Brains for breakfast, brains for lunch--a review of The Living Dead

November 9, 7:42 PMTampa Books ExaminerJulianne Draper

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cover art for The Living Dead
art © David Palumbo

It seems everywhere today the favorite word is zombies: there are zombies in the theatres, with last month’s release of the movie Zombieland, and in the bookstores, with last summer’s rage for the hotly debated Zombified version of a Jane Austen Classic (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), and the upcoming (2010) cinematic adaptation of Max Brooks’ World War Z. Even the University of South Florida was recently bitten by the bug, or so it seems, as some intrepid reporter discovered a zombie invasion handbook on the university’s website (removed at once, to be sure). Romantic Times and Ravenous Romance (though this is enough to leave one scratching one’s head) recently predicted/began a zombie invasion of the romance shelves. The analysis for the trend, and whether or not it speaks to our consumer culture or anxieties is better left to others, but the stories do seem to perpetually intrigue many.

Predicting the trend by a good year, Night Shade Books, and editor--and resident zombie expert--John Joseph Adams, produced a hefty anthology of Zombie stories, entitled The Living Dead, and to say its exhaustive, well, would be about on the mark. The offerings herein come from many well-known, and a few unknown authors, and run the gamut from tongue in cheek to fanciful, to a little on the frightening side to . . . well, stories that could make a weaker reader sick to his or her stomach.

Science Fiction luminary Dan Simmons’ tale “This Year’s Class Picture” offers up a scary vision of the world gone crazy, and held together only by a gun-toting fourth-grade teacher, left with nothing but the tradition of teaching, whether her students are alive, or undead.

Laurell K. Hamilton’s offering covers her beloved animator Anita Blake, and one of her very first assignments and one that leaves our otherwise unflappable heroine scared out of her wits. Meanwhile Joe Hill’s story “Bobby Conroy Comes Back From the Dead” gives the reader a taste of what it might be like to garner a slot in the great Zombie films by none other than George Romero, who makes an appearance in the story.

Then there the standouts among the collection such as “The Dead Kid”, by Darrell Schweitzer telling us of a very cruel young man and what he does when he finds a zombie on his own turf, and in the brightest in the collection, author Sherman Alexie’s Ghost Dance, the reader is shown what it might be like if the dead of Little Big Horn came back and were able to finish their fight.

Beyond these few standouts, there are even more tales of madness, of drifting brain-eaters including Poppy Z. Brite’s story of the Indian zombie population, Clive Barker’s zombie actress, Harlan Ellison® and Robert Silverberg’s Zombie musician, Stephen King’s tale of a pregnant woman in a tiny little hamlet in the midst of a zombie invasion, as well as stories by Neil Gaiman and more. In fact, what I’ve listed here are just a few among the very many other stories included in The Living Dead—so many, there’s not space here to list them all.

So, with all that, movies, books, and so forth, if you love zombie tales, this is definitely your time! And if you haven’t had enough yet, do check out John Joseph Adams’ and Night Shade Books’ anthology The Living Dead.

(As usual, you can, if you like, get a copy of this one at Amazon, or the Night Shade Books site, or the local Borders, or Barnes and Noble. )