The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology

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1. June 10th, 2010

   @ 8:47 pm

   Tim Janson posted:

   The New Dead is an all-new zombie anthology edited by Christopher Golden and featuring nineteen never-before-published stories by an incredible cast of writers including: Joe R. Lansdale, Brian Keene, Tad Williams, Tim Lebbon, Kelley Armsrong, Joe Hill, David Wellington, Mike Carey, and more…

   The anthology kicks off with John Connolly’s “Lazarus”, one of the best tales in the volume and a different take on the biblical tale of the resurrected Lazarus. Fans of urban fantasy writer supreme, Kelley Armstrong will no doubt enjoy her story “Life Sentence” that contains all of the elements that have made her an enormously popular writer in recent years. Hear a magician devises a way to become immortal while beating cancer.

   I love Brian Keene, and his tale “The Wind Cries Mary” was a moving tale of a zombie outbreak but its only four pages long. Keene’s work was one of the ones I was looking forward to the most and for it to be such a minor contribution was disappointing. Balancing this disappointment was Tad Williams’ “The Storm Door”. Known best for fantasy, Williams delivers a story about a supernatural investigator’s horrific discovery. Other standout stories include “Among Us” by Aimee Bender, “Family Business” by Jonathan Maberry, “Weaponized” by David Wellington, and “What Maisie Knew” by David Liss.

   More disappointing than the Keene entry was Joe R. Landsdale’s “Shooting Pool”. It’s a fine enough story but, um…there’s no zombies in it. It’s the strangest and most out of place inclusion in the book and if you are scoring at home, that means that two of the biggest names contributed two of the most disappointing stories. Still most of the nineteen stories are above average and should satisfy the tastes of most zombie fans.
   Rating: 4 / 5

2. June 10th, 2010

   @ 11:01 pm

   grumpydan posted:

   I can say I have had my fill of zombies for the time being. And this collection of zombie short stories fills it to the brim. I found THE NEW DEAD; an assortment of zombie themed stories very interesting. Each varied from the ordinary, slow moving, flesh eating, undead walking the earth type of tale. My favorite was “Family Business” by Jonathan Maberry. I thought I wouldn’t get into the twitter story of the family on vacation and going to the circus, but “Twittering from the Circus of the Dead” by Joe Hill was entertaining; even if I don’t tweet. There were others that didn’t quite grab my interest. Overall, though, this anthology seems to hit the mark.
   Rating: 4 / 5

3. June 11th, 2010

   @ 12:17 am

   S. Hinson posted:

   There are some very strong entries in this book, Ghost Trap, The Wind Cries Mary, Lazarus, Second Wind, and Closure, Limited range from very solid to very good short stories.

   However, some of the stories are very terrible. For example, the Zombie Who Fell From the Sky is poorly written and half the time doesn’t even make sense. Among Us is another story which makes me wonder if Golden even read some of these entries. Among Us is pretentious and dull. Family Business starts out interesting but quickly becomes boring.

   ***Warning, Minor Spoilers ****
   
   However, the worst stories have nothing to do with zombies. For example,The storm door is not about zombies, but rather spirit possession. The worst offender though is Shooting Pool. Not only does it not have a zombie it the story, but it contains zero elements of the supernatural, it is just a story about a guy getting shot in a pool hall. Seriously…

   I wouldn’t mind the inclusion of such stories, but the book makes it clear the stories are about zombies, the word “zombie” is used several times on the back cover. The front of the book have what most people would call “zombies.” I found including nonzombie stories to be somewhat dishonest. Call me crazy, but when I buy a book about zombies I want all of the stories to include…guess what? Zombies!

   However, the zombie stories that are included are pretty good, I just would wait until the book becomes on sale, or you can find it used.

   Rating: 3 / 5

4. June 11th, 2010

   @ 1:59 am

   Midian X posted:

   I am not a big reader. I do get a craving for a book every now and then. I’m a huge fan of the Zombie movie genre so I wanted to try a book in that genre. I’m very clueless on authors so I thought I’d give the short story/various author route a shot and jump off onto one of its authors, if I found any that were good. I picked up “The New Dead” because the cover looked cool and the description of the book sounded great. It described exactly what I was looking for “A Zombie Anthology”.

   It’s too bad who ever described this didn’t actually read the book. I’ve got a bone to pick with this editor, Christopher Golden. Either you were lazy or you were too afraid to tell some of these authors “no”. There are a few stories that shouldn’t be in this book as they have absolutely nothing to do with zombies. One of the very last stories in the book, “Shooting Pool” was literally about its title. “The Storm Door” was about demon possession. “Among Us” was random half page chapters mainly to do about nothing.

   There were good stories in this book but not many. I liked “What Maisie Knew?” by David Liss. It was the most graphic story in the book. It also happened to be the second story. At that point, I expected this book to have a few stories along this line in terms of language and nastiness. Unfortunately, this was the most hardcore Rated M of the stories; everything else was along the lines of PG. “Copper” by Stephen R Bissette. This story is unique in the sense that it’s a lot of one worded lines. The style kind of bugged me at first but I got into it after a few pages. “The Wind Cries Mary” by Brian Keene. This was very short but it was a good tale. “Family Business” by Jonathan Mayberry. I liked how this one was approached. It’s very different for this genre. He gives a positive spin on the dark topic of killing zombies. This is one of those stories where I wish there was more of even though it ended well. “Second Wind” by Mike Carey. This was interesting even though I have very little knowledge of stock markets but I got the jest of it and it was a good story.

   Other than those, the rest were so-so. Some were boring, some were ok. I think the editor did a poor job of putting this book together. He was trying to be a little artsy with the interpretation of some of the stories. Speaking for myself, not everything has to be the same in the genre but it does have to involve actual zombies. Spiritual and mental may work in the vampire genre but it doesn’t work in the zombie genre.
   
   Rating: 3 / 5

5. June 11th, 2010

   @ 4:23 am

   Shogun Len posted:

   This is an outstanding book of Zombie short stories. Perhaps the best zombie short story collection I have read. The standout stories in my opinion are:

   Joe Hill’s Twitter story
   
   The Wind Cries Mary by Brian Keene
   
   Family Business by Maberry was great
   
   Ghost Trap by Rick Hautala was awesome
   
   of course Max Brooks little teaser of a story was great too.

   A top notch collection and worth every penny.
   Rating: 5 / 5