports stories or teenage crushes.
*** Joe McKinney, “The Day the Music Died”
Rock star goes zombie, and his greedy manager tries to cover it up. (I just watched Episode 5 of The Strain last night, and there were some definite echoes...)
** Marge Simon, “The Children’s Hour” (poem)
Poetry is hard to judge objectively, but this didn't feel focused enough, to me.
*** Holly Newstein, “Delice”
This one reminded me a lot of American Horror Story: Coven. A voodoo priestess (I was seeing Angela Bassett) brings a girl back from the dead to wreak revenge on the slaveowning mistress (seeing Kathy Bates) who victimized her - and many others.
Oh hey! This is actually based on the same true story. I actually had no idea that AHS based these plot points on actual events: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphine... The Internet knows all.
** Joanne Anderton, “Trail of Dead”
I liked the atmosphere here (not sure why, but it reminded me a little of Stephen King's Dark Tower series). However, this story of an apprentice learning to kill zombies while hunting down the Necromancer who is animating them didn't grab me. It felt a little unfocused, and I didn't find it memorable.
*** William Jablonsky, “The Death and Life of Bob”
A tragicomic tale of office politics, taken to an extreme. It's a quick, seemingly light read, but what it has to say about human nature (nothing particularly good) will linger with you.
*** Simon Strantzas, “Stemming the Tide”
A weird mood suffuses this piece. An odd couple travels to the tourist attraction of the Bay of Fundy, known for its quickly-rising tides. But these two, filled with ambivalence and contradiction, are here for more than gawking at natural scenery... for not only tides, but the dead, shall rise...
*** Jacques L. Condor (Mak a Tai Meh), “Those Beneath the Bog”
A group of modern Native Americans on a hunting trip encounter more than moose, when they ignore an elder's warnings about an ancient curse. Sometimes, it pays to listen to an old wives' tale... Not bad; I felt the folksiness was a little overdone.
* Marie Brennan, “What Still Abides"
Parody, I felt this was. In truth, "A Dark And Stormy Night" the tortuous language of this pseudo-Scandinavian tale outdoes. Beowulf, this is not, although forsooth, wishes it so. Also, no zombie tale this. Indeed, so might one notice a vampire yet, if untangled the subjects and verbs might be. Came the end of this story not too soon.
**** Jonathan Maberry, “Jack & Jill”
It's hard to imagine terminal cancer becoming the least of a child's worries - but here, a zombie apocalypse and a perfect storm combine to do just that. A very, very dark YA story with a classic zombie scenario.
**** Caitlín R. Kiernan, “In The Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection”
Beautifully written, very disturbing piece. Power, suicide, and the ethics of experimentation are all here - along with the plain old creepy and supernatural, in this tale of a resurrectee who was... touched... by something during her time on the 'other side.' (Not really a zombie story, but I loved it anyway.)
** Michael Arnzen, “Rigormarole” (poem)
The kernel of the idea here would be nice fleshed out into a full story, but the poem itself didn't do much for me.
** Carrie Vaughn, “Kitty’s Zombie New Year”
I know Vaughn's Kitty Norville series is very popular, but I don't really see the attraction. The writing is no more than serviceable, and this is a very slight story. Kitty attends a New Year's party, a zombie shows up at the door, and Kitty's friends call upon her to solve the mystery, which takes her all of 10 minutes. The end.
**** Genevieve Valentine, “The Gravedigger of Konstan Spring”
Available for free online: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fic...
A dark fable, full of 'Oh no they didn't!' moments. A remote Alaskan town has discovered the fountain of youth. It's not quite clear why such a place would insist on advertising to hire a gravedigger, but the opening line explains: "There was something more civilized about a town that could bury its dead, if they stayed dead," so hire a gravedigger they do. Of course, then the townspeople need something for him to do... it's not right for a man to be unable to ply his trade, is it? Clever and disturbing.
**** Tamsyn Muir, “Chew”
I can't really say I 'liked' this story. It's deeply unpleasant and unhappy. But it's also extremely powerful. Set at the end of WWII, it's a tale of a boy to young to understand what he sees, a soldier, a young woman - and revenge. It's not just about the evil associated with war, but about blindness to evil.
*** Shaun Jeffrey, “Til Death Do Us Part”
This one felt very familiar to me. It's a theme I've encountered in more than one horror story. A wife returns from the dead, and her family hides her decaying animated corpse, pretending that all is normal...
*** Roxane Gay, “There is No ‘E’ in Zombi Which Means There Can Be No You Or We”
Traditional Haitian Zombis here... An obsessed young woman resorts to magic to capture the handsome playboy whose heart she fails to win through her own allure.
*** Carrie Ryan, “What We Once Feared”
Another dark YA piece. A group of teenagers are on a school trip to 'Discovery Place' when the zombie apocalypse hits. They hole up in an apartment building's penthouse, and the real discoveries they make are about who they truly are, and what makes a survivor. Quite bleak.
*** Eric Gregory, “The Harrowers”
A young man hires a guide who specializes in illegally taking people out to the wilderness to hunt zombies. But this young man says he just wants to find his dad... Of course, things go pear-shaped.
*** Lisa Mannetti, “Resurgam”
When a med student has the cadaver he's working on shockingly come back to life and attack, he does some research and uncovers a 19th-century journal in which a 'resurrection man' talks about a strange occurrence that he experienced when stealing bodies for research purposes. Is it all fiction, drug hallucination, or unpleasant truth? Ok, but I didn't think the two stories meshed well enough...
** Ron Goulart, “I Waltzed with a Zombie”
There are a great number of these stories set in old-timey, B-movie Hollywood, with horror elements. And I really just don't like any of them. Here, a hack screenwriter thinks he can use his real-life encounter with a zombie to boost his concept of a big-budget zombie musical. Eh, I'm sure some people out there will find it quite amusing.
*** Joy Kennedy-O’Neill , “Aftermath”
Begins a bit shaky (I thought), but develops into a solid story with an intriguing focus. Here, the zombie plague has been cured. Those zombies not too horribly damaged in the apocalypse which wiped out a third of the population have come back to themselves. This piece explores the social aspects of how people deal with that (or fail to...)
*** Maggie Slater, “A Shepherd of the Valley”
A weird, religious man lives alone with nothing and no one but his flock of robotically-controlled zombies surrounding him. When a young woman happens upon his hideout, she's the first living person he's spoken to in years...
*** Neil Gaiman, “The Day the Saucers Came” (poem)
A re-read. It's a bit clever.
**** Cat Rambo, “Love, Resurrected”
Fantasy tale of a resurrected military general and the sorcerer/lover who has kept her re-animated to plan his campaigns and fight his battles, alongside other grotesque undead and chimerical creations. Although her flesh is decaying from her bones, she finds her imagination captured by her chief opponent...
*** Nicole Kornher-Stace, “Present”
Teen mom and baby go on the run during a zombie apocalypse. Classic zombie genre.
*** Joe R. Lansdale, “The Hunt: Before and The Aftermath”
Well-written but deeply unpleasant story... Yes, it's a zombie story, but it's more about a marriage on the rocks, mid-life crisis, and the often-befuddling vagaries of human psychology and desire.
*** Charles Stross, “Bit Rot”
On a far-future spaceship with a post-human crew, an unexpected radiation exposure sparks a disaster that looks an awful lot like your typical zombie apocalypse.
**** Matthew Johnson, “The Afflicted”
Well, we're looking for zombies here, and this is a very good zombie story. Here, the elderly persons who were first infested with the zombie virus were packed off to FEMA quarantine camps - along with the healthy care workers assigned to look after them. To stay alive, one nurse has become a bad-ass survivor. And then, one day, she finds a little girl wandering alone in the wilderness...
** Jay Wilburn, “Dead Song”
Hmm,I wasn't much for this one. A voice-over actor narrates a script for a musicology documentary on the topic of the subgenres of performance styles that sprang up after the zombie apocalypse. Some creepy hints of doom both past and impending are thrown in, but overall I felt like it thought it was more clever than it was.
**** Mike Carey, “Iphigenia in Aulis”
Interesting! (If a little bit misleading to those who were expecting a new Mike Carey zombie story.) This is, apparently, the 'first draft' of the opening of Carey's 'Girl With All the Gifts.' Having read that novel (and loved it), it was interesting to read this and see how Carey's ideas developed and changed. For what it's worth, I like the later, expanded version better. But this is still pretty darn good.
*** Don Webb, “Pollution”
A geeky young man, obsessed with all things Japanese, is fascinated by the custom, which has become very popular in Japan, of creating zombies to use as servants and menial laborers. I very much liked the author's history regarding how and why this situation came to pass - but I found the use of pop culture tropes unconvincing. Some 'trends' of today are mentioned as being very out-of-date, but others are presented as if they're 'new' and 'cool' in this future. (I suspect that future generations of teenagers are not actually going to be obsessed with japanime.)
*** Shira Lipkin, “Becca at the End of the World”
This piece would've been more effective, I feel, if it were longer. It's only a couple of pages, and I didn't feel emotionally invested enough.
A mother records the last moments of her zombie-bitten daughter's life, for posterity...
*****Maureen McHugh, “The Naturalist”
I've read this one twice before, in McHugh's 'After The Apocalypse' and in Strahan’s ‘Best SF&F of the year #5.’ As I said last time I read it: A good, nasty zombie story, with shades of 'Escape From New York.' You can read this for free, online: http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine.
*** Alex Dally MacFarlane, “Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead (572-571 BCE)”
The translated text of Babylonian clay tablets gives an insight into a zombie plague of antiquity. Not bad, I give it points for the unusual setting - but it lacked urgency.
**** David Liss, “What Maisie Knew”
Disturbing, unpleasant, and very well done. The narrator here assures us, repeatedly, that he's really quite a nice guy. His actions, as described by himself, tell a different story. Why, after all, does he have a secret apartment with a black-market reanimate (zombie) in it?
Excellent writing, with gradual reveals leading up to a sickening climax.
I'm not sure if this story has any connection to the Henry James classic of the same title - I haven't read it.
** Stephen Graham Jones, “Rocket Man”
Zombie baseball. I'm just not that much for sports stories or teenage crushes.
*** Joe McKinney, “The Day the Music Died”
Rock star goes zombie, and his greedy manager tries to cover it up. (I just watched Episode 5 of The Strain last night, and there were some definite echoes...)
** Marge Simon, “The Children’s Hour” (poem)
Poetry is hard to judge objectively, but this didn't feel focused enough, to me.
*** Holly Newstein, “Delice”
This one reminded me a lot of American Horror Story: Coven. A voodoo priestess (I was seeing Angela Bassett) brings a girl back from the dead to wreak revenge on the slaveowning mistress (seeing Kathy Bates) who victimized her - and many others.
Oh hey! This is actually based on the same true story. I actually had no idea that AHS based these plot points on actual events: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphine... The Internet knows all.
** Joanne Anderton, “Trail of Dead”
I liked the atmosphere here (not sure why, but it reminded me a little of Stephen King's Dark Tower series). However, this story of an apprentice learning to kill zombies while hunting down the Necromancer who is animating them didn't grab me. It felt a little unfocused, and I didn't find it memorable.
*** William Jablonsky, “The Death and Life of Bob”
A tragicomic tale of office politics, taken to an extreme. It's a quick, seemingly light read, but what it has to say about human nature (nothing particularly good) will linger with you.
*** Simon Strantzas, “Stemming the Tide”
A weird mood suffuses this piece. An odd couple travels to the tourist attraction of the Bay of Fundy, known for its quickly-rising tides. But these two, filled with ambivalence and contradiction, are here for more than gawking at natural scenery... for not only tides, but the dead, shall rise...
*** Jacques L. Condor (Mak a Tai Meh), “Those Beneath the Bog”
A group of modern Native Americans on a hunting trip encounter more than moose, when they ignore an elder's warnings about an ancient curse. Sometimes, it pays to listen to an old wives' tale... Not bad; I felt the folksiness was a little overdone.
* Marie Brennan, “What Still Abides"
Parody, I felt this was. In truth, "A Dark And Stormy Night" the tortuous language of this pseudo-Scandinavian tale outdoes. Beowulf, this is not, although forsooth, wishes it so. Also, no zombie tale this. Indeed, so might one notice a vampire yet, if untangled the subjects and verbs might be. Came the end of this story not too soon.
**** Jonathan Maberry, “Jack & Jill”
It's hard to imagine terminal cancer becoming the least of a child's worries - but here, a zombie apocalypse and a perfect storm combine to do just that. A very, very dark YA story with a classic zombie scenario.
**** Caitlín R. Kiernan, “In The Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection”
Beautifully written, very disturbing piece. Power, suicide, and the ethics of experimentation are all here - along with the plain old creepy and supernatural, in this tale of a resurrectee who was... touched... by something during her time on the 'other side.' (Not really a zombie story, but I loved it anyway.)
** Michael Arnzen, “Rigormarole” (poem)
The kernel of the idea here would be nice fleshed out into a full story, but the poem itself didn't do much for me.
** Carrie Vaughn, “Kitty’s Zombie New Year”
I know Vaughn's Kitty Norville series is very popular, but I don't really see the attraction. The writing is no more than serviceable, and this is a very slight story. Kitty attends a New Year's party, a zombie shows up at the door, and Kitty's friends call upon her to solve the mystery, which takes her all of 10 minutes. The end.
**** Genevieve Valentine, “The Gravedigger of Konstan Spring”
Available for free online: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fic...
A dark fable, full of 'Oh no they didn't!' moments. A remote Alaskan town has discovered the fountain of youth. It's not quite clear why such a place would insist on advertising to hire a gravedigger, but the opening line explains: "There was something more civilized about a town that could bury its dead, if they stayed dead," so hire a gravedigger they do. Of course, then the townspeople need something for him to do... it's not right for a man to be unable to ply his trade, is it? Clever and disturbing.
**** Tamsyn Muir, “Chew”
I can't really say I 'liked' this story. It's deeply unpleasant and unhappy. But it's also extremely powerful. Set at the end of WWII, it's a tale of a boy to young to understand what he sees, a soldier, a young woman - and revenge. It's not just about the evil associated with war, but about blindness to evil.
*** Shaun Jeffrey, “Til Death Do Us Part”
This one felt very familiar to me. It's a theme I've encountered in more than one horror story. A wife returns from the dead, and her family hides her decaying animated corpse, pretending that all is normal...
*** Roxane Gay, “There is No ‘E’ in Zombi Which Means There Can Be No You Or We”
Traditional Haitian Zombis here... An obsessed young woman resorts to magic to capture the handsome playboy whose heart she fails to win through her own allure.
*** Carrie Ryan, “What We Once Feared”
Another dark YA piece. A group of teenagers are on a school trip to 'Discovery Place' when the zombie apocalypse hits. They hole up in an apartment building's penthouse, and the real discoveries they make are about who they truly are, and what makes a survivor. Quite bleak.
*** Eric Gregory, “The Harrowers”
A young man hires a guide who specializes in illegally taking people out to the wilderness to hunt zombies. But this young man says he just wants to find his dad... Of course, things go pear-shaped.
*** Lisa Mannetti, “Resurgam”
When a med student has the cadaver he's working on shockingly come back to life and attack, he does some research and uncovers a 19th-century journal in which a 'resurrection man' talks about a strange occurrence that he experienced when stealing bodies for research purposes. Is it all fiction, drug hallucination, or unpleasant truth? Ok, but I didn't think the two stories meshed well enough...
** Ron Goulart, “I Waltzed with a Zombie”
There are a great number of these stories set in old-timey, B-movie Hollywood, with horror elements. And I really just don't like any of them. Here, a hack screenwriter thinks he can use his real-life encounter with a zombie to boost his concept of a big-budget zombie musical. Eh, I'm sure some people out there will find it quite amusing.
*** Joy Kennedy-O’Neill , “Aftermath”
Begins a bit shaky (I thought), but develops into a solid story with an intriguing focus. Here, the zombie plague has been cured. Those zombies not too horribly damaged in the apocalypse which wiped out a third of the population have come back to themselves. This piece explores the social aspects of how people deal with that (or fail to...)
*** Maggie Slater, “A Shepherd of the Valley”
A weird, religious man lives alone with nothing and no one but his flock of robotically-controlled zombies surrounding him. When a young woman happens upon his hideout, she's the first living person he's spoken to in years...
*** Neil Gaiman, “The Day the Saucers Came” (poem)
A re-read. It's a bit clever.
**** Cat Rambo, “Love, Resurrected”
Fantasy tale of a resurrected military general and the sorcerer/lover who has kept her re-animated to plan his campaigns and fight his battles, alongside other grotesque undead and chimerical creations. Although her flesh is decaying from her bones, she finds her imagination captured by her chief opponent...
*** Nicole Kornher-Stace, “Present”
Teen mom and baby go on the run during a zombie apocalypse. Classic zombie genre.
*** Joe R. Lansdale, “The Hunt: Before and The Aftermath”
Well-written but deeply unpleasant story... Yes, it's a zombie story, but it's more about a marriage on the rocks, mid-life crisis, and the often-befuddling vagaries of human psychology and desire.
*** Charles Stross, “Bit Rot”
On a far-future spaceship with a post-human crew, an unexpected radiation exposure sparks a disaster that looks an awful lot like your typical zombie apocalypse.
June 27, 2020
My thanks to NetGalley and Prime Books for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.
Meh. DNF at 40%-ish. There was maybe one story that I read that I liked. The rest were either meh or Oh HELL no. Good compilation if you are a true "Dead Head" I suppose. Most of the stories are about the stupidity and evil-ness of humans, rather than zombies, though zombies are present.
Not my bag, but one I would recommend to those who are into zombies and don't mind reading about people being depressingly real.
2, I didn't hate it, stars.
Meh. DNF at 40%-ish. There was maybe one story that I read that I liked. The rest were either meh or Oh HELL no. Good compilation if you are a true "Dead Head" I suppose. Most of the stories are about the stupidity and evil-ness of humans, rather than zombies, though zombies are present.
Not my bag, but one I would recommend to those who are into zombies and don't mind reading about people being depressingly real.
2, I didn't hate it, stars.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 20, 2016
First, I want to say that I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. No review asked in exchange.
This is a hard book to review. I'm not used to reading short stories, and even less used to review them.
1- The Afflicted by Matthew Johnson: This one is different kind of zombie book where, as people grow old, they lose their memory and slowly turn. I won't say more because of spoilers but it delivers and was a great choice for opener. (4*)
2- Dead Song by Jay Wilburn: While well written, it didn't keep my attention. I wanted to skim ahead to see if something 'interesting' would follow. Because of that, I may have missed the punch, if there was one. From what I gathered, it's after the zombie threat is over, but aside from that, I have no idea. A man who is being told what to read narrates the story. We don't know why he is there, or who is speaking to him. (1*)
3- Iphigenia in Aulis by Mike Carey: This one is as different as can be from regular zombie stories. It's told in third person POV from a child, Melanie. The story kept me wondering how it would end. A little jewel I wished was made into a novel or even a novelette. I'd be one of the first to buy it. I can say I was sad it ended so quickly. (5*)
4- Pollution by Don Webb: I can't say I really liked that one. The idea was great but there were too many names, foreign words and explanations for me to appreciate the story. (2*)
5- Becca at the End of the World by Shira Lipkin: This is a real short story, only three pages and a half long. It's about the last hour of a teenager who's been bitten by a zombie. Short, yes, but it delivers. (4*)
6- The Naturalist by Maureen F. McHugh: This one was more of what I had expected of the book, a pure zombie story, albeit different from the usual ones. The protagonist isn't your likeable one, however, it didn't matter. The story was entertaining. (5*)
7- Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead by Alex Dally McFarlane: Told from old tablets found. Makes it sound like it's something real that happened a long time ago. Interesting but not my kind of story. (3*)
8- What Maisie Knew by David Liss: A different twist on zombies. Told in first person POV, we learn about the reanimates (zombies) from a man who ends up hiding one of them in an apartment. I'm not saying why, I'll leave that to the reader. Greatly entertaining. (5*)
9-Rocket man by Stephen Graham Jones: Zombies and baseball. Sadly, this one didn't do it for me. (1*)
10- The Day the Music Died by Joe McKinney: A few typos such as using the wrong name and the wrong pronoun but aside from that it was a great idea. The protagonist was far from being likeable but it gave the story its own charm. (4*)
11- 11- The Children's Hour by Marge Simon: Maybe it's me but this one just felt as if the author didn't format well… I won't rate it. I don't get poetry.
12- Delice by Holly Newstein: Nice take on voodoo, but nothing memorable. The sentences in bad French yanked me out of the story instead of making it sound more authentic. I'm not saying it's not the way they speak out there, but for me, Creole (or maybe using less French) would have worked better. (3*)
13- Trail of Death by Joanne Anderton: Good story. I liked the idea of the necromancer hunter. However, why did the hunter have an apprentice? I'm guessing it might be part of a bigger story. (4*)
14- The Death and Life of Bob by William Jablonsky: A great example of first POV plural well done. It's also a great example showing people can be narrow minded and believe the stupidest thing over rational explanation. This story will stay with me for a while. (5*)
15- Stemming the Tide by Simon Strantzas: I don't think I really understood this one, especially the ending. Maybe I wasn't in the mood for it. (2*)
16- Those Beneath the Bog by Jacques L. Condor: Old tales from Inuit living in Northern part of Manitoba about some dead yet living creatures that haunt a bog and its sinkhole. One of the longest stories so far, yet it seems it doesn't tell enough. The author spent a lot of time introducing the characters, which was great; however, it felt as if there was not enough time spent on the deadly creatures. In any other circumstances, I would have liked the story very much, yet in this anthology, people are expecting zombie stories. That part was barely skimmed. I understand it's a short story but so much more could have been added. (3*)
17- What Still Abides by Marie Brennan: Written in a fashion that is closer to poetry than a regular story. I'm sorry to say this was not for me. I didn't finish it. (1*)
18- Jack and Jill by Jonathan Maberry: Start with a kid with cancer. Add a huge storm that threatens to flood the area. If that's not enough add the terror of people being bitten and turned into monsters. Now see the story through the eyes of the kid with cancer. You'll get a small idea of this story. It was filled with emotions. It left me breathless. Well worth the anthology by itself. (5*)
19- In the Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection by Caitlin R. Kiernan: I hate to do this, but if a story of five or six pages doesn't grab my attention after the first and half page, I have to believe it won't be my kind of story. I couldn't finish it. (1*)
20- Rigormarole by Michael A. Arnzen: Another poem. Really, I don't get poems at all...
21- Kitty's Zombie New Year by Carrie Vaughn: I really loved this one. It's not your usual scary zombie story; it's something I could see happening. I also applaud Kitty for keeping her head up her shoulders! (4*)
22- The Gravedigger of Konstan Spring by Genevieve Valentine: Not bad, but nothing exciting either. (3*)
23- Chew by Tamsyn Muir: I liked that one. I think he got what he deserved. However, what shocked me the most is that I was actually happy he did. (4*)
24- 'Til Death Do Us Apart by Shaun Jeffrey: Can't say the story is innovative, but it's well written and enjoyable. (3*)
25- There is no 'E' in Zombi … by Roxane Gay: I wonder how many people will try that 'recipe'. Once you pass the explanations and recipe, the story that follows is enjoyable, but way too short. Although it's not like much more could be added… (3*)
26- What Once We Feared by Carrie Ryan: Teenagers found themselves in the middle of a zombie outbreak and barricade themselves trying to survive. What I liked about this story is that the teenagers were realistic and not born killers who knew exactly what to do to kill a zombie and did it without remorse. (4*)
27- The Harrowers by Eric Gregory: This was not so much about zombies but about life with zombies. People living in barricaded cities paying clandestine people to get out in the zombie world (and hunt zombies?). A man outside the city possesses a valuable 'weapon' against zombies. (5*)
28- Resurgam by Lisa Mannetti: It had good premises, but it lost me some time soon after the incident at the morgue. Drug, an old journal, half a page of info about small pox…nah, life's too short…Next! (1*)
29- I Waltzed with a Zombie by Ron Goulart: Another one I wished I had skipped. It's not that it's badly written, it's just not my kind of story. (1*)
30- Aftermath by Joy Kennedy-O'Neill: A great tale about the aftermath of a zombie outbreak with a stunning ending. (5*)
31- A Shepherd of the Valley by Maggie Slater: Good story. I wouldn't call it great, maybe a bit predictable, but it was entertaining. (3*)
32- The Day the Saucers Came by Neil Gaiman: I tried, because of the author's popularity, but it's a poem and…did I say it already? I don't get poems.
33- Love, Resurrected by Cat Rambo: Walking dead, yes, zombie? Nah… Still not such a bad read. (3*)
34- Present by Nicole Kornher-Stace: Great story. A mother fights for her child through a zombie outbreak. (4*)
35- The Hunt: Before and the Aftermath by Joe R. Lansdale: Another great story, albeit strange and somewhat disgusting one. No spoiler so I can't tell. You'll have to see for yourself. (5*)
36- Bit Rot by Charles Stross: I like scifi, yet, I don’t know why, somehow this one didn't appeal much to me. (3*)
The great stories make this book worth while, however, there were many that left me cold and others I feel I just wasted my time.
Still, if you are craving zombies stories you should find something to quench your thirst in this anthology.
This is a hard book to review. I'm not used to reading short stories, and even less used to review them.
1- The Afflicted by Matthew Johnson: This one is different kind of zombie book where, as people grow old, they lose their memory and slowly turn. I won't say more because of spoilers but it delivers and was a great choice for opener. (4*)
2- Dead Song by Jay Wilburn: While well written, it didn't keep my attention. I wanted to skim ahead to see if something 'interesting' would follow. Because of that, I may have missed the punch, if there was one. From what I gathered, it's after the zombie threat is over, but aside from that, I have no idea. A man who is being told what to read narrates the story. We don't know why he is there, or who is speaking to him. (1*)
3- Iphigenia in Aulis by Mike Carey: This one is as different as can be from regular zombie stories. It's told in third person POV from a child, Melanie. The story kept me wondering how it would end. A little jewel I wished was made into a novel or even a novelette. I'd be one of the first to buy it. I can say I was sad it ended so quickly. (5*)
4- Pollution by Don Webb: I can't say I really liked that one. The idea was great but there were too many names, foreign words and explanations for me to appreciate the story. (2*)
5- Becca at the End of the World by Shira Lipkin: This is a real short story, only three pages and a half long. It's about the last hour of a teenager who's been bitten by a zombie. Short, yes, but it delivers. (4*)
6- The Naturalist by Maureen F. McHugh: This one was more of what I had expected of the book, a pure zombie story, albeit different from the usual ones. The protagonist isn't your likeable one, however, it didn't matter. The story was entertaining. (5*)
7- Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead by Alex Dally McFarlane: Told from old tablets found. Makes it sound like it's something real that happened a long time ago. Interesting but not my kind of story. (3*)
8- What Maisie Knew by David Liss: A different twist on zombies. Told in first person POV, we learn about the reanimates (zombies) from a man who ends up hiding one of them in an apartment. I'm not saying why, I'll leave that to the reader. Greatly entertaining. (5*)
9-Rocket man by Stephen Graham Jones: Zombies and baseball. Sadly, this one didn't do it for me. (1*)
10- The Day the Music Died by Joe McKinney: A few typos such as using the wrong name and the wrong pronoun but aside from that it was a great idea. The protagonist was far from being likeable but it gave the story its own charm. (4*)
11- 11- The Children's Hour by Marge Simon: Maybe it's me but this one just felt as if the author didn't format well… I won't rate it. I don't get poetry.
12- Delice by Holly Newstein: Nice take on voodoo, but nothing memorable. The sentences in bad French yanked me out of the story instead of making it sound more authentic. I'm not saying it's not the way they speak out there, but for me, Creole (or maybe using less French) would have worked better. (3*)
13- Trail of Death by Joanne Anderton: Good story. I liked the idea of the necromancer hunter. However, why did the hunter have an apprentice? I'm guessing it might be part of a bigger story. (4*)
14- The Death and Life of Bob by William Jablonsky: A great example of first POV plural well done. It's also a great example showing people can be narrow minded and believe the stupidest thing over rational explanation. This story will stay with me for a while. (5*)
15- Stemming the Tide by Simon Strantzas: I don't think I really understood this one, especially the ending. Maybe I wasn't in the mood for it. (2*)
16- Those Beneath the Bog by Jacques L. Condor: Old tales from Inuit living in Northern part of Manitoba about some dead yet living creatures that haunt a bog and its sinkhole. One of the longest stories so far, yet it seems it doesn't tell enough. The author spent a lot of time introducing the characters, which was great; however, it felt as if there was not enough time spent on the deadly creatures. In any other circumstances, I would have liked the story very much, yet in this anthology, people are expecting zombie stories. That part was barely skimmed. I understand it's a short story but so much more could have been added. (3*)
17- What Still Abides by Marie Brennan: Written in a fashion that is closer to poetry than a regular story. I'm sorry to say this was not for me. I didn't finish it. (1*)
18- Jack and Jill by Jonathan Maberry: Start with a kid with cancer. Add a huge storm that threatens to flood the area. If that's not enough add the terror of people being bitten and turned into monsters. Now see the story through the eyes of the kid with cancer. You'll get a small idea of this story. It was filled with emotions. It left me breathless. Well worth the anthology by itself. (5*)
19- In the Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection by Caitlin R. Kiernan: I hate to do this, but if a story of five or six pages doesn't grab my attention after the first and half page, I have to believe it won't be my kind of story. I couldn't finish it. (1*)
20- Rigormarole by Michael A. Arnzen: Another poem. Really, I don't get poems at all...
21- Kitty's Zombie New Year by Carrie Vaughn: I really loved this one. It's not your usual scary zombie story; it's something I could see happening. I also applaud Kitty for keeping her head up her shoulders! (4*)
22- The Gravedigger of Konstan Spring by Genevieve Valentine: Not bad, but nothing exciting either. (3*)
23- Chew by Tamsyn Muir: I liked that one. I think he got what he deserved. However, what shocked me the most is that I was actually happy he did. (4*)
24- 'Til Death Do Us Apart by Shaun Jeffrey: Can't say the story is innovative, but it's well written and enjoyable. (3*)
25- There is no 'E' in Zombi … by Roxane Gay: I wonder how many people will try that 'recipe'. Once you pass the explanations and recipe, the story that follows is enjoyable, but way too short. Although it's not like much more could be added… (3*)
26- What Once We Feared by Carrie Ryan: Teenagers found themselves in the middle of a zombie outbreak and barricade themselves trying to survive. What I liked about this story is that the teenagers were realistic and not born killers who knew exactly what to do to kill a zombie and did it without remorse. (4*)
27- The Harrowers by Eric Gregory: This was not so much about zombies but about life with zombies. People living in barricaded cities paying clandestine people to get out in the zombie world (and hunt zombies?). A man outside the city possesses a valuable 'weapon' against zombies. (5*)
28- Resurgam by Lisa Mannetti: It had good premises, but it lost me some time soon after the incident at the morgue. Drug, an old journal, half a page of info about small pox…nah, life's too short…Next! (1*)
29- I Waltzed with a Zombie by Ron Goulart: Another one I wished I had skipped. It's not that it's badly written, it's just not my kind of story. (1*)
30- Aftermath by Joy Kennedy-O'Neill: A great tale about the aftermath of a zombie outbreak with a stunning ending. (5*)
31- A Shepherd of the Valley by Maggie Slater: Good story. I wouldn't call it great, maybe a bit predictable, but it was entertaining. (3*)
32- The Day the Saucers Came by Neil Gaiman: I tried, because of the author's popularity, but it's a poem and…did I say it already? I don't get poems.
33- Love, Resurrected by Cat Rambo: Walking dead, yes, zombie? Nah… Still not such a bad read. (3*)
34- Present by Nicole Kornher-Stace: Great story. A mother fights for her child through a zombie outbreak. (4*)
35- The Hunt: Before and the Aftermath by Joe R. Lansdale: Another great story, albeit strange and somewhat disgusting one. No spoiler so I can't tell. You'll have to see for yourself. (5*)
36- Bit Rot by Charles Stross: I like scifi, yet, I don’t know why, somehow this one didn't appeal much to me. (3*)
The great stories make this book worth while, however, there were many that left me cold and others I feel I just wasted my time.
Still, if you are craving zombies stories you should find something to quench your thirst in this anthology.
January 25, 2015
(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)
Anthologies are always difficult for me to rate—so many different stories, so many authors, and you know you're bound to find very good pieces, and some you don't like at all. As far as collections go, this one about zombies was a fairly good one, all in all, that I would rate a 3.5 to 4 stars.
(Also, the time I spend reading a book is usually a good indicator of my interest in it, but in this case, it doesn't apply. I was reading a couple of other zombie-themed books in the meantime, and I preferred to go slow, rather than eat too much of the same thing at once. pun totally intended, of course.)
My favourites:
- "Iphigenia in Aulis": the story that spun "The Girl With All The Gifts", so no surprise here. Reading this "first draft" was interesting, even though I liked the novel better (since it was more developed).
- "The Naturalist": nasty and vicious undertones here.
- "What Maisie Knew": a dark and twisted take on what use zombies can be. Somehow it also made me think of "Lolita", probably because of the way the narrator views himself?
- "The Day the Music Died": a manager trying to cover up that his money-making rock-star is actually dead. This one had a twisted, funny side that spoke to me. Don't ask me why.
- "The Death and Life of Bob": how zombies are not necessarily what you expect... and how dark and narrow-minded humans can be, too.
- "Jack and Jill": parallels between the zombies and a child who's sick with cancer and already a "living dead", in that he knows he probably won't stay in remission for long. (The fact that *I* actually enjoyed a story with cancer in it is mind-boggling, and speaks of how it managed to make me forget my own fears in that regard.)
- "The Gravedigger of Konstan Spring": a remote little town where people don't seem to stay dead for long. Disturbing, strange, quirky, and full of moments when I wondered to which extent the inhabitants would go to keep their gravedigger.
- "Chew": disturbing not for its take on zombies, but for what actual human beings can do to other human beings.
- "What We Once Feared": another story bent on revealing how bleak human nature can be, and how dire situations can reveal the worst in people.
- "Aftermath": the title says it all. How people manage and how life gets back on track slowly after the cure to the zombie-virus has been found. Disturbing aspects about what killing those "zombies" actually meant.
- "Love, Resurrected": a dark fantasy tale of sorcery, necromancy, and of a woman who has to keep battling even after the flesh has left her bones.
- "Present": sad and touching in a terrible way.
- "Bit Rot": when a zombie story collides with science-fiction of the space-travelling kind. The reason behind the "bit rot" was a nice change for me.
OK stories:
- "The Afflicted": I liked the idea behind it (the elderly ones only falling ill... alas, everybody's doom to grow old), but it deflated a bit after a while.
- "Becca at the End of the World": the last hour of a teenager. However, it was a little too short to be as powerful as it could be IMHO.
- "Delice": not one I'll remember for long, but nice to read
- "Trail of Dead": good concept, but I'm not too sure of the apprentice's part in that (it seemed unfocused).
- "Stemming the Tide": a little weird, though also poetic in its own way.
- "Those Beneath the Bog": the curse on a lake, and how old folk tales shouldn't be discarded. Perhaps a wee bit too long, though.
- "What Still Abides": very, very weird, in that it tries to emulate Old English grammar. I can't make up my mind about it, but overall, it still felt strange in a sort of good way for me.
- "In The Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection": beautiful and dreamy. Not exactly a zombie story, though.
- "'Til Death Do Us Part": not exactly original, still enjoyable. A wife comes back from the grave, and her family tries to keep her with them.
- "The Harrowers": the narrator's name kind of tiped me about the ending, however it remained interesting.
- "Resurgam": a good idea that unfortunately ended up in two storylines not meshing up together well. I still liked the Victorian narrative, though.
- "A Shepherd of the Valley": a bit predictable.
- "The Hunt: Before and The Aftermath": I wasn't sure at first where this one was going, but it had interesting insights into revenge in general.
The ones I didn't like:
- "Dead Song": I didn't care for the actor-narrating-story approach. Another one might have worked better, because there was a good idea behind it.
- "Pollution": I like Japanese culture, but the tropes were too heavy-handed here.
- "Kitty’s Zombie New Year": forgettable, I didn't really see the point to this story.
- "Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead": the narrative style didn't do it for me at all here. Which is really too bad, because the different setting made for quite interesting grounds.
- "Rocket Man": I don't know if it was meant to be comical or not. It didn't leave much of an impression (but then, I'm not too interested in base-ball for starters, which doesn't help).
- "I Waltzed with a Zombie": I couldn't push myself to get interested in it, I don't know why. I neither adore nor terribly dislike Hollywood B-movie settings in general, so maybe it was the narrative that didn't grab me.
Note: A couple of stories are actually in poetic form, which makes them harder to rate (yes, including Neil Gaiman's one).
Anthologies are always difficult for me to rate—so many different stories, so many authors, and you know you're bound to find very good pieces, and some you don't like at all. As far as collections go, this one about zombies was a fairly good one, all in all, that I would rate a 3.5 to 4 stars.
(Also, the time I spend reading a book is usually a good indicator of my interest in it, but in this case, it doesn't apply. I was reading a couple of other zombie-themed books in the meantime, and I preferred to go slow, rather than eat too much of the same thing at once. pun totally intended, of course.)
My favourites:
- "Iphigenia in Aulis": the story that spun "The Girl With All The Gifts", so no surprise here. Reading this "first draft" was interesting, even though I liked the novel better (since it was more developed).
- "The Naturalist": nasty and vicious undertones here.
- "What Maisie Knew": a dark and twisted take on what use zombies can be. Somehow it also made me think of "Lolita", probably because of the way the narrator views himself?
- "The Day the Music Died": a manager trying to cover up that his money-making rock-star is actually dead. This one had a twisted, funny side that spoke to me. Don't ask me why.
- "The Death and Life of Bob": how zombies are not necessarily what you expect... and how dark and narrow-minded humans can be, too.
- "Jack and Jill": parallels between the zombies and a child who's sick with cancer and already a "living dead", in that he knows he probably won't stay in remission for long. (The fact that *I* actually enjoyed a story with cancer in it is mind-boggling, and speaks of how it managed to make me forget my own fears in that regard.)
- "The Gravedigger of Konstan Spring": a remote little town where people don't seem to stay dead for long. Disturbing, strange, quirky, and full of moments when I wondered to which extent the inhabitants would go to keep their gravedigger.
- "Chew": disturbing not for its take on zombies, but for what actual human beings can do to other human beings.
- "What We Once Feared": another story bent on revealing how bleak human nature can be, and how dire situations can reveal the worst in people.
- "Aftermath": the title says it all. How people manage and how life gets back on track slowly after the cure to the zombie-virus has been found. Disturbing aspects about what killing those "zombies" actually meant.
- "Love, Resurrected": a dark fantasy tale of sorcery, necromancy, and of a woman who has to keep battling even after the flesh has left her bones.
- "Present": sad and touching in a terrible way.
- "Bit Rot": when a zombie story collides with science-fiction of the space-travelling kind. The reason behind the "bit rot" was a nice change for me.
OK stories:
- "The Afflicted": I liked the idea behind it (the elderly ones only falling ill... alas, everybody's doom to grow old), but it deflated a bit after a while.
- "Becca at the End of the World": the last hour of a teenager. However, it was a little too short to be as powerful as it could be IMHO.
- "Delice": not one I'll remember for long, but nice to read
- "Trail of Dead": good concept, but I'm not too sure of the apprentice's part in that (it seemed unfocused).
- "Stemming the Tide": a little weird, though also poetic in its own way.
- "Those Beneath the Bog": the curse on a lake, and how old folk tales shouldn't be discarded. Perhaps a wee bit too long, though.
- "What Still Abides": very, very weird, in that it tries to emulate Old English grammar. I can't make up my mind about it, but overall, it still felt strange in a sort of good way for me.
- "In The Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection": beautiful and dreamy. Not exactly a zombie story, though.
- "'Til Death Do Us Part": not exactly original, still enjoyable. A wife comes back from the grave, and her family tries to keep her with them.
- "The Harrowers": the narrator's name kind of tiped me about the ending, however it remained interesting.
- "Resurgam": a good idea that unfortunately ended up in two storylines not meshing up together well. I still liked the Victorian narrative, though.
- "A Shepherd of the Valley": a bit predictable.
- "The Hunt: Before and The Aftermath": I wasn't sure at first where this one was going, but it had interesting insights into revenge in general.
The ones I didn't like:
- "Dead Song": I didn't care for the actor-narrating-story approach. Another one might have worked better, because there was a good idea behind it.
- "Pollution": I like Japanese culture, but the tropes were too heavy-handed here.
- "Kitty’s Zombie New Year": forgettable, I didn't really see the point to this story.
- "Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead": the narrative style didn't do it for me at all here. Which is really too bad, because the different setting made for quite interesting grounds.
- "Rocket Man": I don't know if it was meant to be comical or not. It didn't leave much of an impression (but then, I'm not too interested in base-ball for starters, which doesn't help).
- "I Waltzed with a Zombie": I couldn't push myself to get interested in it, I don't know why. I neither adore nor terribly dislike Hollywood B-movie settings in general, so maybe it was the narrative that didn't grab me.
Note: A couple of stories are actually in poetic form, which makes them harder to rate (yes, including Neil Gaiman's one).
September 8, 2014
Overall I found this anthology to be a diverse collection of all things zombie, the quality was a little rocky at times, but the great stories squirreled away in this tome made it all worth reading. 3.5/5
See tag for more details.
Note: I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.
March 6, 2017
Very, very good Anthology about zombies. I was surprise to see that I didn`t read the first Anthology in this serie, with bigger names on it`s cover, but this one was very good, too.
The stories that I`ve liked are:
Mike Carey - Iphigenia in Aulis, The story that started the novel, The girl with all the gifts.
Shira Lipkin - Becca at the End of the World, The last hour of a daughter that will transform in to a zombie in front of her mother.
Maureen F. McHugh - The Naturalist, About a inmate in a reservation prison where they live with some zombies.
Alex Dally MacFarlane - Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead (572-571 BCE) Interesting ideea about a plague in the Babylonian Age.
David Liss - What Maisie Knew, Absolutely blowed my mind. Refreshing! Innovative! The most complex and heartbreaking story of the Anthology.
Joe McKinney - The Day the Music Died - A star rocker it`s dead. Zombie dead. But his manager doesn`t let this thing out.
Holly Newstein - An interesting perspective on a possession.
William Jablonsky - The Death and Life of Bob - How the humans will react when the dead could revive and go back to work like before.
Simon Strantzas - Stemming the Tide. Short. Kinda of more atmospheric story.
Jacques L. Condor Those Beneath the Bog, Nice adventure in the wilderness.
Jonathan Maberry - Jack & Jill, About two brothers in the bring of a zombie infection. Nice writing, but quite a long story.
Genevieve Valentine - The Gravedigger of Konstan Spring, About a gravedigger in a town were the water has miracoulus power and the locals don`t die quite easily.
Tamsyn Muir - Chew, Situated in World war II it brings a new side of the zombie culture.
Shaun Jeffrey - Til Death Do Us Part, A mother and wife comes back from the grave.
Carrie Ryan - What We Once Feared : We really have no hope when the infection of the zombie virus spreads up.
Eric Gregory - The Harrowers, A dark fantasy background to a zombie story.
Joy Kennedy-O'Neill - Aftermath - very interesting point of view. What will happen when all the zombie will be turn back to human and how you`ll live knowing that you`ve killled somebody that could be turn in.
Cat Rambo - Love, Resurrected, A mix on The Island of Dr. Moreau with a twist in the end.
Joe R. Lansdale - The Hunt: Before and The Aftermath, The second story here about the prostitution of a zombie and how a family could be destroyed when the husband cheats his wife with this creature.
Overall this were the stories with three or four stars to them from my point of view. I enjoyed 19 of them from a total of 36. With 3 poems inbetween. In the end I`m very satisfied with this selection, a various one, with a lot of ideeas and subjects, serious ones, that beats the whole stereotype ideea that the zombie infection has it attached to it by a lot of readers.
It seems, with this one finished, that I`m started to like more and more the Anthologies made by Paula Guran.
The stories that I`ve liked are:
Mike Carey - Iphigenia in Aulis, The story that started the novel, The girl with all the gifts.
Shira Lipkin - Becca at the End of the World, The last hour of a daughter that will transform in to a zombie in front of her mother.
Maureen F. McHugh - The Naturalist, About a inmate in a reservation prison where they live with some zombies.
Alex Dally MacFarlane - Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead (572-571 BCE) Interesting ideea about a plague in the Babylonian Age.
David Liss - What Maisie Knew, Absolutely blowed my mind. Refreshing! Innovative! The most complex and heartbreaking story of the Anthology.
Joe McKinney - The Day the Music Died - A star rocker it`s dead. Zombie dead. But his manager doesn`t let this thing out.
Holly Newstein - An interesting perspective on a possession.
William Jablonsky - The Death and Life of Bob - How the humans will react when the dead could revive and go back to work like before.
Simon Strantzas - Stemming the Tide. Short. Kinda of more atmospheric story.
Jacques L. Condor Those Beneath the Bog, Nice adventure in the wilderness.
Jonathan Maberry - Jack & Jill, About two brothers in the bring of a zombie infection. Nice writing, but quite a long story.
Genevieve Valentine - The Gravedigger of Konstan Spring, About a gravedigger in a town were the water has miracoulus power and the locals don`t die quite easily.
Tamsyn Muir - Chew, Situated in World war II it brings a new side of the zombie culture.
Shaun Jeffrey - Til Death Do Us Part, A mother and wife comes back from the grave.
Carrie Ryan - What We Once Feared : We really have no hope when the infection of the zombie virus spreads up.
Eric Gregory - The Harrowers, A dark fantasy background to a zombie story.
Joy Kennedy-O'Neill - Aftermath - very interesting point of view. What will happen when all the zombie will be turn back to human and how you`ll live knowing that you`ve killled somebody that could be turn in.
Cat Rambo - Love, Resurrected, A mix on The Island of Dr. Moreau with a twist in the end.
Joe R. Lansdale - The Hunt: Before and The Aftermath, The second story here about the prostitution of a zombie and how a family could be destroyed when the husband cheats his wife with this creature.
Overall this were the stories with three or four stars to them from my point of view. I enjoyed 19 of them from a total of 36. With 3 poems inbetween. In the end I`m very satisfied with this selection, a various one, with a lot of ideeas and subjects, serious ones, that beats the whole stereotype ideea that the zombie infection has it attached to it by a lot of readers.
It seems, with this one finished, that I`m started to like more and more the Anthologies made by Paula Guran.
May 15, 2015
Let me start by saying I am a huge zombie film fan. Zombie books, I've read a couple of them but I am not an expert. I really like the intro to the anthology explaining the history of zombies and the impact they've had on television, film, and literature. I found some of the stories to be very engaging, yet disturbing and strange, while others seemed to miss something. For what it is, I very much enjoyed it.
February 9, 2016
Quite a few good stories to be found here. Standouts include Jonathan Maberry (the main reason I wanted to read this), Shira Lipkin, Carrie Ryan, Ron Goulart, Nicole Kornher-Stace and a short, funny story by Neil Gaiman.
Unfortunately, the whole thing ends on a really, really boring story from Charles Stross. Horribly written - it's almost like a lecture, complete with complex, unneccessary descriptions of technical stuff. Sooooooo boring.
All in all a nice little package though.
Unfortunately, the whole thing ends on a really, really boring story from Charles Stross. Horribly written - it's almost like a lecture, complete with complex, unneccessary descriptions of technical stuff. Sooooooo boring.
All in all a nice little package though.
September 27, 2014
My first impression of this book: 36? Thirty-six? That’s a vast amount of stories for an anthology! Even 20 would have been pretty big
My second impression: No, really, 36? Seriously?
My third impression: wait, 36 stories and it’s only 480 pages long? How does that work?
Simply, a lot of it doesn’t – we have some frankly weird, surreal, barely related and generally random filler fluff pieces some of which defy me even commenting on them because I have no idea why they’re there other than to pad an already hugely stuffed book – so The Day the Saucers Came is just some randomness that barely covers two pages and is only, at best, tangentially related to the theme (or any theme for that matter), The Children’s Hour is a poem and not a particularly good one. Rigormarole feels like a tiny scrap that was edited out of a longer book and is kind of lost and pointless without the rest
But then we get down to the inherent problem of zombies and short stories. Now, I know I’ve said before that I’m generally not a huge fan of short stories anyway – and I hold on to that. A short story is usually too short to establish characters, world or a decent plot line, so often it relies on lots of info dump and no plot, lots of short cuts or relies on a lot of prior knowledge of a longer series. Then we get to zombies – there’s actually not a lot you can do with zombies. Oh, you can switch around the origin and nature and properties of zombies but, ultimately, a zombie is generally a rapacious killing machine with low intellect and (usually) both spreads rapidly and is made up of our former loved ones. Most zombie stories actually focus less on zombies and more on the characters reacting to grief, shock, horror, struggling to survive, etc etc – look at most zombies stories out there: from The Walking Dead to World War Z, most of the time zombie stories are about the people in an apocalypse
Which is damn hard to do in a short story – because you have a few short words in which to make me care enough about this person and the situation they’re in. Worse, you have a few short words to make me care enough about this person and the situation we’re in while 30+ other stories have already tried to convince me about their person in, basically, the same situation. It’s hard not to reach story 30 and not think “can you just be eaten already so I can get to the next one?”
So a lot of these stories rely on the emotional horror of loss in a dystopian. Some work and some not so much. Becca at the End of the World manages a very real emotional impact with a mother facing her 16 year old daughter turning in front of her, but it also feels heavy handed. I mean, we have a mother watching her child turn zombie – you’d have to be a horrendously awful writer not to make that emotional. I found it both very impactful but also kind of lazy – the easy route. I also thought Jack and Jill with its comparisons of zombiehood to terminal illness (and presenting someone with cancer – and in remission no less - as being, effectively, the living dead) both problematic and, again, a way of forcing emotional impact by hammering it in. Shepherd of the Valley was a man in a zombie apocalypse with a rather unique way of dealing with things but the story primarily centred around his sadness for his daughter which just wasn’t that well conveyed- lots of moping with an odd setting. Which also kind of describes Love Resurrected; it’s a fantasy setting with the twist of a “zombie” point of view – but there was too much distraction from character development to get any real emotion out of the character
I found Present much more effective, the story of a teenaged mother struggling to survive with her toddler, her doubts, her fears, her drive to keep moving and her tragedy were much more impactful for me. What Once we Feared was even better – the psychological collapse of a group of survivors into gradual despair and the toll that took – beyond zombies attacking, beyond fighting for survival – just the despair of the helplessness, the hopelessness of it slowly eating away at them. That was powerful.
While many authors tried to hinge on the emotional impact of the survivors, others tried to move away from the whole “the world is falling apart and we are surviving” zombie apocalypse scenario and did so to various degrees of effectiveness.
Delice returns more to the roots of zombiedom (or one of the roots – voodoo) in a way – but it’s a story I’ve seen before several times – the brutal story of Delphine LaLaurie (with names changed, but basically the same story including the slave jumping off the roof, the attic and the name Delphine) which, as I’ve said before, I’m uncomfortable with being appropriated for fiction – and equally how the idea of persecuted groups having woo-woo with which to exact revenge is a nice fantasy but it draws a veil over a very often unanswered injustice.
Chew explored the idea of a zombie rising up in revenge – it was a different setting (post World War 2 Germany) but I think the urge to show a different viewpoint distracted too far from the story.
Kitty’s Zombie New Year is a story I’ve already read in Kitty’s Greatest Hits, I liked it not just because it was fun but because it hailed back even more to one of the origins of zombiehood – zombiehood as a way of drugging a living person. The same applies to the extremely creepy and twist ending of There is No “E” in Zombi Which Mean there Can Be No You or We: zombiehood as a way of controlling people. It seems odd to say returning to one of the origins is a nice twist – but it is.
Other stories that managed to be truly original were Those Beneath the Bog drawing on the legends of First Nations Canadians in a viewpoint we very very rarely see in the genre; it was well done, fascinating, creepy and bringing in a wonderful nuanced conflict of still holding old traditions but also being, for example, Catholic. It was definitely one of the good ones.
As was What Still Abides for style is nothing else – the whole saga style of writing really worked without being repetitive or contrived – and the legend of the wight cursing the land is definitely a different take on the undead – though a bit of a stretch on the word “zombie.” It was definitely worth it though
I don’t think Bit Rot worked for me – it’s zombies in space. Changing what makes zombies – whether it’s a virus or a curse or nanites or androids or whatever, doesn’t really fundamentally change the nature of zombie stories. This has just kind of taken a pretty standard zombie story and moved it to space; the different reasons don’t change the same plot. What is much more interesting is the backstory before the zombies get involved; the idea of a rich woman creating clones to live vicariously through – give me more of that story and drop the zombies! Similarly Resurgam tries to draw on Victorian era body-stealing but with shifting time lines and really dodgy characterisation I think it failed both to bring anything original and even to be that coherent a story.
The different setting works better with Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead (572-571 BCE) but more because of the way it’s told – the historic setting, archaeological finds and letters between the sisters that add originality even while the base story is very expected.
For me, the truly original stories in this book were the ones that delved more into the societal and cultural implications of a zombie apocalypse – because that’s not something I’ve seen very often outside of Mira Grant’s Newsflesh series – and these were generally very well done. Such as The Afflicted – the idea of not knowing exactly what causes the undead, or having the whole population infected and ready to rise is a topic we’ve seen a few times; but rarely have we seen the full consequences of that. This story explores some of those worrisome consequences as the population persecutes and ostracises the elderly, driving them out into camps away from civilisation because they are prone to zombie-dom. In a genre full of complete societal collapse, it’s intriguing to see a world where we don’t have complete collapse – but we do have brutal, even horrific responses to a major crisis (which is not ahistorical – internment, persecution and scapegoating run rampant when there’s a crisis).
Dead Song goes even further – delving into the cultural ramifications of a zombie apocalypse. It’s an amazing story told after the recovery and has a real fascinating idea about social changes after the apocalypse, particularly through music. Survivor communities forcing disparate groups to live together, isolated for extended periods of time creating a whole new culture and musical styles out of it. I loved it, the concept is both so original and so excellently true – the idea of basic cultural shifts like this after a zombie apocalypse is so rarely explored. Exploring our own cultural conflicts we also have Iphigenia in Aulis taking the current push of anti-choice politics and applying it to unborn zombie foetus. It’s a complex and really quite beautifully tragic story of self-aware, gentle, sweet, but dangerous children and questions about their humanity. But the prize for this has to go to Aftermath – the story of a world that has recovered from a zombie apocalypse. A world where zombies have been cured, where everything is being out back together – and the survivors have live with their trauma, their PTSD – and the knowledge that some of the people around them were once cannibalistic zombies who killed their loved ones. That was a very good one
We did have a few stories that explored the idea of zombies as non-threatening to various degrees of success. ‘Til Death Do us Part is a quietly tragic tale of the recently bereaved having their lost loved one returning to them – as an insensible, ambulatory corpse. What do you do with that? How do you deal with that?
Read More
My second impression: No, really, 36? Seriously?
My third impression: wait, 36 stories and it’s only 480 pages long? How does that work?
Simply, a lot of it doesn’t – we have some frankly weird, surreal, barely related and generally random filler fluff pieces some of which defy me even commenting on them because I have no idea why they’re there other than to pad an already hugely stuffed book – so The Day the Saucers Came is just some randomness that barely covers two pages and is only, at best, tangentially related to the theme (or any theme for that matter), The Children’s Hour is a poem and not a particularly good one. Rigormarole feels like a tiny scrap that was edited out of a longer book and is kind of lost and pointless without the rest
But then we get down to the inherent problem of zombies and short stories. Now, I know I’ve said before that I’m generally not a huge fan of short stories anyway – and I hold on to that. A short story is usually too short to establish characters, world or a decent plot line, so often it relies on lots of info dump and no plot, lots of short cuts or relies on a lot of prior knowledge of a longer series. Then we get to zombies – there’s actually not a lot you can do with zombies. Oh, you can switch around the origin and nature and properties of zombies but, ultimately, a zombie is generally a rapacious killing machine with low intellect and (usually) both spreads rapidly and is made up of our former loved ones. Most zombie stories actually focus less on zombies and more on the characters reacting to grief, shock, horror, struggling to survive, etc etc – look at most zombies stories out there: from The Walking Dead to World War Z, most of the time zombie stories are about the people in an apocalypse
Which is damn hard to do in a short story – because you have a few short words in which to make me care enough about this person and the situation they’re in. Worse, you have a few short words to make me care enough about this person and the situation we’re in while 30+ other stories have already tried to convince me about their person in, basically, the same situation. It’s hard not to reach story 30 and not think “can you just be eaten already so I can get to the next one?”
So a lot of these stories rely on the emotional horror of loss in a dystopian. Some work and some not so much. Becca at the End of the World manages a very real emotional impact with a mother facing her 16 year old daughter turning in front of her, but it also feels heavy handed. I mean, we have a mother watching her child turn zombie – you’d have to be a horrendously awful writer not to make that emotional. I found it both very impactful but also kind of lazy – the easy route. I also thought Jack and Jill with its comparisons of zombiehood to terminal illness (and presenting someone with cancer – and in remission no less - as being, effectively, the living dead) both problematic and, again, a way of forcing emotional impact by hammering it in. Shepherd of the Valley was a man in a zombie apocalypse with a rather unique way of dealing with things but the story primarily centred around his sadness for his daughter which just wasn’t that well conveyed- lots of moping with an odd setting. Which also kind of describes Love Resurrected; it’s a fantasy setting with the twist of a “zombie” point of view – but there was too much distraction from character development to get any real emotion out of the character
I found Present much more effective, the story of a teenaged mother struggling to survive with her toddler, her doubts, her fears, her drive to keep moving and her tragedy were much more impactful for me. What Once we Feared was even better – the psychological collapse of a group of survivors into gradual despair and the toll that took – beyond zombies attacking, beyond fighting for survival – just the despair of the helplessness, the hopelessness of it slowly eating away at them. That was powerful.
While many authors tried to hinge on the emotional impact of the survivors, others tried to move away from the whole “the world is falling apart and we are surviving” zombie apocalypse scenario and did so to various degrees of effectiveness.
Delice returns more to the roots of zombiedom (or one of the roots – voodoo) in a way – but it’s a story I’ve seen before several times – the brutal story of Delphine LaLaurie (with names changed, but basically the same story including the slave jumping off the roof, the attic and the name Delphine) which, as I’ve said before, I’m uncomfortable with being appropriated for fiction – and equally how the idea of persecuted groups having woo-woo with which to exact revenge is a nice fantasy but it draws a veil over a very often unanswered injustice.
Chew explored the idea of a zombie rising up in revenge – it was a different setting (post World War 2 Germany) but I think the urge to show a different viewpoint distracted too far from the story.
Kitty’s Zombie New Year is a story I’ve already read in Kitty’s Greatest Hits, I liked it not just because it was fun but because it hailed back even more to one of the origins of zombiehood – zombiehood as a way of drugging a living person. The same applies to the extremely creepy and twist ending of There is No “E” in Zombi Which Mean there Can Be No You or We: zombiehood as a way of controlling people. It seems odd to say returning to one of the origins is a nice twist – but it is.
Other stories that managed to be truly original were Those Beneath the Bog drawing on the legends of First Nations Canadians in a viewpoint we very very rarely see in the genre; it was well done, fascinating, creepy and bringing in a wonderful nuanced conflict of still holding old traditions but also being, for example, Catholic. It was definitely one of the good ones.
As was What Still Abides for style is nothing else – the whole saga style of writing really worked without being repetitive or contrived – and the legend of the wight cursing the land is definitely a different take on the undead – though a bit of a stretch on the word “zombie.” It was definitely worth it though
I don’t think Bit Rot worked for me – it’s zombies in space. Changing what makes zombies – whether it’s a virus or a curse or nanites or androids or whatever, doesn’t really fundamentally change the nature of zombie stories. This has just kind of taken a pretty standard zombie story and moved it to space; the different reasons don’t change the same plot. What is much more interesting is the backstory before the zombies get involved; the idea of a rich woman creating clones to live vicariously through – give me more of that story and drop the zombies! Similarly Resurgam tries to draw on Victorian era body-stealing but with shifting time lines and really dodgy characterisation I think it failed both to bring anything original and even to be that coherent a story.
The different setting works better with Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead (572-571 BCE) but more because of the way it’s told – the historic setting, archaeological finds and letters between the sisters that add originality even while the base story is very expected.
For me, the truly original stories in this book were the ones that delved more into the societal and cultural implications of a zombie apocalypse – because that’s not something I’ve seen very often outside of Mira Grant’s Newsflesh series – and these were generally very well done. Such as The Afflicted – the idea of not knowing exactly what causes the undead, or having the whole population infected and ready to rise is a topic we’ve seen a few times; but rarely have we seen the full consequences of that. This story explores some of those worrisome consequences as the population persecutes and ostracises the elderly, driving them out into camps away from civilisation because they are prone to zombie-dom. In a genre full of complete societal collapse, it’s intriguing to see a world where we don’t have complete collapse – but we do have brutal, even horrific responses to a major crisis (which is not ahistorical – internment, persecution and scapegoating run rampant when there’s a crisis).
Dead Song goes even further – delving into the cultural ramifications of a zombie apocalypse. It’s an amazing story told after the recovery and has a real fascinating idea about social changes after the apocalypse, particularly through music. Survivor communities forcing disparate groups to live together, isolated for extended periods of time creating a whole new culture and musical styles out of it. I loved it, the concept is both so original and so excellently true – the idea of basic cultural shifts like this after a zombie apocalypse is so rarely explored. Exploring our own cultural conflicts we also have Iphigenia in Aulis taking the current push of anti-choice politics and applying it to unborn zombie foetus. It’s a complex and really quite beautifully tragic story of self-aware, gentle, sweet, but dangerous children and questions about their humanity. But the prize for this has to go to Aftermath – the story of a world that has recovered from a zombie apocalypse. A world where zombies have been cured, where everything is being out back together – and the survivors have live with their trauma, their PTSD – and the knowledge that some of the people around them were once cannibalistic zombies who killed their loved ones. That was a very good one
We did have a few stories that explored the idea of zombies as non-threatening to various degrees of success. ‘Til Death Do us Part is a quietly tragic tale of the recently bereaved having their lost loved one returning to them – as an insensible, ambulatory corpse. What do you do with that? How do you deal with that?
Read More
October 1, 2014
"Zombies: More Recent Dead," edited by Paula Guran, is yet another anthology of short stories featuring the walking dead. While it features a few excellent stories, a lot of the stories are random musings on life, the universe and everything, with a zombie or two thrown in for flavor. While a short story anthology can usually get away with a few stories that aren't quite related to the subject at hand, at some point the balance gets disrupted.
This is just a guess, but the editor might have deliberately picked quantity over quality in this anthology. What could have been an excellent, average-length anthology ended up being a cumbersome refuge of anything and everything that claimed to be zombie-related.
"The Afflicted" by Matthew Johnson: when the zombie virus affects the elderly the most, one badass nurse chooses to protect, heal and occasionally kill them in their FEMA camp. An interesting story with a lot of human element.
"Dead Song" by Jay Wilburn: something I've never seen before - a story about the evolution of music in the post-zombie world. Dark and fascinating, told in the documentary style.
"Iphigenia in Aulis" by Mike Carey: this seemingly innocuous story about a little girl who goes to school in a guarded compound gradually gets darker and darker. Told from the girl's point of view, it's one of my favorites in the anthology.
"Pollution" by Don Webb: an in-depth look into the economics of zombie ownership, through the eyes of a fairly stupid American guy who lives in (and is obsessed with) Japan.
"Becca at the End of the World" by Shira Lipkin: a very in-depth and personal look at the biggest trope of zombie fiction, where a relative gets bitten and something should be done.
"The Naturalist" by Naureen F. McHugh: once the zombie threat is under control, Cleveland becomes a penitentiary. One of the condemned prisoners turns into a zombie naturalist. A dark and interesting story.
"Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead (572-571 BCE)" by Alex Dally Macfarlane: a cheap "World War Z" knockoff.
"What Maisie Knew" by David Liss: in a world where corpses can be turned into subservient zombies, a drunk driver is trying to silence his victim.
"Rocket Man" by Stephen Graham Jones: a bunch of children play baseball (with their zombie classmate) and act stupid to impress the lifeguard lady.
"The Day the Music Died" by Joe McKinney: what do you do when the rockstar you work for turns into a zombie? Lock him, feed him groupies and make money off his unreleased material, of course! Dark, twisted and morbidly funny.
"The Children's Hour" by Marge Simon: a very short and not very creative poem that doesn't rhyme and has no rhythm.
"Delice" by Holly Newstein: a story that collects every stereotype you can think of. Zombie priestess? Check. New Orleans voodoo? Check. Horribly abused slaves? Check. Justice from beyond the grave? Check. I ended up speed-reading through this one...
"Trail of the dead" by Joanne Anderton: a short but intriguing story about an accidental Necromancer that's stalked by a Necromancer Hunter and his reluctant assistant.
"The Death and Life of Bob" by William Jablonsky: what if a regular person from a regular office came back to life and decided to go back to work? A fun and slightly bitter story, that's what.
"Stemming the Tide" by Simon Strantzas: in a post-zombie world, a misanthrope and his girlfriend take a trip to watch a zombie tide.
"Those Beneath the Bog" by Jacques L. Condor (Maka Tai Meh): a bunch of hermits (Native Americans?) hang out together, cook some deer, tell each other's fortunes... This is one of the longer stories in the anthology and I stopped reading 1/3 of the way through. There might be zombies at some point in this glacially slow story, but it's hard to tell.
"What Still Abides" by Marie Brennan: an interesting short story told in ye Olde English style about a zombie problem in the feudal Europe.
"Jack and Jill" by Jonathan Maberry: a young boy with cancer and a deathwish waits for a giant storm to arrive, but that's not the only disaster he'll experience... A sad and well-written story.
"In the Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection" by Caitlin R Kiernan: a mad scientist gently kills his girlfriend and brings her back to life to learn what's on the other side. An unusual take on zombies, to say the least, and filled with purple prose.
"Rigormarole" by Michael A. Arnzen: a poem about a mad scientist's unorthodox solution to the zombie problem. Fairly short and clever.
"Kitty's Zombie New Year" by Carrie Vaughn: the hostess of a paranormal radio talk show encounters a zombie during a New Year's Eve party. A very pragmatic take on zombies that avoids the genre's usual tropes.
"The Gravedigger of Konstan Spring" by Genevieve Valentine: a fun and slow-paced short story about a town where water can make you immortal, and what it means to be a gravedigger in a place where no one really dies.
"Chew" by Tamsyn Muir: a disturbing story about a murdered woman coming back to life, told from the perspective of a young German boy right after WW2.
"'Til Death Do Us Part" by Shaun Jeffrey: a surreal and creepy story about a man and his young son reintegrating their zombie wife/mother into their lives.
"There Is No "E" in Zombi Which Means There Can Be No You or We" by Roxane Gay: all is fair in love and war - a woman in Haiti uses the zombie powder to get a lover.
"What Once we Feared (A Forest of Hands and Teeth Story)" by Carrie Ryan: a first-person narrative from a teenager who hid from zombies in a skyscraper's penthouse with his four friends. Gritty, realistic and very well written.
"The Harrowers" by Eric Gregory: an amazing story that combines zombies, noir and just a little bit of cyberpunk (zombie cyborg bears!). A guide is tasked with helping a young man find his lost father outside the city walls, but nothing is as it seems... One of my favorites from this collection.
"Resurgam" by Lisa Mannetti: a story within a story about medical students stealing dead bodies (for science!) and the dead bodies coming back to life.
"I Waltzed with a Zombie" by Ron Goulart: a cute and occasionally funny story about a hack Hollywood writer in 1942, written in the style of that era.
"Aftermath" by Joy Kennedy-O'Neill: an unusual zombie story in that the infected eventually got cured. A former English professor describes the post-zombie world and provides increasingly disturbing flashbacks to her past. One of the best stories in the anthology, in my opinion - it reads just like something from "World War Z."
"A Shepherd of the Valley" by Maggie Slater: a profoundly sad story about a religious hermit who lives in an airport with his 11 exoskeleton-controlled zombies, and a teenage girl that walks into his life. Reminded me of the video game "The Last of Us."
"The Day the Saucers Came" by Neil Gaiman: a quirky little poem about the day the world changed.
"Love, Resurrected" by Cat Rambo: a necromancer's undead girlfriend, who also happens to be a brilliant tactician, looks back at her life and tries to catch a remarkably talented warlord. A brilliant short story.
"Present" by Nicole Kornher-Stace: a high school student and her baby flee from zombies. Disturbing, to say the least, with some meta humor about zombies and horror stories.
"The Hunt: Before, and the Aftermath" by Joe R. Lansdale: a middle-aged couple goes on a zombie safari to save their marriage. A typical narrative of a cheating man, only with zombies in the backdrop.
"Bit Rot" by Charles Stross: a truly unusual take on the zombie genre, featuring insane irradiated androids on a spaceship. Excellent concept and execution.
Disclaimer: I received my copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Score: 3 stars
This is just a guess, but the editor might have deliberately picked quantity over quality in this anthology. What could have been an excellent, average-length anthology ended up being a cumbersome refuge of anything and everything that claimed to be zombie-related.
"The Afflicted" by Matthew Johnson: when the zombie virus affects the elderly the most, one badass nurse chooses to protect, heal and occasionally kill them in their FEMA camp. An interesting story with a lot of human element.
"Dead Song" by Jay Wilburn: something I've never seen before - a story about the evolution of music in the post-zombie world. Dark and fascinating, told in the documentary style.
"Iphigenia in Aulis" by Mike Carey: this seemingly innocuous story about a little girl who goes to school in a guarded compound gradually gets darker and darker. Told from the girl's point of view, it's one of my favorites in the anthology.
"Pollution" by Don Webb: an in-depth look into the economics of zombie ownership, through the eyes of a fairly stupid American guy who lives in (and is obsessed with) Japan.
"Becca at the End of the World" by Shira Lipkin: a very in-depth and personal look at the biggest trope of zombie fiction, where a relative gets bitten and something should be done.
"The Naturalist" by Naureen F. McHugh: once the zombie threat is under control, Cleveland becomes a penitentiary. One of the condemned prisoners turns into a zombie naturalist. A dark and interesting story.
"Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead (572-571 BCE)" by Alex Dally Macfarlane: a cheap "World War Z" knockoff.
"What Maisie Knew" by David Liss: in a world where corpses can be turned into subservient zombies, a drunk driver is trying to silence his victim.
"Rocket Man" by Stephen Graham Jones: a bunch of children play baseball (with their zombie classmate) and act stupid to impress the lifeguard lady.
"The Day the Music Died" by Joe McKinney: what do you do when the rockstar you work for turns into a zombie? Lock him, feed him groupies and make money off his unreleased material, of course! Dark, twisted and morbidly funny.
"The Children's Hour" by Marge Simon: a very short and not very creative poem that doesn't rhyme and has no rhythm.
"Delice" by Holly Newstein: a story that collects every stereotype you can think of. Zombie priestess? Check. New Orleans voodoo? Check. Horribly abused slaves? Check. Justice from beyond the grave? Check. I ended up speed-reading through this one...
"Trail of the dead" by Joanne Anderton: a short but intriguing story about an accidental Necromancer that's stalked by a Necromancer Hunter and his reluctant assistant.
"The Death and Life of Bob" by William Jablonsky: what if a regular person from a regular office came back to life and decided to go back to work? A fun and slightly bitter story, that's what.
"Stemming the Tide" by Simon Strantzas: in a post-zombie world, a misanthrope and his girlfriend take a trip to watch a zombie tide.
"Those Beneath the Bog" by Jacques L. Condor (Maka Tai Meh): a bunch of hermits (Native Americans?) hang out together, cook some deer, tell each other's fortunes... This is one of the longer stories in the anthology and I stopped reading 1/3 of the way through. There might be zombies at some point in this glacially slow story, but it's hard to tell.
"What Still Abides" by Marie Brennan: an interesting short story told in ye Olde English style about a zombie problem in the feudal Europe.
"Jack and Jill" by Jonathan Maberry: a young boy with cancer and a deathwish waits for a giant storm to arrive, but that's not the only disaster he'll experience... A sad and well-written story.
"In the Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection" by Caitlin R Kiernan: a mad scientist gently kills his girlfriend and brings her back to life to learn what's on the other side. An unusual take on zombies, to say the least, and filled with purple prose.
"Rigormarole" by Michael A. Arnzen: a poem about a mad scientist's unorthodox solution to the zombie problem. Fairly short and clever.
"Kitty's Zombie New Year" by Carrie Vaughn: the hostess of a paranormal radio talk show encounters a zombie during a New Year's Eve party. A very pragmatic take on zombies that avoids the genre's usual tropes.
"The Gravedigger of Konstan Spring" by Genevieve Valentine: a fun and slow-paced short story about a town where water can make you immortal, and what it means to be a gravedigger in a place where no one really dies.
"Chew" by Tamsyn Muir: a disturbing story about a murdered woman coming back to life, told from the perspective of a young German boy right after WW2.
"'Til Death Do Us Part" by Shaun Jeffrey: a surreal and creepy story about a man and his young son reintegrating their zombie wife/mother into their lives.
"There Is No "E" in Zombi Which Means There Can Be No You or We" by Roxane Gay: all is fair in love and war - a woman in Haiti uses the zombie powder to get a lover.
"What Once we Feared (A Forest of Hands and Teeth Story)" by Carrie Ryan: a first-person narrative from a teenager who hid from zombies in a skyscraper's penthouse with his four friends. Gritty, realistic and very well written.
"The Harrowers" by Eric Gregory: an amazing story that combines zombies, noir and just a little bit of cyberpunk (zombie cyborg bears!). A guide is tasked with helping a young man find his lost father outside the city walls, but nothing is as it seems... One of my favorites from this collection.
"Resurgam" by Lisa Mannetti: a story within a story about medical students stealing dead bodies (for science!) and the dead bodies coming back to life.
"I Waltzed with a Zombie" by Ron Goulart: a cute and occasionally funny story about a hack Hollywood writer in 1942, written in the style of that era.
"Aftermath" by Joy Kennedy-O'Neill: an unusual zombie story in that the infected eventually got cured. A former English professor describes the post-zombie world and provides increasingly disturbing flashbacks to her past. One of the best stories in the anthology, in my opinion - it reads just like something from "World War Z."
"A Shepherd of the Valley" by Maggie Slater: a profoundly sad story about a religious hermit who lives in an airport with his 11 exoskeleton-controlled zombies, and a teenage girl that walks into his life. Reminded me of the video game "The Last of Us."
"The Day the Saucers Came" by Neil Gaiman: a quirky little poem about the day the world changed.
"Love, Resurrected" by Cat Rambo: a necromancer's undead girlfriend, who also happens to be a brilliant tactician, looks back at her life and tries to catch a remarkably talented warlord. A brilliant short story.
"Present" by Nicole Kornher-Stace: a high school student and her baby flee from zombies. Disturbing, to say the least, with some meta humor about zombies and horror stories.
"The Hunt: Before, and the Aftermath" by Joe R. Lansdale: a middle-aged couple goes on a zombie safari to save their marriage. A typical narrative of a cheating man, only with zombies in the backdrop.
"Bit Rot" by Charles Stross: a truly unusual take on the zombie genre, featuring insane irradiated androids on a spaceship. Excellent concept and execution.
Disclaimer: I received my copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Score: 3 stars
July 28, 2019
One of the best zombie anthologies I’ve read—some really good stories here and only a few duds.
April 21, 2018
A solid collection with some outstanding moments. Some very nice stuff.
February 11, 2018
I've read this twice now, and honestly the stories are really fantastic. It ranges from brief poetry to long 'short story' formats, and the broadest definitions of Zombies, which is very refreshing! I have really enjoyed it, it's very rare for me to read any book twice, in fact, which is always proof it's worth just diving into and... yes... devouring. ;)
January 24, 2015
I love a story that takes me away and sucks me in to it's world. This book, this collection of stories, did that to me on numerous occasions. The only disappointment I suffered with this book is that so many of my favorite stories ended too soon! I was so drawn in that I didn't want them to end. I highly recommend this book to any zombie enthusiast.
January 18, 2025
Zombies: More Recent Dead is an anthology of short stories that all revolve around one theme: zombies.
Why did I decide to read this book?
As a fan of the horror genre—and particularly zombie stories—I couldn’t resist the idea of diving into 20 hours of undead tales. When I found the audiobook on Audible, it felt like the perfect pick for any zombie enthusiast.
What did I like about this book?
The variety of stories is definitely the highlight. With a mix of lengths, tones, and perspectives, each story brings a fresh take on the zombie theme. Since they’re written by different authors, the collection explores a wide range of ideas and interpretations of what zombies can be. Some stories break away from traditional tropes, offering thought-provoking conclusions that make you question the very nature of zombies.
Of course, not every story was a hit for me—some were excellent, others just okay, and a few weren’t quite my thing. But that’s the beauty of an anthology: there’s something for everyone, and the diverse approaches ensure the collection feels expansive and creative. Overall I think that the collection has a expansive view of the zombie topic.
What did I think of the audiobook and narration?
Listening to 20 hours of short stories with varying lengths (from under 20 minutes to over an hour) was an immersive experience. The multiple narrators did an excellent job of bringing the characters and worlds to life, enhancing the storytelling with their engaging performances.
Do I recommend this book?
Yes! If you’re a fan of the zombie genre, this anthology is a must-read. It offers a diverse and imaginative exploration of all things undead, making it an enjoyable and thought-provoking collection for horror lovers.
Why did I decide to read this book?
As a fan of the horror genre—and particularly zombie stories—I couldn’t resist the idea of diving into 20 hours of undead tales. When I found the audiobook on Audible, it felt like the perfect pick for any zombie enthusiast.
What did I like about this book?
The variety of stories is definitely the highlight. With a mix of lengths, tones, and perspectives, each story brings a fresh take on the zombie theme. Since they’re written by different authors, the collection explores a wide range of ideas and interpretations of what zombies can be. Some stories break away from traditional tropes, offering thought-provoking conclusions that make you question the very nature of zombies.
Of course, not every story was a hit for me—some were excellent, others just okay, and a few weren’t quite my thing. But that’s the beauty of an anthology: there’s something for everyone, and the diverse approaches ensure the collection feels expansive and creative. Overall I think that the collection has a expansive view of the zombie topic.
What did I think of the audiobook and narration?
Listening to 20 hours of short stories with varying lengths (from under 20 minutes to over an hour) was an immersive experience. The multiple narrators did an excellent job of bringing the characters and worlds to life, enhancing the storytelling with their engaging performances.
Do I recommend this book?
Yes! If you’re a fan of the zombie genre, this anthology is a must-read. It offers a diverse and imaginative exploration of all things undead, making it an enjoyable and thought-provoking collection for horror lovers.
December 31, 2018
A great anthology, both mixing it up in style and subject, with a number of really good to great works. (There were a handful of stories that I either skipped or didn't enjoy, but they were dwarfed, dwarfed by the rest of the stories).
The stories ranged from stories about Dawn of the Dead style, classic "zombies"; voodoo mind-controlled zombies; stories where zombies show up as just one of many odd events; and even a few science fiction stories (such as a short story by Charles Stross set in his Saturn's Children universe).
The stories ranged from stories about Dawn of the Dead style, classic "zombies"; voodoo mind-controlled zombies; stories where zombies show up as just one of many odd events; and even a few science fiction stories (such as a short story by Charles Stross set in his Saturn's Children universe).
May 31, 2017
As a whole, this is an excellent collection of stories and some amazing authors contributed to it (ie Roxane Gay, Neil Gaiman, Mike Carey, etc). I liked some stories better than others, but enjoyed the bind up!
November 3, 2018
A wonderful collection of various zombie stories - several of which a new a new twist on an old genre. My favorites include: its not Alzehmers, its a zombie virus that grandma has, being saved by your flu vaccination ( ha all you anti-vaccers) and even androids can have zombie problems. Enjoy!
March 19, 2023
I liked it, as with most anthologies, some stories were better than others, but most were good. It's definitely worth the credit on Audible. Plus, the narrators were impressive, the voice of each story felt different, and they even pulled off some convincing accents.
4/5 Stars
4/5 Stars
April 21, 2018
Some really great stories in here.
April 18, 2023
As with most short story collections of different writers, it's a mix of some good and some bad.
November 8, 2023
A very mixed bag of stories here.
But I do recommend the Story What Maisie Knew by David Liss as it was easily the best in the collection for me.
But I do recommend the Story What Maisie Knew by David Liss as it was easily the best in the collection for me.
September 19, 2014
[Full disclosure: I requested and received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
I’ve been suffering from a severe case of Walking Dead withdrawal for a few months, so I figured that I might as well get back into that zombie kind of mood with a new anthology from some well-known authors. Jonathon Maberry, Neil Gaiman and so many more authors that I actually like were included in this anthology. Where could it go wrong?
Apparently, almost everywhere. This is a non-traditional zombie anthology, which I knew when I requested it. All of these zombies are either thinking zombies or just kind of dead shells of their former selves come back to life. I don’t mind reading about these types of zombies. It’s a newer (more terrifying in some ways) take on a creature that is a little over-hyped by pop culture. Of course, being that people are people, sometimes they would do disgusting things with these zombies: have sex with them, make them servants, etc. It’s sad to see that my faith in the worst impulses of humanity is still justified.
Except, by the end of the anthology, I was really, truly struggling to finish it. This is not a long book, by the way. It’s only 480 pages and it should not have taken me so long to finish, but I really had to force myself to keep reading about 2/3s of the way through. Why? Because, for the most part, it was boring. Most of the stories, even by authors that I really liked, were quite boring. Yes, they showcased the new type of zombie very well but some of them didn’t seem to have a point (or a plot) and still others were so boring that you forgot how the story began by the time you got to the end. It’s not like I have a short attention span, either.
None of the characters really stood out for me here and even though it’s only been a week since I read this, I couldn’t really name more than two or three of them. This anthology just did not pack the punch I’ve come to expect from authors like this. In the end, I was more disappointed than entertained, which is not something you want when you’ve just read through almost 500 pages.
I give this anthology 3/5 stars.
I’ve been suffering from a severe case of Walking Dead withdrawal for a few months, so I figured that I might as well get back into that zombie kind of mood with a new anthology from some well-known authors. Jonathon Maberry, Neil Gaiman and so many more authors that I actually like were included in this anthology. Where could it go wrong?
Apparently, almost everywhere. This is a non-traditional zombie anthology, which I knew when I requested it. All of these zombies are either thinking zombies or just kind of dead shells of their former selves come back to life. I don’t mind reading about these types of zombies. It’s a newer (more terrifying in some ways) take on a creature that is a little over-hyped by pop culture. Of course, being that people are people, sometimes they would do disgusting things with these zombies: have sex with them, make them servants, etc. It’s sad to see that my faith in the worst impulses of humanity is still justified.
Except, by the end of the anthology, I was really, truly struggling to finish it. This is not a long book, by the way. It’s only 480 pages and it should not have taken me so long to finish, but I really had to force myself to keep reading about 2/3s of the way through. Why? Because, for the most part, it was boring. Most of the stories, even by authors that I really liked, were quite boring. Yes, they showcased the new type of zombie very well but some of them didn’t seem to have a point (or a plot) and still others were so boring that you forgot how the story began by the time you got to the end. It’s not like I have a short attention span, either.
None of the characters really stood out for me here and even though it’s only been a week since I read this, I couldn’t really name more than two or three of them. This anthology just did not pack the punch I’ve come to expect from authors like this. In the end, I was more disappointed than entertained, which is not something you want when you’ve just read through almost 500 pages.
I give this anthology 3/5 stars.
January 27, 2015
In genre fiction—especially science fiction and horror—the best way to keep up with what’s good (unless you’re willing to go broke on magazine subscriptions) is to pick up anthologies. The short story remains the most vibrant form here, and these two anthologies from Prime Books—both edited by Paula Guran—offer up some excellent new work.
The key to these collections is that the stories are mined from the last decade, which means they’ve all got the bells and whistles of the very recent past. ...
In Zombie: More Recent Dead, we get a proof positive that the zombie apocalypse phenomenon isn’t close to jumping the shark.
Several of these stories were noteworthy, but far and away the best was Mike Carey’s “Iphigenia in Aulis,” a haunting tale of a young girl with the “virus” who is kept in a cell. It is one of those rare stories that makes the “zombie” the hero; in this case, it’s difficult to guess who really are the monsters. Apparently, this was an early draft for what became The Girl With All the Gifts ...
(Full review on Lit/Rant: http://litrant.tumblr.com/post/104195...)
The key to these collections is that the stories are mined from the last decade, which means they’ve all got the bells and whistles of the very recent past. ...
In Zombie: More Recent Dead, we get a proof positive that the zombie apocalypse phenomenon isn’t close to jumping the shark.
Several of these stories were noteworthy, but far and away the best was Mike Carey’s “Iphigenia in Aulis,” a haunting tale of a young girl with the “virus” who is kept in a cell. It is one of those rare stories that makes the “zombie” the hero; in this case, it’s difficult to guess who really are the monsters. Apparently, this was an early draft for what became The Girl With All the Gifts ...
(Full review on Lit/Rant: http://litrant.tumblr.com/post/104195...)
September 30, 2014
For a 480-page book, this took A LOT to read.
This book was a combination of a few wonderful stories, some that fell between great and okay, lots of really boring or badly written ones (some of those made me regret ever deciding to read this book, if I'm being fair) and a story that was too boring that I couldn't even see the end of, all equaling to 37 stories if I'm not wrong. I don't think I am.
While there are some stories that I can go back and read again, or some writers I will go searching for the other books or stories of, the bigger part needs some revising if not editing. Some of the stories don't even seem to belong this book, it is like they are here only because they include one zombie character (see Rocket Man if you ever need an example), so they look more than a little pushed.
Overall, it was good to read, but I can't say I would recommend it to anyone or buy it myself.
This book was a combination of a few wonderful stories, some that fell between great and okay, lots of really boring or badly written ones (some of those made me regret ever deciding to read this book, if I'm being fair) and a story that was too boring that I couldn't even see the end of, all equaling to 37 stories if I'm not wrong. I don't think I am.
While there are some stories that I can go back and read again, or some writers I will go searching for the other books or stories of, the bigger part needs some revising if not editing. Some of the stories don't even seem to belong this book, it is like they are here only because they include one zombie character (see Rocket Man if you ever need an example), so they look more than a little pushed.
Overall, it was good to read, but I can't say I would recommend it to anyone or buy it myself.
October 8, 2014
If you’re a fan of books about zombies then you’re sure to find something you like in this book. It is a collection of short zombie stories, and a couple of poems.
When I started reading this book I expected it to be a collection of typical post-apocalypse zombie books (which quite honestly I wouldn’t have minded). As it turns out the stories are very diverse, from the typical zombie story, to ones which were more reflective on life. As with most collections of short stories the quality of the stories do vary, but it evens itself out, and I found myself enjoying more stories than not.
The anthology is advertised as having a story from Neil Gaiman, and as a fan of his works I was naturally very excited to read this. It turn out that Gaiman’s contribution to this anthology is in the form of a poem, and while the poem is up to his usual standards I couldn’t help feeling slightly cheated.
When I started reading this book I expected it to be a collection of typical post-apocalypse zombie books (which quite honestly I wouldn’t have minded). As it turns out the stories are very diverse, from the typical zombie story, to ones which were more reflective on life. As with most collections of short stories the quality of the stories do vary, but it evens itself out, and I found myself enjoying more stories than not.
The anthology is advertised as having a story from Neil Gaiman, and as a fan of his works I was naturally very excited to read this. It turn out that Gaiman’s contribution to this anthology is in the form of a poem, and while the poem is up to his usual standards I couldn’t help feeling slightly cheated.
Currently reading
July 13, 2024"The Death and Life of Bob" by William Jablonsky - When Bob returns to life his coworkers treat it as a miracle except for Cayla who thinks a zombie must be abhorrent to God. Cayla is fired but she gathers a mob outside the office and threaten to set it ablaze unless they send Bob out. They do, and Cayla lights him on fire with a torch. His coworkers think he'll return the following day but this time he stays dead.
"Trail of Dead" by Joanne Anderton - After dispatching a witch the Hunter recruits an apprentice to aid in bringing those who raise the dead to justice.
"There Is No "E" in Zombi Which Means There Can Be No You or We" by Roxane Gay - wc
"I Waltzed with a Zombie" by Ron Goulart - wc
"'Til Death Do Us Part" by Shaun Jeffrey - wc
"Present" by Nicole Kornher-Stace - wc
"Becca at the End of the World" by Shira Lipkin - wc
"What Maisie Knew" by David Liss - wc
"Chew" by Tamsyn Muir - wc
11-11-2014
"Trail of Dead" by Joanne Anderton - After dispatching a witch the Hunter recruits an apprentice to aid in bringing those who raise the dead to justice.
"There Is No "E" in Zombi Which Means There Can Be No You or We" by Roxane Gay - wc
"I Waltzed with a Zombie" by Ron Goulart - wc
"'Til Death Do Us Part" by Shaun Jeffrey - wc
"Present" by Nicole Kornher-Stace - wc
"Becca at the End of the World" by Shira Lipkin - wc
"What Maisie Knew" by David Liss - wc
"Chew" by Tamsyn Muir - wc
11-11-2014
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 26, 2014
This is probably the closest thing to a proper review that I'll do for this book.
My Thoughts: Despite some of the big names of the genre being included in this Anthology it was simply put, boring. Yes, the book has a lot of stories but ultimately I think that was its downfall. The stories I actually liked, What Once We Feared by Carrie Ryan, The Afflicted by Mathew Johnson and What Maise Knew by David Liss were a highlight for sure but considering this anthology has over 35 stories only really liking 3 isn't saying much. Overall, I just think this Anthology was bizarre and the stories in it tried too hard to reinvent something that wasn't broken to begin with. In the end I gave this one ★★★.
Posted originally @Blood,Sweat and Books
My Thoughts: Despite some of the big names of the genre being included in this Anthology it was simply put, boring. Yes, the book has a lot of stories but ultimately I think that was its downfall. The stories I actually liked, What Once We Feared by Carrie Ryan, The Afflicted by Mathew Johnson and What Maise Knew by David Liss were a highlight for sure but considering this anthology has over 35 stories only really liking 3 isn't saying much. Overall, I just think this Anthology was bizarre and the stories in it tried too hard to reinvent something that wasn't broken to begin with. In the end I gave this one ★★★.
Posted originally @Blood,Sweat and Books
October 17, 2024
My favorite stories in this collection are:
Afflicted by Matthew Johnson
Iphigenia in Aulis by Mike Carey
Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead (572-571 BCE) by Alex Dally McFarlane
Rocket Man by Stephen Graham Jones
The Day the Music Died by Joe McKinney
The Children's Hour by Marge Simon
Trail of the Dead by Joanne Anderton
The Death and Life of Bob by William Jablonsky
Stemming the Tide by Simon Stranzas
Those Beneath the Bog by Jacques L. Condor
Til Death Do Us Part by Shawn Jeffrey
What Once We Feared by Carrie Ryan
Jack and Jill by Jonathan Maberry
Aftermath by Joy Kennedy-O'Neil
Present by Nicole Korner-Stace
Bit Rot by Charles Stross
Afflicted by Matthew Johnson
Iphigenia in Aulis by Mike Carey
Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead (572-571 BCE) by Alex Dally McFarlane
Rocket Man by Stephen Graham Jones
The Day the Music Died by Joe McKinney
The Children's Hour by Marge Simon
Trail of the Dead by Joanne Anderton
The Death and Life of Bob by William Jablonsky
Stemming the Tide by Simon Stranzas
Those Beneath the Bog by Jacques L. Condor
Til Death Do Us Part by Shawn Jeffrey
What Once We Feared by Carrie Ryan
Jack and Jill by Jonathan Maberry
Aftermath by Joy Kennedy-O'Neil
Present by Nicole Korner-Stace
Bit Rot by Charles Stross
May 6, 2016
This one was a mixed bag for me. I really loved a handful, did not enjoy quite a few, and the rest were somewhere in the middle. There was more than once where I felt two (or even three) stories were quite similar in premise, and the collection could have done with one of the stories as opposed to both. I think it would have been a stronger anthology, and more enjoyable read, if the story selection had been condensed. Still, there were enough stories that I loved to have made it worth picking up.
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