My reading time has been down as of late. Between a full time job, keeping Buy Zombie running, expanding the site, what we’re doing, writing, well let’s just say it’s been hard on keeping books read. I used to read a book every two days and now it’s lucky if I read a book every 2 weeks. So I’m extremely happy that I had time to sit down and read the Permuted Press re-issue of Timothy W. Long’s Among the Living.

To be fair I should say here that I’ve been talking to Tim online for a couple years now. We’re not “friends” in the – we don’t go around golfing on weekends (I don’t golf and I don’t think he does either) but we tend to get along when we talk (mutual enjoyment of zombies and whatnot.) So that being said even if we were best buds and hung out on a daily basis if I thought something he wrote was a steaming pile of crap I would say so. That is quite fortunately NOT the case here. Not even close! Among the Living went from a book I had on the backburner to read since I know the author and have a huge pile to go through to become one of my favorite zombie novels. Don’t make the mistake on putting off reading it!

It’s the first book in what I hope will be an extended series. We are introduced to a cast from all areas of life. Some of whom live and some of whom, quite fittingly in a zombie novel, die. We are injected into the world right at patient zero. A hope to cure a disease is tested before it’s fully ready to attempt to save a life. The cure didn’t have its intended effect though and an outbreak was almost instantaneous. Our initial characters are instantly gone and therefore this is just a reason on why there is an outbreak. It’s a solid reason with why there are zombies and not one that has to be touched again.

Quickly we are moved through our main groups of characters – a couple of reporters who have fallen in love, a drug dealer and his girlfriend, a death metal singer, and a serial killer. While these are the primary focus there are a multitude of backup characters that are also thrown in to both live and die as the novel progresses – though they do all have their roles to play. As much as I’d love to go on about these characters it’d be hard to do so without too many spoilers. What I can say is that they are all believable. From main characters to supporting backups you really can feel for their situations. Even those who don’t react how you think you would or would want someone to – their reactions are believable.

I have to say that as we are thrown in right as the zombie outbreak happens I love how Tim writes in a way that we can see people who are at the main outbreak area and have to deal with zombies while they have no idea what’s going on as well as see people who find out ‘something’ is happening but are thrown into the mix a little later. As the media is of course blacked out, everyone coming into the mess late doesn’t realize what is actually going on. Some of our characters are dealing with the zombies nearly right away and some aren’t until half way into the novel.

It’s a mix of survival and gore as our main characters try to have just one more day among the dead and the living.

Available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

It’s the survivor’s greatest fear: Those moments when he knows he’s infected, and no amount of cleaning or medical treatment will prevent him from becoming a zombie. Those are the moments explored in Side Films‘ super short film “Too Late” — but there’s a twist. I didn’t see it coming! Directed and edited by Rani Naamani, with terrific makeup by Nedy Acet, FX by Carlos Puertolas and performance by Nelson Brown.

The world is dead, devoured by a plague of reanimated corpses.

Cahz and his squad of veteran soldiers are tasked with flying into abandoned cities and retrieving zombies for scientific study. Deep in infected territory, hundreds of miles from their support vessel, the ever present dangers weigh heavily on Cahz’s mind as he shepherds his team to make quick, clean extractions.

Then the unbelievable happens. After years of encountering nothing but the undead, the team discovers a handful of dishevelled survivors in a fortified warehouse with dwindling supplies.

Surrounded by hordes of ravenous corpses, Cahz is faced with the terrible responsibility of determining the five passengers who will escape in the helicopter. While those left stranded must continue to fight off the infected and starvation long enough to be rescued.

After reading the excellent zombie novel, Domain of the Dead, I have been waiting anxiously for the arrival of its sequel. After the long wait, it finally arrives, and it delivers one of the most intense stories about survival I have seen in the genre.

Before I get to the review, I have comment on the extraordinary cover art to this novel. Craig Paton is an excellent cover artist and even as I write this review I look over and see the cover art and how superbly detailed it is. Well done Craig. The greatest zombie novel cover of 2011? I’d say so.

This novel was a joy to read from the flick of the first page to the last. Domain of the dead was such a powerful tale and I regard it as one of the best in the genre. With this in mind, I was worried that the sequel wouldn’t be as good …well, have no fear, because not only does it hold its own, it lunges at you, pins you to the ground and makes you plead for mercy.

Gore: Iain McKinnon’s descriptions of the undead are grotesque, down to every minute detail. The way he describes the undead is powerful and compelling, each zombie was given its own personality through the precise detailing. The author doesn’t tell you that the undead were once people with their own lives; he brings you into the world and lets you see for yourself. Iain’s descriptions of the undead— ranging in stages of decay—are realistic and just plain morbid. Not very many authors can describe the undead without drowning in a pool of clichés, but Iain’s voice is fresh and I still can’t shake off some of the images that this novel stamped into my mind.

Writing: Iain McKinnon has a masterful control of language. Throughout reading this novel, I was tantalized by his vision of the corroding environment and how nature responds to the fall of mankind. For a moment I thought that Iain McKinnon’s descriptions have improved since Domain of the Dead, but the more I think about it the more I realise that his descriptions in Domain were restricted to the boat. In Remains of the dead, Iain’s writing is given a chance to flourish beyond the constraints of the boat. What confuses me is why this book doesn’t have over 100 reviews on amazon, but it seems that most of the zombie novels that do receive a lot of reviews are flashy, full of shock and awe action. Remains of the dead isn’t about shock and awe; it’s a gritty and realistic hell on earth. Then I got to thinking about Steinbeck. Steinbeck has written some great classics such as ‘Of mice and Men’ and ‘The Grapes of Wrath’. But it seems that a lot of people I talk to aren’t fans of Steinbeck because he gets too heavy with description, or they have trouble grasping what the author is trying to project. But fans of Steinbeck understand the finer points to his writing, understand that it isn’t meant to be flashy, it’s just real and raw storytelling. Those who have read Remains of the dead know that it is a well written adventure, and that it isn’t about shock and awe; it’s about raw emotion and real people. Does that make Iain McKinnon the Steinbeck of the zombie genre? Get a copy and judge for yourself.

Characters: Remains of the dead gives you real people, with real emotions and real fears. Throughout the story Iain McKinnon lets you get to know these characters and the strong dialogue really gives them life. This book will mess with your head, trust me, you will see what I mean. Throughout the story, you can see Cahz’s frustrations build as he continues to survive out in the rotten world, which made this story seem very real.

Overall: This is by far one of the best novels in the genre. Iain McKinnon tantalizes you with his magnificent control of language and you can really feel the world crumble around you. The action scenes are well orchestrated, mix that with the excellent descriptions of the undead and you have a real nightmare on your hands. It’s good to see Iain McKinnon developing a cult following, more people are realising how strong he is as a writer. The genre is in need of more novels like this, and his writing helps the genre’s image. Buy it, read it and I guarantee it will remain in your head long after you put it down.

Available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Dead Tropics by Sue Edge is what I imagine many self-published books are like. It’s surprisingly good, but despite its quality, is still in need of a good professional editor. (Not that, as a professional editor myself, I have any bias in the matter.) But you’re probably not as interested in the various grammatical foibles of the story as I am, so let’s move on to the meat of the book.

Dead Tropics takes place on an island that I believe is a part of Australia. (So if you’re American, expect a couple of unfamiliar spellings.) Lori Nelson is a nurse, wife, mother, and secret badass. Not even she realizes just how awesome she is… until one day when a local mine delves too deep and too greedily, and unleashes an ancient evil of shadow and flame… Err… Sorry, wrong book. No, in Dead Tropics a local mine does dig too deep and it unleashes a virus. Or perhaps a terrible vengeance wrought upon mankind by the mother earth for its hubris. The book is a little unclear. Anyway… Most of the miners contract this virus and they get deathly ill. So, of course they’re taken to hospitals for treatment and… well… I think you can see where this is going. Lori sees the virus spread, almost from the start, as she sees miners die and then get up and start biting people in the hospital she works at. The bitten people in turn start doing the same. She just barely manages to escape with several co-workers she’d never met before and a little girl they manage to rescue from the pediatric ward. They make a break for it, however, the growing zombie horde is implacable, and every time the protagonists reach a safe spot, the zombies catch up and they have to move again.

It’s not the most original of set-ups for the genre, I’ll grant you that. In fact, a lot of the book almost seems like a checklist of various zombie tropes and stereotypes that had to be included to “count” as a zombie novel. Dead Tropics really isn’t trying to break new ground here as far as that goes. Heck, there’s even a brief scene at a mall. But, you know what? That’s just fine, because as you read the book you get the feeling that Edge is telling the story that she wants to tell, and she tells it well enough.
I say “well enough” because a lot of the book is, to my mind, rather awkwardly worded. There’s really not much that’s grammatically incorrect, it’s mostly a matter of preference and that I would have worded things differently, had I been the one writing the book. Granted, there are some phrases she uses that are strange no matter where you’re from, (such as the zombie that “clenches it’s hands into claws,” which I don’t know how that would even be possible,) but s are few and far between. Really, my biggest complaint is that, aside from Lori, all of the characters in the book seem interchangeable. They all talk in the same way, they almost all react to situations in the same way, and they all have the same impact on you – which is very little. When a minor character was talking, I had to keep reminding myself of who they were and what they relationship to the protagonist was. That made it a little difficult to empathize with them when they died. In fact, I felt a lot more of a connection to a lot of the characters who showed up just long enough to die.

Overall, however, the book has a lot more going for it than it has going against it. The protagonist has the lion’s share of screen time in the book, which softens the blow of the lackluster minor characters, there’s plenty of gore (if you’re into that sort of thing) and the books reads at a pretty quick pace. Heck, I almost felt the need to take a breather a couple times since the action almost never lets up. Even the slower scenes where the characters are planning their next move from a safe location feel fast. It was like running a marathon in book form. Whether that’s a positive thing or a negative thing probably varies from person to person, but at the very least, you won’t get bored reading this book. Plus, this book answers the eternal question that has plagued zombie fans for generations: Can a zombie beat a crocodile? (Sorry, you’ve got to read the book to find out.)

One other interesting part of the book that’s neither here nor there, but I felt was noteworthy, is that Edge is a mother, and it really, really shows up in this book. While zombie apocalypse fiction has never shied away from killing off children, Edge practically fixates on it. Don’t get me wrong, she’s not killing off kids for kicks; it’s presented as horror, and the parts where children are being killed or in danger of such are probably the most horrific parts of the book. As a parent myself, I would say that they are easily the most horrific and terrifying parts of the book. However, I can’t say if non-parents will see things in the same light. Still, I for one can see where she’s coming from. She set out to write a scary horror novel, and so she wrote in a lot of what, to her and most parents, would be the most terrifying thing imaginable. And it worked.

Bottom Line: Dead Tropics is a solid book, and if you’re looking for a book to read, this one is worth your time and money. You can find it at its website, deadtropics.com or Amazon

LZR-1143 by Bryan James introduces us to Mike a one-time Hollywood action hero who was a serious box office draw. Mike has been accused of killing his wife but has no memory of doing so. This places him in a mental institution instead of prison but that’s not always a good thing. He’s essentially remanded to his cell where he’s heavily sedated for fear that somehow; he could become violent with possible repressed violent schizophrenic tendencies.

Waking up one morning, he finds himself in the TV room with no supervision, no escorts and no morning dose of anti-psychotics. Not that he needed the medication to begin with but I’ll get into that later. Meanwhile, the world outside the walls of the facility has changed into a land of the walking dead.

It takes some time for Mike to come out of his nightly dose of meds to realize that the dead have been reanimated and some are inside with him, wandering the halls seeking fresh victims. After initial contact with one, he escapes unbitten and is able to meet up with a few other fellow survivors. These survivors consist of Kate, one of the doctors and a few patients. One particular patient, Fred, is blessed with a one word vocabulary, ‘pancake’ which adds to some of the dark humor throughout the story.

The story moves on from the asylum as they escape, run into more infected, a bad cop, a Target store night manager and of course, several thousand infected all while dragging along a couple of mental patients.

As the storyline progresses, the reader, as well as the primary character, Mike, are shown flashbacks to Mike’s life prior to incarceration. This lends a nice spin to the plot as Mr. James beautifully incorporates it into the current flow of the story instead of sidetracking the reader with paragraphs or chapters that move away from the core of the tale.

Mike slowly and eventually gets his memory back of what happened the night he allegedly killed his wife and the truth is shocking. While I began to suspect there was another reason for the murder and then started to put the pieces together as I read, some of it didn’t make too much sense until the ending chapters where it was all explained.

Or was it?

While the cause for the infection was explained and the reason behind his wife’s murder which he was wrongly accused of are all laid out, the ending makes the reader sit back and wonder if what they read really happened or was it a hallucinogenic reaction to the medication that was administered to Mike and the entire course of events only occurred in his drug addled mind.

I have to say that Mr. James has written one of the better novels in this genre to come my way in a long time. He successfully combined a murder mystery, political intrigue, industrial espionage and cover-up into a zombie/apocalyptic/horror genre novel and made it work.

I’m very much looking forward to the next book in this series.

Available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

As you may or may not be able to tell from the picture above.. I.. am a dog. My master (the oh so amazing editor and chief of Buy Zombie, Stuart Conover) always tells me that I sleep way too much and never contribute around the house. That being the case I’ve decided I would, when the occasion arose, write shirt reviews anytime we have a shirt come in to check out.

I was really hoping to get away with never actually having to review a shirt. I’m usually quite busy trying to get food or a walk in the 2 hours I am actually awake each day but when Bigtime Teez sent over this amazing shirt from my favorite funny zombie movie I had to try it on. I mean who doesn’t love everything about Shaun of the Dead, especially the Winchester Tavern? I mean seriously a Winchester Tavern T-Shirt? What an amazing idea!

I tried it on and have to say the shirt fits amazingly well. It’s not too snug or too loose and perfect on the dog (or guy) whose your average weight for shirt size. The greatest thing about the sizes? For those who are either taller or not quote the slimmest of trims they offer shirt sizes up to 5XL which if they did print on demand would be awesome for us in general!

It’s not only comfortable but as you can tell by the pictures, quite stylish! Screen printed shirts are always the way to go these days to get the look down of having great text or graphics on a shirt and they clearly know what they are doing as the shirt looks perfect.

Even so they’ve got a great selection of sizes, shirts, and colors that range from zombies to humor. Really we only care about the zombies though (hey it’s our thing) so it’s great to know that they have 6 zombie themed shirt in their horror selection! (My only complaint is while they do have shirts with dogs, there are none with labs. Therefor I am one biased dog. Again though this is about the undead so that’s not really a valid complaint.)

So if you are interested make sure to check out Bigtime Teez today for all of your Zombie T-Shirts needs! Now if you’ll excuse me, all of this typing has made me need a nap.

(Editor’s note: Please don’t tell Ali she put the shirt on backwards. That’s just how dogs tend to wear them.)

Quite possibly the cutest zombie film ever, “Zombie Blues” is a short made by 2nd and 3rd graders at PS 48Q in Jamaica, New York, for the 2011 Urban Arts Festival. It’s the story of a sad, lonely zombie who walks the earth — and even the moon — to find a friend. Needless to say, you won’t find violence and gore in this elementary school project, just a sweet zombie story created by kids. The film was made with the help of Urban Arts Partnership, an organization that brings arts instruction, including filmmaking, to NYC public schools. In addition to the story, the film includes the song “Zombie Blues,” performed by students in their zombie makeup. Who knows, maybe one of these kids will grow up to make their generation’s great zombie feature!

The Undead Situation by Eloise Knapp introduces us to a somewhat different take on survivors during a zombie apocalypse. We’re introduced to Cyrus V. Sinclair a sociopathic survivor with a shitload of firepower, a sweet tooth to die for and a penchant for not giving a shit about other, even his so called friends.

Well, okay maybe he gives a shit about a few friends. Pickle his ferret and Francis his best and only true friend.

Sinclair is content to sit out the apocalypse in his fortified apartment while he decides whether to stay or go. That decision is moderately taken out of his hands when Frank calls him and gives him the latest news on the world in general. Apparently, Frank has been in the same state for about a year working on some remote cabin that his parents left him. Of course, Frank is a survivor like Cyrus is. And maybe he’s not as sociopathic but only time will tell.

Cyrus ventures out of his apartment to see how the rest of the occupants of the building have fared given that dead are now walking. This is done on his way to the corner market to forage for more sugar laden goodness that will satisfy his sweet tooth.

Seattle is a town of the reanimated dead as he soon finds out.

Even with all the weaponry at his disposal, he elects to use stealth and brute force to take out any of the zombies that get in his way, a crowbar. This is a nice relief from all the other novels where the primary character usually takes several paragraphs and sometimes chapters to realize that noise attracts more zombies.

Safely back at his apartment, he secures the main door of the building then retreats to his living space and savors the tasty treats he risked life and limb to gather. It’s during that time that he realizes that neighbors have books therefore reading material that he could use. To use up all that free-time now at his disposal, he reads and reads and reads then just to break things up some more, he reads.

Interrupting all this prime reading time is another survivor, Gabriella. First impressions usually set the tone of the relationship and Cyrus makes a nice impression on his new guest. Besides the open animosity between the two, he ties her up and dangles her over the end of the balcony as zombie bait.

Remember, Cyrus is a sociopath with psychotic tendencies and zero conscience.

During the course of the story, Cyrus deals with people who want Gabriella back, finally meets up with Frank, leaves Seattle, ends up at a detention center and meets a woman who has almost the same moral makeup as himself.

Eloise Knapp paints a stark picture of the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse striking the Emerald City. Her character development of Cyrus V. Sinclair would make any sane person shudder to meet him and many a psychotherapist drool in anticipation of such a meeting.

The Undead Situation reads like it’s a mild inconvenience for Cyrus whereas it’s a major disaster for everyone else involved except maybe Frank. This is a well written, well thought out novel that has very developed layered characters. There is great detail in the background and surroundings, primarily Seattle and the environs around it. This is not the average zombie survivor story and that’s what makes this such an enjoyable read. No predictable character actions, no cliché and no stereotypical supporting characters.

I recommend this novel for anyone looking for a somewhat darker side of being a survivor during a zombie apocalypse.

Available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Everybody’s afraid of zombies… But try to imagine your self waking up from the dead… How would you feel?

In a Québec town, a beloved clown (buried in full costume) is awakened from death by a Mentos-based chemical reaction. And so begins the journey of Patrick Biovin’s “Le Queloune” (The Clown). The unlikely protagonist is a fully self-aware zombie — he doesn’t even realize what he is until he catches a glimpse of himself in a mirror. Lucid undead are tricky, but in this comic tale, it works. The short isn’t particularly scary, unless of course you have a fear of clowns. I imagine, in that case, it would be pretty horrifying… but the zombie clown is pretty likable, even as it discovers its taste for human flesh. As with many short films, there is a nice punch at the end (I won’t give it away). Definitely worth checking out — high production values, good acting, a great original score and beautifully done credits. The 2009 film is in French, but there is so little talking in it that the only thing subtitled is the gravestone.

Undead Drive-Thru by Rebecca Besser is an interesting tale unlike other entries in the genre. Instead of legions of the walking dead, there is only one zombie in this story. How can this be?

Opening with an unusual set of circumstances, we are introduced to two of the primary characters featured throughout the entire book, Betty and Sam. Sam arrives home with the evidence that he might have been abducted from an unknown group and has evidence of an injection. This opens a subplot that is not resolved but left as a McGuffin. It’s not really necessary to know the particulars of what happened to Sam, just that he somehow has been exposed purposely to something that changes him.

Move forward two years and Betty has now acquired an old drive thru that has seen far better days. Replying to a help wanted ad, two high school friends, Kyndra and Colleen show up, bright-eyed and expectant at what will be their first job.

Ms. Besser has captured the teenage angst of employment and the emotional response to having a crush on someone perfectly. The interaction between the two girls and the rest of the crew at the drive-thru is accurately described and rich in detail. This lulls the reader into a sense of melancholy. Just when that feeling of complacency starts to set in and the reader is relaxing, Besser hits them with both barrels of full on 12 gauge zombie terror.

Betty now known as Aunt B and her reluctant accomplice/nephew John, crank up the tension when Sam, now a full-fledged member of the reanimated dead gets out of his cage, wanders over to the drive-thru and meets two of the employees. This leads Aunt B to make a snap decision to detain the witnesses in the basement while she thinks about what to do with them. John begins to have strong doubts about his aunt’s mental facilities and makes an attempt to warn off Kyndra now that Colleen is locked up in the basement awaiting her fate.

The plot moves along quite quickly and there is no shortage of gore splatter, action or suspense.

What sets this novella apart from others is the distinct lack of overwhelming hordes of zombies as I mentioned before. It is a well written, tightly woven storyline with characters developed enough to carry the plot and not bogged down with extraneous details. Ms. Besser has created a story that has no need to inject any more zombies than Sam to make it work.

Overall, a well laid out linear flow to the storyline, a tight plot, developed characters and a great thrill to read. An excellent addition to any zombie fan’s library

Available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble