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Rot
So you’ve raised your loved ones from the dead, but had no idea how difficult it would be to care for them.
No problem! Silver Springs is a warm, peaceful facility equipped to handle all your zombie needs. Their friendly staff will ensure they have a safe environment with daily exercise and raw meat.
Rest easy knowing they’re in good hands… as they rot.
In Michele Lee’s Rot, you won’t find an apocalypse or Romero-style flesh-eaters. This is far more disturbing.
In a world where certain people can will others back from death, Silver Springs Specialty Care Community caters to the undead for those who aren’t quite ready to let go (zombie milk available by special arrangement at the home office).
Dean, retired from the military and looking for an easier life, runs security at this zombie herding farm, but he learns that dark injustice is not unique to war. There’s a rotten core to Silver Springs. Now, Dean and a quickly-decaying corpse named Patrick are on the hunt for a woman they both love and lost to a lucrative business that specializes in greed, zombies and never having to say goodbye.
No problem! Silver Springs is a warm, peaceful facility equipped to handle all your zombie needs. Their friendly staff will ensure they have a safe environment with daily exercise and raw meat.
Rest easy knowing they’re in good hands… as they rot.
In Michele Lee’s Rot, you won’t find an apocalypse or Romero-style flesh-eaters. This is far more disturbing.
In a world where certain people can will others back from death, Silver Springs Specialty Care Community caters to the undead for those who aren’t quite ready to let go (zombie milk available by special arrangement at the home office).
Dean, retired from the military and looking for an easier life, runs security at this zombie herding farm, but he learns that dark injustice is not unique to war. There’s a rotten core to Silver Springs. Now, Dean and a quickly-decaying corpse named Patrick are on the hunt for a woman they both love and lost to a lucrative business that specializes in greed, zombies and never having to say goodbye.
50 pages, Paperback
First published August 9, 2009
260 people want to read
About the author
Michele Lee
17 books50 followersMichele is hard to define probably because the only dictionary nearby is English to Latin. Bibliothecam edot. A former stable hand, PTA president and bookseller, now she’s a reviewer, writer, and editor. Her stories have appeared in Dark Futures and Horror Library, among others, and she recently sold her first novel, Wolf Heart. Her son and husband are very proud of her, her dog, cat and fish don’t really care and her daughter has taken this as proof she, too, can be a writer. She pretends to keep a web presence at michelelee.net
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 28, 2016
Posted at Shelf Inflicted
Rot is definitely not your traditional zombie tale, full of mindless, hungry zombies and lots of gore. Dean is a former military man hired as a security guard by a facility that specializes in caring for those who are raised from the dead by family members who are unable to care for them, yet unwilling to let them go.
Amy and Patrick are newly raised zombies. Amy died from a stroke, her husband no longer willing to care for her, but unable to let her go. Patrick, a gay man, was killed in a car accident and kept alive by his parents who promise to give him a decent burial once he “repents”.
When Amy goes missing, Dean and Patrick set out to find her and in the process, uncover the dark side of the Silver Springs Specialty Care Community.
This is a wonderfully dark, thought-provoking, heart wrenching and imaginative story that explores the greed, corruption, and selfishness that leads to a callous disregard of human life and one man's strength and courage to do the right thing.
Rot is definitely not your traditional zombie tale, full of mindless, hungry zombies and lots of gore. Dean is a former military man hired as a security guard by a facility that specializes in caring for those who are raised from the dead by family members who are unable to care for them, yet unwilling to let them go.
Amy and Patrick are newly raised zombies. Amy died from a stroke, her husband no longer willing to care for her, but unable to let her go. Patrick, a gay man, was killed in a car accident and kept alive by his parents who promise to give him a decent burial once he “repents”.
When Amy goes missing, Dean and Patrick set out to find her and in the process, uncover the dark side of the Silver Springs Specialty Care Community.
This is a wonderfully dark, thought-provoking, heart wrenching and imaginative story that explores the greed, corruption, and selfishness that leads to a callous disregard of human life and one man's strength and courage to do the right thing.
September 5, 2009
ROT is set in present day. The narrator of this tale is Dean who works at the Silver Springs Specialty Care Community. This facility employs people who can raise the dead as well as keep them in line. Dean is a security specialist who will shoot without remorse or as he states, “the ability to look someone’s ninety-year old grandmother in the eyes and shoot her.”
Right from the start I liked Dean. He may seem to be a cold S.O.B. but he is a military man. He is settled at the job but isn’t too gung ho about working there. He feels remorse for these zombies, who have been raised from the dead by their families who thought they would have their loved ones back. For some reason it comes as a surprise when their loved ones aren’t exactly like they were when they were alive. Perhaps the stench of their decomposing bodies and eventual downward spiral into becoming mindless flesh hungry creature was too much for the living to handle. Because the living aren’t too keen on exterminate their undead family members, they place them at a facility like the one Dean words at. Think of this as a zombie storage unit where people pay monthly fee for their upkeep.
When a zombie is raised from their grave, they don’t become one that moves as slow as a snail, moaning with their arms out craving brains. They still have their personalities and human traits. It just takes them sometime to lose their identities. Until then, these zombies can become a productive part of society. Amy is one of these newly risen zombies and becomes Dean’s assistant of sorts. Her own story is very sad due to her husband who wanted her back and then threw her away. Dean enjoys having her around and they become friends. There is also Patrick, a zombie who is very close to turning into a mindless flesh eater, but for the time being he is still in control of himself. These three form a bond and take each day as it come.
Then one day Amy goes missing and Dean comes to the conclusion that something shady is going on at the zombie care community. He and Patrick team up to figure out what has happened to Amy.
ROT takes a different spin on the zombie myth and I have to say it really works. I loved how Michele shows that when one becomes a zombie, they still have feelings and personalities. Patrick and Amy are two of these characters you connect with, just as Dean has. Because of the romantic in me, I would have loved to see Dean and Amy together as a couple, but I knew that was not a possibility because it would be too tragic. Eventually Amy would become a danger and Dean would be the one to put her down.
The violence is kept to a minimum and there are nice jokes scattered throughout, especially about a zombies appetites for brains.
Kudos to Michele for writing a story where zombies can be our friends, that is until they have to be shot in the head.
Right from the start I liked Dean. He may seem to be a cold S.O.B. but he is a military man. He is settled at the job but isn’t too gung ho about working there. He feels remorse for these zombies, who have been raised from the dead by their families who thought they would have their loved ones back. For some reason it comes as a surprise when their loved ones aren’t exactly like they were when they were alive. Perhaps the stench of their decomposing bodies and eventual downward spiral into becoming mindless flesh hungry creature was too much for the living to handle. Because the living aren’t too keen on exterminate their undead family members, they place them at a facility like the one Dean words at. Think of this as a zombie storage unit where people pay monthly fee for their upkeep.
When a zombie is raised from their grave, they don’t become one that moves as slow as a snail, moaning with their arms out craving brains. They still have their personalities and human traits. It just takes them sometime to lose their identities. Until then, these zombies can become a productive part of society. Amy is one of these newly risen zombies and becomes Dean’s assistant of sorts. Her own story is very sad due to her husband who wanted her back and then threw her away. Dean enjoys having her around and they become friends. There is also Patrick, a zombie who is very close to turning into a mindless flesh eater, but for the time being he is still in control of himself. These three form a bond and take each day as it come.
Then one day Amy goes missing and Dean comes to the conclusion that something shady is going on at the zombie care community. He and Patrick team up to figure out what has happened to Amy.
ROT takes a different spin on the zombie myth and I have to say it really works. I loved how Michele shows that when one becomes a zombie, they still have feelings and personalities. Patrick and Amy are two of these characters you connect with, just as Dean has. Because of the romantic in me, I would have loved to see Dean and Amy together as a couple, but I knew that was not a possibility because it would be too tragic. Eventually Amy would become a danger and Dean would be the one to put her down.
The violence is kept to a minimum and there are nice jokes scattered throughout, especially about a zombies appetites for brains.
Kudos to Michele for writing a story where zombies can be our friends, that is until they have to be shot in the head.
May 16, 2010
Disclaimer: This is a novella length work. I purchased the PDF version of the book and it should be noted that the PDF version is not formatted correctly for Sony e-reader’s enlarged text feature and the normal view text size is so small it was not readable for me. Be aware that if you use a Sony e-reader and want to enlarge the text, nearly all formatting will be lost and paragraphs and dialog will run together. I have not examined the other available e-formats to determine if the same problems exist. I’d also recommend ignoring the tongue-in-cheek tone of the publisher’s blurb. While there is some dark humor in the novella, the blurb doesn’t really do justice to the work.
My Review: Never, ever has a review given me more pause than this one. I’ve sat with it for days, trying to ascertain my honest feelings about Michele Lee’s debut novella. There is so very much here to praise: from its inventiveness with a genre that has been (pun completely intended) done to death to the wonderful humanity of the zombie characters Lee has created. And yet, I have to be honest and point out that there were significant problems for me with other aspects of the work, problems that left me disappointed in the work as a whole. It’s a battle of wills….half of me wanting nothing more than to jump up and down and give this a 10-star, rave review, and the other half of me going…wait. So forgive me if this review seems to suffer from a bit of split personality.
Let’s start with the positives. Zombies are one of the horror genre’s staples and it is incredibly difficult to find a new and inventive twist, but it is exactly here that Lee shines brilliantly. Instead of the lumbering zombies of Romero’s earliest works or the frenetic zombies of something like 28 Days Later, Lee gives us incredibly rich, human characters in zombie form. Full of emotion and fear and dreams, Lee’s zombie characters are very real, multi-dimensional people who just so happen to have returned from the dead and need flesh to munch on to sustain themselves. They are smart and funny and appealing and utterly believable.
Amy, the main female zombie, has a dry, almost sarcastic outlook on un-life. She’s hardened by what has happened to her, but underneath it all she’s just as frightened by what she’s become—and may soon become—as those intolerant people around her. Likewise, Patrick, a gay man who was killed in a car accident and raised from the dead by his ultra-Christian family so that they might save him from his perverse “lifestyle,” is tough, wryly humorous and wonderfully sensitive in a way that is guaranteed to break your heart. And while the gay aspect of Patrick is essentially only back story (that is, it isn’t really dealt with directly), as a gay man I was so glad to see him because he’s a damn good man, a victim who rises above it and becomes heroic in his own way. The problem for both Amy and Patrick is that when dealing with zombies proved more than their respective families could handle, both of them were shipped off to Silver Springs care facility, little more than a holding tank where zombies are mistreated and worse.
There’s a wonderful duality in these characters. They’re jaded from all they’ve been through, but underneath there is a glimmer of hope that things could get better. They’re not naïve, though. Each knows the slow process of rot is an inevitability, that their minds will dwindle and their ability to control their reactions will be lost. And both of them fear that. They don’t want to become the monsters we all know as zombies. They want and need to hold on to their humanity, what is best about who they were. It’s a brilliant spin on zombie lore and utterly refreshing.
This entire novella is allegory. But what is amazing about it is exactly how versatile the allegory is. The story could be viewed from multiple angles: a commentary on the U.S.’s treatment of the aged, the disposability of relationships, the early days of the AIDS pandemic, even the treatment of patients at Kalaupapa. There’s a lot to be found here and it is a testament to Lee that here story can be interpreted on many, many levels. In the end I walked away feeling that the title of the piece was not so much the rot of flesh inflicted upon the zombies, but the rot of that has infected society, turning it callous and ugly.
So, you ask, why the mixed feelings? That sounds pretty spectacular. And it is. But then I have to take into consideration the other aspect of the story and that is the detective procedural aspects. That is, unfortunately, where I found my biggest qualms about the story.
Rot is told from the first person perspective of Dean, an ex-military man and now security specialist at Silver Springs. This is one of the problems I had in that the narrative voice of the character never reads ex-military to me. Dean reads very much as every day Joe and I expected the edge I have found in military people I know in real life. And that personality dynamic—that slightly jaded perspective that melts away as the story progresses—was lost for me. Dean at the beginning of the story reads very much the same as Dean at the end of the story, and I missed some kind of character arc for him. As a protagonist, there really isn’t all that much that is memorable about him and this only stands out more so because the zombie characters are so compelling and dynamic.
As to the procedural aspects of the detective side of the story, Dean does his detecting largely through paper files. This is a difficult thing to pull off in fiction because we readers aren’t looking at the notations the characters and, therefore, aren’t at liberty to put the pieces together as the character does. The result is a lot of story exposition that tends to drag the pace of the book down and doesn’t really allow for the creation of any sort of dramatic tension or risk. And when Dean discovers the abuse that is taking place at the facility, it is cleared up “off-camera” apparently without any fuss or fighting back by the personnel of the institution. This bothered me because systemic abuse in facilities like this is never put down without a fight.
Likewise, with the plot twist of Amy disappearing, Dean again has to rely on a paper trail. But when he starts to get an idea what is going on, we do get “out” into the world, meeting the CEO of Silver Springs and some shady characters that are doing some despicable things. Here, again, things seem a bit too simplistic and the “villains” Lee has created lack any type of real depth, feeling very much like stock characters that I can find in just about any TV detective show. They’re neither particularly heinous nor particularly smart. Thus, they’re not particularly memorable.
I also had problems with Dean’s ease of entry into the headquarters of what is either a major corporation or a rising corporation that has managed to put a dreadful system of human trafficking into place. Given that me getting into my building is an exercise in security frustration every day, I would have expected Dean’s access to be thwarted a little bit, if not by technology, then by a corporation that has a lot to hide. It all happens a bit too easily for Dean and that, unfortunately, creates a lack of tension that is sorely needed in detective works.
Luckily, Dean has taken Patrick with him and this is when the second half of the books works best. The tension Lee creates in this dynamic is spectacular. Is Patrick going to go all zombie and eat Dean? Will he eat a few villains? Will he degrade into what he is most afraid of becoming? The sense of risk for Dean is palpable. What is at stake for Patrick is untellable. And this pairing leads to one of the very, very best scenes in the novella. One I will not forget for a very long time.
When all is said and done, I still come away with mixed feelings about Rot. With as inventive as Lee was with the zombie aspects of the story, I wanted her to be equally inventive with the detective aspects which drive the latter half of the novella and fall very flat in comparison. And that’s my quandary. There are almost two books here that don’t quite mesh. So, how do I judge this one? I think in the end I have to look at the overall picture and ask myself…is there something extraordinary about what this writer has done? Is this a writer whose imagination and inventiveness excites me and whose work I want to read more of? And my answer there is most definitely yes! No, I can’t overlook the flaws, but I can be excited with what is done spectacularly well. So, while I have some major problems with other aspects of the book, I recommend you read it…for the zombies.
7 out of 10 stars - Originally reviewed at Outlaw Reviews.
My Review: Never, ever has a review given me more pause than this one. I’ve sat with it for days, trying to ascertain my honest feelings about Michele Lee’s debut novella. There is so very much here to praise: from its inventiveness with a genre that has been (pun completely intended) done to death to the wonderful humanity of the zombie characters Lee has created. And yet, I have to be honest and point out that there were significant problems for me with other aspects of the work, problems that left me disappointed in the work as a whole. It’s a battle of wills….half of me wanting nothing more than to jump up and down and give this a 10-star, rave review, and the other half of me going…wait. So forgive me if this review seems to suffer from a bit of split personality.
Let’s start with the positives. Zombies are one of the horror genre’s staples and it is incredibly difficult to find a new and inventive twist, but it is exactly here that Lee shines brilliantly. Instead of the lumbering zombies of Romero’s earliest works or the frenetic zombies of something like 28 Days Later, Lee gives us incredibly rich, human characters in zombie form. Full of emotion and fear and dreams, Lee’s zombie characters are very real, multi-dimensional people who just so happen to have returned from the dead and need flesh to munch on to sustain themselves. They are smart and funny and appealing and utterly believable.
Amy, the main female zombie, has a dry, almost sarcastic outlook on un-life. She’s hardened by what has happened to her, but underneath it all she’s just as frightened by what she’s become—and may soon become—as those intolerant people around her. Likewise, Patrick, a gay man who was killed in a car accident and raised from the dead by his ultra-Christian family so that they might save him from his perverse “lifestyle,” is tough, wryly humorous and wonderfully sensitive in a way that is guaranteed to break your heart. And while the gay aspect of Patrick is essentially only back story (that is, it isn’t really dealt with directly), as a gay man I was so glad to see him because he’s a damn good man, a victim who rises above it and becomes heroic in his own way. The problem for both Amy and Patrick is that when dealing with zombies proved more than their respective families could handle, both of them were shipped off to Silver Springs care facility, little more than a holding tank where zombies are mistreated and worse.
There’s a wonderful duality in these characters. They’re jaded from all they’ve been through, but underneath there is a glimmer of hope that things could get better. They’re not naïve, though. Each knows the slow process of rot is an inevitability, that their minds will dwindle and their ability to control their reactions will be lost. And both of them fear that. They don’t want to become the monsters we all know as zombies. They want and need to hold on to their humanity, what is best about who they were. It’s a brilliant spin on zombie lore and utterly refreshing.
This entire novella is allegory. But what is amazing about it is exactly how versatile the allegory is. The story could be viewed from multiple angles: a commentary on the U.S.’s treatment of the aged, the disposability of relationships, the early days of the AIDS pandemic, even the treatment of patients at Kalaupapa. There’s a lot to be found here and it is a testament to Lee that here story can be interpreted on many, many levels. In the end I walked away feeling that the title of the piece was not so much the rot of flesh inflicted upon the zombies, but the rot of that has infected society, turning it callous and ugly.
So, you ask, why the mixed feelings? That sounds pretty spectacular. And it is. But then I have to take into consideration the other aspect of the story and that is the detective procedural aspects. That is, unfortunately, where I found my biggest qualms about the story.
Rot is told from the first person perspective of Dean, an ex-military man and now security specialist at Silver Springs. This is one of the problems I had in that the narrative voice of the character never reads ex-military to me. Dean reads very much as every day Joe and I expected the edge I have found in military people I know in real life. And that personality dynamic—that slightly jaded perspective that melts away as the story progresses—was lost for me. Dean at the beginning of the story reads very much the same as Dean at the end of the story, and I missed some kind of character arc for him. As a protagonist, there really isn’t all that much that is memorable about him and this only stands out more so because the zombie characters are so compelling and dynamic.
As to the procedural aspects of the detective side of the story, Dean does his detecting largely through paper files. This is a difficult thing to pull off in fiction because we readers aren’t looking at the notations the characters and, therefore, aren’t at liberty to put the pieces together as the character does. The result is a lot of story exposition that tends to drag the pace of the book down and doesn’t really allow for the creation of any sort of dramatic tension or risk. And when Dean discovers the abuse that is taking place at the facility, it is cleared up “off-camera” apparently without any fuss or fighting back by the personnel of the institution. This bothered me because systemic abuse in facilities like this is never put down without a fight.
Likewise, with the plot twist of Amy disappearing, Dean again has to rely on a paper trail. But when he starts to get an idea what is going on, we do get “out” into the world, meeting the CEO of Silver Springs and some shady characters that are doing some despicable things. Here, again, things seem a bit too simplistic and the “villains” Lee has created lack any type of real depth, feeling very much like stock characters that I can find in just about any TV detective show. They’re neither particularly heinous nor particularly smart. Thus, they’re not particularly memorable.
I also had problems with Dean’s ease of entry into the headquarters of what is either a major corporation or a rising corporation that has managed to put a dreadful system of human trafficking into place. Given that me getting into my building is an exercise in security frustration every day, I would have expected Dean’s access to be thwarted a little bit, if not by technology, then by a corporation that has a lot to hide. It all happens a bit too easily for Dean and that, unfortunately, creates a lack of tension that is sorely needed in detective works.
Luckily, Dean has taken Patrick with him and this is when the second half of the books works best. The tension Lee creates in this dynamic is spectacular. Is Patrick going to go all zombie and eat Dean? Will he eat a few villains? Will he degrade into what he is most afraid of becoming? The sense of risk for Dean is palpable. What is at stake for Patrick is untellable. And this pairing leads to one of the very, very best scenes in the novella. One I will not forget for a very long time.
When all is said and done, I still come away with mixed feelings about Rot. With as inventive as Lee was with the zombie aspects of the story, I wanted her to be equally inventive with the detective aspects which drive the latter half of the novella and fall very flat in comparison. And that’s my quandary. There are almost two books here that don’t quite mesh. So, how do I judge this one? I think in the end I have to look at the overall picture and ask myself…is there something extraordinary about what this writer has done? Is this a writer whose imagination and inventiveness excites me and whose work I want to read more of? And my answer there is most definitely yes! No, I can’t overlook the flaws, but I can be excited with what is done spectacularly well. So, while I have some major problems with other aspects of the book, I recommend you read it…for the zombies.
7 out of 10 stars - Originally reviewed at Outlaw Reviews.
January 2, 2012
Confession time. Rot marks only the second Zombie book I've read. In spite of the craze, or perhaps because of it, I'd mentally written off the zombie sub-genre as one of limited possibilities, and populated with monsters who are one-dimensional and uninteresting by definition. All of which is to say, I have only read zombie stories because I know these authors in some way and they have impressed me enough to look past my prejudice and give their work a chance.
Adra Steia's Spirit Mother was the first. As a zombie thriller, it exceeded my low expectations. When all is said and done, however, brainless monsters chased our heroes through the streets for a couple of hundred pages while much carnage ensued. So okay. Nothing wrong with that.
That brings us to Rot.
Rot took my expectations and threw them away, and from the opening pages, demonstrated what a zombie story could be, with a little imagination and a slight twist. Michele Lee, whom I know primarily as a reviewer of excellent taste (and no, not just because she liked my novel...well, not JUST because, lol) critical of the expected and the lazy, doesn't settle for the expected or the lazy in her own work.
What Lee presents here is a world in which zombies are the aftereffect of magic with good intentions gone wrong. Meant as a loving act to hold off death, the world is populated with batches of "fresh" dead zombies. These beings are still capable of thought, emotion, and character. But they exist as walking time bombs, unable to stop the progressive rotting of their flesh, mental capacities, and control. Like a loving pet suffering from rabies that might go for your throat at any time.
The analogy to dementia and Alzheimer's are impossible to ignore; neither is the mix of disdain, indifference, and cruelty shown to the victims by their human caregivers. The specific story is a simple one. Dean, a newly hired security guard at "Silver Springs Care Community" for zombies (can't you just see the tri-fold with the trees and clear blue skyline)begins working alongside two "fresh" zombie volunteers in his office, Amy and Patrick. He begins to bond with them, in spite of the understanding that one day he may be the person who has to "put them down" when they lose control.
Beginning with this benign, almost pleasant, start, Lee quickly twists the plot in a number of unexpected directions. In the end, the true monsters prove to be quite different from what you might expect. Or, sadly, perhaps EXACTLY what you might expect.
Speaking of expectations, I expected many things from this fast-reading novella. What I did not expect was a story that allows the author to make relevant commentary on the human condition in so effective a manner. Nice job, Michele. If more zombie stories are half as good as this, I may have to consider giving the sub-genre a second chance.
RJ
Adra Steia's Spirit Mother was the first. As a zombie thriller, it exceeded my low expectations. When all is said and done, however, brainless monsters chased our heroes through the streets for a couple of hundred pages while much carnage ensued. So okay. Nothing wrong with that.
That brings us to Rot.
Rot took my expectations and threw them away, and from the opening pages, demonstrated what a zombie story could be, with a little imagination and a slight twist. Michele Lee, whom I know primarily as a reviewer of excellent taste (and no, not just because she liked my novel...well, not JUST because, lol) critical of the expected and the lazy, doesn't settle for the expected or the lazy in her own work.
What Lee presents here is a world in which zombies are the aftereffect of magic with good intentions gone wrong. Meant as a loving act to hold off death, the world is populated with batches of "fresh" dead zombies. These beings are still capable of thought, emotion, and character. But they exist as walking time bombs, unable to stop the progressive rotting of their flesh, mental capacities, and control. Like a loving pet suffering from rabies that might go for your throat at any time.
The analogy to dementia and Alzheimer's are impossible to ignore; neither is the mix of disdain, indifference, and cruelty shown to the victims by their human caregivers. The specific story is a simple one. Dean, a newly hired security guard at "Silver Springs Care Community" for zombies (can't you just see the tri-fold with the trees and clear blue skyline)begins working alongside two "fresh" zombie volunteers in his office, Amy and Patrick. He begins to bond with them, in spite of the understanding that one day he may be the person who has to "put them down" when they lose control.
Beginning with this benign, almost pleasant, start, Lee quickly twists the plot in a number of unexpected directions. In the end, the true monsters prove to be quite different from what you might expect. Or, sadly, perhaps EXACTLY what you might expect.
Speaking of expectations, I expected many things from this fast-reading novella. What I did not expect was a story that allows the author to make relevant commentary on the human condition in so effective a manner. Nice job, Michele. If more zombie stories are half as good as this, I may have to consider giving the sub-genre a second chance.
RJ
August 28, 2010
Michele Lee’s Rot is an impressive debut novella that applies everything we’ve come to know as readers about the zombie and adds a weighty sociological twist that will surprise in its implications.
Using widely-accepted zombie mythos as a framework, Lee crafts an ingenious allegory for the warehousing of the elderly in America. As a nursing home administrator, I was struck (repeatedly, as if in the head by a sledgehammer) by the similarities in how Lee’s fictional undead were mistreated, discarded, and overall discounted by an uncaring, on-the-go society moving too fast to realize the contributions still able to be made and the apathy with which much of our society (barely) considers the old and infirm. Thankfully, government regulations (connected to payment sources) protect the real-life institutionalized elderly from enduring the same fate as the denizens of Silver Springs when they run out of money to cover their stay, but the very human aspects of abandonment, dehumanization, and an outside life moving on without you ring loud and true in Lee’s surprisingly insightful tale.
Read the rest of the review here.
Using widely-accepted zombie mythos as a framework, Lee crafts an ingenious allegory for the warehousing of the elderly in America. As a nursing home administrator, I was struck (repeatedly, as if in the head by a sledgehammer) by the similarities in how Lee’s fictional undead were mistreated, discarded, and overall discounted by an uncaring, on-the-go society moving too fast to realize the contributions still able to be made and the apathy with which much of our society (barely) considers the old and infirm. Thankfully, government regulations (connected to payment sources) protect the real-life institutionalized elderly from enduring the same fate as the denizens of Silver Springs when they run out of money to cover their stay, but the very human aspects of abandonment, dehumanization, and an outside life moving on without you ring loud and true in Lee’s surprisingly insightful tale.
Read the rest of the review here.
May 30, 2011
Dean just started his security job at Silver Springs Specialty Care Community. A facility specifically built to care for your deceased loved ones.. The ones that are undead actually.. the ones that were turned into zombies by their families because they just couldn't let go. But after a while discover it's not easy to care for these people therefore they put them in this facility to take care of them..
But sometimes things are not what they seem..
When Dean unites with 2 zombies, Amy and Patrick.. they together discover there are some zombies that have mysteriously disappeared. But where they disappear is truly haunting !!
I read this book almost in one sitting.. it was so hard to put down.. I only did so to get the kids ready for school then there I sat till it was over..
I loved it so much although I'm not into zombie books, but this was very captivating.. I will look forward to reading other books by this author.. the writing style was so engrossing and alive..
It reminded me of the importance of letting go.. Since lately I had to learn it the hard way!
Quotes I enjoyed from the book:
"Which would you prefer, Dean? Being one of those things out there, rotted to mindlessness, or being locked in a dead body, knowing that's the future you'll face? Knowing that someone loved you enough not to let go, but didn't love you enough to care for you themselves? Instead, they locked you in here where they didn't have to see or smell you, but could take comfort in the idea that you weren't exactly dead anymore."
It used to be that death, maybe even a long or violent one, would be the worst thing you'd ever have to face. In the few skirmishes I'd served in, other soldiers had taken some comfort in knowing that. But then, that was before they started raising people from the dead.
The world felt empty and full at the same time. The cloudless, cool night gleamed with stars so far from the main lights of the city. It looked like some of them had come aground and gathered in a long circle in the grass. There were rose petals in the center: white, red, pink and yellow. I was unable to find enough of one color so I had grabbed all the little bags of them that I could find. Around the oval of light, lilies, daisies, and orchids were spread along with roses. The candles filled the night air with a miasma of scent: lemon, vanilla, strawberry, pine and cinnamon.
But sometimes things are not what they seem..
When Dean unites with 2 zombies, Amy and Patrick.. they together discover there are some zombies that have mysteriously disappeared. But where they disappear is truly haunting !!
I read this book almost in one sitting.. it was so hard to put down.. I only did so to get the kids ready for school then there I sat till it was over..
I loved it so much although I'm not into zombie books, but this was very captivating.. I will look forward to reading other books by this author.. the writing style was so engrossing and alive..
It reminded me of the importance of letting go.. Since lately I had to learn it the hard way!
Quotes I enjoyed from the book:
"Which would you prefer, Dean? Being one of those things out there, rotted to mindlessness, or being locked in a dead body, knowing that's the future you'll face? Knowing that someone loved you enough not to let go, but didn't love you enough to care for you themselves? Instead, they locked you in here where they didn't have to see or smell you, but could take comfort in the idea that you weren't exactly dead anymore."
It used to be that death, maybe even a long or violent one, would be the worst thing you'd ever have to face. In the few skirmishes I'd served in, other soldiers had taken some comfort in knowing that. But then, that was before they started raising people from the dead.
The world felt empty and full at the same time. The cloudless, cool night gleamed with stars so far from the main lights of the city. It looked like some of them had come aground and gathered in a long circle in the grass. There were rose petals in the center: white, red, pink and yellow. I was unable to find enough of one color so I had grabbed all the little bags of them that I could find. Around the oval of light, lilies, daisies, and orchids were spread along with roses. The candles filled the night air with a miasma of scent: lemon, vanilla, strawberry, pine and cinnamon.
February 26, 2010
Rot tells an entirely different sort of zombie tale. There’s no zombie apocalypse, and the streets aren’t awash with the flesh and blood of humanity. Instead, the type of society Lee describes kind of makes you wish it would be consumed: people raise their dead loved ones because they can’t stand the thought of them being dead, and then foist them off on what’s basically a nursing home for the undead. Dean, hired by the company that runs the nursing home to re-kill zombies when they inevitably lapse into savagery, falls in love with one of the residents, a zombie lass named Amy. Another zombie, a dead gay man named Patrick resurrected by his parents in order to save his soul from Hell, also has a special place in his heart for Amy. When she goes missing, Dean and Patrick team up to find her, and in the process uncover a hideous plot that further condemns the already damned and unwanted living dead.
I was really enthusiastic about Michele’s approach when I first heard about the book; I’m a big fan of Brian Keene, so I already have my zombie apocalypse fix covered. Instead, she uses the classic monster to tell a different type of story. My biggest gripe about Rot is that it’s too short; I definitely think Michele could have delved deeper into the various pits of depravity created when mankind raises it’s dead to live among them again. She only scratches the surface slightly with an offhand mention of a woman brought back to life to provide milk for the baby she died birthing and the merest hint of the horrors of a zombie escort service. I definitely think she should shoot for a novel-length adaptation of Rot; the small taste she gives us with the novella is executed so well, it’s hard to be satisfied with fifty pages knowing the untapped potential that’s out there. I also wish there had been more of the relationship between Amy and Dean; yeah, falling in love with a zombie is kinda disgusting, but the way Michele describes her it doesn’t sound outside the realm of possibility.
Bottom line: pick up a copy of Rot and then hound Michele en masse to finish what she started. And tell her Lincoln sent you. 8.5/10
I was really enthusiastic about Michele’s approach when I first heard about the book; I’m a big fan of Brian Keene, so I already have my zombie apocalypse fix covered. Instead, she uses the classic monster to tell a different type of story. My biggest gripe about Rot is that it’s too short; I definitely think Michele could have delved deeper into the various pits of depravity created when mankind raises it’s dead to live among them again. She only scratches the surface slightly with an offhand mention of a woman brought back to life to provide milk for the baby she died birthing and the merest hint of the horrors of a zombie escort service. I definitely think she should shoot for a novel-length adaptation of Rot; the small taste she gives us with the novella is executed so well, it’s hard to be satisfied with fifty pages knowing the untapped potential that’s out there. I also wish there had been more of the relationship between Amy and Dean; yeah, falling in love with a zombie is kinda disgusting, but the way Michele describes her it doesn’t sound outside the realm of possibility.
Bottom line: pick up a copy of Rot and then hound Michele en masse to finish what she started. And tell her Lincoln sent you. 8.5/10
December 24, 2009
Michele Lee delivers a compact little horror story in Rot, a novella that goes into the ramifications of people in society being able to bring back loved ones from the dead--only in this case, rather than true resurrection, it's the capturing of a living spirit inside an otherwise still-dead body. Yes, folks, this is a zombie story, but one where the zombies retain sentience for as long as their bodies retain enough physical cohesion for their brains to work.
And this opens up a host of unhappy results as nursing homes for the undead crop up as locations to dump your resurrected zombie loved ones when you no longer want them. Not to mention the myriad unpleasant excuses for reviving your loved ones to begin with, such as Patrick, a gay young man who's brought back by his fundamentalist Christian parents who promise to put him back in his grave if he'll "repent".
With this as a background, the story's protagonist, Dean, a watchman at one of these zombie retirement homes, discovers that certain ones of the residents are going unaccounted for--and as he's moved to investigate, he discovers that these zombies, already rendered pretty much non-people by the sad circumstances of their existence, are helpless prey for even darker motivations than the ones that put them there to start with.
What circumstances give society the ability to create zombies is only glossed over, but really, that's fine; this story is short enough that that really doesn't need to be explained in depth. The focus is where it rightfully belongs, on Dean, on Patrick, and upon Amy, who is the latest of the zombies in the facility to go missing. Dean must bring himself to trust Patrick enough to take him out of the facility with him as he tracks Amy down, and the dynamic between the two is very nicely done indeed.
All in all, it's a tight little tale and worth checking out. Four stars.
And this opens up a host of unhappy results as nursing homes for the undead crop up as locations to dump your resurrected zombie loved ones when you no longer want them. Not to mention the myriad unpleasant excuses for reviving your loved ones to begin with, such as Patrick, a gay young man who's brought back by his fundamentalist Christian parents who promise to put him back in his grave if he'll "repent".
With this as a background, the story's protagonist, Dean, a watchman at one of these zombie retirement homes, discovers that certain ones of the residents are going unaccounted for--and as he's moved to investigate, he discovers that these zombies, already rendered pretty much non-people by the sad circumstances of their existence, are helpless prey for even darker motivations than the ones that put them there to start with.
What circumstances give society the ability to create zombies is only glossed over, but really, that's fine; this story is short enough that that really doesn't need to be explained in depth. The focus is where it rightfully belongs, on Dean, on Patrick, and upon Amy, who is the latest of the zombies in the facility to go missing. Dean must bring himself to trust Patrick enough to take him out of the facility with him as he tracks Amy down, and the dynamic between the two is very nicely done indeed.
All in all, it's a tight little tale and worth checking out. Four stars.
January 12, 2010
Dean is employed as security at Silver Springs, a care facility that is somewhat like a nursing home for zombies. As is so often the case in facilities like Silver Springs, the staff and those they care for become friends.
Enter Amy and Patrick. Amy is a newbie zombie whose husband can no longer care for her, yet cannot bear letting her go. Patrick, who is gay, was raised from the dead by his parents in hopes he would repent so as to avoid an eternity in hell.
Together, these three expose an underground auction that sells the unwanted zombies to the highest bidder. Dean puts the pieces together as the story unfolds and in the end rescues Amy from a sort of zombie fight club.
Michele addresses some ethical questions, yet has just enough humor to keep things from getting too heavy while giving us zombies that aren’t the bad guys. The bad guys, it turns out, are the people who would prey on the weak to turn a buck.
The zombies in Michele’s world don’t walk around with their arms out, mindlessly pleading for braaiiins. Instead you get reanimated people with feelings (until they decompose beyond that) and a story that makes sense and feels right.
If zombies could be—they’d probably be a lot like these.
Enter Amy and Patrick. Amy is a newbie zombie whose husband can no longer care for her, yet cannot bear letting her go. Patrick, who is gay, was raised from the dead by his parents in hopes he would repent so as to avoid an eternity in hell.
Together, these three expose an underground auction that sells the unwanted zombies to the highest bidder. Dean puts the pieces together as the story unfolds and in the end rescues Amy from a sort of zombie fight club.
Michele addresses some ethical questions, yet has just enough humor to keep things from getting too heavy while giving us zombies that aren’t the bad guys. The bad guys, it turns out, are the people who would prey on the weak to turn a buck.
The zombies in Michele’s world don’t walk around with their arms out, mindlessly pleading for braaiiins. Instead you get reanimated people with feelings (until they decompose beyond that) and a story that makes sense and feels right.
If zombies could be—they’d probably be a lot like these.
September 7, 2009
"Every person has a dark place inside them."
If one sentence from ROT sums up the novella near-perfectly, it is this one. ROT explores our dark side, and ask us who the real monsters are: humans or zombies?
ROT explores how we rationalize our cruelties, that corrupt part of our dark side. How we can give in to irresponsibility and indifference in our lives so easily. How we can be selfish in our love of others, when we refuse to let go.
It asks: What is a soul, if we possess such a thing? Is it simply a collection of memories, 'imprints on the brain,' or does something else survive beyond death?
A weighty read packed with punch in 56 pages. I urge you to pick up a copy.
If one sentence from ROT sums up the novella near-perfectly, it is this one. ROT explores our dark side, and ask us who the real monsters are: humans or zombies?
ROT explores how we rationalize our cruelties, that corrupt part of our dark side. How we can give in to irresponsibility and indifference in our lives so easily. How we can be selfish in our love of others, when we refuse to let go.
It asks: What is a soul, if we possess such a thing? Is it simply a collection of memories, 'imprints on the brain,' or does something else survive beyond death?
A weighty read packed with punch in 56 pages. I urge you to pick up a copy.
Want to read
November 30, 2013$2.99 on Nook and Kindle
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