In his foreword to this anthology (titled ‘The New Dead’ if you’re in the US), Christopher Golden asks his reader what the big deal about zombies is these days. That’s quite a brave move to make considering that the foreword comes just before a whole load of zombie tales! For me personally, zombie tales have never really been about the zombies themselves; it’s more a case of just what the surviving humans will do to carry on living in this brave new world. The walking dead throw up a lot of new challenges and people end up discovering so much more about themselves in these situations. That’s why, for my money, Robert Kirkman’s ‘Walking Dead’ series is pretty much the best zombie fiction out there right now.
Golden makes a very good attempt at compiling a collection of great zombie fiction and for the most part he succeeds (I’ll go into that a lot more in a bit). Where things fell down slightly for me were a couple of the definitions of our current fascination with zombies that Golden bought to the mix here. Golden talks about a fascination with the concept of death and resurrection that I can understand but doesn’t click with me. Like I said, for me, a zombie tale is a survival tale that just happens to have zombies in it. With this in mind, John Connolly’s ‘Lazarus’ didn’t hit the spot for me (as well written as it was); not so good when you take into account that this was the opening tale. It had nothing in it that marked it out as a zombie tale in my eyes. It also requires you to look at a particular tale in a way that was at odds with my own personal beliefs. I just couldn’t engage with what it was trying to say. Like I said though, ‘Lazarus’ was a very well written story. Derek Nikitas’ end of times tale, ‘My Dolly’, handles the whole issue of resurrection a lot more smoothly with a hefty dose of the kind of surreal intensity that only the last days would bring.
Having said all that though, I’ve still got a lot of time for the zombies of Voodoo lore and Holly Newstein’s ‘Delice’ is a deliciously dark tale of revenge from beyond the grave. As with all the best horror stories, the real evil is in the living humans themselves and it does get pretty nasty...
I had similar issues with Mike Carey’s ‘Second Wind’, Kelley Armstrong’s ‘Life Sentence’ and Tad Williams’ The Storm Door’ although my familiarity with these authors (two of them are favourites of mine) meant that I got a lot more out of what they were saying. Cheating death is the name of the game in these stories and this search takes many different forms. ‘Second Wind’ is a look at the past of one of Carey’s more memorable characters from his ‘Felix Castor’ series and does a fine job of filling in the gaps for the long term ‘Castor’ fan as well as telling a poignant story, about leaving life behind, that anyone can get into. ‘The Storm Door’ is a chilling tale of possession that ran icy fingers down my spine but would have perhaps been better suited to another collection, it wasn’t a zombie story...
Armstrong’s easy going prose makes ‘Life Sentence’, a morality tale about the quest for resurrection, very readable indeed but when an evil businessman with no scruples is looking for eternal life... you know how it all has to end. ‘Life Sentence’ has a powerful ending but one that doesn’t come as much of a surprise...
David Liss’ ‘What Maisie Knew’ takes a similarly moral approach but adds it’s own spin. Crime doesn’t pay and the difference here (as oppose to ‘Life Sentence’) is that while you may know how the story has to end, there’s enough uncertainty around the ending that it still comes as a surprise. This was a tale that kept me hooked!
Up until now, the only really effective piece of social commentary I’ve ever seen in the zombie genre is Romero’s glazed eyed zombies wandering up and down a shopping mall. That was until I read Stephen R. Bissette’s ‘Copper’ in this collection. While it still may not be the kind of zombie tale I’m after the power of the scathing commentary on a country that does not look after it’s servicemen, and women, cannot be denied. That on it’s own made ‘Copper’ one of the stand out stories in this collection and hearkens back to the poem ‘The March of the Dead’ that Golden refers to in his foreword.
Aimee Bender’s ‘Among Us’ looks to do something similar only using the entire human race instead of just its military. This tale really didn’t work for me though as I’ve always found that it works better for zombies to be used as a metaphor for humanity rather than the other way round. What you get here is a tale that emphasises how utterly inane we can be sometimes but didn’t quite make the connection with zombies that it wanted to. I wasn’t sure if Joe R. Lansdale’s ‘Shooting Pool’ was trying to do something similar but what I do know was that there were no zombies in the story at all! Can zombies live on in our memories of the dead? Are zombies our memories of the dead? That’s the closest connection I could make with this story but I wouldn’t have minded seeing at least one zombie in the meantime...
It’s not all bad though. Not only might the tales mentioned already be just the ones you’re looking for but there are plenty of others that were just what I was after.
Jonathan Maberry has already written a bloody good zombie novel in ‘Patient Zero’ and proves that he can write just as good a short story with ‘Family Business’; a tale that lays it on the line as to what living in a post apocalyptic zombie world actually means. You can tell that Maberry has put a lot of time into building a world that would actually work under these circumstances. The same thing goes for Max Brooks’ ‘Closure, Limited’, a very interesting tale (with a real kick at the end) that offers an insight into a very specific new industry that would only arise out of a zombie apocalypse. There’s some real imagination going on in both these stories and that’s what made them stand out for me.
I’ll read pretty much anything by Tim Lebbon and his tale ‘In the Dust’ is another stand out effort that doesn’t disappoint. ‘In the Dust’ places you right at the heart of the aftermath of a zombie uprising along with the other people scrabbling for survival. It’s bleak and full of the stupidity that humanity always seems to exhibit in these situations but, in the best traditions of zombie fiction, there’s also some hope for the future. Brian Keene’s ‘The Wind Cries Mary’ offers more of the same and is an interesting offshoot from his novel ‘Dead Sea’. M.B. Homler’s ‘The Zombie Who Fell from the Sky’ is a little more surreal (and I’m still not sure that I get the ending...) but is fast paced and frantic with enough zombies to keep me happy.
One of the big questions in any zombie book is what would you do if you were bitten? Rick Hautala’s ‘Ghost Trap’ is the anthology’s answer to this question and Jeff Stewart’s realisation of his fate, and what he must do, brings a real lump to the throat. ‘Ghost Trap’ is a story that will stay with you long after you’ve read it.
James A. Moore’s ‘Kids and their toys’ is another story that will stick in the mind but for entirely different reasons. Children can be cruel and if there’s a zombie involved then they can be even more so. Childhood is about the loss of innocence and so is ‘Kids’...
The anthology started off with a bit of a whimper but definitely goes out with a bang with David Wellington’s ‘Weaponized’ and Joe Hill’s ‘Twittering from the Circus of the Dead’. Wellington’s vision for the future of warfare is terrifyingly plausible and hints at a logical conclusion of a new kind of arms race (no pun intended...) while Hill uses Twitter to slowly build up the tension in a tale that had my stomach lurching in dread...
My definition of a zombie tale is somewhat at odds with Golden’s and that made this anthology an uneven read for me. There was still more than enough there to sate my appetite though and if you’re a zombie fan then I reckon there’s plenty enough for you too...
Eight and a Half out of Ten
