REVIEW: Bigfoot War 2: Dead In The Woods by: Eric S. Brown

Plot

Mere hours after the town of Babble Creek, NC is wiped off the map by rampaging Bigfoots (Bigfeet?), a survivor stumbles into a neighboring town as the carnage begins to spread throughout Jackson County. Local law enforcement mobilizes to try and stop the hairy menace, but as this is a zombie site and not a bigfoot site, prepare yourself for the sheer insanity of what happens next. Needless to say, if you have summer plans in North Carolina, y’all might want to reconsider…

Review

Before you guys get mad at me, yes I know this is a zombie love site. We review all manners of zombie awesomeness from books to movies to video games to whatever else tickles our proverbial fancy. This might cause some of you to say “But Chip, why are you reviewing the sequel to a book called Bigfoot War? This is a zombie page, not a Bigfoot page! You should have your zombie aficionado union card revoked…” Well, dear reader, try not to get your knickers in a twist, because I am here to say beyond a shadow of a Sasquatch that there will be zombies in Bigfoot War 2: Dead in the Woods…

Oh, yes, zombies indeed…

Eric S Brown is a self-confessed geek. He also very well may be a Mad Genius. I doubt any other human on the planet would have had the ability (without the use of heavy amounts of liquor) to have considered combining Sasquatch havoc with zombie goodness. In Bigfoot War, of which I am a HUGE fan, Eric Brown essentially crafted an amusement park ride of a novel that punches you in the gut just before stepping on the gas and not letting up until the end. It was non-stop carnage that reveled in its B-movie sensibilities. I highly recommend it if you have not read it yet.

When I heard Eric Brown had written a sequel to Bigfoot War, entitled (oddly enough) Bigfoot War 2: Dead in the Woods, I giggled like a schoolgirl about to get lucky during prom. I wasn’t even aware there were zombies in it until a few friends who read it before I did mentioned it. Bigfoot and Zombies? It sounded like a SyFy channel movie of the week. Surely, this was a mash-up that would get my hopes up only to dash them in a fiery pit of mediocrity (*ahem* I’m looking at you Aliens VS Predator…Freddy VS Jason…Joe VS the volcano). So does the sequel measure up to the brutal giddiness of the original?

Oh, yeah.

BW2 is a balls-out, completely gonzo ride. Where the first Bigfoot War embraced its B-movie heritage, BW2 rips offs its clothes, jumps in headfirst, and giddily wallows in it. It knows exactly what it is, and doesn’t pretend to be anything more than a fast, brutal trip down FUBAR lane. The first part of the book with the seemingly indestructible Sasquatch crushing anything in their way (often with blood-splattering glee) is the first book’s equal in carnage and breathless pacing. However, not content to just rehash the same old furry destruction, Brown comes up with a snazzy idea. The saliva of the Sasquatch has the power to bring the dead back to life. So, all the poor townspeople bitten by the furry bastards (and there are many) come back as the undead, and soon, not even the Sasquatch are safe from the growing menace. Yes, dear reader, even The Sasquatches can be turned into Zombies.

Be still, my beating sensibilities…

Brown keeps his action moving with a brisk clip. He puts you right in the middle of the action and, just like the first book, doesn’t let up. Actually, to be fair, BW2 actually moves quicker in pacing than the first book, which I freely admit I did not know was possible. When he introduces the zombies, the book takes on a whole new dimension of bad-assery (If I just created a new word, I want full credit). The townsfolk serve pretty much no other purpose than to get the middle of this brewing war, which is ok. You read a book like this for the action and the carnage, not for character development.

Are there any bald spots on this otherwise gloriously fuzzy ball of awesome? Well, to be fair, one of the books strong suits can also be considered one of its faults. If you tend to get attached to characters in your books, then you might not like BW2. As I have no such problem, it really didn’t bother me, but I could see how normal mortals might take offense to it. The book is also quite short. I was like a fat man at a buffet, wanting more carnage and even more Zombie vs. Bigfoot bitchslapping. I guess I’ll have to wait for BW3.

In closing, as odd and goofy as it sounds, Sasquatch and zombies duking it out in the woods of North Carolina is a thrilling and simply wonderful ride. I wholly recommend both Bigfoot War (even though it’s not zombie-related…so there) and its leaner, meaner and more demented sequel. Trust me. You’ll thank me for it later.

Available at Amazon.

Barren Earth by Eric S. Brown and Stephen A. North

Long time zombie writer Eric S. Brown in collaboration with Stephen A. North have created a science fiction based zombie nightmare that is a must pickup on my list. (I’m sure it helps that I’ve recently played Dead Space and watched both the first 2 Alien movies, Pitch Black, and Event Horizon and am fixated on “Space Horror.” Also I am ashamed to say I again just watched Jason X which makes me feel dirty but needed to be added to the list.)

In 2118, the deep space exploration vessel, The Hyperion, left Earth. Its crew never imagined that coming home would be the most dangerous and deadly part of their voyage. Upon on their return, five years later, the Earth is dead and humanity is at war with its own dead. The colonies of man struggle to survive against the flesh eating zombies who now rule their home world and seek to spread the virus which created them among the stars.

Available at Amazon.

Season of Rot by Eric S Brown

“Features five diverse tales of the living dead from zombie fiction master Eric S. Brown!
SEASON OF ROT: Safe from the walking dead that rule the streets, a band of survivors holes up in a hospital. When their supplies run low, they must either migrate or trust a stranger who promises them salvation-except the stranger isn’t who he seems to be, and neither are the dead.

RATS: Rats are everywhere and can get into anything. And now they are swarming mankind. Those bit rise again as undead pawns in the rodents’ onslaught, and no place is safe-no place except one. The problem is getting there before the rats’ next attack.”

Available at Amazon.

Dead Science – A Zombie Anthology by Anthony Giangregorio and Eric S. Brown

“Science. Research. Knowledge. The human intellect knows no bounds because of them. We’ve built cities and nations upon them. We’ve stopped the spread of terrible diseases because of what we’ve learned from them. Lives have been saved . . . but lives also have been lost. Now those lives have returned from the grave, seeking revenge. Sometimes . . . science goes wrong. Death. Destruction. Zombies. Featuring the terrifying tales of 13 authors, Dead Science brings you stories of the undead unlike any you’ve ever read before. Prepare to go behind-the-scenes and learn about the causes of various zombie uprisings and the havoc these creatures wreak upon the living. Stories by: Gustavo Bondoni, Eric S. Brown, Michael Cieslak, Lorne Dixon, Anthony Giangregorio, Glen Held, Becca Morgan, Mark Onspaugh, Gina Ranalli, Vincent L. Scarsella, Jason V. Shayer, Ryan C. Thomas and Adam J. Whitlatch.”

Available from Amazon.

Zombies II Inhuman by Eric S. Brown

“What if in a world where the dead walk and the human race faces extinction evolution were to step in and bless a special few with powers far beyond normal man. Could someone who can run as fast as the speed of light or someone who can control energy and channel it through her body truly make a difference at the end of time? Does telepathy work on zombies? Would these powerful few seek to save the world or rule it and how would we normal humans feel about them? Will these super-beings be wiped out by the zombie hordes or save the human race? Plus tales of zombies in space, zombies in the old west, and some very hungry zombie animals- this one has it all.”

Available at Amazon.

The War of the Worlds Plus Blood, Guts and Zombies by H.G. Wells and Eric S. Brown

“The invasion begins . . . and the dead start to rise. There’s panic in the streets of London as invaders from Mars wreak havoc on the living, slaying the populace with Heat-Rays and poisonous clouds of black smoke. Humanity struggles to survive against technology far beyond its own, meeting fear and death at every turn. But that’s not the only struggle mankind must face. The dead are rising from their graves with an insatiable hunger for human flesh. Friends, neighbors and loved ones lost to the war of the worlds are now the enemy and the Earth is forever changed. It’s kill or be killed, if you want to survive, otherwise you might become one of the walking dead yourself.”

Available at Amazon.

“Unabridged, Unabashed & Undead”: The Best Zombie Short Stories

“From the “Master of the Zombie Short Story” comes this “Best of Eric S. Brown”. 47 incredible stories of the Zompocalypse .. all together for the very first time. Take a breath between each of these stories … You’ll need them to scream!!”

Pick up your copy today from Amazon.