As editor Jonathan Maberry points out in his introduction to the new anthology, Nights of the Living Dead (St. Martin’s Griffin; Trade; ISBN 125011224As editor Jonathan Maberry points out in his introduction to the new anthology, Nights of the Living Dead (St. Martin’s Griffin; Trade; ISBN 1250112249), George A Romero’s groundbreaking 1968 film was a shock to people who had never seen anything quite like the unnamed monsters laying siege to an Evans City farmhouse. These creatures would go on to be called Zombies (Romero called them Ghouls) and start a trend that saturates media to this day. Books on the folklore and psychology of the living dead are everywhere. The monster fascinates us. Our culture revels in the "What if..?" of finding ourselves in the middle of such an outbreak.
Like any monster, however, over-exposure tends to diminish their fear factor. We all know by now that zombies are (or should be) slow and can be put down with a shot to the head (unless they are the Russo zombies from the Return series or… wait, I digress) and if we’re fans of the genre, we’ve already planned our escape and worked out our home defense strategy. Brilliant storytellers have taken the genre into new realms of possibility, putting us in every possible peril against the zombie menace.
The story of our survival drives the narrative. People, usually, are the focus of the zombie story, not the monsters (I know there are exceptions). When zombie movies and stories fail, it is because they rely on the gore of the monsters and the gruesome kills to drive interest, reducing the cast of living characters to a one-dimensional menu of inevitable victims. Even when the narrative POV is the zombie itself, there is an emotional arc as we find in Dead of Night (by Maberry) and Warm Bodies by NsOTLD contributor Isaac Marion.
With so many stories and takes on the monster and the genre, it is difficult to make zombies terrifying and fresh (so to speak) in the way they seemed so long ago when NOTLD bowed in theaters.
This anthology, I am thrilled to write, succeeds. Maberry has assembled an all-star team of genre veterans and horror masters, each presenting a master class to writers and literary nerds like me in how to tell a truly frightening tale. Even if you read or write a lot of zombie fiction as I do, this collection will give you chills.
As a longtime reader in the genre, producer of a zombie horror audio series, and fan of both Maberry's fiction and Romero’s movies, I was thrilled to learn that this collection would be set, specifically in the world of Romero’s films. It's also a bit strange to consider the specificity of that world because the films span four decades, set in the "modern day", but treated as direct sequels pretending the previous film took place shortly before or concurrent to the first. However, this provides authors more room to play in Romero's universe (or multiverse, however you want to see it.)
It is a thrill to look back at those original characters and situations from different perspectives as we do with "The Girl on the Table" by Marion and “The Day After” by John A. Russo. But it is also exciting to move to other locations and encounter different characters dealing with their end of the world propositions.
These stories reflect many of the reasons why people fear zombie stories. Our fear transcends the horrible notion of being eaten alive or becoming a flesh-craving monster. Zombies represent our deeper dread about change in our lives, our relationships, our health, our world, and that ultimate change at our personal end of days – death. In this way, zombies are very real because one day we will all look up and see the world has changed irrevocably, turned ugly and hostile and we fight the rest of our lives to avoid being consumed or absorbed into its ranks. That’s a feeling that applies regardless of if you’re young and resisting the call of adulthood conformity or an adult resisting the onset of physical and intellectual obsolescence. One of the best of these stories is Keith R.A. DeCandido’s “Live and on the Scene” which offers both the media’s witness account of the initial spread of the dead and a simple, yet heart-breaking tale about of death, family, heritage, and loyalty.
These stories are about how we struggle to survive while preserving bits of the world that is dying. They also speak to how we cope with death and change. Zombies, themselves, are a rather dull adversary. Nights of the Living Dead recognizes this and drives conflict through realistic, intriguing character stories. Introspective stories like “Fast Entry” by Jay Bonansinga and broader ensemble tales like "Williamson's Folly" by David J Schow rely on fascinating, different, and well-rendered characters orbiting a personal or interpersonal conflict while making the best use of the Romero mythos.
Each story approaches the Romero brand of zombie monster (not to be confused with the John A. Russo spin-off series which uses different rules) and weaves it into the author’s own brand of horror with generally breathtaking results. Stories range from the full-throttle bad-ass Texas horror of Joe R. Lansdale’s “Dead Man’s Curve” to the Byronesque poetry of Mike Carey’s tale “In that Quiet Earth.” Between there are fresh and inventive tales of madness, intrigue, and adventure that rarely stray into the familiar tropes or overdo the familiar pattern of survival horror tales.
We are not, I'm pleased to say, stuck moving from one fortress to another engaging in the interpersonal intrigue while the monsters close in. So many zombie short stories start with running and end up somewhere the characters can engage in some tired tale of revenge or madness. Carrie Ryan's "The Burning Days" comes close to this, but the setting is handled in an inventive way. This brings me to my only, significant disappointment with the collection because it uses that trope poorly and has other issues:
If there is any story that feels out of place it is Russo’s “The Day After” which is an adaptation of a screenplay excerpt co-written by Romero continuing the events of the original film into the direct sequel. It is, to me, the weakest entry of the lot. While an interesting extension of the original tale, it reads like a script summary, often in passive voice, and devoid of any of the passion or tension that is consistent throughout the rest of the stories. It has the feeling of a story stuck in an early draft, an artifact from a late author's estate with a commentary on the greatness to which it aspired but would never be realized. That is the only excuse I can think of to present such a tale among so many great entries. Of course, Russo was there at the beginning and he is royalty in the Kingdom of the Zombies so I understand why he appears in the anthology.
Having read both the book and listened to the audio, I have a profound respect for the quality of the work performed and produced by Skyboat Media. The voice talent is excellent and the production values – particularly in the fullcast-style digital-epistolary tale “Orbital Decay” by David Wellington – are outstanding. I highly recommend buying the book AND downloading the unabridged audio....more
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