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Title: History Is Dead: A Zombie Anthology
ISBN: 0978970799
Author:
Scott A. Johnson
Publicate Date: 2007-12-01
Publish: 2007-12-01
List Price: $14.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $13.46
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $18.03
Amazon Merchant Price: $13.46
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Great read, looking for book 2
Loved the book! The story about how the Chicago fire started was a hoot! Wasn't expecting such a variety of zombie stories, they were all written very well. Will there be a book #2?
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2: Unsatisfying
I had very high hopes for this books. As a lover of zombie fiction, these short stories should have been right up my ally. Unfortunately, all to many of them miss.
The stories are nearly uniformly poorly conceived. While some are written fairly well, the basis of the stories are un-interesting or go in unsatisfying directions. There are a few stories, such as 'The Reluctant Prometheus' that started fairly interesting, but the execution fell off.
I have to admit that I started to pay less attention as I went on through the stories, and most likely did not give the later ones their proper due. This is a fault of the editor, as the stories should have been picked to have an attention grabber near the beginning, not a snoozer.
While I love zombie fiction, I can not recommend this book. The stories weren't all bad, there are some decent tales, but overall this collection is uniformly unsatisfying to the reader.
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3: Zombies Just Want to Have Fun
Clever, innovative twists on the Zombie genre. Lots of great historical/biographical fun thrown in. Haven't enjoyed zombies this much since watching the 1940's Zombies on Broadway.
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4: Boring, and most disappointing
I was expecting a lot from the originality of the subject of this book: zombies might have come and gone, but they have always been around mankind in history. Being fond of both History and zombies, I found the mix of these themes quite appealing and I was looking forward to receiving the ordered copy of this book. Upon completing my reading of it, my disappointment was proportional to my earlier expectations. For the most part, it's an empty shell, a collection of hastily written short stories, with perhaps one or two key exceptions. I am thinking about "Pegleg and Paddy Save The World" (by Jonathan Maberry), which is like gold in the middle of mere coal. The story, in terms of both humor and theme, cracked me up like nothing else, bringing tears of laugh to my eyes. Read for yourselves the story about these two hardcore, poisonous whiskey-making rednecks from Chicago and their cow, their aunt Sophie and their not-so-reliable customers... A pure gem! In a different style, "The Hell Soldiers" by Juleigh Howard-Hobson, is also interesting. The setting (US Civil War), the main character and the unfolding of events is quite good, as is the overall atmosphere of the scene. This short story would deserve a longer, book-sized version to become meaningful.
As for the rest of the stories, it is simply appalling. There is no lesson, no underlying message, action is almost non-existent and some of the stories are just neither entertaining nor pleasant to read. At no point in the reading did I feel involved in the subject. One of the bugging things is that, depending on authors, zombies are described so differently from one story to the other that this collection of mini-stories shows a lack of cohesion and homogeneity. Some of the story plots are also laughable, edging on pathetic: this story about stage comedians turning into zombies is one such boring example. Some others are so poorly written that whatever message -or any action for that matter- they contain gets lost in the reader's struggle to grasp the author's verbose intent.
Quite simply put, there is very little entertainment or value in this book. Looks like it was hastily produced, written and released, whereas the theme of the book could have been a real hit. To be avoided, or to read with a reduced level of expectation.
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5: Can I say wow?
My question above really explains it all. After reading this anthology, all I could think to myself was, wow. It was amazing overall. There were stories that annoyed me (by making me think about them in the middle of the day), and there were stories that were just fun as hell to read. All in all, KP did an excellent job of sorting and building a great book of great authors.
Anything else to add?
Yes! When is History is Dead 2 supposed to come out? Because I'll have that ready for preorder.
Blue.
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