Customer Reviews

The Undead: Headshot Quartet (Four Zombie Novellas)

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THE UNDEAD: HEADSHOT QUARTET is the fourth installment in Permuted Press highly entertaining zombie anthology series THE UNDEAD. This installment marks a departure from the regular form in that normally books in the UNDEAD series contain short stories rather than long fiction. But, as the name implies, HEADSHOT QUARTET is a collection of four zombie novellas with varying themes and styles that compliment each other quite well. Let's take a look at them shall we?

Million Dollar Money Shot by John Sunseri- Vince has a problem. Once, a few days and a lifetime ago, he was a hit man. But since then, things have changed. Now he's in Aruba on the run from his former employers with a bit of their money and the dead have stopped dying and are hungry for human flesh. And that's not the worst part. The worst part are the angry, tough as nails fish men that come out of the sea at night.

This novella grabbed me from page one and didn't let go until I was about halfway through the next tale. Sunseri's prose is very engaging, easy to read, and highly entertaining. The tale is a real page turner, starting off strong and not letting up even at the end. The characters are all believable, the dialogue is realistic, and the story overall is very satisfying as part of this collection or as a stand alone. All in all "Million Dollar Money Shot" is a perfect contribution to the UNDEAD series.

Enemy Unseen by Ryan C. Thomas- CIA analyst and Cuban specialist Rhonda White has just been handed her first field assignment: to find the name of a man who has been seen with drug smugglers and gun runners. Seems simple enough right? Wrong. Soon enough Rhonda is up to her neck in the living dead, Voodoo rituals, and a new biological weapon that could mean the end of the world as we know it.

Thomas's style holds the readers attention and manages to weave a very interesting tale to boot. The story, while a bit slower paced than its predecessor, is no less engaging. The interpersonal dynamic between White and the agent assigned to help her as well as that with her superiors adds a very nice layered feel to the tale, though at novella length it feels as if it is a bit rushed. Enemy Unseen would have worked better as a longer piece, though it manages to come across quite well all on its own.

Lost Souls by David Dunwoody- Three art students on a winter vacation to an isolated New England cabin are looking for a retreat from everything, with a chance to work on their individual thesis. Instead, what they find is an old cabin with a past, a cemetery haunted by the surprisingly real corpses of it's occupants, and land whose very earth is cursed. Will any of them make it out alive?

For fans of Dunwoody's previous work, particularly his tale "Grinning Samuel" in THE UNDEAD, you won't find any better tale in this collection than "Lost Souls". While not my personal favorite out of the four offerings, there is a lot to enjoy here. The story is well paced, the dialogue is very interesting, and there are just enough scares and splatter to appease the most die-hard hardcore horror fan.

Mortal Gods by D.L. Snell- A young man with no memory, no name, and the ability to make objects magically appear out of thin air teams up with a psychic and a strong man to save the world (or at least their city) from the living dead , giant spiders, and Lovecraft-ian beasts. Will his search for his identity lead them to a solution to the problem of the living dead? Or will any of them survive long enough to find out?

Ever present in THE UNDEAD series, Snell once again delivers his special brand of cross trope zombie fiction. This time he combines not only zombies and tentacles, as he did in ROSES OF BLOOD, but he has also mixed in super heros, psychics, and maniacal Fulci dreamscapes. All of this in lesser hands could lead to a very muddled mess, especially in the shortened length of a novella, but it is a testament to the talent of Mr. Snell that it manages not only to work as a novella, but as a damn good story to boot.

All said, HEADSHOT QUARTET is one hell of a collection and deserves a place on your shelf, preferably right next to your copies of the other UNDEAD books. This collection is amazing, and in my opinion is the best contribution to this series since the first collection. Definitely a buy.

(This review first posted by myself over at [...])

Once again Permuted Press does not let down. Four tales of zombie madness. each one is different and the collection as a whole manages to put a few new twists on the good ol' zombie genre. Good reading right here friends. Read or die!

Million Dollar Money Shot by John Senseri - Vince, a hitman for the mob on the run flies to the small island of Aruba, only to be trapped on the island when the wave of zombies begin staggering from their graves. In a hotel hideout he meets Tabitha, a former prostitute, just before the hotel is taken over. On the run for their lives, they hook up with Father Willem and young Oscar, also running for their lives. Worse than the zombies, though, are the things that are coming up out of the ocean. In a unique tale of zombies with a scintillating touch of Lovecraft's Cthulhu, Senseri spins a tightly woven, non-stop action story. Well worth the read.

Enemy Unseen by Ryan C. Thomas - Rhonda, a CIA analyst and desk jockey, is sent on assignment to the Cuban district of the New York City slums. She's attempting to discover the identity of a mysterious man in a satellite photo, last seen with two notorious drug dealers. Rhonda finds out more than she ever wanted to, not just the mystery man but his connections to the Santeria religion, Vodun religion from Haiti, and what the bokor are. In a tense tale of espionage, voodoo, and agile zombies, Ryan Thomas has written an interesting and entertaining account of a new order of zombies and their terrifying leader. Well worth the read.

Lost Souls by David Dunwoody - Dane, a sculptor, and his girlfriend Kara, a painter, head off to a quaint cabin ("A page out of early American History") with an adjacent cemetery. Tagging along with them is Dane's best friend Casey. There's something wrong with the house, and something wrong with the cemetery. Immediately ghostly apparitions begin appearing, but they have the capability of hurting people. Kara, after finding an old journal, visits the town library to dig up the secrets of the cemetery. She finds there used to be a parish on the property, and finds disturbing information on Pastor Scott Mark. She discovers the LS on five gravestones links five wealthy men together, all dying tragically. But what can this information mean? With apparitions, ghostly zombies, an evil presence, and a dead deviant pastor, this story has a vaguely gothic feel to it, giving a fresh twist on the typical zombie tale. Well worth the read.

Mortal Gods by D.L. Snell - A man wakes up in an alley with a bloody head and no memory except the word "blue". Nearby, a woman is being attacked by zombies. Then two more people show up, a blonde woman (Halo) and a large black man (Brimstone), who kick b*tt on the zombies and take Blue with them. They take him to meet The Crow, a shape-shifting shaman. Halo is psychic and has the ability to heal, Brimstone is super strong, and both recognize that Blue has extraordinary talents even though Blue himself doesn't remember what they are or how to use them. Together, they know its up to them to lay waste to the epidemic of zombies infecting the world. But without Blue's memories, they need to find how and where to begin the battle. Snell has written an intriguing tale of superheros vs zombies, filled with extraordinary adventures. Well worth the read.

'Headshot Quartet' is a great addition to your zombie collection. Highly recommended. Enjoy!

I really liked this colection of Zombie horror. You will truely get lost in these pages!

"Headshot Quartet" is an anthology of four novellas edited by Christina Bivins, Lane Adamson, and Thom Brannan. It is the fourth in the "The Undead" zombie anthology series published by Permuted Press. And what a great collection it is, as it sports a great, and bloody illustration for its cover by Joshua Ross, which illustrates nothing in the book.

The first novella is "Million Dollar Money Shot" by John Sunseri and is a rootin'-tootin', two-fisted traditional zombie action story that seems to be channeling Robert Howard. Killer-for-hire Vince wakes up in a hotel in Aruba after going down there to get away from a hit put out on him after he has liberated some of "The Organization's" money only to find himself trapped in his hotel room by the hungry dead. Then it gets interesting as he saves Tabitha from being zombie chow. As the zombies then break down the door of Vince's hotel room, and finding this situation unacceptable Vince and Tabitha decide to jump out the hotel window and try to get to the harbor. The only trouble is that there is something(s) out in the water that is even worse than the zombies. Suneri's story is just a great edge-of-your-seat roller-coaster ride, with a tough guy, a tough girl, tough talk, hungry zombies, and plenty of fast action, and would make a hell of a movie. Five stars.

Next is "Enemy Unseen" by Patrick Thomas and has CIA Cuban Intelligence expert Rhonda White investigating a mysterious individual who is meeting with two well-known foreign terrorists in Panama and two ruthless drug dealers in the USA. Her bosses want her to go undercover, although she's only trained as an intelligence analyst, and she's woefully under-qualified for the job, so she's teamed up with experienced agent Steven Plante, who will be keeping an eye on her. Again, we have a fast-paced action story, less hardboiled than Sunseri's, but no less interesting. White and Plante have an interesting chemistry and you can't help but rooting for them to succeed, especially when the dead start to walk. While I wasn't crazy about the ending, I still have to give it five stars.

Then comes David Dunwoody's "Lost Souls" and it is completely different than the first two stories. Dane, Casey, and Kara are three art students that have decided to rent a little country cottage, one that is situated near a cemetery, to explore their art in quiet, and you know that no story with a situation like this is ever going to end well. Nothing works out as they plan it, as after Dane decides to go get a glass of wine in the night he is attacked by somebody with only one leg and no face and beaten senseless. Things quickly go south as soon afterwards Casey is attacked, then Kara has an episode, then things start to snowball. When the title of the first chapter of this novella is titled "The House by the Cemetery" you know that you will be reading a story that will be a tribute to Italian horror movies and Lucio Fulci. This is a good, moody, seventies Italian zombie horror story. It could have been proofread a little better though, one character has a poker thrust into his body, only to have another character pull it out of HIS body (?), still, I had to read it in one sitting. This story, as the stories from the previous three "Undead" anthologies, evidently became part of Dunwoody's novel "Empire". Four stars.

The biggest surprise for me was the novella "Mortal Gods" by D. L. Snell, who was the author the abominable "Roses Of Blood On Barbwire Vines". "Mortal Gods" is one of those stories that are hard to describe or even give a synopsis of, and this is simply because of the structure of the story itself. It's disjointed, surrealistic, flips between one reality and another, has dream states, and has a character that has no idea who he is. It's also one of the most enjoyable things that I've had the pleasure to read in some time. The story starts as Gregory has the power to conjure up objects, the trouble is that these objects are never quite right, these would include a mutant rat monster that really is in the closet, and a unique way to deal with playground bullies. Thumbs up on that one. Mutant creatures keep turning up, his folks start having emotional problems because of his uncontrollable powers, and then the zombies show up. It all goes to hell in a handbasket soon after.

The story then switches gears as a man with no memory of who he is wakes up in a dirty alley and is attacked by some zombies. In desperation he finds out that he has the power to move things with his mind, and to call things into existence by his will alone. As he is overwhelmed several mysterious people in a van rescue him, and we realize that there is something out there that is hunting him. The novella turns the whole super-powers theme on its head as the nameless man tries to find out who he is, stay out of the clutches of whatever is hunting him, and survive in a hostile world. Snell obviously was influenced by stories like "It's A Good Life" by Jerome Bixby, and superhero stories. With "Mortal Gods" Snell deconstructs the whole "superhero" theme that is so popular in science fiction, comix, movies, and pulp fiction. While the prose could often use more work as, as we get sentences like " . . . he popped one vagrant's head like a zit . . . ", this story still rocked in all the right places, and the story ends on a satisfactory note. Five stars.

Instead on being monotonistic in theme, these four novellas cover a lot of thematic ground, and are quite varied in their plotlines. Sunseri's is a crime story with Romero overtones, Thomas' is a traditional pulp voodoo zombie story, Dunwoody's is a tribute to Italian gothic movie zombies, and Snell's is clearly influenced by superheroes in both comics and science fiction.

Like most Permuted Press books this is a sturdy quality trade paperback, with a laminated cover that should hold up under many readings, and is well worth your money. Buy it.

This is an excellent compilation of zombie "shorts". I believe it to be the best, so far, in the "Undead" series published by Permuted Press. I've been attempting to read every available zombie publication available and this is one that I believe to be at the top of the list as far as the quality of the stories goes. I highly recommend it to those who don't want to be disappointed in their quest for quality zombie fiction!!!

An excellent and fast moving book. All 4 stories were enjoyable.

Without giving anything more away than other reviews already have, the following is why this is a "Must Read" for fans of the Zombie genre:

1. Each story has a different approach to the Zombie issue. These stories are not your everyday, end of the world, zombie stories.

2. Each story has an interesting & different mechanism for the zombie plague. It's nice to see other possibilities than the usual and most prevalent biohazard explanation.

3. Each story has a different possible ending. Not every story has the usual "Zombies win - end of the world" finish.

I want to highly recommend this book. I was unaware (until I sat down to write this review) that this is the 4th in the series. I look forward to reading the first 3 books.

If a bibliophile became a zombie, would he go around groaning "Books" instead of "Brains"?

The latest installment of the Undead anthologies consists of four novellas that take us in four new directions for loads of zombie fun.
While each story is unique, at least three of them have anywhere from a scent to a full blown flavor of HP Lovecraft. I loved reading Lovecraft years ago and Million Dollar Money Shot in particular ties in well with the whole Lovecraftian Mythos. I felt that Lost Souls, with its dark and foreboding New England setting also had a hint of Lovecraft to it, and Mortal Gods ties in with DL Snells novel Roses of Blood on Barbwire Vines, which seemed pretty heavily influenced by good 'ol HP as well. Enemy Unseen takes things in a slightly different direction, with traditional voodoo instead of a more Romeroesque approach to the undead.
Overall, this was a fun read and my desires to criticize each story fairly limited. Yes, I could have seen one or two of the stories being served well if they were full blown novels but each author was able to put together a pretty nice tale, mostly with less than 100 pages each.
Overall, a great compilation and I look forward to more novellas like this one in future editions of "The Undead".

You have to read this book. Great stories...the first is one of the best I've read. A great and different point of view.

This is the fourth installment in Permuted Press' franchise of zombie thrillers THE UNDEAD. This time around, Permuted has collected four of their best writers and given them a little more room to stretch out the scares in a novella format. And they make excellent use of the extra pages. My two favorites in this anthology were D.L. Snell's "Mortal Gods" and David Dunwoody's "Lost Souls." Fans of Snell's first novel, Roses of Blood on Barbwire Vines, will enjoy the wildly unique zombies in "Mortal Gods," which may very have the best opening of any story I have read in the past few years. And if you somehow managed to miss David Dunwoody's stories in the first three volumes of The Undead, "Lost Souls" is a great chance to see what he is capable of writing. Read this one, then check out his opening story in "History is Dead," his unique and genuinely disturbing take on a familiar fairy tale in Read by Dawn II, and his first published story, "Grinning Samuel," and you'll find yourself with a new favorite author. I've read most of his published works now and he hasn't missed yet.

The other two stories were also very good. John Sunseri has already proven himself to be an excellent short story writer, and now, with "Million Dollar Money Shot," shows he can thrill us at longer lengths, too. I don't know if he's ever gone to Aruba, but his fast-paced tale does a great job of generating a sense of place. Sunseri's story is followed by Ryan C. Thomas' tale "Enemy Unseen." Nice voodoo elements in this one, which sets it apart from the other three tales. Also, I think, we may see this one as a full blown novel someday. There's enough to this one to justify some added length.

Overall, a top-notch anthology from four outstanding authors. Definitely worth the investment.