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Zompunk #1
STEM
Elder Tull is a Puke, one of the few left unconverted. Without a stem, he has been discarded by society. Mankind has been altered; the stem has transformed the planet. Those modified now feast directly on electricity, with no more need for food. A cybernetic device has replaced their stomachs, leaving only a power socket above the skin.
The world's food economy has collapsed. What food is left is fought over by the remaining Pukes. But mainstream, Stem society, freed from the shackles of basic sustenance, has risen to great, new heights: everyone is healthy, everyone is beautiful, everyone is thin. There's no more sickness, no more hunger. The stem regulates everything.
Until the day it all comes crashing down.
Stem: A Zombpunk Novel reinterprets the classic zombie genre with a postmodernist edge, drawing inspiration from our media obsessed, instant gratification culture, and those that find themselves living outside of it.
Zombpunk fuses the ethos of cyberpunk (high tech, low life) with survival horror. Here the ranks of the walking dead are filled with the beautiful, fit and haute couture'd. The disheveled, forgotten and despised are left to battle against the zombie menace.
When the world finally runs out of food, will the living envy the (un)dead?
The world's food economy has collapsed. What food is left is fought over by the remaining Pukes. But mainstream, Stem society, freed from the shackles of basic sustenance, has risen to great, new heights: everyone is healthy, everyone is beautiful, everyone is thin. There's no more sickness, no more hunger. The stem regulates everything.
Until the day it all comes crashing down.
Stem: A Zombpunk Novel reinterprets the classic zombie genre with a postmodernist edge, drawing inspiration from our media obsessed, instant gratification culture, and those that find themselves living outside of it.
Zombpunk fuses the ethos of cyberpunk (high tech, low life) with survival horror. Here the ranks of the walking dead are filled with the beautiful, fit and haute couture'd. The disheveled, forgotten and despised are left to battle against the zombie menace.
When the world finally runs out of food, will the living envy the (un)dead?
215 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 3, 2012
11 people are currently reading
65 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Blankley
14 books10 followersSeattle is my home and the backdrop of many of my books. I am not a detective, or a zombie, or living in an alternate version of the 21st Century, so my life and my books pretty much just overlap with the Seattle thing. If you like detectives, zombies, alternate histories, even Seattle, you might like my books. I do. I like you. There, I said it.
I’ve written over a dozen books, including the aforementioned ones about detectives and zombies and alternate histories. Did I mention Seattle? Seattle's in some of them, too.
I’ve written over a dozen books, including the aforementioned ones about detectives and zombies and alternate histories. Did I mention Seattle? Seattle's in some of them, too.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
December 17, 2013
-Ideas originales bajo formas convencionales.-
Género. Ciencia-Ficción.
Lo que nos cuenta. lder Tull comparte con Steve and Eydie un humilde refugio donde tratan de sobrevivir a la antigua usanza encontrando alimentos donde pueden para evitar seguir la tendencia social más común de usar implantes que eliminan el deseo de comer y nutren mediante energía eléctrica. A esa personas se las conoce como Stems y Steve, al ser atrapado por las fuerzas del orden público, se convierte en uno de ellos y conoce la sociedad diletante en la que viven. Primer libro de la serie Zombpunk.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com....
Género. Ciencia-Ficción.
Lo que nos cuenta. lder Tull comparte con Steve and Eydie un humilde refugio donde tratan de sobrevivir a la antigua usanza encontrando alimentos donde pueden para evitar seguir la tendencia social más común de usar implantes que eliminan el deseo de comer y nutren mediante energía eléctrica. A esa personas se las conoce como Stems y Steve, al ser atrapado por las fuerzas del orden público, se convierte en uno de ellos y conoce la sociedad diletante en la que viven. Primer libro de la serie Zombpunk.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com....
January 10, 2013
This is the first zombie novel I've ever read. I don't even consider this a zombie novel though. They don't even show up until around the last 50 pages. The rest of the novel is about a new development called a stem that is implanted into people and instead of eating, you just plug in. Plugging in also rejuvenates your body and tones your muscles while you sleep, so all "Stems" are beautiful and really don't age.
I think the reason that I couldn't really get into this book is that I really didn't like any of the characters. My least favorite was Elder Tull. He annoyed me constantly. He was not a "Stem". People who are not Stems, are called Pukes. I have no idea why. It's never explained. So back to Elder... here are some really stupid things that he does throughout the novel.
At the beginning, he is waiting for the two people that he lives with to come back with food. Only one comes back (Eydie). The other ends up stemmed (Steve). Eydie is so depressed and upset about it and she didn't bring back any food. Food is so scarce that you just live day to day and really need to search for food just to survive. So Elder decides to go get her something to eat. He finds a group giving out bread and ends up eating all of it himself. Then he goes and gets some peanut butter type thing and almost eats it all himself too. He just reminds me of like a Homer Simpson type I guess. Doh! Freaking idiot.
Then the group of Pukes give him a bomb and there is some plan that you don't really even know because halfway through it, he forgets what it is!!! Really??? I think if a bomb is involved in the plan it would be important enough to pay attention to the whole plan.
Then the last straw was at the end of the book, they are standing in the middle of the Stems trying to blend in and Elder burps. Well... Stems don't have gas because they DON'T EAT!!! So they get attacked.
Sometimes dumb characters can still be likable, but I think that I would have thrown him to the wolves. He was so annoying. I will not be reading the rest of this series. Yes, I think it's a series. What?!?
I think the reason that I couldn't really get into this book is that I really didn't like any of the characters. My least favorite was Elder Tull. He annoyed me constantly. He was not a "Stem". People who are not Stems, are called Pukes. I have no idea why. It's never explained. So back to Elder... here are some really stupid things that he does throughout the novel.
At the beginning, he is waiting for the two people that he lives with to come back with food. Only one comes back (Eydie). The other ends up stemmed (Steve). Eydie is so depressed and upset about it and she didn't bring back any food. Food is so scarce that you just live day to day and really need to search for food just to survive. So Elder decides to go get her something to eat. He finds a group giving out bread and ends up eating all of it himself. Then he goes and gets some peanut butter type thing and almost eats it all himself too. He just reminds me of like a Homer Simpson type I guess. Doh! Freaking idiot.
Then the group of Pukes give him a bomb and there is some plan that you don't really even know because halfway through it, he forgets what it is!!! Really??? I think if a bomb is involved in the plan it would be important enough to pay attention to the whole plan.
Then the last straw was at the end of the book, they are standing in the middle of the Stems trying to blend in and Elder burps. Well... Stems don't have gas because they DON'T EAT!!! So they get attacked.
Sometimes dumb characters can still be likable, but I think that I would have thrown him to the wolves. He was so annoying. I will not be reading the rest of this series. Yes, I think it's a series. What?!?
August 22, 2012
A friend recommended this to me knowing I like zombie/post apoc/horror novels & I almost didn't read it based on other reviews. I took a chance & actually really liked it. I would say it's more sci fi than horror but I think that's what makes it so unique. It's an interesting twist on how people "become" zombies & has made for some interesting discussions with my other zombie fanatic friends. Thanks Christopher Blankley for offering this at a great price (free on Nook) & for the nice email.
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April 25, 2021
My main gripe with this novel is how unbelievable it is. Science Fiction might be fiction, but all the best books are rooted firmly in science fact.
The world was very much unexplained from the start. There is a very important scientific advancement whereby humans don't need to eat any longer, they just live on electricity. This is a rather ridiculous proposition that I cannot even for a second fathom.
There is no attempt to explain how and, whilst Mary Shelley never did expressly tell us how Frankenstein gave life to his monster, science has advanced to such a point that even a vague attempt could be done. Also, why not remove the need for oxygen as well? And water, and the sugars, salts and vitamins the body needs to function successfully. I find it impossible to believe that electricity can replace all of that, even in a future with advanced science.
Beyond that, everything seems to fall to little pieces. The world and the predicament of the protagonists are unbelievable as well. Nothing is explained particularly well or formulated to create an environment that one can get in to and feel anything but skepticism.
And the zombies? Even when they did appear it took me a long time to realise that's what they were, and by then it was too late to hold any of my attention.
The world was very much unexplained from the start. There is a very important scientific advancement whereby humans don't need to eat any longer, they just live on electricity. This is a rather ridiculous proposition that I cannot even for a second fathom.
There is no attempt to explain how and, whilst Mary Shelley never did expressly tell us how Frankenstein gave life to his monster, science has advanced to such a point that even a vague attempt could be done. Also, why not remove the need for oxygen as well? And water, and the sugars, salts and vitamins the body needs to function successfully. I find it impossible to believe that electricity can replace all of that, even in a future with advanced science.
Beyond that, everything seems to fall to little pieces. The world and the predicament of the protagonists are unbelievable as well. Nothing is explained particularly well or formulated to create an environment that one can get in to and feel anything but skepticism.
And the zombies? Even when they did appear it took me a long time to realise that's what they were, and by then it was too late to hold any of my attention.
October 29, 2012
I really liked this book! I found it and recommended it to a friend who said that it had gotten terrible reviews but I wanted to give it a chance anyway and I really liked it. The twist really surprised me! I hope that Christopher Blankley writes sequel, I will definitely be reading it!
May 17, 2019
Zombpunk(book 1) Stem by Christopher Blankley
First of all; this was a thoroughly enjoyable read despite what some people see as catastrophic failure and I only see as mild speed bumps. I like the way that this started because you have this impression that there will be zombies you also get this confusion because the alleged zombies are neat, fit and civilized while the non-zombies are dirty, wretched hungry creatures who are what you mostly expect zombie's to be.
The bottom line to that is it's difficult to really see at first who is going to turn out to be the evil in this book.
Now it does seem that someone might be trying to make some new genre here- calling it ZombPunk in sync with Steam-Punk of course without steam technology and I somehow think it would have been more appropriate to call this Stem-Punk but then the whole idea of a potential for horror would be left out. As it is I'd much rather go for the title of 'The Night of Bread and Fish' although if it's going to be more than one type of fish it should be 'The Night of Bread and Fishes'
There really are no redeemable characters in this story. You have the terrorists against the pod people. I say pod people because at first they seem more like the pod people from the Body Snatchers than anything else. In fact this seemed like a quiet rework of the body snatchers with a twist that the people left are not so much pursued by the pod people as they are phased out by the lack of processed food.(Somehow they all have forgotten how to hunt and then again we don't see much in the line of repopulating the wildlife and such; so maybe that is a factor.) Anyway the Pod People do have that pod people attitude that says we're superior and if you understood that you wouldn't resist.
The book starts out reading as a comedy of errors where things snowball by little misunderstandings until you have the non-stem group becoming terrorists because they feel so threatened and you have at least one of the Stem group thinking they are targeting him because of a coincidental incident. And then you finally have the group targeting him just because.
I read this straight through in one sit and enjoyed it.
Now for the caveat. This book has a few grammar errors. My copy didn't seem to have as many as some readers have claimed. And by way of search I'm fairly confident that this copy has been corrected since those claims. There are still some problems, but it is hard even with professional editing to get them all unless your professional editor has more than two sets of eyes looking at the manuscript and even then it depends on their ability to catch everything. So there are still some errors but nothing distracting. There might still be some style choices that are suspect, but overall this copy is pretty solid.
I think that this qualifies more as good SFF for those types of fans and only the ending comes off a bit zombie-ish. Even then it still seems more pod people especially in some scenes where the pack sniffs out the normals. Overall this is great entertainment.
J.L. Dobias
First of all; this was a thoroughly enjoyable read despite what some people see as catastrophic failure and I only see as mild speed bumps. I like the way that this started because you have this impression that there will be zombies you also get this confusion because the alleged zombies are neat, fit and civilized while the non-zombies are dirty, wretched hungry creatures who are what you mostly expect zombie's to be.
The bottom line to that is it's difficult to really see at first who is going to turn out to be the evil in this book.
Now it does seem that someone might be trying to make some new genre here- calling it ZombPunk in sync with Steam-Punk of course without steam technology and I somehow think it would have been more appropriate to call this Stem-Punk but then the whole idea of a potential for horror would be left out. As it is I'd much rather go for the title of 'The Night of Bread and Fish' although if it's going to be more than one type of fish it should be 'The Night of Bread and Fishes'
There really are no redeemable characters in this story. You have the terrorists against the pod people. I say pod people because at first they seem more like the pod people from the Body Snatchers than anything else. In fact this seemed like a quiet rework of the body snatchers with a twist that the people left are not so much pursued by the pod people as they are phased out by the lack of processed food.(Somehow they all have forgotten how to hunt and then again we don't see much in the line of repopulating the wildlife and such; so maybe that is a factor.) Anyway the Pod People do have that pod people attitude that says we're superior and if you understood that you wouldn't resist.
The book starts out reading as a comedy of errors where things snowball by little misunderstandings until you have the non-stem group becoming terrorists because they feel so threatened and you have at least one of the Stem group thinking they are targeting him because of a coincidental incident. And then you finally have the group targeting him just because.
I read this straight through in one sit and enjoyed it.
Now for the caveat. This book has a few grammar errors. My copy didn't seem to have as many as some readers have claimed. And by way of search I'm fairly confident that this copy has been corrected since those claims. There are still some problems, but it is hard even with professional editing to get them all unless your professional editor has more than two sets of eyes looking at the manuscript and even then it depends on their ability to catch everything. So there are still some errors but nothing distracting. There might still be some style choices that are suspect, but overall this copy is pretty solid.
I think that this qualifies more as good SFF for those types of fans and only the ending comes off a bit zombie-ish. Even then it still seems more pod people especially in some scenes where the pack sniffs out the normals. Overall this is great entertainment.
J.L. Dobias
December 18, 2018
I quite enjoyed this book, the writing style and the perspectives. Not a usual read for me I can say I'm excited to pick up the next one.
December 19, 2018
Took a bit for the ZombieStems to get going but I'm looking forward to the next books in the series.
May 26, 2013
This book is a totally new to me premise on zombies. I wasn't expecting the ending, even though STEM is classified as a "zombie" book. I couldn't tell why until the end. The beginning is a little hard to get into, it's just a tad boring. There isn't a lot going on until somewhere towards the middle. But the beginning does well with explaining characters. I so wished there was a lot more action throughout the book. I think it would have made it so much better.
I found the reasons each character rejected being Stemmed to be really interesting. It's always interesting to note why certain people don't choose to follow the crowd. I had some trouble really feeling for any of the characters except for Elder. He and Steve/Nathan were the only ones who we got to see inside their head, so they were easier to relate to. I do wish to have learned more about the rest of the Pukes.
The idea of Stems is very science fiction, which I love. I also love that it's somewhat a dystopian novel in giving an idea of something that is based in reality and could eventually happen in the real world. Science teaches us more and more every day and we are learning new things and creating new inventions all the time.
I love all of the nicknames in the book, like Stems, Pukes, and Skinnies. It made it easy to identify groups of people and separate them from each other.
I bought up the second book, called Arrow right after I finished this one. I had to find out what was going to happen to the Pukes next!
I found the reasons each character rejected being Stemmed to be really interesting. It's always interesting to note why certain people don't choose to follow the crowd. I had some trouble really feeling for any of the characters except for Elder. He and Steve/Nathan were the only ones who we got to see inside their head, so they were easier to relate to. I do wish to have learned more about the rest of the Pukes.
The idea of Stems is very science fiction, which I love. I also love that it's somewhat a dystopian novel in giving an idea of something that is based in reality and could eventually happen in the real world. Science teaches us more and more every day and we are learning new things and creating new inventions all the time.
I love all of the nicknames in the book, like Stems, Pukes, and Skinnies. It made it easy to identify groups of people and separate them from each other.
I bought up the second book, called Arrow right after I finished this one. I had to find out what was going to happen to the Pukes next!
August 7, 2015
Despite some people really having it in for this book (and then purchasing the sequel seemingly to just give it a bad review) it is not that bad. I would be honest and say 2.8 out of 5.
It's a nice premise, and yes it calls for the suspension of disbelief but what doesn't? Wizard schools don't exist, there really is a spoon and sexy goths don't go round sucking the blood of the lost and forlorn.
Even with the sudden change of genre from cyberpunk to zombie I think it was carried off - just. Kudos though for having a pretty decent explanation as to why the zombie types need to feed on flesh.
There are some major plot holes in the backstory but it was fun, and maybe when I go on holiday I will read the sequel.
It's a nice premise, and yes it calls for the suspension of disbelief but what doesn't? Wizard schools don't exist, there really is a spoon and sexy goths don't go round sucking the blood of the lost and forlorn.
Even with the sudden change of genre from cyberpunk to zombie I think it was carried off - just. Kudos though for having a pretty decent explanation as to why the zombie types need to feed on flesh.
There are some major plot holes in the backstory but it was fun, and maybe when I go on holiday I will read the sequel.
December 31, 2015
I thought this was a really interesting take on zombies with a good cyberpunk-ish spin. If you're reading for zombie stuff all day everyday from the get go, this isn't for you; there's a lot of story before the zombies ever come to be. This is also a trilogy, so I'm imagining there will be more zombies in the second and third installments.
I thought the concepts for the zombies were well-explained too. there was no real question left as to how or why the people were undead or why they became cannibalistic/started eating.
There were some typos/small editing issues, but I have come to expect these from eBooks. Read through them and get on with it. None of them left me confused or unsure of what the author meant.
All in all, for $1.50 for all three eBooks on Amazon, how can I say no?
I thought the concepts for the zombies were well-explained too. there was no real question left as to how or why the people were undead or why they became cannibalistic/started eating.
There were some typos/small editing issues, but I have come to expect these from eBooks. Read through them and get on with it. None of them left me confused or unsure of what the author meant.
All in all, for $1.50 for all three eBooks on Amazon, how can I say no?
September 18, 2012
Somewhere between 2 and 3 stars.
Once I was able to get past the typos/wrong words and suspend my disbelief on several major issues I enjoyed the ride. Interesting concept.
Once I was able to get past the typos/wrong words and suspend my disbelief on several major issues I enjoyed the ride. Interesting concept.
May 29, 2013
A really interesting take on the zombie idea, but would have been more interesting as an allegory. Although the cannibalism of these zombies is explained, the undead status is weaker and I can't help feeling it would have been better without this element.
All in all, though, it is an interesting take on the social dynamics of acceptance and uptake of new technologieS (I stoutly refuse to get an iPhone, and I swear some of my friends think I'm a braindead outsider because of it!)
Worth a read, and I'll be checking out the next installment!
All in all, though, it is an interesting take on the social dynamics of acceptance and uptake of new technologieS (I stoutly refuse to get an iPhone, and I swear some of my friends think I'm a braindead outsider because of it!)
Worth a read, and I'll be checking out the next installment!
June 11, 2013
Nice concept, I like how they handled it, though at the end changing the name from stems to skinnies and then back again seemed a little pointless. I read this last night and finished the last (chapter?) today. I read it on the Kindle program on my computer since I could get it for free.
July 24, 2012
Original and gritty. Something different from the zombie genre. If it had not had zompunk in the title, the zombie element would have come as a complete surprise. Great stuff, read it.
October 3, 2014
Loved the different approach on zombies and the social statement this makes.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews