If you were visiting the site back in July, you remember our
release coverage of an all new anthology, from award winning editor
Christopher Golden, called 21st Century Dead. If you weren't, then I suggest you go back
and read our Roundtable discussion (1 and 2) and catch the free excerpt “A Mother’s Love,” from John M. McIlveen and Criminalelement.com (registration required).
Well, the book is now available for public consumption and
it’s a damn fine time for a review…
21st Century Dead is a perfect follow-up to 2010’s
game changing splash The New Dead—which is currently one of the most and
highest rated zombie anthologies on Goodreads.com—wherein you will find a nice,
tasty assortment of today’s freshest zombie varieties mixed in with a dash of
the classic Romero-style Shambler.
Golden’s introduction, "Zombies are Good for You," is a well-crafted prelude to exactly the
kinds of things you’ll find inside the book and why he chose to include them.
He then steps back and lets you wander through the graveyard he’s created by
combining both seasoned veterans of the genre and promising new comers. The writing
is fantastic, and right from the very first story, you know why he’s been
nominated six times for a Stoker (and won, both on his own and as part of a
group) and twice for the Shirley Jackson. He has one of the best eyes in the
business for top-quality, captivating work and he’s not about to get out of the
habit.
The party gets started with Mark Morris’ story “Biters”
where a little girl comes face to face with the father she thought she’d lost
years ago and then Morris does something not even the most seasoned zombie reader will
expect.
Orson Scott Card picks up the ball and drives it toward the
goal in his story “Carousel,” which takes me back to my childhood days of “The
Twilight Zone” and pulls the God card in a way I’ve never seen before.
Stephen Susco fumbles just slightly with “The Drop” before
Brian Keene and the Stephanie Crawford/Duane Swierczynski duo recover and carry it right into
the home territory with “Couch Potato” and “Tender as Teeth,” respectively.
for the MVP, though, I have it as a dead heat between Jonathan Maberry’s "Jack and Jill," a troubling tale of what constitutes “dead” in Stebbins County, Pennsylvania, and
Thomas E. Sneigoski’s seriously unbelievable “Ghost Dog and Pup: Stay.”
Other notable entries include S.G. Browne's "Reality Bites," "Antiparalellogram" by Amber Benson, and the one-of-a-kind "Why Mothers let their Babies Watch Television: a Just-So Horror Story" by Chelsea Cain.
Considering you should be able to land the paperback
for right around ten bucks, there is no way you could ever go wrong dropping
your hard earned cash in exchange. If audio is your
thing, you should be ready to pay about twice as much, but even for that price,
you will be very happy with your purchase. Keep your eyes on the award circuit
for 2012 horror literature, this is definitely a title you’ll be seeing more
of.
Definitely,
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