Christopher Golden assembles a myriad of assorted tales about the walking dead, all of which combine to form one of the strongest combinations of excellent authors and variations on zombies and the undead. While the entire book isn’t a complete success in adapting visions of the walking dead with engrossing characters, “The New Dead” will make a great time filler with some truly strong stories and mini-epics in one compendium. I had a great time sifting through each story and I think most fans of the walking dead will, too. These are only a few of the ones we thought warranted mentioning.
For the first story John Connelly offers up his twist on the Lazarus pit with “Lazarus” the story of a man who dies and is kept in a cave only to be brought back to life a few days later thanks to the will of his loved ones. When he discovers he’s completely lost his place in a world he’s left, he longs for death in the face of loved ones he barely recognizes anymore. Connolly’s writing is vivid and awfully sad and makes for an interesting look at the undead in more tragic form.
“What Maisie Knew” from David Liss is very reminiscent of the horror comedy “Fido” from Andrew Currie setting down on a world where the walking dead have become nothing but servants for the living, some of whom use them for sexual activities. Liss explores a man’s relationship with a “re-animate” named Maisie whose own zeal for his sexual rendezvous triggers memories that he must uncover and soon finds out the torture re-animates endure. “Closure” from Max Brooks works as sort of a separate tale for “World War Z” that clues readers in on what happened during the events of “World War Z” in case they didn’t read it, but also offers something readers of “World War Z” will not get with Brooks’ book unless they buy ‘The New Dead.” It offers closure.
Closure for whom and what? Well, it offers closure not only for the saga of “World War Z” but also for our narrator and journalist character. Throughout the story of “World War Z” the narrator/journalist of the entire epic spent the entire time running around the world learning and documenting the stories of the survivors of the great panic and what they’ve done now that the world had forever been tainted by the walking death that lumbered in to the homes and flesh of the living around them. But incidentally, we never learned about him. “Closure” is that little chunk of closure for this character once and for all from Max Brooks. Journeying to the heart of the African Queen our narrator travails in to the ship that has a business that provides closure for the rich and wealthy. What the rich and wealthy do is pay for services to re-live a time in their lives and grab on to a specimen, tailor them to fit a certain person they’ve lost and provide them closure with a staged scenario that’s genuine right down to the buttons on their shirt, allowing them a moment to grieve, say their last words, and most of all give one another closure once and for all with one last act of mercy.
“Closure” is a morbid and sick little epilogue to “World War Z” which gives our final look at the narrator as he enters the belly of the ship to the special services and finds out firsthand what closure in the new world entails… for a certain price, of course. As per typical Brooks written fare, this is a wonderful little end to the saga of the World War Z, and as someone who loved Brooks book, I have to say this was a refreshing finisher. One of the clunkers in the compilation is “Among Us” by Aimee Bender. This isn’t a short story but just a collection of random thoughts and observations. In the end I sat there wondering what I’d just read. It’s really nothing but a collection of self-important observations about humanity and how we’re all zombies underneath the skin. Zombies are programmed, as are we, zombies are creatures of habit, as are we. And for some reason she even mentions “Being John Malkovich” drawing a connection to zombies with that small anecdote. I have to say it was really nothing but a waste of time ending on a small story about an old man who was aimless after his wife left him but relied on habits programmed by his wife before abandoning him.
I was yawning most of the time and it really just felt like filler. Holly Newstein brings us “Delice,” an entertaining but sadly anti-climactic little revenge tale about a young slave girl named Delice brought back from the dead by Ava Ani, a priestess who grooms the young girl to strike back at the slave masters who killed her. After narrowly avoiding becoming their torture toys, Delice escapes their clutches and falls to her death. Ava Ani brings her back and with the help of the Erzuli demon, and summons her to wreak havoc on her slave masters. While the story is told in vivid detail, the ultimate fate of the evil slave masters is sadly fleeting reduced to some throwaway scenes that are built up for seemingly nothing. Newstein doesn’t take advantage of the comeuppance coming to these slave masters, thus “Delice” is disappointing. Brian Keene serves up his own short tragedy entitled “The Wind Cries Mary” about a man recollecting his life with his true love Mary. He explores in a short time the first time they met, their first date and how in spite of their differences managed to fall in love. When the zombie apocalypse reared its ugly face, the two managed to survive for a long time until Mary succumbed to the infection.
Visiting him every night, the zombified Mary looks out on to the house he shared his life with her in, and with a surprise ending, Keene contributes a rather heartbreaking tale of two victims of the apocalypse and how love can withstand even an ungodly infection. My favorite story of the entire anthology can only be described as a mini-epic, as much of a contradiction as that may be to most people. “Family Business” is something of a soulful and very heartbreaking look at closure and coming to grips with the walking dead. In spite of being monsters to the bone, Jonathan Maberry’s story about loss, death, and coming to terms with demons from the past is a masterful and often times subtle little bit of drama told through the scope of the zombie apocalypse. Setting down on a small time closed off from “The Rot and Ruin,” we meet the Imura brothers, one of whom named Benny a young man willing to do as little as possible to make money in a town with an economy revolving around the walking dead and survival while his brother Tom is a zombie hunter. Anxious to get Ben in to the family business, Tom anxiously persuades his little brother to join him. After months of suffering through boring jobs, Ben bitterly accepts his big brother’s offer.
Holding little respect and no consideration toward his big brother, Ben gets much more than he bargained for when he learns that his humble, quiet, and average schmuck of an older brother is much more than a simple family man. When he risks his life every week to step out of the town limits to enter the wasteland now known as “The Rot and Ruins,” his entire demeanor changes, and Ben gets a lesson in life, survival, a real man’s work, and what it means to stay human in a world that’s been consumed by cannibalistic monsters with human faces. Maberry’s writing is vivid and his dialogue absolutely profound as Ben learns more and more about his brother through travails along fields, and abandoned towns and dark houses, and by the end must learn what Tom really does as a bounty hunter during his missions, and decide once and for all if he wants to join the family business.
Truly it’s a superb little tale of two brothers connecting at the doorstep of the living dead. I loved it. “The Zombie That Fell From the Sky” from writer M.B. Hamler is basically a boring and forgettable twisted take on the zombie apocalypse with a zombie that falls from the sky and unleashes a new epidemic acting as a metaphor for God in the face of brain munching followers. While Hamler goes for dark comedy, the story is pretty much mediocre and the symbolism clunky overall. “Kids and Their Toys” by James A. Moore sets down on a small town suffering from the ensuing zombie wars that much of its residents are struggling to cope with. When a zombie appears at the local river by a group of boys, Moore composes a volatile commentary on Abu Grhaib and the torture methods we’ll inflict on the enemy we deem threatening to our home land in the face of some twisted justice. What begins as a mere game of curiosity transforms in to a sick twisted practice in sadism among a group of young boys who take delight in torturing their rotted prisoner until the very morbid finale.
The twisted topper to our anthology, “Twittering at the Circus of the Dead” is a story I had little hope for upon starting, but surely enough Joe Hill manages to surprise with what is a disturbing and truly haunting tale of a zombie circus in the middle of nowhere and one girl’s run in with it through the facet of twittering to her friends. Soon enough the fun and games of this attraction turns in to insurmountable terror, all of which involves Hill ends the entire story on a truly haunting and mind-blowing final few lines that leave the reader wondering long after they’ve closed the book. Was it a hoax? A Publicity stunt? Or is there a circus of the dead collecting performers out there beyond the roads? You have to wonder, don’t you? In “The New Dead,” anything is possible.