Zombies vs. Unicorns Day 5: The Last Zombie

I haven't read it yet since it isn't out yet, but I might as well use the final day of my Zombies v. Unicorns Week to plug Brian Keene's upcoming comic, The Last Zombie. The first issue is scheduled to be released next week.  It's the story of what happens after the zombie apocalypse ends. The last zombie in the title is one of the main characters, a scientist on a journey across the country who has become the last person to be infected with the zombie plague and just wants to see his wife one last time before he turns. That;s pretty much all I know about it, since it isn't out yet, but I can say that I'll be reading it, and you should too.


Edit  6/26/10: Coolness. Brian was nice enough to give me a copy of The Last Zombie #1 at the Commix Connection Creator Cookout today. It is a freaking awesome comic. The story promises to be exciting, and the artwork is terrific. If you like zombies, you don't want to miss this!

Zombies vs. Unicorns Day 4: Some Zombie Videos

My stomach's been feeling a bit queasy all day, so I'm not quite up to doing my usual little book "review," but rather than abandon Zombies Vs. Unicorns Week,I thought Id share a few of my favorite zombie videos from YouTube.

Zombies vs. Unicorns Day 3: Musical Interlude

Rather than doing a review today, I thought I do a musical interlude using 8 Tracks. Let's start off with my Zombie Mix which I put together last year.  Most of the tracks come from the FuMP. I really love this mix:




Next is the Unicorn mix, which I just threw together. I actually had a hard time with this, since most unicorn songs I could find seem to be either cover's of Shel Silverstein's "Unicorn Song," covers of America's "Last Unicorn," or instrumentals. The Brobdingnagian Brads, Tom Smith, America, and John Anealio tracks are from my library. The rest are randomly chosen songs other people uploaded to 8Tracks that have unicorn in the title. I have no idea how appropriate they are since I can only listen to 30 seconds of them.

Zombies vs. Unicorns Day 2: Moon Walker

For day 2 of Zombies vs. Unicorns Week, let's move on to zombies.  I might as well start by talking about a book I just read last week, Rick Hautala's Moon Walker, which (despite the title) has nothing to do with Michael Jackson. Since the author has two previous books with Moon in the title, I assume it was some lame publishing attempt to create some sort of name recognition or something.

While this is a zombie novel, it is not a zombie apocalypse novel. The zombies in this book are a strange cross between traditional Voodoo zombies and Romero-esque horror zombies. They are created through a magical Voodoo potion to do hard labor, like Voodoo zombies, but they also eat human flesh like the horror zombies.

While scary enough, this book tends to be a little slow moving.  It doesn't take the reader long to figure  out that the local mortician with the creepy eye is the evil mastermind who's reanimating the dead to work the potato fields, but it takes the characters forever to work it out.  The zombies don't become any sort of a real presence until the last third of the book, and even then they're fairly easy for the heroes to take care of.

While this sin't the best zombie novel I've ever read, it's not really bad--just mediocre. I give it 3 yo-yos.

Zombies vs. Unicorns Day 1: The Last Unicorn

I saw a contest for a book called Zombies vs. Unicorns on this blog here. Since I can get bonus points for hosting my own Zombies. vs. Unicorns week, I figured why not? I have plenty of zombie books lying around the house that I haven't reviewed, and even a couple of unicorn books. So to start off the week, I thought I'd write a quick review of one of my favorite fantasy novels of all time, The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, which was also turned into one of my favorite animated films of all time, which I won't actually link to since the people who have the rights to it decided to be dicks and rip off Beagle.

It's the story of a unicorn who discovers that she is the last unicorn in the world. Despite the fact that unicorns are by nature solitary creatures, she decides to set out to discover the fate of her people. Along the way she meets a rather inept wizard and quite a few other people that I don't want to get into since I generally try to avoid spoilers.

This is a truely great story, full of magic, adventure, ill-fated romance, and heroism.  If you can find a copy, I'd recommend getting the deluxe edition, which includes the follow-up short story, "Two Hearts." "Two Hearts" is one of the best, saddest short stories I've ever read. This is the sort of book that I can't hesitate to give 5 yo-yos to.