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Mountain Dead
Mountain Dead takes a look at the dark side of Appalachia, where the Undead walk, driven by old magic and worse, their hunger for us.
Almost Heaven…or is it?
The mountain's enduring beauty holds something dark. Something dreadful. Something hungry for our flesh, our brains. Something dead yet not quite dead, driven by magic as old as the coal seams and the hills.
This chapbook is supplemental material from the anthology Appalachian Undead edited by Eugene Johnson and Jason Sizemore. For more great stories like the four below, check out Appalachian Undead.
Table of Contents
Deep Underground -- Sara M. Harvey
Unto the Lord a New Song -- Geoffrey Girard
Let Me Come In -- Lesley Conner
And It'll Haunt Me (For Long Days to Come) -- K. Allen Wood
Almost Heaven…or is it?
The mountain's enduring beauty holds something dark. Something dreadful. Something hungry for our flesh, our brains. Something dead yet not quite dead, driven by magic as old as the coal seams and the hills.
This chapbook is supplemental material from the anthology Appalachian Undead edited by Eugene Johnson and Jason Sizemore. For more great stories like the four below, check out Appalachian Undead.
Table of Contents
Deep Underground -- Sara M. Harvey
Unto the Lord a New Song -- Geoffrey Girard
Let Me Come In -- Lesley Conner
And It'll Haunt Me (For Long Days to Come) -- K. Allen Wood
74 pages, ebook
First published June 9, 2013
11 people are currently reading
330 people want to read
About the author
Jason Sizemore
120 books115 followersI was born the son of an unemployed coal miner in a tiny Kentucky Appalachian villa named Big Creek (population 400). It’s an isolated area with beautiful rolling hills, thick forests, and country folk. I lived in Big Creek until I went to college, spending my weekends cruising the Winn Dixie parking lot of ladies, partying in my cousin’s run-down three room trailer, and being a member of the bad-ass Clay County High School Academic Team.
College was quite a shock for me. Girls! Minorities! Strip clubs! And it didn’t help that I attended Transylvania University, a fairly snotty (but excellent) private college in Lexington, KY (on scholarship… no way my family could have sent me otherwise). I graduated in the standard four years with a degree in Computer Science.
Since 1996, I’ve worked for evil corporations (IBM), dot com dreamers (eCampus.com), The Man (both city and state government), and for The Kids (KY Dept. of Education), and assholes (lots and lots of assholes).
In 2004, I decided my life was boring, that I no longer needed disposable income, and I needed to increase my stress levels. I started Apex Publications, a small press publisher of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. At first it was just a small print zine, then a pro-level online zine, then books, and then ebooks.
I edit anthologies, mostly for Apex (because I’m a control freak). I occasionally do copy editing (when pressed) and have done plenty of acquisition editing over the years.
I also write. I don’t really write enough to leave a mark, but it seems to go well when I do put pen to paper.
Miscellaneous facts about me: left-handed, blue eyes, super geeky, hillbilly accent, near-sighted, and typically in a goofy mood.
Also, and most importantly, I’m not the drunkard all those Facebook photos makes me out to be. It just happens that cameras are always around when I… have libations. Honest!
College was quite a shock for me. Girls! Minorities! Strip clubs! And it didn’t help that I attended Transylvania University, a fairly snotty (but excellent) private college in Lexington, KY (on scholarship… no way my family could have sent me otherwise). I graduated in the standard four years with a degree in Computer Science.
Since 1996, I’ve worked for evil corporations (IBM), dot com dreamers (eCampus.com), The Man (both city and state government), and for The Kids (KY Dept. of Education), and assholes (lots and lots of assholes).
In 2004, I decided my life was boring, that I no longer needed disposable income, and I needed to increase my stress levels. I started Apex Publications, a small press publisher of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. At first it was just a small print zine, then a pro-level online zine, then books, and then ebooks.
I edit anthologies, mostly for Apex (because I’m a control freak). I occasionally do copy editing (when pressed) and have done plenty of acquisition editing over the years.
I also write. I don’t really write enough to leave a mark, but it seems to go well when I do put pen to paper.
Miscellaneous facts about me: left-handed, blue eyes, super geeky, hillbilly accent, near-sighted, and typically in a goofy mood.
Also, and most importantly, I’m not the drunkard all those Facebook photos makes me out to be. It just happens that cameras are always around when I… have libations. Honest!
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 10, 2014
From the Description:
Mountain Dead takes a look at the dark side of Appalachia, where the Undead walk, driven by old magic and worse, their hunger for us.
Almost Heaven…or is it?
The mountain's enduring beauty holds something dark. Something dreadful. Something hungry for our flesh, our brains. Something dead yet not quite dead, driven by magic as old as the coal seams and the hills.
This chapbook is supplemental material from the anthology Appalachian Undead edited by Eugene Johnson and Jason Sizemore. For more great stories like the four below, check out Appalachian Undead.
Table of Contents
Deep Underground -- Sara M. Harvey
Unto the Lord a New Song -- Geoffrey Girard
Let Me Come In -- Lesley Conner
And It'll Haunt Me (For Long Days to Come) -- K. Allen Wood
The stories in this chapbook were really enjoyable. Let Me Come In was a great new take on the three little pigs. Deep Underground poses the question of what might be buried under the town cemetery. Unto The Lord A New Song makes you look at the church choir in a new way. And It'll Haunt Me (For Long Days To Come) gives you a look at the evidence found on a cell phone video. My only complaint was that the book was too short! I'll be checking out the Appalachian Undead soon! You can pick this little gem on Amazon for free right now! Go grab this 4 star read!
Mountain Dead takes a look at the dark side of Appalachia, where the Undead walk, driven by old magic and worse, their hunger for us.
Almost Heaven…or is it?
The mountain's enduring beauty holds something dark. Something dreadful. Something hungry for our flesh, our brains. Something dead yet not quite dead, driven by magic as old as the coal seams and the hills.
This chapbook is supplemental material from the anthology Appalachian Undead edited by Eugene Johnson and Jason Sizemore. For more great stories like the four below, check out Appalachian Undead.
Table of Contents
Deep Underground -- Sara M. Harvey
Unto the Lord a New Song -- Geoffrey Girard
Let Me Come In -- Lesley Conner
And It'll Haunt Me (For Long Days to Come) -- K. Allen Wood
The stories in this chapbook were really enjoyable. Let Me Come In was a great new take on the three little pigs. Deep Underground poses the question of what might be buried under the town cemetery. Unto The Lord A New Song makes you look at the church choir in a new way. And It'll Haunt Me (For Long Days To Come) gives you a look at the evidence found on a cell phone video. My only complaint was that the book was too short! I'll be checking out the Appalachian Undead soon! You can pick this little gem on Amazon for free right now! Go grab this 4 star read!
May 19, 2014
Apparently this little collection is a subset of a larger anthology. And if the quality of these stories is any indication, that will be an anthology I plan to hunt down and enjoy. The stories could not be more different from each other - all tending towards darker tones & subject matter, yet all very readable and surprisingly entertaining. Even laugh out loud funny at times.
September 1, 2013
This has three very good stories and one not so good. As a chapbook, that's enough to justify three stars.
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May 22, 2014
While I wouldn't put any of these among my favourite stories, it was a really enjoyable little book all the same, with a really wide variety of tones, settings and styles for a book with such a narrow focus.
September 3, 2022
Admit it. When you hear the title Mountain Dead, you immediately start thinking of a zombie Deliverance, don't you? As S.G. Browne writes in his introduction to Appalachian Undead (to which this is a companion), there is a definite "stereotype of the region as poor and desolate and culturally backward" that fiction has done as much to perpetuate as to dispel.
Some of the stories in both collections are far removed from that stereotype, but others absolutely wallow in it - sometimes to the point of self-parody. Faced with the difficult task of playing to reader expectations, while still being respectful to the inhabitants of the region - living, dead, and undead - editors Eugene Johnson and Jason Sizemore have done a good job of collecting stories from both ends of the spectrum.
As for the zombies themselves, they run the full gamut from mindless shuffling to fast-moving aggression, and everything in between.
'Unto the Lord a New Song' by Geoffrey Girard seemed like an interesting story with lots of potential, but lost me with its stream-of-consciousness narrative and lack of structure; and 'Let Me Come In' by Lesley Conner was a fun (and twisted) take on the traditional fairy tale.
For the most part, these are simple horror stories, with no attempt at social commentary or heavy-handed messaging, and that's just fine with me. Nothing really wowed me to the point where I felt compelled to rush out and read everything a contributor has written, but I definitely came away entertained.
Originally reviewed at Beauty in Ruins
Some of the stories in both collections are far removed from that stereotype, but others absolutely wallow in it - sometimes to the point of self-parody. Faced with the difficult task of playing to reader expectations, while still being respectful to the inhabitants of the region - living, dead, and undead - editors Eugene Johnson and Jason Sizemore have done a good job of collecting stories from both ends of the spectrum.
As for the zombies themselves, they run the full gamut from mindless shuffling to fast-moving aggression, and everything in between.
'Unto the Lord a New Song' by Geoffrey Girard seemed like an interesting story with lots of potential, but lost me with its stream-of-consciousness narrative and lack of structure; and 'Let Me Come In' by Lesley Conner was a fun (and twisted) take on the traditional fairy tale.
For the most part, these are simple horror stories, with no attempt at social commentary or heavy-handed messaging, and that's just fine with me. Nothing really wowed me to the point where I felt compelled to rush out and read everything a contributor has written, but I definitely came away entertained.
Originally reviewed at Beauty in Ruins
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews