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Imagine you’ve been deployed to the Middle East, for longer than anyone dreamed would be possible when the war started. You’re finally getting to go home. It’s emergency duty in New York City, but it’s still home. There’s an epidemic. It’s everything the swine flu was feared to be and then some – extremely contagious and up to 5% lethality. There is no vaccine, which is unfortunate as some of the sick experience symptoms much like rabies – dementia, paranoia. They become … dangerous.

That’s the nightmare in which Charlie Company’s Second Platoon find themselves in Craig DiLouie’s 2010 novel Tooth and Nail. It’s a gritty take on the zombie apocalypse, fought on the streets of New York. The military framework is a natural – where else would you want to be during a zombie war than in the best funded military on Earth?

The characters aren’t cookie-cutter cannon fodder or stereotypical power-crazed officers. They react in spectrum of ways – selfish, loyal, craven, implacable. They have to contend with the tension between following orders and the prospect of having to fight other Americans that have been infected by the virus. They also face rapid breakdown in services, lack of supplies and medicine, and a public that is demanding, self-centered, and terrified. And then there are the sick people. The “Mad Dogs,” as they become known.

Zombie stories have a reputation for metaphor, and this one is no exception. It can be seen as an intense take on the morality of combat in a civilian zone, where the line between civilian and non-combatant and soldier, regular or guerrilla, erodes.

The main character is the Army itself – the culture, language, rituals, rules and tools. The individual cast members are embedded in this matrix, to such a degree that sometimes they stand out sharply, but their features sometimes fade and they move as gears in the military machine. DiLouie’s Army is detailed and believable. The reader feels as if she is there with the soldiers, often with grim humor, as they struggle to fulfill their orders amid chaos and panic.

I won’t be surprised when I hear this book has been picked up for a movie. It would be a welcome addition to the genre – an inside view of a powerful army faced with defeat from a foe that fights with tooth and nail.

Lest you think I have not been reading lately, here’s a bundle of short reviews of the latest works to stain my brain.

Foolproof, a novel by several authors, Barbara D’Amato, Jeanne M. Dams and, Mark Richard Zubro. It’s a NYC-based mystery novel, which starts out very strongly with an affecting portrait of 9/11 seen through the eyes of two Twin Towers survivors that were late for work that day. It eventually deteriorates into silliness – the main characters become 007-esque anti-terrorism globetrotters. A Bill Gates analog blackmails the president to further his scheme to take over all the oil in the world. Entertaining but doesn’t really live up to those first chapters.

Vengeance Child by Simon Clark. A nicely done horror story about a child that accompanies bad fortune. I enjoyed the dilemma the main characters found themselves in – the child is a sometimes-reluctant harbinger (or is it instigator?) of violence and death. What would you do if confronted with such a child? Is it ever right to torture or kill a child?

The Gates (of Hell are about to open/”want to peek?” or “mind the gap”) by John Connolly. I really wanted to like this book. It fits my penchant for books about heaven and hell, and it features the Hadron Super Collider. The narration is in a chatty, directly-addressing-the-reader, copiously footnoted style reminiscent of Terry Pratchett, and the episodic adventures of a young main character were evocative of L. Frank Baum. I even appreciated the production quality, the cover art, text fonts and such are quite attractive. But (you knew there was a “but” coming, didn’t you?), I fell out of love with it on footnote number 12. “It is a curious fact that small boys are more terrified of their babysitters than small girls are. In part, this is because small girls and babysitters, who are usually slightly larger girls, belong to the same species, and therefore understand each other. Small boys, on the other hand, do not understand girls, and therefore being looked after by one is a little like a hamster being looked after by a shark.” Etcetera. This big spoonful of gender essentialism, topped with a cherry of “women are some strange species that is not human” put me off. Already feeling like this book didn’t like me, I wasn’t as ready to suspend my disbelief of the stereotypes, gender insults, and general derivative nature of the story.

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker. A gothic horror masquerading as a “women’s” book. I appreciated the bluntness of the harsh story, the painful explication of a woman who has to marry her rapist, without ever directly naming it for what it is, and how the fallout from this affected an entire town. But, the first-person omniscient narration made me sea-sick. As the narrator described events and thoughts she couldn’t possibly have witnessed, I couldn’t decide if she was supposed to be making things up, or magic, or what.  The fascinating narrator was a woman with some form of giantism, and the cover made me wonder what the sociological images blog would make of it. You can have a look at their post on women’s body types as depicted on book covers  here, but the general gist of it is that even if a book is about a “large” woman, the woman pictured on the book cover will be thin. In this case, the book cover features a heavy looking mannequin.  I know the author probably had little to no input on the cover image, but still find it fascinating that the publishing house would opt for a headless mannequin rather than actually depict a large woman. Regardless of the cover art, I will be looking forward to Baker’s future books.

Not the fabulous South Korean horror/comedy movie of the same name, this is the new book from Stephanie Meyer. If Robert Heinlein had page-counts like Stephen King, and rose from the grave to re-write The Puppet Masters as a romance, this might be the book he would have ended up with.

Not having read the sparkly-vampire series, but having heard lots about it, I was not sure what to expect from Ms. Meyer’s “first book for adults.” It turned out to be the perfect book to read on a sick day, with snow and sleet falling outside. Perhaps overly long at over 600+ pages in hardcover, it was still a quick read. The main theme of the story was similar to the vampire stories – impossible love. “He’ll never love me, I’m a parasitic alien controlling his beloved girlfriend’s body! Perhaps if I try really hard and am a perfect saint, he will learn to love me the way I love him.” Seriously, that is pretty much the way it goes.

Passes the Bechdel test, presuming multiple women in one body count, as the infesting alien and her host converse constantly throughout the book, mostly about guys but also about staying alive in a post-alien-invasion world. Meyers is an effective world-builder – the theme of alien parasites isn’t a new one, but she has her own unique twists. The aliens are peaceful and even beautiful when seen outside their host bodies.

It might be an allegory – the peace-loving aliens feel justified in taking over the entire human race since the humans are so vicious and murderous to each other and the rest of the planet. Is Meyers making some point about gun control? If you let the pacifists take the guns away, the whole world will be full of boringly nice alien Democrats?

Eventually our main character alien becomes a self-sacrificing hero and probably saves the human race. It’s left wide open for a sequel or three, although it’s hard to imagine girls getting worked up about the main male love interest characters, they are both kind of jerks. Meyers seems to have a bit of a “young-woman/older-man” fetish going on here, so maybe that will attract the younger set. It’ll be harder to make your eyes shine silver than to make your skin glitter!

Who could resist science fiction with a title taken from Yeats and a cover depicting a Godzilla-like creature menacing a Rising-Sun-rayed skyline?

This melancholy wisp of a novel, only 170 pages in softcover, is the latest from James Morrow, lauded by some as the greatest sci-fi satirist currently writing. On the surface, it seems like a comedic noir satire, starring a 1940’s monster-movie actor, but the framing of the book as a memoir written on yellow legal pads turns out to be quite sad.

The story traces the alternate-universe origins of Godzilla (known as “Gorgantis” in this tale) as a secret WWII weapon the US has developed in parallel with the bomb. You’ll have to read the book to find out why the US government would need a B-movie actor to inhabit a flame-breathing lizard suit to defeat the Japanese.

I’m not particularly religious, but I’m a sucker for good books about the war between heaven and hell and the folks caught in between. This is a quality entry in that tradition.

I admit, I noticed the William Gibson blurb on the cover. I like Gibson and if he’s that enthusiastic about it, I figured I could give it a try. I was a little leery of Gibson’s characterization of it as a “dirty-ass masterpiece” – what does that mean? But I took the chance, and really enjoyed the book.

The thank-you to Tom Waits in the Acknowledgments, for permission to use lyrics, also gave me high hopes. The last time I saw someone thank Tom Waits for such permission was in a Kinky Friedman book, and it was pretty good. I was pleased to find that the lyrics Kadrey used were from “Alice,” not the “Nighthawks at the Diner” days. Not that there’s anything wrong with those days, it’s just good to see people are keeping up with the newer stuff.

Maybe Gibson thought the book was “dirty-ass” because in addition to being a writer, Kadrey likes taking pictures of women wrapped in electrical tape. But the book itself isn’t porny, it doesn’t even have any sex scenes. The main character gets involved in a movie rental business but considers the porn-addled customers losers, not role models. So, I’m not sure what Gibson was getting at.

Anyhow, the book was good. Very visual, easy to imagine it as a movie in the head. It would be entertaining as a movie on the screen, too, as long as it didn’t star Keanu Reeves. Maybe Viggo in his LoTR hair and a burnt-up leather jacket.

There are strong women characters (although I am not sure it passes the Bechdel test). Magic and alchemy. Devils, angels, violence, and did I mention Tom Waits lyrics? The only false note was the title – the “Sandman Slim” moniker doesn’t appear ’til halfway into the book, and it doesn’t seem to make sense to the main character, either. It’s his celestial lucha libre name, pinned on him by someone else and it never has much meaning for the story. The uncharitable part of my mind wonders if it’s an attempt at pulling in unsuspecting Neil Gaiman fans. The more charitable side says maybe it was a title the author had really wanted to use for years and finally he said “screw it” and pinned it on this book.

There is plenty of room for this book to become a series, and that would be just fine by me.

A short horror novel with an interesting claim to fame – self published online, it was movie optioned and picked up by a major publisher.

The story is a twist on the traditional zombie tale. In this case, the zombies are alive, self-aware, and like being zombies and feel justified in what they are doing.

It flirts with allegory but never ties it up neatly. The main character is a jerk, one of those guys who drifts along in life, feeling entitled to everything without working for any of it. He is whiny and dissatisfied, hates his wife and the kids that he doesn’t seem to understand how he acquired. Then something mysterious happens and he becomes extremely strong, and murderously violent to anyone around him who hasn’t also become a monster. A “hater.”

The scenes of violence are detailed and genuinely shocking. A girl beats her best friend to death. A spouse attacks out of the blue.  I am not sure I’d want to see all that played out on the big screen.

There are sequels in the works, so the story was left hanging at the end. It’s good enough to make me want to pick up the next ones when they come out.

A thin story of crappy people doing crappy things to each other. Fails the Bechdel test pretty thoroughly. Women characters are few, they are only for screwing, and using sex to take advantage of men.

“The guy-thing,” Dawn said. “I can’t believe you two were friends. It’s beyond me.”
“I didn’t judge him,” Foley said. “We walked the yard and kept our eyes open.”
She didn’t understand that or ever would.

Zombie stories hold a special place in the American imagination. There’s something inherently creepy about the idea of your neighbors and loved ones suddenly becoming hostile, homicidal, and hungry – but it goes much further than that. King of the genre, writer/director George Romero, has used zombie movies to comment on race relations (1968’s Night of the Living Dead), consumer culture (1978’s Dawn of the Dead), machismo and military research (1985’s Day of the Dead), terrorism (2005’s Land of the Dead), and citizen journalism (2007’s Diary of the Dead).

In his Masters of Horror entry, “Homecoming, ” director Joe Dante used dead soldiers turned zombies to shine a laser-light on voting integrity and unjust war. “Sean of the Dead” addresses pub culture and friendships. The “28 Days/28 Weeks Later…” movies address fears of genetic engineering and bio-war.

Just when you think nothing new can be said about zombies, Max Brooks (son of Hollywood legends Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft) comes along with a fresh take on the subject of catastrophic zombie infection. In his 2006 novel “World War Z,” he uses the framework of oral history and social anthropology to take a global look at the many forces in play that make international response to a zombie epidemic catastrophically slow and ineffective. The oral history framework of the novel is unusual, and allows for great flexibility in characters and settings. In the introduction, his narrator explains, “I have tried to maintain as invisible a presence as possible. Those questions included in the text are only there to illustrate those that may have been posed by readers.”

The scope of the book is huge – it moves among China, Tibet, Greece, Brazil, Barbados, Israel, Palestine, Virginia, Finland, Antarctica, Texas, Montana, Tennessee, India, Kansas, Russia, Greenland, Colorado, Southern Africa, Ireland, Ukraine, Canada, New Mexico, Vermont, Washington, California, Bohemia, Micronesia, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Chile, Nebraska, Siberia. The globetrotting narrator has access to military leaders and soldiers, doctors, scientists, a corporate criminal, a famous movie director. Each short chapter is told by one of these different characters; it’s easy to visualize the narrator sitting quietly with microphone and recorder, taking in all the different stories that build a mosaic of apocalypse. The profusion of detail and characters, from craven to heroic, weave a dense fabric. The parallels between zombie invasion and the outbreak of a global disease are inescapable.

The issues addressed are similarly broad – greed in the medico-corporate culture, bravery and stupidity in the military, authoritarian and short-sighted government policy, manipulation of the news media, movies as a source of hope, international political and religious mistrust. Some of the episodes are a bit heavy-handed, but, hey, it is a zombie story.

Hollywood’s love affair with the undead makes the rumors of director Marc Forster taking this project on no surprise. One hopes that he will find a way to retain the narrator’s relative invisibility, and maintain the episodic, interwoven, structure of the book. It’s an epic tale that could make compelling watching. In the meantime, I’ll be looking forward to Brooks’ next book.