Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Review: The Living Dead

Ed. John Joseph Adams. Night Shade Books, 2008


According to the cover blurb, The Living Dead gathers together some of the very best zombie-themed short fiction from the past three decades, and covers a broad spectrum of types of zombie, from Romero-style flesh-eaters to traditional Haitian revenants to psychological zombies, and everything in-between.

All I can say to this is: believe the hype.

The Living Dead is absolutely the best zombie anthology I've ever read (and I've read many), which should not come as a shock, given that the editor has included some of the very best stories from some of the very best zombie anthologies (as well as various collections and magazines) previously published, including such revered tomes as Skipp's The Book of the Dead and Lowder's The Book of All Flesh. The contributor list alone reads like a 'who's who' of award-winning horror writers, which in my opinion makes it a worthy addition to the collection of any genre afficianado.

If you have even a vague interest in zombie fiction, you MUST buy this book (which, by the way, is also very reasonably priced for a publication running to almost 500 pages). Grab a copy now, before They rise and walk.

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