false The novel doesn't add much to the cover, but it'll make a good stocking-filler. 0 2009-10-23T09:38:56-07:00 1486666 376 2009-10-23T09:38:56-07:00 Queen Victoria as Buffy the Vampire Slayer... 0 2009-10-21T00:26:37-07:00 1475112 80 2009-10-21T00:26:37-07:00 3 1 false false Fri Oct 23 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 05 00:02:28 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 25 02:58:02 -0700 2009
The cover of this book is fantastic, but not to be trusted. For one thing, we only see young Vicki in this book, not the older lady of the cover. Then there's the magnificent tag line: "She loved her country. She hated zombies." But it's over three hundred pages into the book before she meets one, and even then she only spends about seven pages fighting them in total, being mostly occupied by werewolves. Clearly the zombie angle has been (smartly) played up for commercial reasons.

This is lightly plotted Kim-Newman-lite fun. Very little of the plot is resolved by the end, and there's often a sense of characters being moved around the board like chess pieces, but those characters are written with wit, in particular Lord Quimby and his dead manservant Perkins. Though you don't have to read it to get its best joke, there are others, such as the monster hunters called Hicks, Vasquez and Hudson. Don't be too disappointed if this turns up in your Christmas stocking.]]>