A Christmas Carol II: Contagion

by Bruno Vincent, Charles Dickens

Much has changed since the three ghosts came to visit—kindly Scrooge and bad-tempered Cratchit are now partners, Tiny Tim is a drunkard jailbird, and the dead are walking the streets, in this affectionate satire  On Christmas Eve, seven years to the day after the unexpected arrival of three grim apparitions, another fell visitor calls on Ebenezer Scrooge. In one, a pair of hands had risen from the earth and were placed palm-down on the snow as thought to haul the rest of their invisible body up by force. Turning to look for an escape in the opposite direction, Scrooge came face to face with a cadaver blackened by rot not six feet away, arching its back out of the ground from the waist up, its mouth open in a silent scream, whether from the effort to extricate itself or from some deeper spiritual agony, Scrooge did not wish to discover. At every turn in every corner, shapes were pulling themselves up from the earth. The graveyard was rising.

215 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2011

About the author

Bruno Vincent was a bookseller and book editor before he was an author. His humour books for grown-ups, co-authored with Jon Butler, were national bestsellers and have been translated into seven languages. The TUMBLEWATER books are his first for children.

Reviews

[[ J o ] · Rating 1 out of 5]

A mash-up story of the classic Dickens tale A Christmas Carol, where Ebenezer has just gotten rid of the ghosts but finds zombies in their place.

There's been quite a few mash-up novels of late (Android Karenina and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies): the main theme of them is that it's a beloved classic rewritten with a supernatural or horror bend.

This one was just a bit meh. I thoroughly enjoyed the description of one of the characters being "built like a brick privy" but other than that, not a lot going for it. A thin plot, borrowed characters (obviously) with 2D personalities and little or no horror to speak of (except, you know, for the Zombies and the killing and stuff, yawn).

I bought this five minutes before I met up with a friend who was going to try on wedding dresses. That's what I remember, not the book.


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[Dane Cobain · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is written by Bruno Vincent, who I mostly know for his entertaining spins on the Famous Five books in which they’re quitting the booze or going on strategy away days, and this book is very much in a similar vein except it reimagines Dickens with a horror twist.

Presented as a sequel to the original A Christmas Carol, we re-join Scrooge in the midst of a zombie invasion in Victorian London. He teams up with an American guest who brought a bunch of heavy weaponry with him, and together they go off to tackle the zombie hordes while rescuing a fair maiden and teaming up with a mad scientist and his hapless servant.

It was a fun, easy read with some pretty cool illustrations to go with it, but I was expecting to enjoy it more than I did. I’m not sure if t hat’s really something that I can blame Vincent for though, because he set himself a pretty hard task to begin with by taking on such a beloved book and then adding zombies, which everyone knows are super awesome. And I’m still glad I read it.

[Samantha · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this would be funny, but it was not. Too stupid to finish.

[Gary Vassallo · Rating 2 out of 5]

An average read. A couple of times I became enthralled but these periods were short lived and overall I was disappointed in the book.

[Dawn Quixote · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5* for what should have been an entertaining short story but was dragged out unnecessarily. Entertaining zombie shenanigans let down by uncomfortable "relationship" (mercifully cut short).