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The Gospel of Z
In the postapocalypse, you take what you can get: “A must-read story and essential addition to the zombie canon” from the New York Times–bestselling author (LitReactor).
It’s been nearly a decade since Z Day, when a plague turned humans into the voracious undead. Once a high school biology teacher, Jory Gray now works on an assembly line, making genetically modified “handlers”—the only beings who can control the zombies. There’s not much to live for these days, so when the woman he loves leaves him for the promise of the Church of Z, Gray has nothing left to lose. Or so he thinks.
When Gray gets demoted from his factory position, he becomes truly expendable, and sent out to blow-torch the infected. A dead-end job if there ever was one. As Gray struggles to stay human in a world that wants to make him a monster, the military and church duke it out for the future of humanity, using survivors as pawns in a hell on earth where zombies are the least of the creatures to be feared . . .
It’s been nearly a decade since Z Day, when a plague turned humans into the voracious undead. Once a high school biology teacher, Jory Gray now works on an assembly line, making genetically modified “handlers”—the only beings who can control the zombies. There’s not much to live for these days, so when the woman he loves leaves him for the promise of the Church of Z, Gray has nothing left to lose. Or so he thinks.
When Gray gets demoted from his factory position, he becomes truly expendable, and sent out to blow-torch the infected. A dead-end job if there ever was one. As Gray struggles to stay human in a world that wants to make him a monster, the military and church duke it out for the future of humanity, using survivors as pawns in a hell on earth where zombies are the least of the creatures to be feared . . .
316 pages, Paperback
First published January 7, 2014
About the author
Stephen Graham Jones
246 books15.8k followersStephen Graham Jones is the NYT bestselling author thirty-five or so books. He really likes werewolves and slashers. Favorite novels change daily, but Valis and Love Medicine and Lonesome Dove and It and The Things They Carried are all usually up there somewhere. Stephen lives in Boulder, Colorado. It's a big change from the West Texas he grew up in.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
October 21, 2024
Hi it’s me again, remember how annoying I was about I Was a Teenage Slasher? Well, allow me to introduce you to Jory…
The Gospel of Z by Stephen Graham Jones — not really available right now? Unless you’re extremely fortunate in your Libby selection? Buuuuut…maybe available soon 👀
And on that note, thank you Pikes Peak Library District for shelving a digital copy — I drove hours to get a library card with you just to read it!
» READ IF YOU «
🧟 love zombies, hate zombies — honestly the zombies are not the point
👯♂️ are always down for a good bromance
💔 have ever felt betrayed by a person or an institution
» SYNOPSIS «
Jory Gray is despondent to learn that Linse, the only person in this post-apocalyptic world he cares about, has decided to leave him to join the safety of the church. But why? Distracted, Jory gets in trouble at work and quickly finds himself on the suicide squad, face to face with zombies and handlers and inhuman priests. But the further Jory falls, the more he finds he has to live for — and when he finds himself in a position to save the world, he'll do what he feels he must.
» REVIEW «
Alright so yes, this is a zombie novel. But the zombies are kind of just the scenery, the backdrop. The real star of the book is Jory, and his path to unlikely hero. There's a power-hungry general, a sinister priest, a charming driver, and a handful of somewhat-lovable miscreants to round out the character list, but my heart beats purely for Jory. Well, Jory and Mayner, honestly — they make the absolutely cutest bromance, plus several of Mayner's lines in here absolutely gutted me.
Did I shed tears over a horror novel again? You betcha. Would I do it again? Absolutely. This one is maybe a little more "Jonesy" than the Indian Lake trilogy or I Was a Teenage Slasher], but I definitely recommend it to anyone that's accustomed to his particular style of writing. There are arresting, beautiful lines of prose interspersed with gory scenes of zombies eating faces, so pretty typical SGJ fare.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Gospel of Z by Stephen Graham Jones — not really available right now? Unless you’re extremely fortunate in your Libby selection? Buuuuut…maybe available soon 👀
And on that note, thank you Pikes Peak Library District for shelving a digital copy — I drove hours to get a library card with you just to read it!
» READ IF YOU «
🧟 love zombies, hate zombies — honestly the zombies are not the point
👯♂️ are always down for a good bromance
💔 have ever felt betrayed by a person or an institution
» SYNOPSIS «
Jory Gray is despondent to learn that Linse, the only person in this post-apocalyptic world he cares about, has decided to leave him to join the safety of the church. But why? Distracted, Jory gets in trouble at work and quickly finds himself on the suicide squad, face to face with zombies and handlers and inhuman priests. But the further Jory falls, the more he finds he has to live for — and when he finds himself in a position to save the world, he'll do what he feels he must.
» REVIEW «
Alright so yes, this is a zombie novel. But the zombies are kind of just the scenery, the backdrop. The real star of the book is Jory, and his path to unlikely hero. There's a power-hungry general, a sinister priest, a charming driver, and a handful of somewhat-lovable miscreants to round out the character list, but my heart beats purely for Jory. Well, Jory and Mayner, honestly — they make the absolutely cutest bromance, plus several of Mayner's lines in here absolutely gutted me.
Did I shed tears over a horror novel again? You betcha. Would I do it again? Absolutely. This one is maybe a little more "Jonesy" than the Indian Lake trilogy or I Was a Teenage Slasher], but I definitely recommend it to anyone that's accustomed to his particular style of writing. There are arresting, beautiful lines of prose interspersed with gory scenes of zombies eating faces, so pretty typical SGJ fare.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
May 29, 2025
Oh, Jory. You have my heart.
Also, how many authors can make you gasp while reading about a room of self-decapitated bodies and then immediately make you laugh out loud in the very next paragraph?
Perfection.
Also, how many authors can make you gasp while reading about a room of self-decapitated bodies and then immediately make you laugh out loud in the very next paragraph?
Perfection.
March 26, 2014
Zombies? Yeah. But this isn't a book where zombies are the focus, this is a book where zombies are the
setting.
Against a backdrop of a post-apocalypse world, Jones has crafted an exciting, suspenseful, and horrifying tale of mystery, adventure, and intrigue, exploring the ideas "What is the line between human and not human?" and "Is it acceptable to sacrifice lives in order to save others?"
In The Gospel of Z , we find that zombies are terrifying, but the countermeasures people take in order to survive are much much worse!!
Against a backdrop of a post-apocalypse world, Jones has crafted an exciting, suspenseful, and horrifying tale of mystery, adventure, and intrigue, exploring the ideas "What is the line between human and not human?" and "Is it acceptable to sacrifice lives in order to save others?"
In The Gospel of Z , we find that zombies are terrifying, but the countermeasures people take in order to survive are much much worse!!
February 21, 2015
I wanted to like this book but the way it was written was far too disjointed for me. I am still not sure whether or not the handlers are people or modified zombies that men use against other zombies. I'm sure it was explained somewhere but I missed it and didn't care to go back and figure it out.
This was a disappointing waste of time, but at least I finished it.
This was a disappointing waste of time, but at least I finished it.
August 25, 2016
Disjointed writing. Abysmal and difficult to understand.
Cardboard characters.
Don't read. Waste of time.
Cardboard characters.
Don't read. Waste of time.
September 27, 2021
This was a jumbled disappointment, but the author’s current work is great. What a massive gap between here & there! It’s astonishing. This book was twitchy and disjointed. It seemed to be trying too hard. To be edgy or unnerving but it just ended up obtuse. It was very strange: I couldn’t follow the characters’ thoughts or motivations. They would say/do something and I’d just be confused/lost. Where did that come from? What is that supposed to mean? It was really irritating & tiring. Humans don’t speak like this.
In his acknowledgements, the author says, “To ____, for telling me this was too broken. You were right. To my agent ______, for targeting the one place that could fix the rest.” I would have to disagree, however. This was still quite broken, fragments of a story that didn’t connect into a whole.
I thought The Only Good Indians was brilliant, and Night of the Mannequins was well written. This effort, from 2014, is all over the place though. It just doesn’t work for me, at all. The odd interludes, intercutting flashbacks, supposedly, but describing those characters as a “mannequin family,” even describing them as actually plastic? Suburban homogenization? I guess, but it’s awfully clumsy & overwrought.
The author was trying to take the zombie genre a different direction and I truly appreciated the effort. I was rooting for him.
The whole purpose of the outings—with a flamethrower, a priest of the weird white compound and a driver with mini-missiles on his jeep, an augmented human/zombie/cyborg/monster and a zombie on a leash—was That was really f-ed beyond all repair. Confusing—so WHAT was the point of it all? Go really slow this time…—and confused: why bioengineer a monstrosity only to walk a zombie on a leash? Shouldn’t it be out smashing zombies into dust? World War Z over, man! But not all. What a freakin’ mess…
In his acknowledgements, the author says, “To ____, for telling me this was too broken. You were right. To my agent ______, for targeting the one place that could fix the rest.” I would have to disagree, however. This was still quite broken, fragments of a story that didn’t connect into a whole.
I thought The Only Good Indians was brilliant, and Night of the Mannequins was well written. This effort, from 2014, is all over the place though. It just doesn’t work for me, at all. The odd interludes, intercutting flashbacks, supposedly, but describing those characters as a “mannequin family,” even describing them as actually plastic? Suburban homogenization? I guess, but it’s awfully clumsy & overwrought.
The author was trying to take the zombie genre a different direction and I truly appreciated the effort. I was rooting for him.
The whole purpose of the outings—with a flamethrower, a priest of the weird white compound and a driver with mini-missiles on his jeep, an augmented human/zombie/cyborg/monster and a zombie on a leash—was That was really f-ed beyond all repair. Confusing—so WHAT was the point of it all? Go really slow this time…—and confused: why bioengineer a monstrosity only to walk a zombie on a leash? Shouldn’t it be out smashing zombies into dust? World War Z over, man! But not all. What a freakin’ mess…
April 27, 2014
This is a story about ten years later. After the big Z-virus what-have-you. About the ones left behind. Yeah.
At this point (ten years later), zombies are few and far between—mere plot points, just some window dressing on a story about people with agendas. The ideas that Stephen comes up with to deal with the post-apocalyptic world are quite believable. The whole aura around the Handlers, the Bottleneckers, sheesh—even those freaking bait-goats.
And then there's the religious bunch, with their special vestments and their black and white knives...they're a particularly worrisome bunch. You might pick this one up for the zombies, but you'll enjoy reading it for the madness humanity dredges up for itself.
At this point (ten years later), zombies are few and far between—mere plot points, just some window dressing on a story about people with agendas. The ideas that Stephen comes up with to deal with the post-apocalyptic world are quite believable. The whole aura around the Handlers, the Bottleneckers, sheesh—even those freaking bait-goats.
And then there's the religious bunch, with their special vestments and their black and white knives...they're a particularly worrisome bunch. You might pick this one up for the zombies, but you'll enjoy reading it for the madness humanity dredges up for itself.
April 18, 2026
When I read Stephen Graham Jones, I feel like I’m translating while I’m reading. I’m reading the book in my native language but my brain needs to translate the sentences. I honestly don’t know how to explain it - if you know, you know, I guess.
But that doesn’t mean the experience isn’t enjoyable. The style is so unquestionably his, and so different from other writers. It feels interesting and cool and kind of confusing all at the same time. I wonder if this is how other people feel while reading Jeff Vandermeer (whose style I just immediately “get” and love).
I felt so pleasantly surprised while reading this book and loved the journey. I love a weird post apocalyptic book any day of the week - the weirder the better. Throw a creature or two in there? Marry me.
But that doesn’t mean the experience isn’t enjoyable. The style is so unquestionably his, and so different from other writers. It feels interesting and cool and kind of confusing all at the same time. I wonder if this is how other people feel while reading Jeff Vandermeer (whose style I just immediately “get” and love).
I felt so pleasantly surprised while reading this book and loved the journey. I love a weird post apocalyptic book any day of the week - the weirder the better. Throw a creature or two in there? Marry me.
October 12, 2025
I needed more zombies, this book uses a zombie apocalypse more as a setting with the plot focusing on a power conflict between a military group and religious cult to control what remains of the world.
Overall The Gospel of Z is enjoyable. I like SGJ’s prose and enjoy most of his books. This is still his strength in this one but I think I had different expectations of what it would be.
Dark and fast paced with enjoyable characters, can be a little hard to follow at times, but clears up towards the end.
Overall The Gospel of Z is enjoyable. I like SGJ’s prose and enjoy most of his books. This is still his strength in this one but I think I had different expectations of what it would be.
Dark and fast paced with enjoyable characters, can be a little hard to follow at times, but clears up towards the end.
January 18, 2026
Ten years after the dawn of the zombie apocalypse, our main character is trying to make his way, navigating through a new world where the military and a cultish church are vying for power. As he struggles to survive, which he’s not even sure is worthwhile, he slowly unravels the genesis of the zombies.
This is a fun take on the zombie genre, delivered with humor and horror, focusing more on the horrors of humanity than on the wretched zombies stumbling after them.
I’m no zombie connoisseur, but this is perhaps my favorite in the genre.
This is a fun take on the zombie genre, delivered with humor and horror, focusing more on the horrors of humanity than on the wretched zombies stumbling after them.
I’m no zombie connoisseur, but this is perhaps my favorite in the genre.
May 3, 2026
That’s a damn good zombie book.
Did Not Finish
December 8, 2025Sadly DNFing 63%. I’ve tried twice now to get into this and the farther I get the more I don’t connect with the writing style. Will continue trying all SGJ backlist though because I still think he’s one of the best out there.
March 2, 2026
if you want a book where the zombies dominate the story, this isn't for you. this is about the humans and how the zombie apocalypse has changed the world. Stephen Graham Jones is a great writer and always creates the best protagonists, and this is no different. I had trouble putting this one down!
October 3, 2016
Honestly, I didn't finish this one. I'll admit that I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I read a lot of books and have even written a few that some readers have enjoyed, so when I say that I couldn't entirely understand what was going on is this story, I hope that doesn't make me sound abnormally dense. It was exhausting, really, constantly trying to read between the lines, hoping that if I could just concentrate a little harder my mind's eye might have a chance of deciphering what this author wanted me to see. But alas, a least half of the time, I had no earthly idea what in the heck was going on or why the characters were doing what they were. I did, however, desperately want to see the story through, to find out what became of Jory and the woman he pinned for, but the headache I suffered each time I trudged through another chapter just wasn't worth it.
honestly-ill-never-get-around-to-it
March 2, 2014The greatly missed Ceridwen just reviewed this. Sounds pretty good.
May 3, 2019
Gospel of Z is a fresh take on a post apocalyptic world infested with zombies and how the living have adapted and are surviving. Very enjoyable read. And although this is a true-to-the-word “zombie” story, it’s so very human.
April 15, 2026
I like this book well enough. But it's a good thing this isn't the first book by Stephen Graham Jones that I've ever read. Otherwise... ...It may have been the last one. I feel like the author of this book is the rough gem that would become the great author of The Only Good Indians, Mongrels, I was a Teenage Slasher, and The Buffalo Hunter Hunter.
The Gospel of Z contains very interesting and original takes on the zombie genre, and it wears its influences on its sleeve (Walking Dead, World War Z, 20 Days Later). I also see developing that very unique and divisive prose style of SGJ, which I think works very well in his later books. But here it isn't there yet. In a lot os spots in The Gospel of Z the writing feels forcibly edgy. However, the biggest problem with the writing I have is that I often could not follow what was happening or what was being revealed... So, the protagonist Jory Gray is supposedly 'the Messenger,' and I do have a vague understanding at the end of the book of what he is the messenger of... No, scratch that, I don't. [POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD, MAYBE]
But this is all very unclear to me. And I'm sorry to state that the central conceit of the book is lost on me.
I have to give SGJ some bonus props for the zombies only being the backdrop of this story, which is very much about human relations and conspiracies (which I did not grok). Still, I can only recommend this to big fans of SGJ or fans of the zombie genre.
The Gospel of Z contains very interesting and original takes on the zombie genre, and it wears its influences on its sleeve (Walking Dead, World War Z, 20 Days Later). I also see developing that very unique and divisive prose style of SGJ, which I think works very well in his later books. But here it isn't there yet. In a lot os spots in The Gospel of Z the writing feels forcibly edgy. However, the biggest problem with the writing I have is that I often could not follow what was happening or what was being revealed... So, the protagonist Jory Gray is supposedly 'the Messenger,' and I do have a vague understanding at the end of the book of what he is the messenger of... No, scratch that, I don't. [POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD, MAYBE]
But this is all very unclear to me. And I'm sorry to state that the central conceit of the book is lost on me.
I have to give SGJ some bonus props for the zombies only being the backdrop of this story, which is very much about human relations and conspiracies (which I did not grok). Still, I can only recommend this to big fans of SGJ or fans of the zombie genre.
March 20, 2026
*2.75-3.0 stars*. Argh, this one is hard for me to rate. First-I really love Stephen Graham Jones-I’ve read quite a few of his books, novels & novellas & short stories-loved them. But this one was much more of I love and hate it at the same time. The story premise itself I thought was great. The world building & characters were interesting & intriguing. BUT…..the way the story was told was a problem. It was jerky and hard to follow. I kept falling out of the story because I was trying to figure out what was going on. I was a bit frustrated…..but that being said-again, I thought the basic plot/world was fascinating. I think this was one of his early novels and it only worked for me 50% of the time! But it was a cool take on the zombie genre.
“It’s been nearly a decade since Z Day, when a plague turned humans into the voracious undead. Once a high school biology teacher, Jory Gray now works on an assembly line, making genetically modified “handlers”—the only beings who can control the zombies. There’s not much to live for these days, so when the woman he loves leaves him for the promise of the Church of Z, Gray has nothing left to lose. Or so he thinks.
When Gray gets demoted from his factory position, he becomes truly expendable, and sent out to blow-torch the infected. A dead-end job if there ever was one. As Gray struggles to stay human in a world that wants to make him a monster, the military and church duke it out for the future of humanity, using survivors as pawns in a hell on earth where zombies are the least of the creatures to be feared . . .” (From the book blurb)
“It’s been nearly a decade since Z Day, when a plague turned humans into the voracious undead. Once a high school biology teacher, Jory Gray now works on an assembly line, making genetically modified “handlers”—the only beings who can control the zombies. There’s not much to live for these days, so when the woman he loves leaves him for the promise of the Church of Z, Gray has nothing left to lose. Or so he thinks.
When Gray gets demoted from his factory position, he becomes truly expendable, and sent out to blow-torch the infected. A dead-end job if there ever was one. As Gray struggles to stay human in a world that wants to make him a monster, the military and church duke it out for the future of humanity, using survivors as pawns in a hell on earth where zombies are the least of the creatures to be feared . . .” (From the book blurb)
October 24, 2025
This was so disjointed and genuinely hard to follow at times with less answers than questions, however...I also read it in a day and had a blast doing so. It's genuinely so refreshing to be in a world where zombies are still a threat. They're not terribly prominent in the story, no but they don't need to be, to still be a threat and in zombie media, where 10 years have passed, they become more a backdrop to human drama. Was there still human drama? Absolutely, but in a way that was far more engaging and twisted.
If the world had been 'fleshed' out more, I think this story could've gone far, but as it was, I still loved it and had fun, so really what more could I ask for?
If the world had been 'fleshed' out more, I think this story could've gone far, but as it was, I still loved it and had fun, so really what more could I ask for?
December 19, 2025
I've been enjoying working through all the novels by Stephen Graham Jones this year. As a huge zombie apocalypse genre fan, I was excited to discover this one. Having now read it, is it my favorite zombie apocalypse novel ever? Not even close. But did SGJ bring something fresh and unique to the genre, as he has done to so many horror tropes? 100%, absolutely. This is a fairly short novel, definitely with the feel of SGJ's pre-2020 quality (there's been a serious uptick in quality since that date!), but this book is still totally worth a read. As always, Jones has more to say than just talking about zombies.
March 3, 2026
I like Stephen Graham Jones. He's an adventurous writer, willing to bend genres, and he's written some really interesting books. This book, for me, wasn't one of them. I thought I'd be into it. Religion plus zombies sounded like a good combo. But as a reader I felt really unmoored through much of the narrative. Often I could not figure where the characters were or exactly what was going on. And then I felt tricked at the end. Anyway, not my favorite, but you can't win 'em all.
September 28, 2025
I really enjoyed this one, it was a refreshing take on how the zombie apocalypse starts and the journey of a man to start spreading the truth. the payoffs toward the end are well worth the end are well worth it and this deserves more ratings than it has.
March 30, 2026
This is a perfect example of why I love this author and I am so happy it was republished last year. Gospel of Z is one of his earlier novels (by earlier I mean pre Mongrels), it's weird, confusing, but also funny, and has some heartfelt moments. I hope he does more like this.
November 4, 2017
I thought it was an interesting jumbled mess.
December 6, 2019
I really enjoyed this book. It was a little jumbled in parts, but it made sense in the end. Will read more by this author.
November 3, 2024
Great zombie book! I really enjoy SGJ's writing style. Its descriptive but leaves you with room to fill in the blanks.
July 14, 2025
Desperately want this to be a limited tv series.
August 30, 2025
Not my usual genre, but I enjoyed it. An irreverent look at society from an interesting perspective. Worthwhile and and recommended.
January 14, 2026
best zombie book, maybe tied with WWZ
February 17, 2026
Hard to follow and jumps around a lot. Was not a fan.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews