The Icebound Race is in the pure literal frozen ice-hell of the Norwegian Arctic. You know, the kind of Norway which is all the way out to Europe and
The Icebound Race is in the pure literal frozen ice-hell of the Norwegian Arctic. You know, the kind of Norway which is all the way out to Europe and then all the way up to a town where the ratio of polar bears to people decidedly favors the bears.
this is a longish, hallucinatory story about zombie sled races.
going into it, i thought it was going to be like the iditarod, but with zombies pulling living humans along the ice, which is an arresting visual, but here it's somewhat different.
during "revenant season," the zombies buried underneath the snow are unearthed by the driving winds and begin walking around, where they are gathered by handlers who take care of them until race day. they have more motility than yer average zombie, because they race alone, on kicksleds, drawn by an impulse towards...something located at the north pole.
they can also speak
“Why do you race?”
“It is inevitable.”
the zombie racers are given a head start before the human competitors follow on their dogsleds and sometimes there are unfortunate encounters between the two types of racers. the event is new, but gaining momentum, and our heroine, an extreme-sports writer, is there to cover the race and its history, and also participate.
her interview style is casual at best:
“But how did it become the Icebound? How did people go from ‘Yeah, let’s all get on sleds and chase each other around some hungry undead corpses’ to—uh—‘Let’s get the hungry undead corpses on sleds and send them off at high speeds’?”
“Reason other than poke-the-bear, bread-and-circuses kind of thing?” he asks, reaching over me to get the bottle.
it starts out funny and jokey like that, but once the race begins, it's nothing but white wilderness as far as the eye can see, hour after relentless hour, and although the possibility of a zombie lagger always a tension-making possibility, the brain naturally slips into a hypnotic resting-state of introspection and self-scrutiny.
and then the weird shit starts happening and the story gets slippery and jagged and i probably didn't understand all of it, but the parts i did were great, especially the way it keeps circling back to fate and choices, and i loved the narrator's voice and her ruminative wrestling with her own family legacy.
Don’t get me wrong, I do have a survival instinct. I got it from my father, who managed to escape the old country by snaking under a kilometer of razor wire and throwing himself over concrete walls twice his height as he was shot at by fellow officers armed with Kalashnikovs. He made it, though his twin brother didn’t.
“I had been right there,” he’d repeat with the same disbelief every time he told the story, “where he was hit. That same spot, a second earlier.” And he’d instruct me, cryptically, “Learn from me.”
I was never sure what I was supposed to learn but I grew up obsessed with what it was that made the difference—one zag instead of a zig and I wouldn’t exist. Snap. Just like that.
One zig instead of a zag and the bullet that felled my uncle would have chipped a concrete wall instead. And I’d be working in a tech startup or in marketing, because I wouldn’t have had to grow up with the horrible sentence: “I had been right there, a second earlier.”
But zigs were zigged and zags were zagged and here I am, seeking out experiences on the edge of survival that I can package into marketable epiphanies for eight cents a word.
this race is very much not for me, but the story, despite the murky whasshappening bits, very much was.
welcome to my spooktober audio advent calendar, where, each day during the month of spooktober, i will be celebrating by liSPOOKTOBER DAY TWENTY-THREE
welcome to my spooktober audio advent calendar, where, each day during the month of spooktober, i will be celebrating by listening to a free audio short from nightfire's Come Join Us by the Fire series, and you can join ME by following the links. let's all be scared together!!
[image] 25 minutes
now that's how you polish up a done-to-undeath genre like a zombie tale. this story is fantastic, even though it left me wanting more more moooooore, like a zombie's hunger for brains, which—this story is quick to point out—is not necessarily what they're after.
it's more deeply sad than scary, but that's what floats my boats anyway.
and—bonus—this author's creepy little tor novella Comfort Me With Apples is out in only THREE DAYS!
*NEVER MIND, IT LOOKS LIKE THE PUB DATE GOT PUSHED TO 11/9, SO KEEP WAITING!!!*
welcome to my spooktober audio advent calendar, where, each day during the month of spooktober, i will be celebrating by listenSPOOKTOBER DAY FOURTEEN
welcome to my spooktober audio advent calendar, where, each day during the month of spooktober, i will be celebrating by listening to a free audio short from nightfire's Come Join Us by the Fire series, and you can join ME by following the links. let's all be scared together!
[image] 8 minutes
this is a low-three stars, because there's not really a story here, it's more like listening to someone describe a painting. it's atmospheric enough—a depiction of a world where the humans are all gone, but the shambling zombie hordes responsible for their extinction are still wandering and roaming, driven by their relentless hunger for brains that'll never manifest. it doesn't (or shouldn't) inspire sympathy for those undead monchers, nor is there a "wait, are WE the zombies?" hook. it's just a speculative zombie to-do list with decent imagery. as a response to a prompt in a creative writing guided journal along the lines of "envision a world inhabited only by zombies," it would satisfy, but if you're not going to scare me, at least entertain me with a proper story. we are not entertained.
A rotten hand snaked out from behind a desk and grabbed his sleeve.
Ronald always went over his clothes with razor blades before wearing them, carefull
A rotten hand snaked out from behind a desk and grabbed his sleeve.
Ronald always went over his clothes with razor blades before wearing them, carefully sawing away at the seams so they would rip if pulled. His sleeve tore off, and the zombie stuffed the cloth in its mouth before realizing its mistake. But others were popping up, blocking the path to the door. He’d never get to the exit now, but he might make it back to the bathroom.
A huge zombie, the remnant of a man too obese to walk while alive, shuffled towards him, the first of a pack. Ronald vaulted over a desk, scattering registration forms and pens, dodged the fat zombie, and ran towards the bathroom.
He’d practiced just this maneuver hundreds of times at home.
there wasn't a new free tor short this week, so, to honor SPOOKTOBER, i went back into the archives to find a horror-short i hadn't yet read and landed on this one; a humorous tale about the devastating hubris of the zombie-prepper.
it's short and funny, and it was just the thing i needed to start my day off on the right shamble-draggy foot. how can someone who has been preparing for a zombie invasion get caught off-guard?
[image]
enter the bmv.
just for funsies, after reading this story, i decided to play a round of "Typo or Real Thing?", and TIL: while many of the united states have a department of motor vehicles (DMV), indiana, maine, and ohio have a BMV—a bureau of motor vehicles. but wait, it gets even MORE interesting (debatable). check this shit out:
Alabama – AL – MVD (Motor Vehicle Division) Alaska – AK – DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) Arizona – AZ – MVD (Motor Vehicle Division) Arkansas – AR – DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) California – CA – DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) Colorado – CO – DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) Connecticut – CT – DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) Delaware – DE – DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) Florida – FL – HSMV (Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles) Georgia- GA – DDS (Department of Driver Services) Hawaii – HI – DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) Idaho – ID – DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) Illinois – IL – DSD (Driver Services Department) Indiana – IN – BMV (Bureau of Motor Vehicles) Iowa – IA – MVD (Motor Vehicle Division) Kansas – KS – DOV (Division of Vehicles) Kentucky – KY – Driver Services & Vehicle Services Louisiana – LA – Office of Motor Vehicles Maine – ME – BMV (Bureau of Motor Vehicles) Maryland – MD – MVA (Motor Vehicle Administration) Massachusetts – MA – RMV (Registry of Motor Vehicles) Michigan – MI – Michigan DMV is under the SOS (Secretary of State) Minnesota – MN – DVS (Driver and Vehicle Services) Mississippi – MS – Driver Service Bureau Missouri – MO – DMV Montana – MT – MVD (Motor Vehicle Division) Nebraska – NE – DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) Nevada – NV – DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) New Hampshire – NH – DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) New Jersey – NJ – MVC (Motor Vehicle Commission) New Mexico – NM – MVD (Motor Vehicle Division) New York – NY – DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) North Carolina – NC – DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) North Dakota – ND – ND driver services are under the DOT (Department of Transportation) Ohio – OH – BMV (Bureau of Motor Vehicles) Oklahoma – OK – OK driver services are under DPS (Department of Public Safety) Oregon – OR – DMV Pennsylvania – PA –DMV Rhode Island – RI – DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) South Carolina – SC – DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) South Dakota – SD – SD DMV services are under DPS (Department of Public Safety) and DOR (Department of Revenue) Tennessee – TN – Driver Services Texas – TX – DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) Utah – UT – DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) Vermont – VT – DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) Virginia – VA – DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) Washington DC – DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) Washington – WA – DOL (Department of Licensing) West Virginia – WV – DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) Wisconsin – WI – DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) Wyoming – WY – WYDOT Driver Services
i've lived in new york for more than half my life, but i'm FROM rhode island, and i didn't even know that we were a division of motor vehicles; i always thought it was a department. are these state-to-state differences an acronymic quirk everyone knows about except for dummies like me who never got their driver's license? what a crazy little world.
[image]
so, look—i know 2020 has been divisive and horrible, but it's an election year, and i don't want to get all political or anything, but now more than ever, can we please think about what's best for our nation and unite our motor vehicle departments under one uniform banner? for the children?
anyway, while this story may not be as scary as all of the things happening in the realworld right now, maybe that's a good thing, yeah? plus, that bonus tip about clothing-prep for a potential zombie attack, the fascinating vehicular division-divisions, and—i don't know how this is possible given my not infrequent trips to the land of zombie entertainment, but i had never heard the term "vigor mortis" before this story, and i LOVE it. so, three good things for me, plus i loved the ending, which gave me a shudder when i went back and reread the first paragraph, because his description of THAT SOUND is spot on and super-icky.
looking for great books to read during black history month...and the other eleven months? i'm going to float some of my favorites throughout the monthlooking for great books to read during black history month...and the other eleven months? i'm going to float some of my favorites throughout the month, and i hope they will find new readers!
fulfilling my 2020 goal to read (at least) one book each month that i bought in hardcover and put off reading long enough that it is now in paperback.
why did it take me so long to read this book when i knew the first time i saw that cover that it was coming home with me?
[image]\
THAT COVER
it may have just been zombie-fatigue—i'm more inclined these days to read zombie-variants (like RABIES-ZOMBIES) or one where the zombie threat is more of a secondary/subplot conflict than the novel's main focus.
this one features your straightforward nom nom zombies, but it has the novelty of being set in an alt-history reconstruction-era america where the (re)birth of a postwar nation and all of the expected challenges facing a fractured country are complicated further by the rebirth of SO MANY CORPSES!! and the students of Miss Preston's School of Combat for Negro Girls shall employ their scythes against them.
so, yessssss, it's more of those same-old/been-there/done-that zombies, but the human characters are terrific and the story is great fun; fast-paced and actiony without being insubstantial and i loved it right down to its bones, both for what it is and for what it is not. i love jane's wry angry voice and general badassery; killing shamblers and kicking racists when they're down, not so focused that she doesn't notice when there are pretty boys around, but really just far too busy to engage in a romantic subplot, tyvm.
equally busy but also refreshingly uninterested in any romantic entanglements at any time, secondary character/frenemy katherine is just as appealing a heroine, and an excellent foil to jane—a little more patient and adept at the long-game, weaponizing her beauty and trying to ignore the discomfort she feels in being white-passing, and all of the advantages that brings.
i love their bicker and their banter; their vinegar turning into honey as they band together by necessity to take on whatever gets in their way. and while the zombies are certainly there, they're far from being the only or even the most prominent threat because white men have all kinds of ideas and no kind of restraint.
and i hope i don't put off reading the second book as long as i did this one because that cliffhanger had teeth and this cover is equally swoony.
months later, i am still in quarantine, wondering if all of this has been an extremely ballsNOW AVAILABLE!!!
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months later, i am still in quarantine, wondering if all of this has been an extremely ballsy publicity stunt by paul tremblay to promote this book. WELL PLAYED, TREMBLAY!
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when is a zombie novel not a zombie novel? when paul tremblay’s writing it!
I was kind of joking when I said zombies, but not joking at the same time. They’re sick people and they turn delusional and violent and they bite, but it’s easier to say zombie than “a person infected with a super rabies virus and no longer capable of making good decisions.”
with all the coronavirus-panic going on right now, this was a perfectly timed read for me. ain’t nothing like reading a horror novel about a highly communicable disease whilst riding on a subway car filled with people wearing surgical masks. it’s right up there with the time i was reading The Plague on a deserted subway platform around 2am and a rat ran over my foot. good times.
this is one horrifying, propulsive ride, where all the action takes place over the course of a few hours, in the book-version of ‘real time,’ telling the tale of a super rabies virus that is fast-acting, reason-obliterating, communicable AF, and fatal. oh, and bitey. soooo bitey.
if you’ve read The Cabin at the End of the World, you know that tremblay is not going to pull any of his punches - he’s an old-school concrete-surfaced playground beckoning you to come skin your knobby little knees. this one starts brutal and doesn’t let up, and it’s a reminder that effective horror needn’t have any supernatural elements at all—science is more than terrifying enough. the descriptions of afflicted humans—how their lurchy-staggery gait sounds across gravel, their word-salad babblings and barking-coughing ejaculations, and—dear god—the way they BITE, it is intense, it is chilling, it is goddamned good fun.
the horror is offset by humor, pop culture references, and he even managed to sneak some MATH in there like it’s SCHOOL. like The Cabin at the End of the World, it centers around the question of “what are you willing to do to save the ones you love?” and while some of the decisions here are ethically dubious and put innocent, uninfected lives at risk, hey—times is hard and this playground ain’t padded.
a special shout-out for “the tiny terrors” of infected cuties:
Danger skulks undercover in the fields; the tall grass bows and waves, whispering of the epic battle to come. The zombie foxes are the first to attack. The scent of their musk announces their stealthy approach. The zombie raccoons are next. Their snorts and chitters fill the air, broadcasting their immutable intentions.
and—you guys—a zombie deer! all of this woodland animal menace occurs in the section called You Will Not Feel Me Between Your Teeth, which—if i am remembering what he told me correctly—was paul’s desired title for this novel, inexplicably shot down.
but at least there’s a tiny fox on the bookspine.
[image]
a wonderful terror of a book. THIS! ONE! HAS! TEETH!
even BETTER than that day was when i got my inscribed ARC of this in the mail, along with this crazy little bookmark/pin combo, and i don't yet know what it MEANS, but it looks like The Tailypo: A Ghost Story, so i am already deliciously freaked out!!!!
fulfilling my 2022 vow to read more YA/finish series i have started and left unfinished
Don’t let San Francisco fool you. It might seem pretty, but it’
fulfilling my 2022 vow to read more YA/finish series i have started and left unfinished
Don’t let San Francisco fool you. It might seem pretty, but it’s been built on the same volatile mixture of greed and exclusion as the rest of this country. Now, it’s a powder keg just waiting for a spark.
book two of this alt-history zombie western series finds us a long way from the relative safety of miss preston's school of combat for negro girls. it picks up with our intrepid zombie-killing heroines jane mckeene and katherine deveraux directly after the horrific events occurring in Dread Nation's summerland.
here we find the pair westward ho-ing it to california; jane traveling with katherine and the rest of her found family towards what remains of her bio-family, with a pause in a fortified kansas town called nicodemus that turns out to be no better a sanctuary than summerland.
there are some familiar faces, some tragic turns, and while jane is determined to exact some sweet revenge for her losses, ever-levelheaded katherine frets about jane's understandably nihilistic outlook and tries to draw her back into the good fight of protecting others and moving past her grief.
it's a story of eager revenge and reluctant friendship, where katherine and jane find themselves surrounded on all sides by death and undeath, and where the living oftentimes prove themselves to be more dangerous than the zombie hordes.
as with most series, the first book is devoted to characters learning things, and the second is figuring out what to do with that knowledge, and here, the possibility of a vaccine established in Dread Nation backdrops the action, offering hope and false hope in equal measure.
like the first book, this one is very character-strong, and the POV shifts between jane and katherine, giving us insights into their world and their evolving relationship, and illuminating how their differences combine to make them a formidable team.
i would love to read more stories set in this world, weaving zombie-peril in with real historical events, but even if this ends here with just these two books, it would still be a satisfying experience.
i am now fully team katherine and her corsets. badass and bound.
oooh, goodreads choice awards semifinalist for best horror! what will happen?
the bleak philosophy of the post-apocalyptic world:
…he doesn’t see what’soooh, goodreads choice awards semifinalist for best horror! what will happen?
the bleak philosophy of the post-apocalyptic world:
…he doesn’t see what’s so great about leaving your mark on things. You have a life and then it ends and you’re dead. Living it is the point, not proving to other people that you were there. The whole thing is really just water pouring down a plughole, but that’s absolutely fine. Standing water gets stagnant.
i’m sure this is something i knew and just forgot in the period between when i first heard about this book and when i got my hands on an arc, but this book is a prequel to The Girl with All the Gifts. got that?? a PREQUEL. so don’t be like me, spending the first 2/3 of the book in a state of panic, fretting that you’ve forgotten characters’ relationships to each other during the three/four years' worth of books you've read since then, struggling to even remember what happened in The Girl with All the Gifts beyond the very memorable stuff, because for the most part, none of that matters. there’s an exciting little blip of an event at the end that ties the two books together, and no doubt there are smaller connections that will be noticed by readers who have read these closer together, but i can personally reassure you that they are seasoning only, and forgetting details from the first book will not hinder your appreciation of this one.
phew.
all the stuff that made the first book so much fun is back - the nom nom of the zombies, or ‘hungries,’ and the specific traits and mode-of-contagion that make them stand out from other literary nom noms. however, like all the best books in this particular genre, the zombies aren’t the main focus here. they’re certainly present, as obstacles to maneuver around, as threats that will infect or eat you, as constant reminders of “this is what happens to our dead now,” but they are far from the only threat in a world where humans have been thrust into survival mode, caught in the transition between the social codes that worked back when the world was more civilized and the newly brutal necessities of surviving.
the scope is small - it focuses upon the passengers of the rosalind franklin, a tricked-out, armored motor home known affectionately as “rosie.” in her claustrophobic quarters, five scientists, six military personnel, and a fifteen-year-old boy named stephen are in the middle of a fifteen-month mission, departing from the english town of beacon (nod to gwatg) into scotland, collecting data left in caches by previous expeditions along the way, and gathering fresh specimens of their own in order to understand the phenomenon and hopefully find a cure. stephen is a young genius with severe social anxiety, the inventor of e-blocker gel; the goop that prevents zombies from smelling tasty human prey, but he is still seen as a liability by the soldiers on board the rosie, as he has a tendency to wander off, single-mindedly pursuing his own research, keeping his findings to himself. he’s a part of the science team while being completely independent, his only viable relationship is with dr. samrina khan; the woman who rescued him after both his parents died, and the only one allowed to touch him, if only with the tip of her finger. she loves stephen and feels responsible for him, but she’s somewhat distracted by an unexpected pregnancy, unsure what will happen when her baby comes, and the state of the world she is bringing new life into.
well-armed and -trained men and women, brilliant scientists, and a teenage savant heading out into the wastes to save the world. seems pretty promising. however, people are people, and even with one goal to unite them, there’s plenty to divide them - the strain of close quarters, sexual dalliances, power plays, resentment, questionable reputations, the threat of aggressive bands of junkers, the choice between following orders vs. making informed decisions, the pressure of saving the human race from inevitable destruction, and one person in secret communication with beacon, being issued orders that might not have the team’s best interests in mind.
and then the game changes.
in carey’s imagining, the undead are mindless, static until they sense a warm meal.
…a few hungries stand at street corners as though they’re waiting for someone to come and lead them back into the lives they lost.
They will stand like this until their body’s systems fail, barring occasional headlong sprints in pursuit of local fauna. It’s an afterlife that not even the grimmest and least user-friendly of the old world’s religions ever imagined.
on one of stephen’s unsanctioned journeys, he discovers a band of feral children who display the inhuman speed and predatory characteristics of the hungries, but the communication, strategy and mental acuity of humans. which discovery he, naturally, keeps to himself for his own investigations.
and that’s when things get really messy.
i’m pretty sure this would be satisfying as a standalone, but it would be doing yourself a disservice to miss out on gwatg, since that one is SO MUCH FUN, and more action-y overall. this one takes its time to get going; developing characters, supplying backstory, setting the scene, which for me was slow going because half my brain was preoccupied with "am i supposed to remember these people? because i so don't remember these people!" but there's plenty of payoff, and i am hoping there's still more to come!
unfortunately, as much as i love my secret santa for getting me a copy of this book, which was never published in the U.S. because life is unfair, andunfortunately, as much as i love my secret santa for getting me a copy of this book, which was never published in the U.S. because life is unfair, and as much as i loved the two other books i have read set in this particular zombie world, Outpost and Juggernaut, this one was the weakest in the "series" - quotation marks because although the kind of zombies are the same, the books themselves are completely unconnected. i think. i haven't read Terminus yet, and i read these so far apart i don't recognize any overlap. but it is my understanding that the only thing that ties them together are the physical characteristics of the zombies, which involve metal spikes. because what is more awesome than a zombie? a METAL zombie.
[image]
RAWK!
the premise of this one is fantastic - the zombie event has already had its way with the world and very little remains of human civilization, but we still got some bombs! and we got several soldiers who are tasked with dropping one of these bombs onto an abandoned compound in the middle of death valley. why, you ask? that is classified, friend, and soldiers, unlike review-readers, do not ask why, they just follow orders.
but although we still have nice shiny bombs, the planes have kind of gone to shit, and the plane carrying this bomb and these soldiers is not up to the task of being a plane, and it crashes, stranding the soldiers in death valley, which has become undeath valley on account of all the metal zombies and such. dude, SAND ZOMBIES!! METAL SAND ZOMBIES!! besides all the METAL SAND ZOMBIES, there's also the regular-world difficulty of surviving in the middle of the desert with very few supplies, serious injuries sustained in the crash, and no real possibility of rescue. comms are down, and ain't no one rushing into the zombie-desert to save a few people who are probably already on their way to becoming zombies, you know?
so, yes - survival story and zombie story all rolled into one - WHAT COULD BE BETTER? well, both of the other books i have read in this series, for starters. metal zombies are always awesome, but the other two books are like metallica and black sabbath metal zombies, and this is like … warrant metal zombie knocking at the door and saying "i'm cool, too!" but you're not, warrant. you are derivative and dull.
i think you really have to like military fiction to enjoy this one. it's full of lingo and weapon/plane detail and chain of command and all the abbreviations with which the military is so enamored, but the writing itself is really dry. like the desert. there's some cool shit, for sure, and some really harrowing scenes, but it's very light on characterization and heavy on specifics related to bomb-deployment and artillery and fuel and …rivets. it's like the moby-dick of metal zombie novels, where you're sure more cool stuff should be happening but the author just won't stop describing what rope is and getting to the damn whale already.
this one just wasn't my cuppa zombies, but other people liked it just fine. i'm thrilled i got a chance to read it - ♥ santa ♥, and i completely pimp the other two at you, if you think metal zombies in the arctic or metal zombies in iraq sound awesome. and i will read Terminus soon to see if metal zombies in manhattan's subway tunnels are awesome. prediction: they will be.
it was good to revisit this story, like seeing an old friend. i'd read it so many years ago, but i still remembered all of it, which is a testament to the staying power of mira grant's imagery. and also her many wonderful turns of phrase:
Berkeley, being a university town in Northern California, had two major problems: not enough guns, and too many idiots who thought they could fight off zombies with medieval weapons they'd stolen from the history department. It also had two major advantages: most of the roads were already half blocked to prevent campus traffic from disturbing the residents, and most of those residents were slightly insane by any normal societal measurement.
considering that a replica of a medieval weapon is later used, to great effect, in a different newsflesh story, the idiocy seems instead to be just good thinking. (you calling kelly nakata an idiot, ms. grant?? hmmm, are ya??) but in the world of newsflesh, it's true that a little insanity will always serve you well, amiright, foxy??
and now for the chills:
"Oggie?"
kills me every time.
Everglades
this one was a first-time read for me, and i'd always felt a bit of a hole in my life for not having read it, as it was the only one i hadn't read. and now i have. it's very… short. it didn't leave much of an impression on me, although i really appreciated her introduction in which she discusses her inspiration for writing this one, when asked to contribute a story to The Living Dead 2 and being at a loss about what to write, feeling like she'd covered so many angles in previous zombie tales (little did she know how fruitful she would find this world in the future - how much unexplored territory, because she's always finding one more dark corner to shine an undead light into)
…I was stumped. Because I needed a short story that said something new and interesting about the zombie apocalypse, and I wasn't finding it. Everyone had unleashed the virus; everyone had devoured the world. Everyone had survived
That was the key. Everyone had survived. What about the people who looked at the face of the changing world - the world that was never going to be the same, even if they made it out the other side - and decided to say "you know what, thanks but no thanks; I'd rather be a statistic"? Any disaster is going to come with a certain soft cost: A certain number of suicides and accidents surrounding the deaths that come as an immediate consequence of the event. I wanted to focus on one of those people.
i loved this one the first time i read it, and i loved it EVEN MORE this second time. it's just a perfect story, and a love letter to fandom/geekdom in all its manifestations. first of all, the premise of a zombie outbreak at comic-con is genius. while i've never been to comic-con, i have been to many years of BEA and one ALA, and it's the same kind of crowd, with - sadly - fewer costumes. but just the wall-to-wall people - it's a recipe for disaster, if the zombies decide to visit. from the introduction:
The closest comparison I have to trying to move across the San Diego Comic-Con floor on a Saturday afternoon is trying to cut through Times Square on New Year's Eve, or across the plaza in front of Cinderella's Castle at Disney World just before the fireworks show. If you have ever done any of these things, I'm sorry. If you haven't, well, I have done all three of them, which means you don't have to.
she knows this world so well. just like elle riley, star of Space Crime Continuum, whose sudden superstardom has kept her from being a mere attendee, although she'd love to be just a regular geek again, wide-eyed and not needing to keep any secrets from the media's scrutiny. elle is the best - i love her so much.
"Nice to meet you all," said Elle briskly. "Now, what sort of danger did you people lead to our door?" She realized she was falling into the speech patterns she used for Indiction Rivers - and well, so what if she was? Indy Rivers got things done. Maybe she was a fictional character, but they were in a fictional place, in a fictional situation. There were worse things to be than fictional.
Fictional people cried only when the story told them to.
and her email is such a heartpunch.
because that's another spectacular thing about this story - you know right from the beginning that NO ONE made it out of comic-con alive. which is fine - you're reading this interview between mahir and lorelei tuttle - a woman who was the last to leave the convention center before all hell broke loose, and you're just absorbing it as a fact - 'yup, everyone died, got it.' but then… then you actually meet about twenty or so characters, on this - their last day. and it's really affecting, because you are rooting for these brave, nerdy folk even though you KNOW it's pointless.
there's also another great dog here. so many excellent dogs in these stories. but don't get attached! you were warned!
i'm going to be lazy and requote what i quoted from the first time i reviewed this story, because it still makes me laugh:
Video footage of zombie kangaroos laying siege to Sydney was one of the last things to escape Australia during that first long, brutal summer of the Rising. Then the networks went down, and there were other things for people to worry about. Unbelievable as it sounds today, there was a time when the rest of the world genuinely expected the entire continent to be lost.
There was one thing that no one considered, however: Australia was populated by Australians. When the rest of us were trying to adapt to a world that suddenly seemed bent on eradicating the human race, the Australians had been dealing with a hostile environment for centuries. They looked upon our zombie apocalypse, and they were not impressed.
AND i'm going to repost the zombie kangaroo image:
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AND i'm going to complain again that by not referring to zombified wombats as "zombats," she really missed an opportunity here. jenny lawson would not have missed that opportunity.
but i have NEW reflections! that are NEW!
the first time i read this one, i freaking loved it, and i could not understand why so many of the gr reviews were thumbs-downing it. but this time around, i loved it less. and it may be a case of having read it the first time when there was a newsflesh-shaped absence in my life as opposed to reading it now, with 644 pages of newsflesh to roll around in.
because yeah, the thumbs-downers were right - mahir really did drink a lot of tea in this story. which sounds like a silly thing to complain about, but mahir is one of my favorites (beaten only by alaric) (okay, and obviously foxy) (okay never mind - but i like him a LOT, okay?) and he kind of does come across a bit cartoonish in this one which OH MY GOD - BEST IDEA EVER - can we have some funko pop vinyls made of the newsflesh series? they should totally do book-funkos. i would buy so many of them. someone make this a thing that exists.
okay, so here's the thing. i read this way back when, and there was no introduction by mira grant and when the reveal of the story was revealed, i was stunned. my jaw, it dropped.
in this collection, she reveals the reveal in her introduction, which i am quoting part of because it is a perfect description, but shhhhh:
(view spoiler)[
Enter Foxy. She was introduced in Blackout as part of the Monkey's crew, a manic pixie nightmare girl with a knife in one hand and a submachine gun in the other. She was part deconstruction of the trope and part broken bird, and I loved her on sight.(hide spoiler)]
so did i, man, so did i…
so i would caution you to maybe read the story first and then go back for the introduction, to maximize jaw-droppingness. and i realize JUST now, clicking through to my own old review of this, i fucking revealed it in my review, too. which is something i'm usually so careful to avoid, despite what some people on the internet would have you believe.
whatever, i give up.
it's a fantastic story, whether you are surprised by the twist or not. so much action, so much peril, so much squirming on my part as i wonder how anyone can even live in the newsflesh world when this stupid virus can be transmitted by such a minor incident as the one shown here. she's always so forthcoming and generous with her science, which is something i really appreciate, even in those instances when i am completely confused. (view spoiler)[clone-george mystifies me - i just can't wrap my head around it (hide spoiler)] but here - it's so horrifying - how it escalates into what it does in such a snowballing way from such a tiny moment. and it's like HOW CAN YOU EVEN AVOID THIS SHIT??? especially when you take into account "spontaneous amplification," which is like, just give up now, man, and makes me understand the decisions made in that Everglades story a whole hell of a lot. but yeah, i love this one. if the comic-con story didn't exist, this would be my clear fave.
it's another spectacular locked-room setting, and it's so freaking intense.
and this horribly heartbreaking passage:
Then there was nothing but teeth, and pain, and redness, and the dim, disappointed feeling that there should have been more than this; that she should have been more than this, somehow. Only she wasn't.
reminded me of one of my favorite parts of This is Not a Test, where a young character mourns the likely end of his life in his own zombie-infested world, and how small it has been.
"…It's nothing. I thought it could be something, I mean, eventually." He finally looks at us. "My life. I thought - but I mean...it's nothing."
how absolutely shattering to realize, at fifteen, that you have no fucking hope of realizing any of your dreams. this one is younger, so i guess more tragic, but still, that realization kills me.
"I was a doctor before I became anything else. The first rule we were taught in medical school was 'Do no harm.'"
That wasn't quite true. The first rule we were taught in medical school was "A cadaver is not a toy."
dr. abbey is my LOVE. and her dog. damn, i love that dog. and the wonderful meeting between dog and … someone else that occurs in this book. this book shines with dr abbey's cranky/funny/badass voice, and can we have a round of applause for SUPER-FORTRESS???
Give me a group of easily bored scientists and engineers, and give me a couple of undisturbed years, and I can build a stronghold that will never be breached.
great story.
All the Pretty Little Horses
this greeting, from the introduction, delighted me even though it did not apply to me:
This is the first of the two new stories in this volume. The odds are good that many of you have skipped straight here. Welcome.
me, i wasn't going to race right to the new stuff. i wanted to savor the old familiar ones and then celebrate with all-new adventures at the end, otherwise i would never have gone back and read the earlier ones again. plus i would feel like i was cheating on my reading challenge, plus,-plus who wants to have a book with an uneven wear-pattern, pristine until the last hundred pages? not me, that's for sure! these things matter!
anyway, this story covers the experiences of the mason parents, post-philip, pre-shaun and george and is a pretty excellent examination of coping mechanisms and survival and how people can start out nice and well-intentioned and fragile and eventually turn into … shaun and george's parents. apology? explanation? warning? whatever - it's really tight and ALL NEW!
Coming to You Live
the introduction reads simply: This is what you asked for.
as far as a way to close a collection, it's perfect. it's basically a curtain call, one of the segments is even called The Gang's All Here. however, it was my least favorite story overall. it takes place after the events of Blackout, and it answers the question "where are they and what are they doing now?" and you know who 'they' are, yes?
My name is Shaun Mason, and I am not okay.
there was a lot i liked in this one, including a little passage about foxen:
I liked foxes. They kept the vermin down, and since they never reached amplification weight, they couldn't become zombies, which made them decent neighbors. Best of all, they hated the smell of the infected, and they liked to yell at infected things. When foxes yelled at something, it sounded like a murder party getting underway. As biological early warning systems went, you couldn't do much better than foxes.
but i think i'm sick of shaun's voice/perspective. i used to really enjoy his character, but either i'm over him or she's out of practice writing him. it was really one-note: george, george, george, burn down the world etc etc. it felt all too familiar. however, once more characters start popping their heads into the story, it got better, but in a "hey, look who's here!" way and not a "this story is very engaging to me" way. so that was a bit of a disappointment, although i'll take all the alaric i can get. to be honest, george was always the least interesting character to me, and this story is very very george-y. even foxy was dull in this one. and since i still can't wrap my head around some of the science related to this series, as i mentioned in the spoiler earlier, a lot of this was over my muddled little head.
but whatever- it's new and i got to see some favorite characters interacting (or rather, sniping at each other with hurt feelings). i think my problem with this one was the same as with mahir in the australia one - it was a lot of knee-jerk tics and quirks, all very expected, a parade of characteristics of familiar characters where all the new stuff was george-stuff i didn't really care about. but i'm not going to complain - i loved reading this book, the new and the old and i am SO PUMPED for the new full-length novel.
bring it on!
*********************************************** NOW AVAILABLE!!! and i'm on the very last story. sniff.
i just got an ARC of this in the mail, and while i was excited to finally have all the stories i'd read as e-books in one handy volume, i had no idea that there were actually TWO BRAND-NEW STORIES in it!
life is good.
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okay, i am (re)reading this now. i've read all but the two new stories and the one that was only in Zombies 2, which i'm pretty sure i have around here somewhere, since i read the first volume, but i think i just never realized hers was in there. moops. i'm not sure if i should re-review the ones i've already read, but for now, i will just leave links to my previous reviews, because why not?
and there's also Fed, which i think was on her site maybe? but it's not in this collection. which is weird. but anyway, here, because i like to be complete and thorough:
Marsha Shirksy I’m not kidding, you guys! There was a rager at the supermarket. I could tell he was acting weird & I know I was totally stupid not to just drop my stuff and run! I’d just been in line forever & they had this terrific local asparagus on sale. Yes, I may have just sacrificed myself for asparagus.
this is a zombie story in a modern-day epistolary format, composed of both emails and chat room posts chronicling the onset and spread of the zombie apocalypse.
the emails are interoffice communications from the facebook staff capitalizing on the situation and turning it into social media gold.
the chat room participants are just regular kids like you and me (well, not me - i'm not on the facebook), trying to look out for each other with internet-buddy support posts but ultimately helpless as their friends and loved ones fall victim to the pandemic.
rarrrrr
the story emphasizes the emotional flattening our social media-based relationships have conferred upon us, as the severity of the situation is glossed over by humor
Marsha Shirksy I am fine & now I have at least a week’s worth of microwave popcorn and burritos. Hopefully that will substitute for braaaaains! Emily you are such a sweetheart, I cannot believe you came all this way. I feel kind of stupid now. I totally could have gone to the store.
and the misplaced priorities and concerns of corporate ghouls.
To: “Emergent UI Features Team” From: Tracy MacGier Subject: Re: “Became a zombie” Life Event
Come on guys, this is a joke. You’re waiting for people to tag THEMSELVES as zombies? Seriously? We already solved the griefer problem by limiting tagging to Close Friends, remember? I think if some dude I hardly know can photo tag me flashing my tits at Mardi Gras, I ought to be able to tag a CLOSE FRIEND as a zombie, am I right?
People, we are all about visibility in the social cloud! Who’s single, who’s in town, who likes what, who hooked up with whom! And what is the most important thing you want to know about your social circle right now? THREE GUESSES!
Come on, Suresh, grow some balls, and let’s do this right!
Tracy
To: “Emergent UI Features Team” From: Josh Rubenstein Subject: Wording of new feature
Can we use a different word? I’m not really all that comfortable with “zombie” from a disability rights perspective. It has really negative cultural connotations. It’s one thing if people with AER/CI want to reclaim that word, but I don’t think we should be doing it for them. How about “rager” or just “contracted AER/CI”?
JRube
i really appreciate the workable links - they're a nice touch, and had i not seen mira grant employ this structure and this conceit in every newsflesh novel and story ever and be both funnier and scarier every single time, i probably would have appreciated this story more.
this is mira grant's paddle pool and there's only room for one!
i had no idea that mira grant had written ANOTHER newsflesh novella until i got my copy of Chimera in the mail and i saw this one listed on the "also i had no idea that mira grant had written ANOTHER newsflesh novella until i got my copy of Chimera in the mail and i saw this one listed on the "also by" page. i ran to my computer and bought it IMMEDIATELY and as soon as i finished Chimera, i read this even though a better person would have hoarded it instead of burning through all the available mira grant and finding themselves completely bankrupt of mira grant words to read.
but i'm not complaining. much.
generally speaking, you can read these newsflesh standalones in any order you please. however, in this case, you would be doing yourself a disservice to read this one without having read The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell first.
this is a story about dr. shannon abbey and ALSO a beloved character from Blackout who i'd always wanted more time with, and as i was reading this (view spoiler)[(and after i realized that it was foxy and not tansy, in some newsflesh/parasitology crossover - which would be AWESOME, BTW - foxy and tansy having thelma and louise adventures) (hide spoiler)] i got SO EXCITED to see them pop up and then as the story continued to unfold i had a moment of total readerheartgasm (if you are reading this, skip, this is also not a real word) when i realized how this story connected not only to Blackout, but also to The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell. i read Blackout so long ago that i don't remember how much of this character's backstory was revealed there, so maybe this wasn't a surprise to other readers, but when i was reading The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell, i didn't realize that that character was the same as the Blackout-character i so loved, and when all the connections were revealed in this story i was over the freaking moon with joy and delight and screaming. not literally. literally i squeaked instead of screaming, because it's rude to wake people who live in your apartment up with screaming. unless there is actual peril. then you should totally scream.
outstanding stuff here.
i hope she never ever stops writing these stories, and if she has more stuff like this in her - where she collapses stories into other stories in the most exquisite ways, well i might just scream after all. sleepers beware.
i'm sorry if this "review" makes no sense to you. because that means you have not read enough mira grant. get on that immediately.
this summer, the plan is to return to a bunch of YA series that i started and never finished for whatever reason. because it's important to have goalsthis summer, the plan is to return to a bunch of YA series that i started and never finished for whatever reason. because it's important to have goals. and closure.
i have no idea why i paused for so long with this series, because i remember loving it, but pause i did. fortunately for me, unlike ilsa j. bick who makes you work to reorient yourself, aguirre does a good job gently reminding the reader who may have taken a couple of years off from the series of the key events from the earlier books. so, thanks for that.
however, when i started this final book, i was a little apprehensive. because i do NOT remember the previous books being so preoccupied with kissing. the first chapter has A LOT of kissing talk in it.
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but then it ends with the line: When next I woke, the world was a blur of snarls and yellow fangs.
and i remembered why i liked this series.
thankfully, all the love triangling was left behind in book two. there's some unavoidable fallout from it that affects the events here, but this one is definitely focused on action instead of on boy-dithering. there's still romancey bits, but it's all just focused on fade, whose specific brand of damage is at least complicated and original enough for me to not roll my eyes. much.
because there's still stuff like this:
Then he sighed and rubbed his cool cheek against mine. "I should've stayed close to you. When you went under, my life ended. I don't think I breathed until you did."
"You can live without me," I said.
"I don't want to."
I feared a love like this - that made us incomplete without each other. It was beautiful but treacherous, like snow that looked white and pure and lovely from the safety of your window, but when you stepped out to touch the softness, the cold first stole your breath, and then your will to move, until you could just lay down in it and let the numbness take you. Yet I didn't want to be without him either, so I did't chide him for the statement. After all, I'd braved the horde to bring him back, even if Fade had believed he was broken beyond fixing.
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which is still cause for the rolly eyes, but at least deuce recognizes that this all-consuming love is problematic, and it doesn't, for the most part, prevent her from being badass.
because the overwhelming tone of this book is of badassery. fighting, killing, bleeding badassery.
this book introduces new characters and brings back some we haven't seen since book one. and aguirre's not shy about killing some of them off.
because - freaks, muties, whatever you wanna call 'em - there are A LOT of them in this book. "horde" is no exaggeration. and these creatures have been going through some rapid evolutionary changes that have only made them harder to fight; their movements harder to predict.
deuce, the great character with the unfortunate name, adds to her skill set in this book. in the first book, she is all huntress - trained for one thing and one thing only, never expecting to live past twenty. in the second book, she was exposed an alternative way of life where family, community and love were not the weaknesses she'd been taught were breeder-concerns, and she became more human and more thoughtful; no longer just the thing that holds the knives. and in this book, everything she has learned about fighting combines with what she has learned about people and she emerges into a true leader; all skills and strategy and figuring out how best to bring more fighters to her side - understanding people means understanding what they are willing to die for.
but it's not easy. and i think that's what i liked best about this book - i mean, she's a scrawny little sixteen-year-old girl. blade-prowess or not, i think i would have been irritated if she managed to rally a giant army just by soapboxing at all the cloistered, terrified settlements. but the fact that it's a struggle, the fact that she recognizes her own weaknesses and calls upon advisors and that everything takes so much time - it's frustrating to her, but it's so rewarding to a reader. because even when you're reading something so clearly in the fantasy realm, you want it to be a little realistic. you want there to be a struggle. and you DEFINITELY want a booby-trap-in-the-forest sequence like you're in endor or sherwood forest with kevin costner.
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because forest standoffs with booby traps are the best
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it's a strong finale. we finally get our freak origin story, there's some character redemption, some chilling developments and unexpected heroes. we get a little flash-forwarding, which is always nice, (view spoiler)[but we do NOT get closure on the morrow/tegan thing. which is surprising since YA books love the happy-ending love story (hide spoiler)] i'm definitely glad i returned to this world, and that the third book didn't fall apart. or have too much kissing.
i'm pleased that this story is continuing to develop in interesting ways. like any good "zombie" story, it acknowledges that yeah, zombies are bad, but once you have zombies, you have a whole host of other social problems that ripple out from that situation. you have people who want to die but can't, you have religious zealots popping up, you have ethical questions around town quarantine and enforced containment of the affected individuals, you have complications in legal and law enforcement areas, you have people trying to come in, people trying to break out, showboats and protesters and vigilantes and demonologists and cranky old preppers.
a.k.a. - "the sushi of the living dead." (hide spoiler)]
in this volume, characters will die, and some might not even come back. old scores will be settled, plots will be hatched; there will be unexpected alliances, fantastic speeches, heroism and duplicity and a farting dog.
fulfilling my 2019 goal to read (at least) one book each month that has been digitally moldering, unread, on my NOOK for years and years and years.
BOOfulfilling my 2019 goal to read (at least) one book each month that has been digitally moldering, unread, on my NOOK for years and years and years.
BOOKTOBER IS STILL SO SPOOOOOKY!
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i read these books all outta order, starting with Outpost(#1), then Juggernaut(#0.5), then Impact(#3), and finally, terminus(#2). part of this was not my fault, as Juggernaut was published afterOutpost, but the mixing up of #2 and #3 is 100% on me. however, my flawed mathskills did me no real harm, as the books don’t really build on each other; rather, they all take place more-or-less concurrently as people in different parts of the world (the arctic circle, iraq, las vegas, new york) experience the joys of living on a planet overtaken by an alien/zombie type o’ phenomenon that involves a sentient...entity wending its way into the human body and setting up shop, turning all your pals into freakish undead metal spiky things whose only purpose is to find fresh meat and turn it as well, nomming relentlessly all the way.
Terminus, despite taking place in new york (woot WOOT!), was probably my least favorite in the series, meaning either 1) i read these in the correct order (for me) after all, or 2) i’m over the premise, as cool as it is, and would have been by its fourth reboot regardless of my reading-order.
this one just seemed a bit flat. the sentences are wicked short, there’s only minimal character development, and despite some wonderfully grotesque body-horror sequences, the action was less gripping than the others (particularly Outpost and Juggernaut, which—if you’re going to read two books about quasi-zombies that are really alien possession/colonization novels, let it be those). of note: the scene in the partially-submerged bus is PHOAR, and the molotov cocktails are tremendous. however, as a wise man once said:
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baker’s spin on the zombie novel is an excellent variation, and he knows many things about artillery and ordnance and such, which adds a layer of authoritative realism to his situations; his characters are capable and experienced in their fields, tending towards scientists, military personnel, firefighters, and in this one—prisoners, so there’s very little of the ‘bewildered characters running away from monsters and screaming.’ instead, his focus is on people who are used to facing danger, adapting their survival skills and know-how towards an unprecedented threat, getting some licks in—more than the average person would, certainly, but no less doomed for that. i mean—seriously, these are basically Terminator-zombies roaming a recently-nuked NYFC, while a handful of meaty-mortals try to survive in one of new york’s long-abandoned subway tunnels, suffering from radiation-sickness and trust issues, on a desperate last-chance rescue mission/race for the cure ain’t no one confident will succeed.
they are: three prisoners; one gone blind from radiation, one off his anti-psychotic meds, one (understandably) unwilling to cooperate after nearly being executed by the people she’s now meant to be assisting, a sadistic corrections officer who resents all prisoners, an FDNY rescue squad called "The Tunnel Rats," a lieutenant with the Institute of Infections Diseases, and some assorted military folk, sent underground to retrieve the poster child for mad scientistry, whose last subterranean transmission indicated he’d found a cure. it would be an excellent reality show if there were any humans left alive to watch it.
even though i expected to love this one the MOST, for all of its NEW YORK IS ROONED details, it didn’t match the intensity or basic storytelling heights of either Outpost or Juggernaut, but there were enough high points for me to three-star it, SO THAT’S WHAT I DID.
Flying down West Main Street in a wheelchair would be awesome on a regular day. Flying down West Main Street in a wheelchair while drunk, firing a pisFlying down West Main Street in a wheelchair would be awesome on a regular day. Flying down West Main Street in a wheelchair while drunk, firing a pistol, and screaming at the top of your lungs during the zombie apocalypse? Now that is priceless.
and now this book about the zombie apocalypse, cussin', and a lot of beer.
sometimes i just want to float all seven of my proust reviews and say "LOOK! sometimes i read long and important books!!"
and sometimes i read books that arthur graham sends me.
life is balance.
this book explores a terrifying premise. not the zombie apocalypse - that's all been-there, done-that. no, this book dares to posit a much more horrifying "what if?": what if the only survivors of the zombie apocalypse were assholes?
sexist, drunk, homophobic douchebag dudes who claim metalhead affiliation but act more like overgrown frat boy brahs in pursuit of nothing more than beer, pot, and perky ass titties.
and a little d&d nerd will lead them.
if you are the kind of person who enjoys a good bizarro-type romp in which obnoxious dudes do obscene things while spouting offensive mantras - climb aboard!! because there is a lot of funny-ass shit in here. and some deeply disturbing imagery, including a zombie birth, fecal alley, and well, this:
Following the sound to the room next door, he's shocked enough to catch the guys with a zombie in there, let alone one strapped to table with a funnel in its mouth. Steady squats over it, his ass hanging out of his jeans.
"What the fuck are you guys doing?"
Giggling even louder now, Rock half turns his head, never taking his eyes off the zombie's face.
"Dude, we call it the boom tube…"
"We're farting in his mouth," Steady clarifies, chuckling as he builds up pressure. "He fucking hates it!"
Suddenly he lets one rip, hard enough to pop an eye out of zombie's head.
"ARRRRgrrrrrr…"
Rock and Steady both fall over, holding their stomachs and laughing hysterically. Kip closes the door and heads up to the roof, sitting down at the table with his journal.
which i will say is the first time i have ever encountered this in a zombie book, so kudos for that!
it's definitely a big slobbery fun romp of a book. these are the antiheroes of all antiheroes, and you'll never applaud them, but for all their poor social skills and lack of perspective, they do sort of save the world. and as the synopsis promises:
Not everyone who saves the world is a rocket scientist, a super hero, or a handsome actor turned politician. Sometimes people who save the world... they're fucking idiots.
amen, brother!
fortunately, they do have one redeeming quality. when they meet up with an african american fellow hiding out in a beer cooler that they desperately want to get into:
"Hey!" Steady shouts back, pretty drunk by this point. "You let us in right NOW, you, you…" He struggles for the words, but somehow they fail.
"Oh, you what" Russ fires back. "Why don't you just come on out and say it!"
"No!" Steady yells, punching the door. "I ain't saying it!"
"Come on and say it, you fucking pussy! Call me a nigga! Go ahead!"
"Not saying it!"
"Say it, bitch!"
"We're not racists! We're drunks!" Rock hollers back.
"Yeah," Kip thinks to add, himself feeling pretty buzzed. "I love Wayne Brady!"
which of course i only excerpted here so i could use this picture, one of my favorite things from the much-missed chappelle show:
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so, read it if you think this is your thing. or read proust. just read something
so, this is a story about a zombie clown. but it's not this kind of clown
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nor is it this kind of zombie
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therefore, it is not this kind of so, this is a story about a zombie clown. but it's not this kind of clown
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nor is it this kind of zombie
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therefore, it is not this kind of zombie clown
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no, what we have here is an ornery stand-up comedian clown who becomes a zombie after a violent icepick incident coincides with a freak tornado that somehow causes all the recently dead to turn into zombies, or a version of a zombie. put your hand down, science, we are not taking questions at this time.
in this book, the zombies are similar to the zombies in the revival series: people come back from the dead, yes, but they don't lose motor skills, cognitive function, or eat human brains. or any brains, for that matter. unless they are at a dinner party where brains are being served. but as we all know, monkey's brains, though popular in Cantonese cuisine, are not often to be found in Washington D.C. and speaking of dropping pop culture references into a narrative - this book is full of that: television shows, comic books, movies, music, former pro wrestlers - it's all likely to show up in this book, with exhortations to listen to a particular song while reading a particular segment of the story, or with deep asides into the underpraised gems of both the big and small screen, like Kolchak or My Sister Sam.. naturally, these kinds of asides break up the narrative flow, but formal structure is not a high priority here, where the book opens with an interview and then a couple chapters relating the story of a little boy, some bloody snowmen, and an observed crime which turns out to be an excerpt of the book the character is reading and never returns to once "his" story starts rolling. there are no rules.
so, ripper the clown is a dude who walks around at all times in full clown makeup, leather pants, "screw you" sunglasses, with blinking christmas lights strung up all around him. he's got several chips on his shoulder, and not just from clown-related shit. he's pretty much your standard douchebag - moaning about the shallow girls who wouldn't date him because he had long hair, while feeling pretty okay about calling other women funny-looking, his previous girlfriend bethany included. moaning about how much better of a comedian he is than more-successful comedians and how unfair it is that he isn't getting the same kind of treatment. his assessment of his comedic and personal merits fall under that "unreliable narrator" banner when we get his current girlfriend willow's version of events he'd painted in a completely different light. so, trust no 1. this all takes place in the near future, and ripper-narrator addresses the reader as though we are part of his world, as though he is telling his side of a story we already know - the story of how the zombies came to be (science, no!! stop waving your hand around - i didn't mean "how" literally.), and what happened afterwards in the realm of human/zom relations. obama and bush are mentioned, giving it that dash of "real-world," but if we are in the same world, why does ripper need to tell us who the president is now, as though he is revealing a new fact? i mean, obviously, this person is not the president and probably won't be in the near future, but if ripper's audience is ostensibly contemporaneous (god, there has GOT to be a less douchey way to say that), so but if the readers are supposebly on the same timeline as ripper, we would know that, right? so the way the information was relayed would be more of an offhand comment than a reveal, yes? unless this is meant to be ripper speaking from the not-yet-occurring future and that tornado did more than just make zombies happen?? and then i realize i am thinking too hard about a book revolving around a zombie clown.
it's a romp of a story - more of a comedic adventure/horror parody/rant mash-up, which might be the first of its kind. also perhaps in the "first of its kind category," the character of ripper the clown actually does tour as a comedian, and has many youtube videos:
i am so glad this series is still going strong and still holding my interest. this is the first graphic novel series i have ever read; i usually prefei am so glad this series is still going strong and still holding my interest. this is the first graphic novel series i have ever read; i usually prefer standalones, but this one is just so much fun, so thoughtfully written and it's such a unique spin on the zombie genre, i am thrilled to have gotten sucked in. and i am also very impressed with myself for showing uncharacteristic restraint by not running over to forbidden planet and buying all the individual issues as they came out, instead WAITING PATIENTLY like a grown-up for them to be collected in these book-books.
i don't want to give any spoilers, for people who haven't been reading these (FOOLS!!!) but i will say that the mystery continues to deepen, and this chunk takes some fantastic and unexpected turns. obviously, i love em the most, but there's just so much other stuff going on right now that her arc is kind of smallish (although SO RAD!), and every storyline is ratcheting up the tension and you feel like very soon everything is just going to freaking EXPLODE.
the main focus in this one is on dana, who is allowed to break out of quarantine in order to travel to new york and investigate some strange occurrences that seem to be related to revival day. but while she is there, there's plenty going on back in wisconsin.
here's a little list of what to expect in this volume: showdowns, powerful kisses, glowing figures, cannibalism, hypnosis, comeuppance for the entitled, native american lore, so much blood, a giant purple octopus,
it also includes a little crossover chapter between this series and Chew, Vol. 1: Taster's Choice, which i have never read, but had suddenly wanted to after reading kat's review earlier this month, and this want was only reinforced by this chapter, which opens with a giggle of self-poking meta-reference and turns into crazytown. this part is just a little self-contained offshoot of the main story, and i doubt it will resurface, but it's awesome and gruesome and full of the daaaaance.
a great book, all told.
i'm a little frowny at my adopted home as seen through dana's eyes
there's a lot to process; a lot going on, but i'm confident that the series will continue to expand in an exciting direction. i just hope we don't get to the end too soon - i'm not ready to leave this world.
if you haven't started reading this series yet - get on it!! ........................................................................................................................................................................
yayyyyy!!
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i forgot this was coming out, and when i got to "work" on wednesday, greg had set one aside for me and it was the best day ever whe! thanks, greg!
review to come. too busy doing a zombie dance to type right now...more
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