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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Like a Sucker Punch from a Pregnant Lesbian, August 19, 2009
This review is from: Drop Dead Gorgeous (Paperback)
Drop Dead Gorgeous is like a sucker punch from a pregnant lesbian; you start to chat her up expecting one thing (wink, wink,) but get something else entirely.
Admittedly, I have never really gotten into reading the horror genre. The only experiences I have with zombies have been "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," and the Charleton Heston film "Omega Man," and so I don't have that much to compare "Drop Dead Gorgeous" to. This beats both of those experiences like an angry amputee wielding a broken appendage.
This book starts out with Star, a tattoo artist, whose client dies while being tattooed. She finished the tattoo, and then noticed everyone else in her parlor had similarly kicked off! She explores her surroundings in the center of Belfast, Northern Ireland, trying to make sense of what has happened to the general populace in her nihilistic way. She ends up in an anarchic-enclave in the bus station, with Sean the DJ, Tim and Caz the teen lovers, and Barry (the man with a sordid past). They go on loot, and have a grand old time in the finest hotel in Belfast, generally keeping to themselves.
Contrast this with Royal Irish Ranger Roy Beggs, who's collected followers on the road to Belfast the first night after the apocalypse. Roy has picked up Maraid Burns, who is a former IRA operative, and reluctantly entrusts her with a sidearm. They are holed up in an elementary school, where Sylvia Paterson plays the role of comforter, manipulator, and head cool-aide dispenser. The school seems like it will turn into an Irish Jonestown.
Not to spoil anything, but the book details what happens to both enclaves, as the Zombies emerge. "Drop Dead Gorgeous" is a fantastic read. It has language some people might find objectionable, having very grown up themes. This is not one for the kiddies.
To the participants of the Freedom Book Club: Many thanks for suggesting this book! It was select as the Summer Read for 2009.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An original zombie novel? Whod'a'thunk?, June 23, 2010
This review is from: Drop Dead Gorgeous (Paperback)
Wayne Simmons, Drop Dead Gorgeous (Permuted Press, 2008)
My experience with Permuted Press up till now has been David Moody's Autumn Quartet and a slew of press releases about books that have made me say, every time, "man, I have got to read this." Oddly, I never saw a single press release for Drop Dead Gorgeous, the first novel from Irish novelist Wayne Simmons; I stumbled across it in my local Half Price Books. (There is a small-press horror fan in my area who routinely sells stuff there. Whoever you are, bless you.) I actually found three Permuted titles the same day and snatched them all up. I knew the other two (D. L. Snell's Roses of Blood on Barbwire Vines and Z. A. Recht's Thunder and Ashes) well by reputation, but this one I'd never heard of. So I cracked the cover on this one first. And after I'd finished it a couple of days later, the only word I could come up with was "DAY-um." This is not at all what I expected from the original publisher of the Autumn books. This is bloody awesome.
First off: ignore the jacket copy, which makes it sound as if the story centers around Star, the tattoo artist who graces the wonderful (if amateurish) cover. Instead, like the Autumn books, Drop Dead Gorgeous is an ensemble drama rather along the lines of Autumn but somewhat better-structured. We start off with the sudden and unexplained death of billions (once again hearkening back to David Moody and the beginning of the small-press zombie revolution) and a handful of survivors, including Star, who eventually find one another. But we also have a second storyline that runs parallel involving a former Orangeman and a former IRA member who are forced together in leadership positions with another band of survivors in a smaller town a ways up the highway from the first band. The two don't cross until close to the end (though their proximity in the book tells you they eventually will), so essentially you've got two separate stories throughout. And they're both exceptionally well-written for this sort of thing.
Also, I did allude to Drop Dead Gorgeous as a zombie novel above. And it is, for about fifty pages, though the zombies are nothing at all like the ones you're used to. But the majority of Drop Dead Gorgeous contains not a single member of the walking dead. Simmons focuses on the survivors and nothing else for the first three-quarters of the book, and while hardcore zombie-heads will probably be disappointed by this, anyone else on the planet who picks this up will be very pleasantly surprised by how much care Simmons takes in drawing his characters. Yes, some of the coincidences are a little too neat, and there are some scenes that seem to exist solely to advance the plot, but Simmons weaves them in skillfully enough that if you're not paying attention, you may never notice.
Simply put: this is awesome. If you're at all a horror fan, you want to check this out. Simmons has dome something almost unheard-of in horror these days: he's actually written a novel that can be called "original", and you can keep a straight face while saying it. I love this book. ****
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
KICK ASS CHARACTERS, July 25, 2011
DROP DEAD GORGEOUS has to have one of the best kick ass female characters that I have ever read. Star is not just an anti-hero, she is feisty, outspoken and the woman your mother warned you about. For too long writers, have overlooked a good solid female role, something Mr Simmons has managed to do and pull it off in a realistic way.
The dead are rising in Belfast City, and Simmons extraordinary characters all search in different ways to make sense of the aftermath. Simmons manages to write about characters as diverse as a university professor and an army officer with an attention to detail and believability that few in this genre can do.
This novel is brutal in its characterisations, real people with attitude, Simmons has taped into the soul of those on the sidelines of society and given them a voice, placing them in an apocalyptic scenario, with none of the glamour of the Hollywood blockbuster, this is what it would be really like to face the end of the world, its dirty, smelly and bad, and boy it is a really really good to read....
Flu
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