Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!

July 25, 2011
Penzler's latest monster-sized anthology of monster stories is sure to call attention to the living dead the same way that his Vampire Archives (2009) spotlighted the undead. The 57 stories mostly feature the two main types of fictional zombie: preâNight of the Living Dead voodoo-resurrected corpses (Manly Wade Wellman's "Song of the Slaves," August Derleth and Mark Schorer's "The House in the Magnolias") and modern Romero-esque brain-eating machines (Robert R. McCammon's "Eat Me," Stephen King's "Home Delivery"). Penzler makes a solid case for some horror classics being zombie tales in spirit if not in specifics, among them Robert E. Howard's Southern Gothic masterpiece "Pigeons from Hell" and Theodore Sturgeon's backwoods monster tale "It." He overreaches somewhat, though, in including H.P. Lovecraft's ghoul-fest "Pickman's Model" and F. Marion Crawford's haunted-stateroom story "The Upper Berth." Zombie fans will find this book controversial as well as comprehensive.