Customer Reviews

The Zombies of Lake Woebegotten (Zombie Uprising)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I don't remember when I've laughed as loud and as long as I did over the cover copy of The Zombies of Lake Woebegotten by Harrison Geillor. The concept is genius, and the fake blurbs are hysterical. At this point, I should probably admit that I'm not a fan of Prairie Home Companion, zombies, or literary mash-ups, making this book an unlikely choice for me. What can I say? I judged this book by its cover.

And that turned out to be a not-entirely-accurate way to judge the interior contents. As I mentioned, the cover copy was laugh-out-loud funny and just a bit stupid. Based on that first impression, I have to say that the book was all-around better-written, better-plotted, and a lot less stupid than I expected. Also, the humor was different. It was funny and satirical, but less "in your face" than I expected.

The plot is easy to summarize. In fact, one character does just that, "The situation is this. The dead have come back to life, and they're dangerous. Just like in some kind of horror movie or video game. When the corpses rise, there's nothing human left in them, as far as I can tell, just a terrible hunger." Lake Woebegotten does not exist in a pop-culture vacuum. Another character has taken a course in "The Zombie as Metaphor." He kept up a running dialog throughout along the lines of, "It seems to me we're dealing with the classic George Romero Night of the Living Dead sort of zombies, just straight-up reanimated corpses hungry for human flesh, probably brought to life by some form of cosmic radiation. You heard about the meteor shower last night, right? Who knows what came flying down from space?"

Oddly enough, this book reminded me a lot of Stephen King's recent doorstop, Under the Dome. Both stories are basically a look at an entire small town full of people coping with a dangerous and otherworldly stressor. The town is made up of individuals with secrets, hidden agendas, and various strengths and weaknesses. It's a perfect setting for drama and (as even Mr. King knows) comedy. As in, "Julie's eyes had a strange light to them, and Otto wondered about her past, who she was, really, where she'd gone when she left town, why she'd come back...." Or, "Eileen hadn't exactly developed a taste for blood, like some kind of tiger that eats one little Javanese boy and can't abide the taste of anything but sweet, sweet manflesh after that, but she'd discovered she could kill both deliberately and in the heat of the moment if the job needed doing."

The novel is structured in three parts, and here's a great example of the pseudonymous author taking a more sophisticated and interesting approach to telling the story. The middle section is entitled, "Twenty-some Odd Scenes from the Winter, in No Particular Order, Certainly Not Chronological." And that, of course, is exactly what it is. But by presenting these short chapters jumbled and out of order, he does a great job of creating narrative tension. It was this section that bumped the book up to 5 stars for me.

The one area that may disappoint is if you're looking for some real scares. I'm widely-acknowledged to be huge scaredy-cat, but not even I had a moment's fright over these zombies. And that's the way I like it. But I laughed a lot, and got a fast, fun story with a perfect ending. My determination to stay far, far away from Minnesota is firmly reinforced.

I picked this book up on a whim and it has been one of the best impulse buys I have made in years.

I have read quite a few zombie satire books lately (Pride & Predj. & Zombies, etc...) and some of them have been good reads, but this is the first one that has felt like it could stand alone as a novel without the 'poking fun at a famous book'. It is very much like a Garrison Keillor novel...great characters in small-town Minnesota dealing with every day problems, only today's problems include zombies.

The middle of the book shifted to an entertaining cluster of 1-4 page snap-shots of winter events told in a pulp-fictiony out-of-order style that was unique and still brought together the story by the end of that section...just in time for spring.

There were quite a few laugh out loud moments during the read and others I wanted to share so much I would read them out to whoever was around to listen, usually resulting in chuckles as well, though one time the guy in the elevator seemed a little freaked out.

Great book overall, highly recommended to anyone looking for a zombie book, or a funny book with some gore, or just a great read.

Harrison Geillor's novel Zombies of Lake Woebegotten is definitely a good read. I am not very familiar with the quirkiness of the Mid-West, however I felt that Geillor's parody was very well done. The chapters are short and it is an easy read. Honestly completely do-able in a single night if you want to hunker down for a few hours. The characters are believable and their situation is as genuine as a zombie outbreak can be.
One down side is sometimes Geillor doesn't know what a "period" is. Some sentences ramble on and on, make for many one sentence paragraphs. Sometimes, as part of his need to give you an in depth back story Geillor will go into way too much unimportant detail that honestly can slow down the story a little. Admittedly I found myself skipping over a few sentences when it would go on and on about someone's musings or unimportant back story. I am by no means a literary critic or scholar however it does pull the story down sometimes.
Overall, wonderful book. Definitely enjoyable. I recommend it.

I was concerned about reading this book, while somewhat familiar with Garrison Keillor as in I've heard of him. I'm not a fan nor do I read his books or listen to his radio show. Parodies can be funny on their own but are sometimes even funnier when one knows the reference material the parody is based on. Amish Paradise by Weird AL is very funny, if you see Coolio's Gangta Paradise first it's hysterical. I might have enjoyed The Zombies of Lake Woebegotten more has I read the source material for the parody, but I honestly can say that even having never read the original this book is laugh out loud funny.

It's really hard to get zombie humor right. Shaun of the Dead did it brilliantly in film, this book does it in print. The characters and reactions are believable, for the humor to work they have to be. From the old man serial killer to the know it all City boy and the woman who just, as the book states, "Picks a bad day to kill her husband." everything works. This book isn't scary, it isn't meant to be, but the zombies are serious, old fashioned, shambling-eat everything moving zombies, and animals, fish, and bugs come back to life also, adding to the suspense. I loved the contrast between the Catholic Priest who felt the zombies were the devil in his various disguises, and the Lutheran minister. There is some really good moments with the two of them.

A fun and funny read.

What a delightful little book, and for so cheap. (Kindle) As a fan of Prairie Home Companion I found myself hearing Garrison Keiller quite vividly. This is your midnight show of Prairie Home. Loved the use of non-chronological narrative. My only complaint was I wish it was longer!

I grew up in a small farming town in the Midwest. While reading this I literally laughed out loud because I could imagine people reacting the same way in my hometown as they did in the book. Well-written, and overally witty commentary on small town American life and an excellent parody of Garrison Keillor's works. An excellent read!

I got a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Being a native Minnesotan and fan of zombie books this book definitely caught my attention. It was a well done book and very entertaining.

When the town drunk finds that his dead fish are trying to bite him he suspects funny business. Soon news starts rolling in from the Twin Cities that the meteor shower last night caused everything dead to rise up (humans, animals, etc)...and once things rise they are very hungry. The town of Woebegotten has a couple of things going for it; it's really fricking cold and the population is fairly low so they should be at low risk. Unfortunately the town has be harboring a serial killer and the dead bodies of his victims come out to play, not to mentioned what happens when a dead grizzly strolls into town. Between your normal small-town shenanigans and all the crazy residents, Lake Woebegotten will have a heck of a time getting things back under control.

This was a well done book. There are a lot of plot points going on all at once, the characters are interesting, and the book is well-written and engaging. It's obviously a parody of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon Days, for those who aren't familiar. This is definitely a read for adults only, there is a lot of kinky stuff going on under the surface of Lake Woebegotten, and of course a serial killer and some zombies (both human and animal).

It is very amusing and very funny at points. For example at one point there is a discussion of whether or not bugs come back from the dead (a moot point in MN in the winter) and what will happen in the summer when the mosquitos come out.... It was fun to read about something set in my home state. Northern MN is fairly accurately depicted and the description of the eyeball freezing cold accurate. So those of you warm climate people reading this, no the cold and the things it makes happen are not exaggerations!

The characters have a lot of depth and are very amusing. You have an old man who is a serial killer, a wife who wants to murder her husband for his...ah..very physical affection for his car, and a African-American deputy whose trying to hold the town together. Oh, and don't forget the town dominatrix, the bible thumping priest, and the conspiracy nut. They all come together in a sort of dysfunctional family. The writing style was very readable and reminds a bit of Christopher Moore. The story is nicely wrapped up too, which I always enjoy.

Overall I enjoyed it and am glad that I read it. A good read for fans of parodys or zombie humor. A somewhat similar book in tone is Night of the Living Trekkies (Quirk Fiction), for you zombie humor fans out there.

I was bored out of my mind waiting for the sergeant to fill out some paperwork at our local police station (long story) so I went across the street to the library and picked up the first remotely interesting-looking book I could find on the "New Arrivals" shelves.

I hadn't heard anything about it, and I haven't read or listed to any Garrison Keillor in the past. But I've always had a soft spot for zombie books and movies (World War Z, Zombieland, Tokyo Zombie, Resident Evil, etc.) This one grabbed me right from the beginning, and I couldn't put it down. It was well-written, funny, and suspenseful, with some interesting twists and turns, nice character development, and even some thought-provoking philosophical asides. And on top of it all, a sense of what Minnesota is like in the dead (ahem) of winter.

I grabbed this book because I am a huge fan of Zombie fiction and am happy to say that I was not disappointed.
This book has a great plot, memorable characters, and does NOT follow the typical zombie/horror storyline.

Minnesota has some small towns and, apparently, it takes all types to populate them. The power hungry, the controlling, the secret serial killers, and those who just like fishing. Here in Lake Woebegotten, things are a little bit beyond the ordinary and yet they still are small town in some ways. The flashes of light that came from the sky were not small town, however, and the severed fish heads that kept on snapping and the people that kept on keeping on were nto normal, either. This leads to a lot of changes in the town as people find different callings, opt for different things to spice up life, or simply try to stay alive.
Ordinary? Maybe. Boring? Anything but.

When I read the back of the book and saw Geillor letting a lot of people take shots at him I thought it was pretty funny. The comments alone said something aobut the author. Then I peeked my head in and took a few pages in, allowing myself to see the style. what I saw was a dry humor in a lot of places, but a humor nontheless.

There's something about the style that The Zombies of Lake W has that kept me reading. It has some rather long sentences inside and, once upon a time, a teacher might have smacked the author's hand because of it. Thankfully, there are no people around to smack the hands of the author right this second and the book came out like it was. This let the book be itself and the author breathe life into quite a few oddities, letting me take in quite a few things. And, honestly, a lot of stuff happened thta I wasn't expecting.

One thing I liked in Geilor's writing was that the people were like people. They were full of faults and they were sometimes ugly but, in the end, they were all-too-human. That meant that some of them were really odd, some were kinda sick in the head, and some were cunning. This applied to the zombies as well; I could see the factions as they marched through the small town, sometimes doing their own deeds and sometimes doing the dirt that another person had put them up to.

I can't say this book would be for everyone - what is, really? That said, I can say that it is funny and that it takes zombies and makes them tools and monsters all in the same breath. You can see snippets of the style to see if you like it - I think thta might be one thing that might (and I say might) hurt some opinions because it has really long sentences. Still, the plot is great in my mind and well worth picking up.
Honestly, in a world full of little fish, why not try to catch one that goes on after death?