Zombies and Shit

After reading Carlton Mellick III's Zombies and Shit, I think it's safe to say that I have a new favorite zombie novel. The book describes itself as "Battle Royale meets Return of the Living Dead," and unlike most comparisons on the back covers of books, this one is accurate.

A group of twenty people wake up to find that they've been dumped in the middle of a zombie-infested city and are now the unwilling contestants on a reality show called Zombie Survival. Each contestant is given a weapon and told that the only way out is to make it to a helicopter on the other side of the city. Unfortunately, there's only one seat on the helicopter, so only one person gets to return to civilization.

There are quite a lot of interesting characters. As with much of bizarro, there is a strong punk influence, and several of the characters are punks including the members of a punk street gang and a squad of "merc punks," who are professional zombie killers. Then there's a washed-up writer and his back-stabbing wife, an inventor, an underage prostitute, the former host of the  show, a Nazi, a genetically engineered killing machine, and a cybernetic Mr. T.

That's right, Mr. T is a character in this book, and I pity the fool who doesn't read it.

Little Death

I was lucky enough to get a copy of Thomas Kriebaum's Little Death from Library Thing's early reviewer program. It's a shortish graphic novel told in what is, I believe, called a "pantomime strip" format, i.e. with no dialogue.

The book contains fourteen multi-page stories and a few single panel ones. They all feature Little Death who is a toddler-sized skeleton dressed in a Blues Brothers-type suit. The stories center around him touching people and making them die. They are generally very funny, though I admit I'm still not sure exactly what the point was of number six.

If you're interested in lighthearted comics about a mini-grim reaper that are done in the style of older Mad Magazine comics, then this is the book for you. I enjoyed it, anyway.

Shadow Show

I always find that I have a little trouble when writing reviews of anthologies. If I write about each story, the review ends up being way too long. If I only talk about the stories that stood out the most to me, then I feel like I've slighted the writers I don't mention. If I don't go into detail on any of the stories, then I feel like I'm not doing my job, even if it is a job that I'm not getting paid for. In the case of Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury, I think I'm going to fall somewhere between option 2 and option 3.

I suppose I should start off by saying that this is a really great collection. Usually when I read an anthology, there's at least one story where I wonder what the editors where thinking when they included it. Not this time, though. I enjoyed all the stories in this anthology.

Ray Bradbury was a genius. He was one of the best writers of the 20th century. I think that this book isn't great just because it's a collection of great stories inspired by Bradbury. It's also great because it shows how much Bradbury influenced the great writers who came after him, (and Harlan Ellison® who was a contemporary). It's also great to see that while Bradbury is most often thought of a science fiction writer, this book also includes stories by fantasy, horror, and more mainstream writers.


This book is a fitting to one of our best writers. Anyone who is a fan of Ray Bradbury should give it a try. Anyone who isn't a fan of Ray Bradbury, should pick up some of his books and become a fan.