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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: D.O.A. III: An Extreme Horror Anthology edited by S.C. Mendes

 

DOA Vol. 3

D.O.A. III: An Extreme Horror Anthology edited by S.C. Mendes

Blood Bound Books, 2017

ISBN: 9781940250267

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy from:   Amazon.com

 

The tagline on the back cover of the book reads: “You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll vomit.”  And, they aren’t kidding.  This is one of the most extreme collections ever published: 30 stories of raunchy, sex-driven, blood-drenched mayhem.  The stories are good, just prepare for revulsion.  This is for true hardcore lovers only– keep the kids away from this one.

 

The book’s pedigree is impressive, as Edward Lee, Jack Ketchum, Wrath James White, Bentley Little, and Richard Matheson are among the authors represented.  The stories are generally entertaining and well-written.  If there’s a theme, most of the stories involve horrible people doing horrible things to each other.  No joke: there are some VERY ugly torture sequences in this book that make Eli Roth films seem like Disney movies.   There are some stories with a paranormal bent, which helps keep the book from getting too one-dimensional.  The originality is decent, although not to the level of the Welcome to the Splat Club series.  As we’ve come to expect from Blood Bound Books, there is an undercurrent of dark humor threaded through many of the stories, which helps balance out the overall story mood. Notable stories worth mentioning include:

 

“Hostile” is only four pages, but it is comedic genius.  Jeff Strand’s hilarious twist on the Hostel movie series proves that the worst situations can be amusing, when written correctly.

 

In “Taking Root”, a virulent strain of plant spores has contaminated Earth, turning people into… plants, of a sort.  Two survivors find that, unfortunately, an apocalypse still doesn’t change peoples’ predatory instincts, or their bad nature.  Despite sounding grim, it’s a light-hearted take on doomsday writing.  Plants growing out of a person’s rear can be funny!

 

In “Ritchie”, Jackson killed Ritchie the bully when he was a kid, but Ritchie has a bad habit of coming back from the dead once a year.  So, Jackson has to kill him, again.  And again, and again.  The fun part is, Ritchie’s injuries from each death carry over year to year, and he becomes less intimidating to the point of hilarity… but Ritchie may still have a trick or two up his sleeve…

 

 It’s worth mentioning that this isn’t ‘peek under the bed and close the curtains out of fear’ horror writing.  These aren’t scary, and aren’t meant to be.  This is straight-up extreme splat writing to the max.  

 

Bottom line: if the members of Cannibal Corpse and GWAR decided to write short stories instead of lyrics, then DOA III is probably what you would get.  Recommended for hardcore fans only.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on May 15, 2023 by , Reply

Book Review: Black Planet, Vols. 1-4 by Nikki Noir

Black Planet Books 1-4 by Nikki Noir

Black Planet, Books 1-4, by Nikki Noir

Blood Bound Books, 2020

ISBN: 9798675368907

Available: paperback, Kindle edition ( Amazon.com )

 

With her short stories, author Nikki Noir has carved out a place for herself in the world of spleaze (that’s ‘splat and sleaze’) writing.  Black Planet was previously released electronically as four separate sections, now all combined into one paperback book.  It’s a decent effort, with the first two ‘setup’ sections being the best parts.  The third section, which carries the bulk of the story’s motion, is a bit of a letdown, with too many of the essential plot details held back.  Still, the first two sections help make up for the third.  The fourth section is basically just a lead-in to whatever comes next, as according to the author, there will be more.

 

The first section sets up the story beautifully, replete with the author’s usual trashy intensity.  Two teens eking out a living by doing sleazy online fetish films have the good fortune of a relative dying, thus giving them a dead body to use in their videos.  They hook up with a girl who is into the occult and crazier than they are. That concludes the excellent first section, and no question, it’s the best one.  Section 2 is a different thread but still setting the story up, and it’s almost as good as the first section.  This time it involves teen girl Haley, her younger brother, and weird mechanical owls in the woods.  There’s also a shade of what’s to come, with the introduction of the shadowy organization Stillwater.  

 

Where the first two parts ran at high speed, you’d expect the overdrive gear to kick in for the third section, where the plot threads start to tie together.  But, this section feels more like it’s stuck in neutral.  The author’s trademark freaky sex and messy murders are there, the writing is fine… it just doesn’t have the same sense of urgency as the first two sections.  Part of the problem is almost none of the “why” part is given in this section, and it would have been the perfect time to do it.  The organization called Stillwater keeps lurking in the background, but its presence is given very little time, or explanation.  To keep readers interested, an author have to give them something in the book for a bit of the ‘why’ things are happening.  Otherwise, it seems more like a linear sequence of events that happen for no real purpose, and it’s frustrating.  It’s playing the plot cards too close to the vest for a bit too long, you gotta throw a few cards on the table to keep the game going.  The storyline is good, it just needs to be less of a mystery.   

 

There’s some definite fun to be had with reading Black Planet, it just could have used a few tweaks to help keep reader interest higher.  Hopefully, the next sections will reveal more to the readers in terms of the overall plot.   

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson.

Posted on April 25, 2023 by , Reply
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