The Loving Dead [Paperback]

Amelia Beamer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 29, 2010

Kate and Michael are roommates living in the Oakland hills, working at the same Trader Joes supermarket. A night of drunken revelry changes their lives forever, but not in the way that anyone would expect. A slow-spreading plague of zombie-ism breaks out at their house party, spreading amongst their circle of friends, and simultaneously through the Bay Area. This zombie plague - an STD of sorts - is spread through sex and kissing, turning its victims into mindless, horny, voracious killers. Thrust into extremes by this slow- motion tragedy, Kate and Michael are forced to confront the choices they've made in their lives, and their fears of commitment, while trying to stay alive and reunite in the one place in the Bay Area that's likely to be safe and secure from the zombie hoards: Alcatraz.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Blood, guts, and sex intermingle in this stylish debut from Locus editor Beamer. A California party turns bad when the spread of a brain-eating STD leaves roommates Kate and Michael struggling to deal with a houseful of zombies. Oblivious Oakland authorities ignore the escalating crisis as aggressively promiscuous and ravenous zombies keep popping up. Finally, the desperate friends make a plan to flee to a zombie-proof haven while fearing that some of their acquaintances may already be infected. Contemporary touches like a surprisingly useful iPhone app and overthe-top moments of frantically alternating sex and gore make for a sick, funny romp that only falters at the end, which mostly occurs offstage. The cleverness of the set pieces balances the unsatisfying resolution for an entertaining and original take on the zombie apocalypse.
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About the Author

Amelia Beamer works as an editor and reviewer at Locus. Her publications include articles in Foundation and Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, and short fiction published or forthcoming in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Red Cedar Review, Interfictions 2 and other venues. --This text refers to the MP3 CD edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Night Shade Books; 1 edition (June 29, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597801941
• ISBN-13: 978-1597801942
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.2 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,200,167 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Amelia Beamer works as an editor and reviewer for Locus: The Magazine of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Field. She has won several literary awards and has published fiction, poetry, and scholarship in a number of venues.

Her first novel The Loving Dead, with zombies and a Zeppelin, will be published in July 2010 from Night Shade Books, and has been called, "a zombie novel like none other" by Peter Straub, "really kind of hot, in a very creepy way," by Christopher Moore, and "appallingly vivid and unrelentingly suspenseful" by Tim Powers.

For more information, visit: ameliabeamer.com.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Skip this book. March 26, 2011

By M. Paszej

Format:Paperback

The zombie concept in this book is interesting... but really goes nowhere.

Lots of action, but the writing style is so passive that it feels like everyone stays in their chairs, in the living room, talking, for the entire book. The zombie apocalypse is here... but it's just sooo slooow. Book is filled with as much sex as the author can cram in there, but even that becomes boring after the second/ third repeat of a sex scenario that's not needed, and that takes away from any potentially interesting zombie action. Cut all the sex stuff out, and paste it together, you'll end up with a semi-decent erotic story, I suppose. Cut the remaining zombie action out, and you have just pasted together a really. Really. boring zombie event. Drats! Because the concept had so much potential!

The other con is every character. Not a single person in the book is worth rooting for. The greatest action in the book is you mumbling to yourself "kill her/him off already!".

Time wasted. Book tossed in the garbage. Off to look for something more interesting in the zombie genre.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Some good moments, but doesn't quite work out June 1, 2011

By Justin G. TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I took a chance on Amelia Beamer's debut novel The Loving Dead because a) I love zombie novels, b) it was endorsed by Christopher Moore and c) I was bored. Beamer takes an unusual approach to the typical zombie story with The Loving Dead. In this story, the zombie virus is spread not only by bites, but by sexual contact. Apparently these walking dead are seriously horny. The story follows a group of twenty-something San Franciscans as they first encounter the outbreak and attempt to find a safe place.

Zombie 411 - Beamer's zombies are loosely based on the Romero style (the whole undeath, devouring the living thing, but she adds a lot of variations. The sexual aspect is the most obvious one, though the response to whips and basic language abilities are also a bit atypical. It's enough to make purists freak out.

The Loving Dead seems too clever by half. There's an interesting concept to work with, and some of the zombie imagery is pretty classic, but a huge portion of the book is devoted to the various affairs - both day to day as well as romantic - of the main characters, giving it a Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture meets Night of the Living Dead feel. It's distracting, really, and makes me think Beamer didn't have enough to write a full zombie story or a full general fiction novel and just tossed the two together. The epilogue, while providing the necessary closure, introduced enough potentially interesting elements to make most zombie fiction fans very frustrated.

I actually enjoyed the dialogue in this book, and some of the characters are pretty memorable. The story just seems too unfocused to really be effective, and it was a struggle to make it through to the end. I think the author shows real potential, but I can't give The Loving Dead a very enthusiastic recommendation.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars A cure for insomnia September 9, 2010

By Glinda Good

Format:Paperback

I've never left a bad review before . . . but then, I've never tried to read a book that fell so far short of the hype. Well, tried to read anyway. What I managed to wade through was not funny, not clever, not out-of-the ordinary gross or hot or . . . sorry, I dropped off for a moment. The author might have a career in front of her, but perhaps if I could offer a bit of advice -- lesbian sex and the occasional shambling dead thing does not make up for the lack of strong, interesting characters and a story a reader could care about. Borrow this book if you must read it. If you'd like to read a zombie story that lives up to the hype of Loving Dead, try Happy Hour of the Damned by Mark Henry.