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Book List: Breaking Cliches in Zombie Fiction

I was reading a blog post on realism in zombie fiction by Brian Parker, a writer of zombie fiction. Somewhere in the middle of it, he addressed the problem of the Mary Sue in zombie novels:

If you’re like me, you likely roll your eyes at the stereotypical protagonist in zombie fiction. You know the type, it’s some guy or girl—devastatingly handsome or beautiful, but overlooked by the rest of society—who works at a video game store. When the shit hits the fan, they come out of their shell and use their secret level-84 ninja skills to become the unlikely leader who saves their friends and/or family. Everyone in the group is an expert shot and every time they pull the trigger, heads explode. Sound familiar? More on that in a moment. Don’t forget the quintessential part of a typical zombie novel: The main character’s love interest is unattainable before the zombies appear, but once their competition is killed, the guy gets the girl and everyone lives happily ever after.

Luckily for us, there are zombie stories out there that successfully break, or at least subvert, these character and plot cliches.  Here are a few worth checking out.
 The List  by Michele Lee

This is a brief novella that can be read in one sitting, and you’ll want to do that. The story is told in first person by an unsympathetic protagonist with poor social skills who has a lot of built up resentments against the other residents of his apartment building. At the time of the story, he’s been holed up safely for quite some time, and has successfully avoided getting infected by the zombie virus. He is about to emerge and work his way through the building by taking out the now-zombified residents of the building, one at a time, in brutal and gory fashion. Despite the unsympathetic narrator, the voice is fantastic, and there is plenty of dark humor. In the interests of full disclosure, Michele is a reviewer for Monster Librarian and the editor for our companion blog Reading Bites, but that doesn’t affect my recommendation here.

 Allison Hewitt Is Trapped by Madeleine Roux

We’ve previously reviewed Allison Hewitt Is Trapped. I’m not going to claim realism here, but I also wouldn’t call Allison a Mary Sue. She’s a graduate student who works in a bookstore (no video games here– each chapter is named for a book) and is trapped in the break room with the rest of the bookstore staff and a couple of customers, with no apparent rescue in sight,  blogging about the experience on a miraculously still-existing military Internet network. I find Allison’s ability to wield a fire ax as a deadly weapon, without prior experience, to be unrealistic, but even since its publication in 2011, there aren’t enough books in this subgenre with women who are snarky, resourceful, save themselves, and can strangle their enemy with a laptop cord. The story doesn’t end exactly unhappily for her, but there’s a companion book that takes place many years later, and the zombies still are ravaging pretty much everything, so I wouldn’t say it’s a happy ending either.

 

 Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick

Never be afraid to check out YA fiction– there are some powerful works out there. Ashes is one of these. The main character and narrator is Alex, a teenage girl with terminal brain cancer and considerable camping, hiking, and general survival skills, who decides to run away to the forests of Michigan to spend her last days. While she’s there, an electromagnetic impulse hits, kills millions of people, destroys communications and technology, and turns the majority of children and teenagers into flesh-eating zombies. She is joined by Ellie, a spoiled and obnoxious nine year old who is orphaned early on, and Tom, a soldier she encounters in the forest. Oh my gosh, this is a dark, brutal, and desperate read. Anyone who thinks YA is light and fluffy can think again. I also think it’s a very realistic portrayal. Alex doesn’t suddenly discover she has super survival skills– her skills are a big part of the reason she escapes the EMP in the first place. Tom doesn’t mystically discover he has weapons skills– he’s a trained soldier. And nothing is more realistic than an obnoxious nine year old. This is the first book in a trilogy, and I really recommend it.

Women in Horror Fiction: Michele Lee

Image of Michele Lee Michele Lee, one of our own book reviewers and the mind behind our teen-focused blog Reading Bites, is the author of such books as Wolf Heart (2012 Violet Ivy Press), the heartbreaking zombie novella Rot (2013 Skullvines Press), the self-published ebooks The List  (2013)  and On Halloween (a choose-your-own-path book co-written with Mini Lee). Her latest work, Last Brother, Last Sister (2014 Skullvines Press), was published earlier this month.  Michele’s short stories can be found in anthologies including Dark Futures: Tales of Dystopian SF (2011 Dark Quest) and Horror Library, Volume 4 (2012 Cutting Block Press). Michele also writes erotic fiction under the name M. Lush.

 

1. Can you give our readers a brief introduction?

My name is Michele Lee. I’m a multi-genre writer (Horror, SF/F and erotic romance), a reviewer and a vet tech by day.

 

2. Why do you write horror?  What draws you to the genre?

Way back when I was a teenager, horror was the only place you could find stories of the paranormal. Now we have urban fantasy and paranormal romance, both of which I also like, but sometimes you just want that spooky story. Also, I think a lot of the setups in horror, especially the monsters, are a powerful thematic way to deal with the darker stuff in our real lives. Violence, rape, fear of the true nature of human evil; the nameless thing that might be waiting to devour us in the dark is a perfect allegory for facing cancer, abuse, fiscal devastation and more. We can, as either writers or readers, work through and face our feelings on some Really Big Issues ™ without freezing up when the boogie man has the face of our abuser or looks like that shadow on the radiogram. And maybe, for a little bit, we can fantasize that beating cancer or a recession is as easy as staking that vampire or stopping that serial killer.

3. Can you describe your writing style or the tone you prefer to set for your stories?


The tone of my stories, I hope, is different because I really like to let characterization come through in how things are set up and described and how the characters react to things. I seem to be drawn to people working through things, maybe outside discoveries, but often things about themselves that are exposed because of things happening around them.

In my novella Rot, for example I wanted to take a typical rough/bad ass male character (stoic, former military man, zero illusions about life) and make him incredibly emotional without making him any less of a strong male lead. I also wanted to take on the “flamboyant gay” stereotype and the “damsel in distress” that you see in horror a lot and do something meaningful with them.

 

4. Who are some of your influences?  Are there any women authors who have particularly inspired you to write?


Anna Sewell, actually. My mom was really restrictive with me when it came to…everything, but she encouraged me to read Black Beauty. Maybe because it was about horses, or was a classic. But honestly it’s very brutal. You see horses die in war combat, serious cruelty to dogs, cats and horses and real world events like illnesses and alcoholism which leads to disaster for Beauty. It was the darkest book I had ever read.

An Anne Rice phase led me to the far more amazing authors Poppy Z. Brite and Nancy A. Collins, the latter of which not just writes fairly hardcore horror, but also wedged her way into comics. What geek girl doesn’t admire that?

On the male side of the spectrum, Roald Dahl, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman are all glorious masters among us plebs.

5. What authors do you like to read?  Any recommendations?


I read a lot, over many genres. If you’re comfortable being seen in the urban fantasy section, Ann Aguirre is doing great things with demons and zombies (her zombie books are YA). Stacia Kane is a favorite for sure. Ilona Andrews is an auto-buy.

As for Authors You’re Probably Missing; Sara M. Harvey and Jennifer Pelland write dark speculative fiction, K.H. Koehler, Lucy Snyder and Chesya Burke are all amazing horror authors.

 

6. Where can readers find your work?

I’m mostly in ebooks these days, so all the usually places, Amazon, B&N, Kobo, OmniLit and iBooks. I have a werewolf book out (Wolf Heart), two zombie novellas (Rot and The List) and a zombie novel that just came out (Last Brother, Last Sister). I have short stories here and there, and my erotic romance stuff is published under the pen name M. Lush.

Interested in learning more ? Check out Michele Lee’s Amazon page, this interview, her blog, or Reading Bites.