Zombies: they just won’t stay dead…and neither will books about them. With more titles shambling from the shelves at your local bookstores each week, zombie fiction remains as popular as it ever, and that’s great news for me. I have an insatiable hunger for zombie stories and novels – a hunger fierce enough to rival your average ghoul’s lust for fresh, tasty brains. Happily, there’s been plenty to choose from during the last few months. Let’s take a look at a few of them.
Apocalyptic fiction powerhouse Permuted Press has developed a reputation as one of the best sources around for quality zombie fiction, and Mark E. Rogers’ The Dead is a great example of that. Known best as the writer-illustrator behind the Samurai Cat books, Rogers’ first foray into the zombie genre brings a uniquely theological angle to the living dead. Earth’s final days arrive, and with them hordes of corpses possessed by Satan’s fallen angels. Gary Holland and his family arrive in New Jersey for his father’s funeral, only to find themselves hunted by mobs of zombies.
The Best of All Flesh from Elder Signs Press – no slouch themselves when it comes to fine zombie horror – gathers the best stories from the award-winning Books of Flesh anthologies (The Book of All Flesh, The Book of More Flesh, The Book of Final Flesh). Edited by original series editor James Lowder, The Best of All Flesh features works from Tobias Buckell, Scott Edelman, Ed Greenwood, Jim C. Hines, Tom Piccirilli and many more. Horror and even humor abounds within this satisfying anthology.
If you like The Best of All Flesh, you might want to try Pallid Light: the Waking Dead, also from Elder Signs Press. Readers may already know author William Jones from the many supplements he’s written for Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu horror role-playing game. Pallid Light’s tough-guy protagonist Rand Clay – an ex-con that knows his way around a gun – isn’t exactly the hero type, but when the city of Temperance, Illinois becomes overwhelmed by the living dead, Clay may be their best hope.
Finally, just hitting shelves at your local bookstore is The New Dead, a zombie anthology edited by Christopher Golden, the author of The Myth Hunters and co-author of Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire, with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. This collection features all-new fiction from big names like Max Brooks, Joe Hill, Kelly Armstrong, David Wellington, Brian Keene and Aimee Bender.
