What is The Eagle has Reanimated?
From best-selling author Tony Schaab, award-winning creator of The GOREScore.com, comes an alternate-history tale of terror, mayhem, and zombies on the moon!
Set in the universe established by George Romero in his seminal film “Night of the Living Dead,†the story revolves around NASA’s Apollo XI moon-landing mission in July 1969 and how the outcome may have been altered with the inclusion of the living dead. Readers paying close attention will catch the witty references to the pop culture of the time, as well as nuanced historical information about the actual Apollo XI mission.
Called a “must read†by multiple reviewers, this is the one zombie story that is truly out of this world!
Full Disclosure: I’ve known Tony Schaab online for years.
Our The Eagle has Reanimated Review
Without stretching too far into the realm of science fiction it’s truly hard to think of a way on how we can get zombies in space. With how rare humanity gets up there we can realistically not come up with a ton of ways to make it work.
What about though if we take an alternate look at history? That’s exactly what Tony Schaab has done here. Set in an alternate world where George Romero’s classic ‘Night of the Living Dead’ was reality the first moon landing went a little differently and that’s the tale we get to enjoy. My only complaint? We didn’t get to enjoy it that long as it came to a rather abrupt end due to originally being a short. The Eagle has Reanimated is an absolutely fun zombie themed tale that blends perfectly with the alternate Earth concept.
This is one that could probably be turned into a full length novel if it brought in a few more aspects of the time period but falling short of that it was still a fun read! (Really when the complaint is that a story wasn’t long enough that never earns the true meaning of complaint in my book.)
We start out with parts of the world having some kind of a plague but a lack of exactly what is happening is being held in by the media. Unlike today where everyone is able to be jacked in 24 hours a day this was still an age where people relied on television and newspapers to get their news and when it wasn’t being reported there wasn’t much you could do about it aside from hear rumors and conjecture.
There are hints of people working at NASA just leaving or disappearing. Rumors of problems across the country. The space launch though has to go on. We were in a race against Russia and with all of problems in our own country it was imperative that the United States be the first country to make it to the moon.
It’s pretty fun to watch the space flight unfold while we also get all of the hints on what is really going on. Lightly placed in at the beginning just as in the original Night of the Living Dead when things come to a head they really come at full force.
The launch goes as expected up through the moon landing. The problem is when we first step out on the moon one of the undead were apparently stuck on the bottom of the lander. When NASA learns of what happened there is a subtle nod to the rumor that the entire landing was a hoax when they mention to get the film crew ready.
Let’s just say things go down hill from there and leaves it with an ending that would be absolutely amazing to see play out onscreen. It wouldn’t surprise me if the scene he painted at the end inspired the entire story with how perfect it was. Tony has truly knocked it out of the ballpark with this one and as mentioned above my only wish would be for this one to have been longer.
