Hello all!!
Well, April is here! Hopefully nobody O.D.ed (chocolatebunnieschocolatebunnieschocolatebunnies!)Â this weekend, Â and none of you were mistaken for an actual maggot-head (then bludgeoned with a handy crowbar) Â during the worldwide April Fools Zombie Prank…
Yup. Let’s let’s proceed under that belief, shall we?
This time, I’m taking a look at Michael S. Gardner’s “Death in the Times of Madness”!
Right.
By now, we all know the zombie apocalypse would suck more than almost anything has ever sucked in the history of sucking, but let me ask you this: what if you could go back in time to before it started?Â
What would you change? Would you live your life any differently than you have up until this moment, maybe lose your inhibitions? Who would you say goodbye to? Who would you warn? Would you say “Screw it!” and just head for the hills? Could you deal with seeing your loved ones consumed/eaten/killed again? Would it be too much to watch the world go up in flames for a second time?
Here’s a question that will haunt your nightmares.…Do you think you would try to stop it?
If so, would that change history so the zom-poc never happened? Â Hah! But then you’d have never come back in time to stop it, creating a paradox wiping your timeline from existence!
Or turning the universe into a giant, turd-flavored toaster pastry. one or the other…
These are only some of the harsh questions addressed within the pages of “Death in the Times of Madness”. Whether it’s stalking city-based ghouls, supernatural death-row murderers, a father’s despair at the death of his child, near-suicidal alien-thwarting time travelers, or even just a guy who’d love to punch a fellow survivor in the face for being a clueless jack-hole, Gardner succeeds in pulling the reader into the dark worlds held within his back-brain.
I spent an afternoon within the pages of DitToM (you have to know what that stands for by now…) and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it. The blood was free-flowing, the brutality was disturbing, hope made an actual brief appearance or two, and a one of Mike’s short tales actually caused me to snort coffee out of my nose as I laughed uncontrollably at one character (Benny) acting like a moron.  Â
Personally, I was disappointed when I reached the end…
No, no. Not because of the writing style or content of Gardner’s work, but because there wasn’t any more to read! That’s the only fault (quote,unquote) I can think of really. If I had my way, “Death in the Times of Madness” (a mere 91 pages) would be twice as long. I wanted more of Mike’s twisted little multiverse, and hope to see some follow-up tales.
All in all? The novel is a quick read, but it’s well worth grabbing a coffee, a full pack of smokes, and then plunking down somewhere to enjoy. Thumbs-up!
Well, that’s all for this post! Until next time, drink your Dark by the pint, hold your redhead close and keep your crowbar handy!!
