This literary introduction to Spooky Month won't be all King.
A couple years back a kind and generous family member had bestowed upon me a gift card to a major book retailer. It's always been known in my family that I was a voracious reader, a fact that has always been embraced and cultivated. What was not known, however, was that as my tastes developed they also tended to turn and decay ever so slightly. While I would whip through my high school homework with ease I would also find the weirdest and most divergent books to make my mind stretch and expand. In college, in addition to carving out time for philosophy texts, I would also devote too much of my time indulging in schlock and pulp, loads of comics and King. Sure, some of it was to blow off steam after exams or kill time on flights before the days of iPads. But let's be honest here, people - I love a good ol' grimy horror story. So when I was looking through the nationally known purveyor of the written word, I stumble upon something I had to have. It was awesome. It was huge. It was all about zombies.
The Living Dead collection, compiled and edited by John Joseph Adams, is a massive tome. Touting contributors from all over the spectrum, there are some big names between the covers. King makes an appearance, naturally, as does his son, Joe Hill. They're almost expected, sure, but there are also fantastic tales from the likes of Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, George R.R. Martin, even Poppy Brite. The authors here are all at their freewheeling best, writing unconstrained by potentially offended or sensitive palates. The stories are all unflinching and raw, the plots and backdrops going for gusto. It's not a collection of essays on the first time they saw a scary movie. No, these are stories that delve deep into the meat of a good zombie tale - horrible, unspeakable (but well written) things happen. Worlds perish. People are c. It's grimy. It's gritty. It's hard to enjoy while eating dinner.
The stories are all unique and all strong enough to stand on their own. King's is a collection of all his hallmarks - your classic Romero-type outbreak in a small island town in Maine, complete with ordinary people dealing with horrendous things. Gaiman's is also identifiably his, with lots of quirks of humanity and touches of personality that make the scenes and people come to life, despite the overwhelming presence of death. There's a fascinating examination of the potential abuse of the political system in light of the deceased being granted the right to vote. The implications of Dale Bailey's story are mind blowing, it's a must-read for anyone interested in our current political mess, let alone fans of the undead. The tragic and heartbreaking tale of adolescent influence, 'The Dead Kid' by Darrell Schweitzer, still stays with me now, a moving and disturbing piece of fiction. George R. R. Martin paints huge vistas of dying and decaying worlds, telling a story of machinery and tech gone inhuman.
I have to say this book is unlike anything else I've ever read. I picked it up years before the whole zombie resurgence reared up. Now we have critically acclaimed television series, more video games than I can count and legions of films celebrating this micro genre of horror. While it was definitely ascending at the time, it was not the omnipresent force that it is today. I'm not claiming some 'cooler than the fad, in before it was popular' hipsterism, I'm just explaining that it was an eye opening gift from the world of fiction to have such an awesomely brutal collection of stories like The Living Dead. Give it a read, if you can stomach it. Just don't read it while you eat your lunch at the office. You might end up a vegetarian.
A couple years back a kind and generous family member had bestowed upon me a gift card to a major book retailer. It's always been known in my family that I was a voracious reader, a fact that has always been embraced and cultivated. What was not known, however, was that as my tastes developed they also tended to turn and decay ever so slightly. While I would whip through my high school homework with ease I would also find the weirdest and most divergent books to make my mind stretch and expand. In college, in addition to carving out time for philosophy texts, I would also devote too much of my time indulging in schlock and pulp, loads of comics and King. Sure, some of it was to blow off steam after exams or kill time on flights before the days of iPads. But let's be honest here, people - I love a good ol' grimy horror story. So when I was looking through the nationally known purveyor of the written word, I stumble upon something I had to have. It was awesome. It was huge. It was all about zombies.
