Zombie Apocalypse! Fightback: a review

Zombie Acopalypse! Fightback created by Stephen Jones

Paperback: 528 pages and Kindle 512 pages

Publisher: Robinson (4 Oct 2012)

ISBN-13: 978-1780334653

ASIN: B008O58DUM

Digested by the unholy revenant Geoff Nelder

Bah, I hate this book. WTF do these greenies know. Hiding behind bullets and on islands. Think water will stop us? Just a sec while I cough up – what? That’s a bit of rib in the bloody mucous. No matter, got spare. This mishmash patchwork accounts from the yet-to-be-dead / undead tell only half the frigging story. S’only their opinion, right? Like the neat handwriting and the drawings of Rod-odd Ostler. I could do that, before. So what if Lisa tittle-tattle Tuttle with her oh-so-neat cool handwriting on her little Scottish island (like the survivors fighting off the other-virus infected in ARIA: Left Luggage) teams up with Neil Gammon-tasty Gaiman, and Pat hides-in-her-jumper? (the undead are allowed dire jokes); Pete crowds in there too, the Crowther but even Guy soldier-what-a-laff Adams, and Jo beats-em-with-her-stick and new books Fletcher won’t stop us.

That Stephen Jones – he’s one of us, he just doesn’t know it. Or maybe he does. That ack page at the back has page numbers. Well, I don’t do numbers any more – we don’t need ‘em, but for those that do, they’ll not find page numbers in the book. Unless they’re in invisible ink – the bas   d.

A musty read for all wraiths and the undead. I and my fellow revenants recommend Zombie Acopalypse! Fight Back to all zombies. We have to arm ourselves with the enemy’s thoughts. Need to go. I’ll use this book. A grisly manual for what to do, not to do, when the goodies think they’re winning. Yeah. Going for world dom. After food, food, food, fool.

On Amazon here

Fancy that at FantasyCon

FantasyCon is a bit like a writers’ club, one that specialises in fantasy and science fiction. In spite of writing about things that hit the back of readers’ minds, scaring the hell out of them and stirring the ordinary into the extraordinary often with ghouls and black moments, those writers are wonderfully warm and friendly. Take Sam Stone, who writes about nothing but vampires, who want to rip out our necks or create the undead from the innocent: she is an effervescent blonde (this time with intriguing purple edges). Her fiction is edgy and sometimes eye-watering yet her hugs and welcoming eyes are so inviting. I couldn’t help noticing her hand stroking a thigh while she talked to me yesterday – pity that thigh belonged to her husband! Hah. Then she told me that her latest novel, Demon Dance, had my name on the back cover blurb. Yeay! I rarely offer to read pre-published books on the computer: I much prefer a printed version since my eyes spend too much time already scrolling and rolling on the small screen.  I made an exception for Sam and her publisher, Terry Martin – again a friendly soul and publisher of Murky Depths that won an award this year – congrats! So my few words of favour won a place on the back of her book. To order Demon Dance here.

At FantasyCon 2010 – held in Nottingham where fortuitously my granddaughter, Amy, lives with son Rob and daughter-in-law, Tracey and her so cute daughter, Liddie Ann – I met up with good friends Steve Upham of Screaming Dreams; Ian Whates, who is a man of so many writing talents (including having a story in our Escape Velocity issue #4), organiser of NewCon5 in October in Northampton, and publisher of NewCon press - and who owes me £20 !; David Tallerman - extraordinary writer who will go far; Nick Wood – psychologist (yeay I spelt it right first time for the first time) and award-winning short story writer; Pauline Morgan, Andrew Hook and many other good ‘horrific’ people.

At FantasyCon is a table groaning under the weight of second-hand science fiction / fantasy paperbacks. I looked for a particular author, Christopher Priest, because Graham Weaver, the new member of the Chester Library SF book group is a fan of Priest and I felt ignorant. That is I am sure I have read his work in the past but couldn’t remember. So I asked the second-hand book owner for a Chris Priest book. He found one then told me how the author’s first wife, Lisa Tuttle, was standing in the room behind me! Coincidences? I have to believe in them. The SF / F writing world is a small world even with so much varied talent.

Steve Upham organised the art show this year. Andy Bigwood is an artist I have admired in the past and would pay good money to have his blend of photo-realism and creative painting (digital and paintbrush) grace the covers of my books. Chatting to him he wondered if I would be part of a project in which writers would add a 300-word-story to one of his paintings. I readily agreed. I recall doing something similar for Ultraverse. I wrote a story in which time changed velocity with height. Here it is. Ah, that reminds me, I must sketch out a draft for Andy. His website is here.

I only stayed at FantasyCon for a few hours on Saturday – so much packed in. Brilliant.