Horror Book Review: The Last Christmas Gift

The Last Christmas Gift: A Heartwarming Holiday Tale of the Living Dead by Nathan Shumate
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don't generally read zombie stories, and I NEVER read Christmas stories, but this novella comes from the host of one of my favorite websites, Lousy Book Covers. When he offered a free copy in exchange for an honest review, I went for it.

I'm glad I did. The book is well written, with a middle-aged narrator talking about his childhood memories in a convincing and evocative manner. When our hero was eight, he received a strange doll from his father, who was recently killed in action in Vietnam. Then, shortly before Christmas, his beloved grandfather dies. The boy has been living at his grandfather's house, which just so happens to be situated across the street from a graveyard. Since this is a zombie story, you don't get bonus points for figuring out what that doll ends up doing!

Shumate is especially strong when dealing with the relationship between the boy and his grandfather, as well as how the zombie attack changes the boy's perceptions, it being his first step to manhood. The attack itself is adequately handled but offers nothing new. We've had enough of these attacks already! I must say that I found the attack a bit overlong and wanted more about the boy's relationship with his grandfather and absent father. Also, the character of the depressed mother, who sleeps through the entire novel thanks to her pills, deserved to be filled out a bit more.

But these are minor criticisms from someone who is not in this book's target audience. If you are at all a fan of zombies or Christmas horror tales, pick this one up. It's a different take on the genre and worth your while.

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Book Review: Z Boat

Z-Boat by Suzanne Robb
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm always up for a good sea tale so I was looking forward to reading this. What I found was a mixed bag.
The plot of this book is basically "zombies on a dystopian submarine". That's not a spoiler because you find that out in the first page. The world is declining rapidly thanks to corporate greed, government corruption, and spreading pollution. While I love a good dystopian tale, I found parts of this hard to swallow. For example, global smog is so thick you can't see the Sun in the middle of the ocean, yet somehow life manages to survive on Earth. Also, even people with relatively decent jobs can't afford clean water. The submarine crew drinks a tainted brown gunk. Even my Boy Scout training taught me two ways to get rid of that--boiling through a retort or filtering. An industrial civilization could no doubt come up with many more techniques.
More curious details emerge within the submarine itself. It's a late 20th century model, now a floating antique, yet it doesn't sound like any known sub. Hallways are five feet wide, doors are large, none of the crew has first-aid training, and the sub's davit (a small crane for lifting cargo or lifeboats) lifts the sub out of drydock, over the other vessels, and into the water. Um, no. Robb needs to research submarines if she's going to write about them.
The lack of editorial oversight is apparent in the text too, with many awkward sentences, misused words, and confusion between "lie" and "lay". The slow middle needs to be tightened up, and Robb has an irritating habit of telling right after showing. I lost track of the number of times a long paragraph would clearly show what a bad situation the characters were in, and end with some banal statement like "It didn't look good."
And yet I kept reading. Robb is a master at bringing characters to life and making you care about them. The crew is a wonderful collection of misfits suitable for the Nostromo or the Serenity and their interactions, loves, and feuds makes this book. The gorefest fight scenes are fun too if you have a high splatter tolerance. The ending is a rollercoaster ride that leaves it way open for a series (which is in fact continuing).
All in all, the most frustrating thing I found about reading this is was watching a bad book smother a good one. Robb has heaps of potential, and with a bit more care for her craft, and a much firmer editorial hand, she could produce some astounding works of fiction.
2.5 stars out of 5.
(I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)

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Post-Apocalyptic A to Z: Love in the Time of Zombies

I'm handing today's A to Z challenge to Guante, one of my favorite spoken word artists, and probably the only one to do a spoken word piece combining romance and the zombie apocalypse.

Interviewed today

Sorry for the silence this week, but my wife and I went up to Santander for a short trip. This lovely port in the northern Spanish province of Cantabria will be the subject of a post I'm doing for Gadling this weekend.

While I haven't done any blogging of my own this week, I did get interviewed on the blog of fellow writer Yolanda Sfetsos. I talk about my career and the inspiration that led me to write Dannevirke, which as far as I know is the only horror story set in the Dano-Prussian War of 1864. So click on the link on her name and check it out!

New horror from Damnation Books

At the stroke of midnight on June 1, Damnation Books released its third catalog of horror ebooks and POD publications.

Barely a year old, Damnation Books has already made a name for itself in dark fiction, showcasing many new and veteran writers. They're also planning to rerelease out-of-print novels by long-established authors such as Kathryn Meyer Griffith.

This season's selection has a wide range of books, from historical to contemporary, grim to humorous. As a historical writer myself (both in fiction and nonfiction) I like that there are so many historical pieces. I got myself Vasilov's Demon, set during the Russian Revolution, and Dead of Night, which includes undead bushwhackers. Having used bushwhackers in my own (unpublished) horror novel, I'm interested to see how author C.M. Saunders handles them. I also bought the modern psychological thriller Desiree and the quirky Painter's Green.

All books are discounted for a limited time, so head on over to Damnation Books to get some great deals on great stories. While you're over there check out my own horror short--Dannevirke.

Book Review: The Zombie Cookbook

It had to happen.

With the current zombie craze sweeping the nation like a bad case of ebola virus, sooner or later someone was bound to put together a Zombie Cookbook.

The someone turned out to be the new small press horror publisher Damnation Books, who came out with The Zombie Cookbook anthology and several other great titles last month.

Personally, I don't care for zombie. I prefer venison or goat. Zombie is a bit gamey and odorous. Not as bad as kimchee, say, but a strong contender for second place. If there's a zombie takeover and I last long enough that food becomes an issue, I think instead of cooking zombies I'll be blasting away at them as I run into a ruined supermarket in search of cans of Spam.

Anyway, there are some fine recipes here for those who don't mind eating the undead, such as Beer-Battered Zombie (everything goes better with beer), Brain Salad, and Zombie Pastie, which sounds like something an undead stripper might wear. These recipes are suitable for vegetarians since no animal was killed to create the meal.

There's plenty of food-themed fiction too. The anthology starts out strong with a short story introduction by Dutch heavy metal band The Zombie Cookbook, who prove they can write as well as rock, and the story "Wokking Dead" by Karina Fabian. People in the writing community will recognize her as the EPPIE award-winning author of Christian science fiction. In this story she studies the work day of two desperate exterminators in a world where zombies are as numerous as cockroaches at a cheap Chinese restaurant.

As you can imagine, all of these stories are written tongue-in-rotted-cheek. This is a smart move, since zombie stories that take themselves seriously have a bad tendency to be inadverantly silly. So if you want a fun collection of writing that mixes humor, horror, and a dash of cilantro, pick up The Zombie Cookbook.

The anthology is on a virtual book tour right now, with lots of interviews and other goodies planned, so check out the website for more information. The next stop on the tour is New Book News.