REVIEW: Pariah by: Bob Fingerman
In Bob Fingerman’s Pariah we’re taken on a familiar setting of a lone group of survivors in a world of the undead. Zombies have sprouted up killing off most of humanity with no explanation of why they are here or where they are from and we aren’t given even a hint of an answer. While there are a few possibility discussions on how the undead may have come the focus is on the group of survivors as they try to live. Each of the characters have their own back story and while all are worth mentioning it’d be hard to properly go into detail without turning this review into a rather lengthy piece of work. Let’s just say that we have a husband and dedicated house wife, a young religious man from the country, an older African american who has taken up residency while running from the undead, an old Jewish couple, an artist, and a couple of jocks whom one of which provides the ‘asshole’ character.
It’s always a joke in horror and post-apocalyptic settings that everyone is told to stay in their homes, and no one does. Well here’s a case where a group of people DID stay in their homes (a condo building to be specific) and were safe from the zombie outbreak that occurred – until they started to run out of food. While this group of survivors were able to stay safe and pillage from neighbors and bording buildings that weren’t so lucky their food is running out. What’s even worse? As a cruel joke there is an unvandalized market just down the street that they can see, over the heads of 100’s of the shuffling dead.
The the slow shamblers are the zombie of choice in this novel and while they are a constant threat – they are on the outside. As long as the group we are following doesn’t do anything stupid or leave the safety of their ever shrinking food supply the zombies are almost an afterthought. However as food supplies dwindle our group’s hopes are all beginning to fail.
Right as things are hitting their worst and it looks like the end if finally in sight someone sees a survivor walking amongst the undead. Yes, there is a young woman who can walk freely through the zombies that avoid her as if she were the plague.
Mona has come and she is both the group’s salvation and in some cases the end of the line. This isn’t a story about a greater plan its just a story about survival. While zombies are always a constant threat the story focuses more on the human condition combined with a serious lack of food. It’s a dark and humorous novel and one of the best zombie novels I’ve come across in the past few years!
Available at Amazon.
