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Book Review: Delicious Zombie by Wol-vriey

 

Delicious Zombie by Wol-vriey

Burning Bulb Publishing, 2022

ISBN: 9781948278485

Available: paperback, Kindle edition

Buy: Amazon.com

 

Would you be okay with cannibalism if it would stop the aging process?

 

That’s the idea behind Delicious Zombie, a tour de splat that adds some new twists to the zombie apocalypse storyline.  The zombies are all humans that have been infected with a virus that makes them eat anything alive– nothing new there.  But, uninfected humans who eat zombies find that the aging process slows, and actually reverses, keeping everyone in their late 20s-early 30s.  Diseases like cancer?  A thing of the past, thanks to zombie meat.  All ills have been conquered, thanks to eating undead people that used to be normal human beings.

 

However, not everyone is happy about the idea of immortality, since it involves munching on your former neighbors.  Scientist Ethan Hackman and his companions Paula and Zoe lead a clandestine mission to Ohio to recover the cure for zombies, which has been hidden away by the powers that be.  It’s a question of whether they can survive, because a LOT of people don’t want the status quo changed.

 

This author has always excelled at writing fast-paced stories with a large dose of messiness, and this one is no exception.  What makes this one good is the author’s world-building: it’s quite the dystopia!  This is one story that actually makes the zombies sympathetic characters, which is unusual in the genre.  It’s a haunting place: there is a Church of Zombie, which preaches “digestion is salvation” ; the poor zombies are kept on farms for slaughter, and some people even keep a live zombie at home to cut off a piece of meat whenever they feel the urge.  It’s factory farming gone crazy.  At the grocery store, you go up to the deli counter and order whatever cut of a person you want.  Needless to say, serious ethical questions are present in this book!  That’s why the book is much more than the standard undead stories.  It’s not just the usual ‘plucky humans trying to survive a zombie plague,’  there’s a plotline with some real thought to it.  It’s enough to keep the reader engaged right through the last pages of the book.

 

Bottom line: if you like zombie stories and are hungry for one with some originality that will make you think, this one is the way to go.  Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on October 27, 2023 by , Reply

Book Review: Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

 

Cover art for Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin

Tor Trade, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250794642

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook ( Bookshop.org  | Amazon.com )

 

Unless you are hardcore into extreme horror, you need an iron stomach for this one.

 

Manhunt is a response to gender apocalypse stories, such as Brian K. Vaughan’s Y: The Last Man, which do not address the existence of trans and gender-nonconforming individuals. Unlike those, Manhunt puts trans people front and center.

 

A plague, T. rex, has infected all individuals with a high level of testosterone (mostly men), causing physical and mental disintegration and reducing them to a set of impulses to rape, maim, and kill any living thing nearby. Trans women become manhunters because testicles and kidneys are a source of estrogen, which they need both to be feminized and to overcome the testosterone that would make them vulnerable to T. rex. The flip side of this is that TERFs have taken over and will shoot and kill any trans women. Fran and Beth are manhunters who have an unfortunate encounter with TERFs and are later attacked by a pack of men who rape Beth. They are rescued by a trans man, Robbie, and take their bounty, and Robbie, to Indi, who has medical training and can use the testicles to synthesize estrogen. Indi has been invited to be the doctor for a compound for trans women and brings Fran, Beth, and Robbie with her. While initially this seems a safer path, something is seriously wrong there. There’s a rebellion, the compound burns, and the survivors create a new community and start planning an attack on the TERFs.

 

Ramona is a TERF close to the leader, Teach. She is secretly involved with a trans woman, and when the relationship is discovered her lover is executed and she is put in charge of cleaning out all trans women from the city. Fran gets involved with her and Ramona betrays Teach. However, she is not caught because another woman confesses to helping the trans women. The scene of her execution is incredibly painful and gory. Felker-Martin’s answer to the question of what would happen if men really were out of the picture is that there are women who will step in to do the same kinds of terrible things.

 

This is rage-filled and clearly very personal to the author, who is a trans woman. It doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable or disturbing emotions or situations, I can’t begin to say how difficult this was for me to read and finish, but I also couldn’t look away. It’s a powerful book, with a lot about the value of community, and made me think about the difficulties trans people face that I have the privilege not to reckon with as a cis woman. I think it’s is likely to be a classic in the genre.

 

Contains: transphobia, transphobic slurs, cannibalism, rape, body horror

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on March 27, 2023 by , Reply

Book Review: Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White

Cover art for Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White

Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White.

Peachtree Teen, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1682633243

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

Hell Followed with Us is an incredible and original book, but it is not an easy read. It is a scream of rage. Make sure to read the author’s content warnings at the beginning of the book.

 

Benji is a trans boy injected with a virus that will turn him into a genocidal monster, a Seraph, for a doomsday cult, the Angels. He tries running away but is captured by the cult’s death squad. A group called the Watch, queer teens inhabiting their destroyed teen center for LGBTQ+ youth, attacks and kills everyone in the death squad except Benji, who is offered refuge by the leader, Nick, an autistic gay boy. Nick knows Benji is the Seraph, but hides it to protect him, believing that his powers will allow him to control the Graces, monstrous creatures made from infected bodies trained by the Angels to attack nonbelievers.

 

The Watch successfully attacks a church with Benji’s help. Benji discovers his fiance, Theo, is hiding in the church, and visits him there, only to find that the visit was used by the Angels as an opportunity to burn down the home of the Watch. As Benji continues to physically disintegrate into the Seraph, he makes a plan with Nick to pretend to return and cooperate with the Angels, despite their murder of his father, transphobia, and religious extremism. While the first plan is botched and Benji turns fully into a Seraph, a second plan unleashes a bloodbath on the Angels and frees the Watch from fear and persecution..

 

Andrew Joseph White wrote this for trans kids facing a hostile world, to give them a mirror of a trans boy who fights back. But it’s not necessary to be trans or queer to be wowed by it.  So many of the major characters were queer that I got to see many different aspects of how they characters experienced their queerness, and it also didn’t become the only factor defining their identities. I loved the found family feeling of the members of the Watch, looking out for each other in a hostile world.

 

It’s difficult to imagine how hard-right evangelical Christianity in this country could get more repressive and violent than it currently is, but somehow White takes it to an even more terrifying extreme. Highly recommended.

 

 

Contains: transphobia, deadnaming, misgendering, graphic violence, domestic, child, and religious abuse, body horror

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Posted on December 18, 2022 by , Reply
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