Song of the Living Dead

Rating:
Summary: suprising for a book in this genre
Review:
This book is full of good ideas and reads like it was written by a real writer with something on his mind instead of just a gore-hound. It's creepy but it's hilarious once in a while. Great, great ending, caught me totally off guard and brought the book to a new level. Not like anything I've read, and a welcome change from repetitive shoot-stab-and-run-away books in this genre.

Rating:
Summary: Not for the Zombie Lover
Review: As a huge fan of the Romero tales, I am disappointed. First, this book reads like a documentary. While it is an interesting idea, it makes this particular story drag. (Note: this story is little more then one hundred pages) Next, these characters are on the road by choice, not survival. I was looking to be on the edge of my seat, then I realized not only are these zombies not chasing people, they aren't biting. Despite my boredom, I continued to read in hopes of finding something interesting in this thing called satire. While a can appreciate satire, I did not find anything interesting here.

Rating:
Summary: A smart zombie story for once
Review: Except for a conclusion that might tick off some people, this is a consistently clever take on the living dead scenario. It's told mostly in interviews with people who survived two waves of zombie uprisings, one mostly harmless, the second one violent. But the only thing predictable about the story is its traditional use of a group of very different characters coming together to defend themselves. In this case, they're very peaceful people who are forced to reneg on their pacifism in order to survive. The book is very funny in some places, very sad in others. Gore is secondary to what the zombies inflict on the minds of the characters and on America overall, which reacts to the situation in crazy ways. The author's liberal views are always apparent (too apparent maybe) but the book is a lot of, dare I say it, fun. A strange word to use for such a bleak story, but it's true.

Rating:
Summary: A great tribute to the genre!
Review: I really thought this book was greatly entertaining, it's a perfect story for those who like the George Romero zombie series or any other zombie stories. The writer obviously has a lot of affection for the genre even as he satirizes it. The story is interesting, the style really unusual and effective. Limited scares, but a shock or two.

Rating:
Summary: Not what you're expecting
Review: I've read a lot of zombie novels, and this one's not bad, not great, sort of in-between, pretty literary, not much violence except for one good scene at the end. It's about more than zombies, and that's all I can say. If you're looking for gore or horror, this is not the book to get. It's all more of a metaphor.

Rating:
Summary: Stumbling, shuffling, moaning.......
Review: It's always a kick when a book's title is slowly revealed to be more clever than you think, and this one delivers on that level in more than one way. It refers at first to a freakish acoustical trick emerging from the mouth of a zombie, then to a sad documentary being made by one of the minor characters, and finally to the universe's strange marriage of beauty and horror, which the narrator fights to come to terms with. The book itself often edges toward real depth, which is virtually unheard of in this genre, but in the end the author has really only dipped his toe in the water. The characters move from locale to locale, situation to situation, seeing and feeling things that are invariably compelling, while all along there is a sense that Narnia is not wholly committed to really taking the book to the places it has the potential to go. He's all about moments, not the sum of the whole. There are about a dozen images in the book of real power, not a bad ratio for a work only 115 pages long. It's all more of a pop cinematic experience than a literary one, however. The ending, while intellectually potent, has only a muted effect on the emotions because there simply hasn't been enough time to know and identify with the characters. They remain likeable cutouts, recognizable but distant. Kudos for a smart book that gives you more and more to muse upon as it goes along, combined with an impressive way with words. But there are few things more frustrating than a story that keeps dangling greatness in front of you only to add up to relatively little.