A Full Deck of Zombies: 61 Speculative Fiction Tales [Paperback]

Kechula; Michael A. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 14, 2007

Not all zombies are fearsome and disgusting. Some sing, dance, play musical instruments, and even tell jokes. These lovable creatures like root beer, granola bars, and chocolate chip cookies. You ll find these fun loving, cookie-munching zombies lurking between the pages of this book. But you ll also read about some you d never want to meet even if you were carrying a bazooka. Not limited to zombie tales, this book includes a host of zany characters from outer space: ghost bugs; Martians who wear ten-gallon hats; Martians who stop commuter buses to take surveys; Martians who joyously amputate their own fingers to accumulate points for free Disneyland trips; and many more. Then too are stories of ordinary Earth folks, like the guy next door who hugs corpses for a living, the gal down the block who falls in love with a zombie, your co-worker who snacks on alien finger sandwiches, your best pal who takes college courses with zombies, and dozens of other weirdos. By now, you've guessed that most of the sixty-one stories in this book are humorous speculative fiction tales, a species not easily found. However, to keep you from busting a gut from laughter and incurring high medical costs, we ve toned down the hilarity by including a few tales to make you cringe and hide in the closet. After reading them you may even want to seek the assistance of an exorcist. All sixty-one stories were previously published in magazines and anthologies in Australia, Canada, England, and the US. Editors called them a hoot. Readers said they were hilarious. But the dark ones aren't funny--unless the macabre makes you break out into uncontrollable laughter. Now that you have an idea of what to expect, buckle up your seat belt, open the book, and enjoy the ride. --Michael A. Kechula

Editorial Reviews

Review

"At the risk of personifying the review, this reviewer nearly wet his pants with laughter after reading this. Absolutely bloody hilarious and a must read..." Jason Fischer, Tangent On-Line --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 172 pages
• Publisher: BooksForABuck.com (June 14, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1602150532
• ISBN-13: 978-1602150539
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,407,838 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A mess- plain and simple., January 28, 2009

By 

Dawn L. Nicola (Temecula, CA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Full Deck of Zombies (Kindle Edition)

There was never a more out of this world and messed up collection of stories that I have ever tried to read. The name is definitely misleading, only a handful of the stories are actually about zombies. As a whole, the book is so all over the place that you don't know what is going on. Many of the tales were hard pressed to keep my interest, I had to fight my way through to the end while trying to figure out what was going on. Way to many out there references to Mars, not enough substance to make any of them a good read.

I could have gone to Starbucks with the money I paid for this drivel and been more satisfied.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of the strangest and most interesting books I have ever read, September 19, 2007

By 

Patrick S. Dorazio "Author of The Dark Trilogy" (Cincinnati, Ohio) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Full Deck of Zombies: 61 Speculative Fiction Tales (Paperback)

A Full Deck of Zombies is a somewhat misleading title. Yes, there are quite a few tales in this work that are zombie related but a majority of them deal with other strange creatures and ideas.
Only a handful of the 61 stories in this book are more than 2-3 pages long. A few are just a paragraph in length, with an almost Haiku type quality to them.
The author essentially brainstorms with no limitations here-create an idea and put it on paper, then move on to the next one. Some had me shaking my head in consternation (at least two stories have to do with the main character either being or wanting to be a pizza rather than a human being, as examples) while others were worth a laugh or two. All of them were strange, while a small few were touching in their own way.
This is short fiction for someone with ADD, or at least that is the best description I can come up with. Not to say that is all bad, but go into this book knowing full well how incredibly unique this work is. Because if you don't like one little blurb of a story you read in it, within five minutes you will have probably read a couple more and found at least one that brings a smile to your face.