First disclaimer: I’ve never reviewed a short story collection before, so bear with me if I miss something.

Ok, so zombies…. are not my thing, really. It kind of goes along with my not liking horror. There’s some exceptions to that rule, of course. Army of Darkness was friggin’ hilarious. And there have been others from time to time that I enjoyed. I guess it kind of goes back and forth, really.  But when you have a chance to read and review an advanced copy with contributions from the fabulous Karina Fabian… who the hell am I to pass up that chance? The Zombie Cookbook contains stories and recipes from Becca Butcher, Carla Girtman, Cinsearae Santiago, Dawn Marshallsay, Karina Fabian, Kate Sender, Lin Neiswender, Lisa Haselton, Scott Virtes, and a forward by The Zombie Cookbook, a metal band from Amsterdam.  Edited by Kim Richards, cover art by Cinsearae Santiago, and inside art by George Silliman.

Wokking Dead by Karina Fabian – This made me giggle. Neeta Lyffe, zombie exterminator extraordinaire and her partner, Ted, answer a 911 and head to a Korean restaurant to take care of the undead crisis. Karina’s story takes a very serious situation and turns it into a fun and lighthearted day on the job. There’s even a hint of romance in there. What I like most are the little details that the humor springs from.

Secret Ingredient by Lisa Haselton – Annie faces old memories and her own hatred of zombies when her husband hires a vegetarian zombie to be her assistant in the kitchen of her restaurant. This story was not quite as lighthearted as the first, but was still a good read.  Quite frankly, I’m always going to be interested in a vegetarian zombie. Isn’t one of the telling details of a zombie the fact that they want to eat brains and human flesh (do they leave the blood for vampires or fight over it)? The story touched me in a way. Annie’s attitude (and that of the human community) reminded me a lot of the US during the Reconstruction era and before the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. Clete, the vegetarian zombie is part of a minority, oppressed by the people who think they’re different, segregated from them even as they mingle, and forced to wear controlling equipment. They are different, not to be trusted (and granted, I’d say the humans have a damn good reason not to trust here, but it’s still a bit sad). And I won’t give away the ending, but it was a surprise, to me at least. I wasn’t sure whether to cheer at the end or be sad, really.

The Right Recipe by Lin Neiswender – An editor searches his e-mail for ideas for upcoming issues. Again, not quite sure whether to laugh or not at the ending here. The e-mails are funny, though, and about what I’d expect an editor at a food magazine that features zombie dishes to get. It’s an entertaining read.

Express Cuisine by Dawn Marshallsay – Ruby takes the train home and has to fight off the zombies taking it over. First thing I have to say – the present tense voice took me out of this story somewhat. I found it a little jarring. This story was fast-paced and action packed. I didn’t really get much of a sense of the characters, other than Ruby, but she’s the important one, so I guess that’s all right. The other characters sort of blended together to me into two groups: zombie and not zombie. It was well-written, but overall, this isn’t my kind of story. I did enjoy the twist ending, though. Again, didn’t see that coming.

Brain Food by Carla Girtman – Louis comes home to discover the effects of an experimental medication on his wife. Wow, we’ve got a lot of twist endings here. I should start expecting them, maybe? This is a very short story, but I enjoyed it a lot. It’s garnished with bits of humor, and again, I wasn’t expecting the ending that occurred.

A Zombie’s APB by Cinsearae Santiago – food and life from the POV of a zombie. Oh my! This story made me laugh out loud. And apparently, the way to stop the zombie apocalypse is to keep drugging ourselves up, getting plastic surgery, etc. Who would have thought? Too bad it’ll take forever for me to save up for a boob job… Seriously, though, I liked this zombie…

My Big Fat Zombie Wedding by Karina Fabian – Vida gets set up on a blind and finds true love with a zombie. This is a great ending to The Zombie Cookbook. It’s fun and funny, and while I enjoyed the parallels to the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I think it could stand just as well even if you haven’t seen the movie.

I’m not going to review the recipes here, but give them a read. They made me laugh.

How, how did the zombies treat me this time? I guess my favorites out of the group were the humorous ones, but I think they’re all a good read. If you’re a fan of zombie fiction, I would definitely recommend picking this up. Don’t try the recipes at home, though, unless you’ve got a shambling dead to feed.

Rating: (4/5)

This entry was posted on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 12:04 am and is filed under review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.