Dawn of the Living Dead

by Benjamin J. Snider, Alice Zheng, Nadège Richards

Dawn of the Living Dead is a mixed composition of paranormal short stories by various writers. All profits from this title will be donated to the To Write Love On Her Arms charity campaign. 2012-2013

248 pages, Paperback

First published June 14, 2012

About the author

Benjamin J. Snider was born and raised outside Mountain Home Idaho and now resides in Jonesville Virginia with his fiance and their Poodle Laney. Among his inspirations are Madeleine L'Engle, Eion Colfer, and J.K. Rowling. The wonder of nature and personal experiences also greatly influence Snider's work. His work will appear in an upcoming Young Adult Literary magazine and he is currently in the editing and revision stage of his first novel Once Upon a Dream, book one of the Three Dreams Saga. Once Upon a Dream is a Young Adult Urban Fantasy that is slated for release in 2013; Snider is a dreamer, lover of life, and always takes time to notice the beauty in life, nature and the universe..

Reviews

[Jennifer Don · Rating 5 out of 5]

Writing a review from the viewpoint of one of the authors in the book, feels rather bizarre to me. Though, I will review with honesty and with the exception of my own story, as fairly as I can do.

Dawn of the Living Dead, a collection of works by 14 individually styled authors and poets, showcases unique stories and poems across the paranormal genre. Each author, can clearly be seen to have their own voice and depth of understanding in their own writing.

Stories range from Zombies, to succubus, to shadow demons and phantom guardians. Each one leaves you wanting more as you finish the last word on each page, though not all perfect in form, the voice they carry is clear and concise to the story you are reading.

Though there are errors in the book, it doesn't detract from what you are reading, and can be expected considering there are 14 authors featured in this charity anthology. A personal favourite in this book has to be Phoenix by Dominique Goodall. It features the tale of a girl who dreams of a phoenix and is left with burn like marks upon her skin. It soon becomes apparent that her dreams are not actually dreams like she thought they were, and takes on an unusual twist towards the end.

Another personal favourite is Jezebel by Nadege Richards, though short and sweet you were left hooked from start to finish, and left looking for more at the end.

All in all, I thought each story and poem, complimented the paranormal theme rather well, and actually complimented each story within the book. Which you don't see often in Short Story anthologies.

But whether you like it, or not - what you pay for the book, none of the authors gain. That is a bonus and on good standing for the writers.

[Brittany · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology we did together I believe was a lot better than the first. Everyone did so well and we all had something to bring to the table. This anthology was to targeted towards the paranormal and in each story I read it was something different, but still paranormal. You really forget about how many paranormal creatures are out there until you read an anthology like this. I've read quite a few paranormal anthologies before this and most of them don't deliver like this one did. Some authors would play the safe card and stick to what they know and do spin offs or I keep reading about the same paranormal creature. My main focus was to do something no one else would think of, well, mission accomplished in this anthology. I did a mix by doing mermaids and vampires. My original idea was just to stick to mermaids, but I'm glad I came up with the story idea I had. I've read about a succubus, phantom, phoenix, zombies, etc. This was a great anthology done by me and my fellow authors. Look forward to doing more with everyone!