21st Century Dead

May 28, 2012
Bearing out Golden’s contention that zombie fiction is a tool for processing the fear of death, the 19 new stories in this uneven follow-up to The New Dead approach the theme from a great man angle. Gore-gulping zombies rampage through Ken Bruen’s “The Dead of Dromore” and S.G. Browne’s “Reality Bites.” Zombies are a part of the everyday landscape in John Skipp and Cody Goodfellow’s “All the Comforts of Home,” and a learning tool for children in Mark Morris’s “Biters.” The walking dead serve as a metaphor for negligent parents in Orson Scott Card’s “Carousel,” the cancer-ridden in Jonathan Maberry’s “Jack and Jill,” and conscienceless soldiers in Rio Youers’s “The Happy Bird and Other Tales.” Only Dan Chaon’s “How We Escaped Our Certain Fate,” a poignant meditation on love, loss, and mourning, is notably original. The others, competently written, will please casual readers but may not do much for passionate zombie enthusiasts.

June 15, 2012
In Mark Morris's "Biters," a bizarre experiment matches schoolchildren with infants afflicted with the R1 (or Reanimation) virus, making them zombies, while in Thomas E. Sniegoski's "Ghost Dog & Pup: Stay," a dead dog's spirit attempts to protect his young owner from powerful magics that threaten him. These stories, along with 17 other selections, celebrate the new approach to zombies that has permeated recent horror literature. VERDICT Including contributions by Simon R. Green, Amber Benson, Orson Scott Card, and other contemporary authors, this collection of original stories should appeal to fans of zombie horror.

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