In life, Karen DeSonne passed as straight, afraid to reveal her true orientation. In death, she’s passing as one of the living, a zombie girl hiding in plain sight. Even as bigots fan the flames of hate and intolerance against the “differently biotic” and make it nigh-impossible for zombies to go out in public, Karen’s going undercover to try and save her friends. But when she starts dating noted anti-zombie zealot Pete Martinsburg as part of the process, will she betray everything she holds dear? Passing Strange, like the others in the Generation Dead series, is a brilliant, poignant, compelling examination of the relationship of the outsider to society, with zombies standing in for any group you care to imagine and Karen as a protagonist worth cheering for.
Archive for category Zombies
Ever since the Return, the dead have hunted the living, swelling their ranks with their victims. When Gabry and her friends break the rules and leave the safety of their home, tragedy strikes, and Gabry’s life is torn apart. Now, to atone for her mistakes and save her friends, Gabry must defy the authorities and journey into a forest where she’ll either find death, or the long-hidden truth about her family and her own origins. Either way, there’s no turning back. This dark fantasy, set in a zombie-infested future, is atmospheric, compelling, and unforgettable. While acting as a sequel to The Forest of Hands and Teeth, it stands alone without a problem.
In an attempt to cure cancer and the common cold, scientists accidentally sparked something worse: a virus which turns its victims into mindless, ravening zombies. Twenty years later, the hungry dead are just a fact of life, one to be avoided when possible, dealt with when necessary. It’s a world of paranoia and danger, constant blood tests and intense personal security, where human contact is minimalized in favor of staying indoors, and where blogging has achieved a new level of popularity and legitimacy.
Enter Georgia (George) and Shaun Mason, intrepid siblings about to take on the job of their lives. She’s a hard-edged journalist with an eye for the news, he’s a thrill-seeking adrenaline junkie who pokes zombies with a stick for the delight of his audience. And they’ve just been accepted as the official campaign bloggers as Senator Peter Wyman makes a run for the White House. Even in the year 2040, with vast parts of the world considered uninhabitable due to zombie infestations, some things never change. Especially politics.
But as George and Shaun, along with their poetry-writing, technogeek companion Buffy, take to the road with the rest of Wyman’s team, they discover that not everyone wants the Senator to land the party nomination. Someone wants them all dead, at any cost. In finding out who’s behind the campaign troubles, assassination attempts, security leaks and zombie attacks, the Masons may get more than they ever bargained for.
Combining zombies, politics, epidemiology, pop culture, blogging, humor and horror, this is one hell of a series opener. Grant (the open pseudonym for urban fantasist/artist/songwriter Seanan McGuire) knocks the ball out of the park with Feed. The worldbuilding is solid, the tone is believable, the character voices ring true, and the twists and turns prevent predictability. The author knows her zombies, and has done an exemplary job of grounding them in reality and envisioning a world that goes on despite their existence. The human spirit may be bruised, but in the Masons, it’s certainly not broken. Of course, after the events of this book, with several threads left open for further exploration, the next in the series can’t come quickly enough.
In a perfect world, Amanda Feral, Seattle’s favorite zombie fashionista, socialite, and trouble magnet, wouldn’t have to worry about a thing. Her nightlife would be nothing but fruity drinks and tasty college boys. Think again. Her business is in dire financial straits, the reapers who patch her up after every misadventure are snarling for their money, her werewolf boyfriend is more of an animal in bed than is comfortable, and her mom’s a strip club-owning vampire. When a chance to at least settle her money woes comes up, in the form of judging a reality show, Amanda reluctantly accepts the deal. However, the prompt murder of the show’s sexy, obnoxious host (and chief draw) means a quick change in plans for all involved.
Now, Amanda has to figure out who killed Johnny Birch, the world’s most annoying wood nymph. Was it the voodoo mama? The Belgian ghoul? The Japanese smoke ghost? The twin sirens? The drag queen werewolf? Everyone has a motive, the means, and the opportunity. But will the would-be contestants kill each other before Amanda pins down the culprit … or will the fact that she’s a lousy detective mark the end of her glamourous unlife? Some people would die to be on TV, even the secret supernatural channels … and some will die whether they want to or not.
Profane, demanted, and utterly warped, Battle of the Network Zombies is the third in Mark Henry’s series about the trials and tribulations of Amanda Feral, a foul-mouthed flesh-eater who navigates the Seattle supernatural social scene like a less evil Paris Hilton. With a wide variety of bizarre mythological creatures strutting their stuff here, and Amanda’s customary amusing asides, anecdotes and footnotes, it’s clear that Henry’s really tapped into his inner (undead) diva once again. While not for the sensitive, easily-offended, or delicate of heart, this book skewers the reality show mindset even as it cooks up a surprise-filled murder mystery. The chapter headings, each one offering up a TV Guide-style listing of a cable show for the supernatural set, are uniformly entertaining (I’d watch Thanks For The Dismemberments, or Jersey Devil House Party!), and I can certainly appreciate the use of lesser-known mythological creatures as secondary characters. For some, this series may be an acquired taste, but it’s certainly got a unique style and voice, and Battle of the Network Zombies lives up (or down?) to the standard set by the first two books.
Amanda Feral is a zombie, a foul-mouthed fashionista who trolls the bizzare nightlife of supernatural Seattle with her best friends (a vampire, a succubuss, and another zombie), drinking flirtinis and occasionally eating unwary humans by night, advertising executive by day. It’s not a conventional lifestyle, but she makes it work with her unique brand of dry humor and stylish practicality. However, when one of her friends texts her with a plea for help, only to immediately go missing, Amanda is jolted out of her routine, and dragged into an ever-more-dangerous search for the missing woman. Now Amanda’s going to have to brave all sorts of weird hazards, from rogue zombies at Starbucks (giving the civilized ones like her -such- a bad name) to sadistic immortals, to supernatural recovery groups, to someone who might be the Devil herself. What’s going on? Amanda aims to find out, but only if she can keep from damaging herself. Zombies don’t heal, and any injury can be messy, inconvenient, and downright upsetting to the psyche. And where the hell -is- that missing friend, anyway?
Happy Hour of the Damned is … well, unique is the first word that comes to mind. It’s Sex and the City meets zombies, as filtered through a truly deranged mindset. Foul-mouthed, shallow, even immature at times, the main characters are memorable for their sheer departure from the norm. Where else are you going to find zombies who call for pizza, and eat the delivery boy? And did I mention that the main character manages to think in footnotes? I have to be honest: half the time I turned the pages out of morbid fascination, the other half I kept reading to see just what sort of train wreck I was inflicting upon my psyche. That’s not to say this book is bad; on the contrary, it transcends bad and goes right into camp, offering up something refreshingly new and strange. I enjoyed it immensely, but at the same time, I was staring in mild shock as the story continued to go in unprecedented directions. (Hint: don’t ask about the trick involving chocolate cake and the bucket.) If I was to have any objections regarding this book, it would be the language: Amanda and her friends drop just about every obscenity available in the English language with casual carelessness, like toddlers who’ve been exosed to George Carlin way too early. In the grand scheme of things, I suppose that’s a mild thing to complain about. Seriously, Happy Hour of the Damned is unlike anything I’ve read lately, and I enjoyed it enough to definitely want to see what Mark Henry has planned next. It’s always nice to see a book that’s willing to challenge expectations, upset the status quo, and offend good taste, and this one succeeds on all levels.
Megan thought it was hard juggling pom squad practice, her love life, and keeping wandering zombies from terrorizing the unknowing populace. But that was before feral super-zombies started rampaging, the cheerleaders declared war on the pom squad, and a cute undead psychic started hanging around. Now, if she can’t find out who’s raising the angry dead, she’ll take the blame, assuming she survives that long. And what dark secret is her family hiding that could explain it all? Jay continues her series about the feisty zombie Settler with this amusing, sometimes-convoluted adventure that reads like classic Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Ever since the undead came out of the coffin and went public, there’s been a certain dangerous cachet to dating the so-called post-humans. Snarky ice queen Alley Rhodes used to mock such people, until she fell head over heels for Doug, a zombie who wants her heart, not her brains. But everyone’s got an opinion about the new relationship; some of the local vampires are downright upset by the thought of interspecies dating. Can Alley and Doug make this work, or is their love dead on arrival? Selzer simultaneously skewers the worst excesses of the Twilight phenomenon and delivers a solidly entertaining romance in its own right. Clever and humorous, this one’s not to be missed.
Usually, the worst Margot Jean Johnson has to worry about is her lack of a boyfriend, and the mockery of her nemesis, Amanda Culpepper. But that’s before the vast majority of her high school are turned into brainless zombies, and eccentric Principal Taft chooses to peacefully coexist with them, rather than panic. Now Margot and her best friend Sybil are queens of the school (by sheer virtue of not being undead). Can they make it to the end of semester, or is someone going to become zombie chow? What’s behind the zombie plague, and is there a cure? Does anyone even care? Whimsical and tongue-in-cheek, this book mixes dark humor and high school angst surprisingly well, provided you come equipped with plenty of suspension of disbelief for the antics contained within.
Phoebe Kendall has two men in her life, and they’re both dead. Or rather, differently biotic, a polite way of saying zombie. Tommy is the articulate spokesman for the walking dead, while Adam died trying to protect her; she loves them both, but has to make a choice. Meanwhile, anti-zombie sentiments are on the rise, prejudice and hate crimes threatening to destroy the fragile peace between the living and the dead. With Phoebe and her friends squarely in the middle, they’re about to see what happens when things get out of control. A complex, intelligent allegory for just about any minority population you care to name, this continues the story started in Generation Dead and greatly expands the ideas explored there. This is still one of the best new series on the shelves, and I can’t wait to see where Waters is taking us. Who ever thought a YA zombie love story could be so much fun, or so philosophical?
Mia never should have tried to cast that love spell. But she couldn’t let her nemesis, Samantha, steal her prom date. All’s fair in love and war, right? Except one botched spell later, the entire school loves Mia … loves her to death, in fact, since she’s turned the school body into zombies, with herself as their accidental queen. Now she has just a few days to reverse the spell before she becomes the first prom queen to act as a zombie buffet. Luckily, she has professional zombie hunter Chase, and her hypochondriac best friend Candice, to back her up. Can they set things right before this year’s prom theme becomes “Braaaains?” You’ll never look at high school zombies the same way again. Clever and fast-paced, this is an amusing twist on the subject matter, and an all-around enjoyable read.