Customer Reviews

Book of the Dead

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a highly unusual collection of horror. At least a couple of the stories in the collection: "A Sad Last Love At The Diner Of The Damned" and "Across The Cadillac Desert With Dead People", are cult classics. The rest are at least well written and interesting. This is, however, out of print and somewhat hard to find. Also, beware, it is an extremely graphic and gory collection in terms of horrific, and sometimes sexual, content.

This anthology is based on the work of George R. Romero, the creator of the Night of the Living Dead trilogy. Romero's work is known for being larger than life or death and gory, and this novel can rival it in every way. Many of the stories presented in this anthology are wonderful, new, and original in every way. There are some takes on the `Living Dead' mythos that many of us haven't thought of before, such as love among Zombies, being the last few survivors, etc.

A list of the stories and authors are:
Blossom by Chan McConnell
Mess Hall by Richard Laymon
It Helps if You Sing by Ramsey Campbell
Home Delivery by Steven King
Wet Work by Philip Nutman
A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned by Edward Bryant
Bodies and Heads by Steve Rasnic Tem
Choices by Glen Vasey
The Good Parts by Les Daniels
Less Than Zombie by Douglas E. Winter
Like Pavlov's Dogs by Steven R. Boyett
Saxophone by Nicholas Royle
On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert With Dead Folks by Joe R. Lansdale
Dead Giveaway by Brian Hodge
Jerry's Kids Meet Wormboy by David J. Schow
Eat Me by Robert R. McCammon

I highly recommend this book to all horror fans, fans of George R. Romero, and Zombie flick fans. It is a MUST have for Night of Living Dead fans. The only reason that it gets 4 stars and not 5 is that Choices is unnecessarily long, boring and convoluted. It detracts from the overall anthology, but if you skip it and read the rest you will be very pleased!

This is a short story collection based on the zombie infested world of George Romero. (If you don't know who he is then this is probably not the book for you.)

While that's the basis for the stories inclusion here, not every story feels like it was written specifically for this collection. Apparently, just being zombie-centric is good enough. It's a loose association and I guess the Romero-thing helps give this street cred. (Although if you're really with the horror crowd; just having the umbrella to hang over these stories and the authors names should be enough to attract you.)

Still it doesn't diminish the enjoyment here. Standouts are "On The Far Side Of The Cadillac Desert With Dead Folks" by Joe R. Lansdale/ "Wet Work" by Phillip Nutman/ "Less Than Zombie" by Douglas E. Winter/ "Jerry's Kids Meet Wormboy" by David J. Schow.

These stories (and to a lesser extent others) deal with some of the topics Romero has actually touched on in his series of films. The most interesting one being how adaptable people are to integrating the zombies somehow into a semblence of everyday life. (Yes, it helps if your funny bone tends towards dark humor.)

There's nothing particularly frightening about these tales. Some manage to conjure up a sense of dread. Again, like Romero, most of what seems horrible is the parable of zombies and their behaviors reflecting what goes on with ourselves on a daily basis. You don't realize how much of a zombie society has made you until you read some of these.

Brad West.

Right now I am a rather heavy fantasy reader, but there is still one horror book that I treasure highly, and that is Book of the Dead. Has all the zombie mayhem that I've enjoyed with George Romero's films. Some stories have great action, some are very chilling, and some even are a bit tragic and insightful. Oh yes, and it has tons of blood and body parts flying about. So, if you can find this book anywhere out there, and are at all interested in the living dead, GET IT!!!

If you've enjoyed Romero's Living Dead movies, you'll want to read this. Some of the stories are good and the rest are great. I picked this up and went cover to cover in 3 days. Gore and more and you won't be sore.

I've been reading horror fiction for years, and this is the only book that has given me nightmares. If you're into no holds barred horror, this is the one for you.

The stories in this anthology seem to fall into two categories -- okay and divinely (or demonically, take your pick) inspired. When they're good, they're sick, twisted, and demented (like "Jerry's Kids Meet Wormboy", for example). When they're only okay, they're still worth reading.

Find it, buy it, read it.

I am a huge fan of the living dead genre and eagerly purchased this "classic" based on glowing reviews I'd read on Amazon. I'm sad to say I was thoroughly disappointed. I'd heard and read that the stories were daring and boundary-pushing, so I was ready for graphic depictions of the living dead. What I got was something quite different. With the exception of the story by Stephen King and possibly a couple of others, the stories were over the top not with violence, but with violent sexuality. It seemed nearly every story was written by someone with a fetish for necrophilia. Story after story focused on sex, rape, sex with the dead, rape of the dead, rape by the dead, the dead having sex with each other...the one-armed dead baby being held by its leg to be shot was an especially disturbing touch. Also, there was a running theme of "Christianity is the REAL horror". I'm not a religious person and certainly no fan of organized religion, but I don't need to be beaten over the head with someone's politics. Many of the stories portray religion as worse than being eaten alive. Call me traditional, but I'd like a LITTLE subtlety in my literature when it comes to politics. The forward goes on and on about how important it is to push boundaries and disturb people. I think they got it only partially right. Boundaries are there to be pushed, but not just for the sake of pushing them. There were times in some of the stories where I could envision the author thinking "now what can I do NEXT in the story to really gross people out and be edgy?" Was I offended by the stories? No. Was I disappointed in the lack of imagination or originality? Absolutely. If you're going to write over-the-top stories, at least make them interesting and not JUST over-the-top.

During most of the 1980s, I wanted to be a horror writer. Like many would-be authors of that time period, Stephen King was a huge influence upon me. But lots of other authors were an influence as well, authors such as Ramsey Campbell and Robert McCammon.

Some editors were an influence as well, such as John Skipp and Craig Spector who edited Book of the Dead, a collection of short stories about zombies.

But this wasn't just any collection of short stories. Within that paperback's pages were solid, well-known authors, such as the once I mentioned above, and Steven R. Boyett, one of my favorite fantasy novelists.

This was back in the day before zombie had become a rave thing. Sure, there were zombie movies, but they had a smaller, cultish following and hadn't yet been accepted by more mainstream audiences. Back then, in the 1980s, there just wasn't that much zombie fiction about.

So, Book of the Dead was an awesome find for horror readers and aspiring horror writers. But like the best zombie stories, these weren't just about zombies. There's was real, quality writing here, tales that were as much about the living as the living dead.

To this day, more than 20 years later, this is still my favorite collection of zombie short stories. I've read several others, some which were pretty good, but none have yet to hold a candle to Book of the Dead.

What this book showed me as a writer was that the best zombie tales are much more about us than about them. Any hack can sit down and type out a tale of flesh-eating monsters, but making it relevant to readers beyond mere escapism is a different matter.

Not that there's anything wrong with a little escapism from time to time.

I borrowed this book a number of years ago from a college buddy- despite some of the A-List contributors, its existence was news to me (guess I don't actually read that much horror fiction). Anyway, after casually reading it for about a week, I found myself looking for something to use as a weapon or a barricade anytime I heard a noise. I've searched for my own copy ever since, but it's out of print and the title's been used more than once. If you're reading this, you owe it to yourself to snatch up a used copy as cheap as you can, maybe loan it to a friend when you're done. Like any anthology, it contains a few duds, but the good stuff totally eclipses those.