Extreme Zombies

by Paula Guran (Editor), Nancy A. Collins, Brian Keene

It’s too late! The living dead have already taken over the world. Your brains have been devoured. Nothing is left but spasms of ravenous need—an obscene hunger for even more zombie fiction. Forget the metaphors and the mildly scary. You want shock, you want grue, you want disturbing, gut-wrenching, skull-crunching zombie stories that take you over the edge and go splat. You want the bloody best of the ultimate undead. You have no choice . . . you . . . must . . . have . . . Extreme Zombies!

Genres: Horror, Zombies, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction

372 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2012

About the author

Paula Guran is senior editor for Prime Books. She edited the Juno fantasy imprint from its small press inception through its incarnation as an imprint of Pocket Books. She is also senior editor of Prime's soon-to-launch digital imprint Masque Books. Guran edits the annual Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror series as well as a growing number of other anthologies. In an earlier life she produced weekly email newsletter DarkEcho (winning two Stokers, an IHG award, and a World Fantasy Award nomination), edited Horror Garage (earning another IHG and a second World Fantasy nomination), and has contributed reviews, interviews, and articles to numerous professional publications.

Reviews

[Jaffa Kintigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to Paula Guran, I am now a fan of the anthology as a thing. Truly, the compilation is greater than the sum of its parts. In this case, my individual reviews for each included story averaged just shy of 3 stars and yet this anthology gets more than that for the diversity it embraces, and for introducing many new authors to me. Going into this collection, I was only aware of George R.R. Martin [from the Games of Thrones series which I've yet to read] and John Shirley [from his inclusion in the last Paula Guran edited collection I read: After the End: Recent Apocalypses with his excellent short story, "Isolation Point, California"].

Whereas Apocalypse stories tend to focus on society and survivalism, Zombie stories claw at the very definition of humanity. Issues of savagery, gluttony, cannibalism, necrophilia, depravity, psychological terror, horror, and even torture arise frequently. They question the definitions of life and death. Religious issues are raised from the demonic Obeah possession to the resurrection of the body with or without its soul from Christian dogma. Different types of zombies raise different questions. Some are alive and living a nightmare under the control of another person, or a virus, or a drug. Some are mere mindless meat-suits re-animated. Some are monsters, a true bastardization of humanity with varying degrees of their former personalities. They may be lethargic, erotic, or predatory; regardless, they turn the mirror back on ourselves.

My favorite included stories were penned by George R.R. Martin and David A. Riley. I've taken the time to review ALL of the included stories, however. In descending star order:

5-stars:
Martin, George R. R.--"Meathouse Man"
Riley, David A.--"Romero's Children"

4-stars:
Bullington, Jesse--"Charlie's Hole"
Collins, Nancy A.--"At First Only Darkness"
Goodfellow, Cody--"We Will Rebuild"
Hull, Harper--"An Unfortunate Incident at the Slaughterhouse"
Leeder, Murray J.D.--"The Traumatized Generation"
Moody, David--"Home"

3-stars:
Hoffman, Nina Kiriki--"Zombies for Jesus"
Keene, Brian--"Captive Hearts"
Massey, Elizabeth--"Abed"
Navarro, Yvonne--"For the Good of All"
Roche, Thomas S.--"Viva Las Vegas"
Shirley, John--"Aftertaste"
Wellington, David--"Chuy and the Fish"

2-stars:
Etchison, Dennis--"The Blood Kiss"
Kilpatrick, Nancy--"Going Down"
Lansdale, Joe R.--"On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks"
Laws, Robin D.--"Susan"
Lee, Edward--"Makak"
Partridge, Norman--"In Beauty, Like the Night"
Valentinelli, Monica--"Tomorrow's Precious Lambs"
Waggoner, Tim--"Provider"

1-star:
Hodge, Brian--"Dead Giveaway"
Schow, David J.--"Jerry's Kids Meet Wormboy"

[Hakan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent anthology of pretty unusual zombie stories. A few meh ones but most of them were impressive enough that friends asked me to stop retelling them during lunch time :-)

[Leah Hudson · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was some variety between stories in the hows and wherefores behind the zombies, but the stories all had a common thread, which was 'amoral grody male protagonist is gross and violent to everyone around him'. Every single story.

I suppose I shouldn't have expected better, but I was mightily disappointed. Two stars because some of the stories were entertaining in some measure, but some were so repulsive they actively corroded my quality of life.

[Bill Borre]

"The Blood Kiss" by Dennis Etchison - An actress falls in love with a director but comes to realize that he loves his art more than anything so she resolves to make his zombie film the best ever by dying for it.

"An Unfortunate Incident at the Slaughterhouse" by Harper Hull - A food additive turns dairy cows into zombies.

"Charlie's Hole" by Jesse Bullington - wc
"Susan" by Robin D. Laws - wc
"Provider" by Tim Waggoner - wc

[Ken Lavine · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is some really dark shit in this collection of short stories. Some of the stories have genuine WTF moments, some truly inspired storytelling, and a couple of lameass stories ... the worst of which came from none other than George R.R. Martin.

All told, there are a few gems here, but most of it doesn't rise above competent fan fiction.

[Alyssa]

One year, as a perk for supporting Pat Rothfuss' Worldbuilders charity, I received a big box of books in the mail. Most (all but one, I think) were published by Prime, and the vast majority were anthologies like this one. I kept this one around for awhile, thinking I might read it someday, but now I think it just sounds a little too...extreme. For me, anyway.

[Ron Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it. Nothing too original. Just good old-fashioned dark, gory zombie apocalypse fun. I've read many of the stories before in other works. I like how they're truly short. So many folks aspire to write a novella so they can expand it, but I prefer a simple short story that I can read in a few minutes.

[Alex C · Rating 3 out of 5]

The description above says it all. Gruesome, bloody and going for the jugular and bizarre, that's what you'll get. I'm reading it in small dosages as my mood dictates. I bought the book for the Lansdale story and was not disappointed. Some of the scenarios are quite imaginative.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, this was a very entertaining read. Some of the stories were silly, most were gory. I didn't find them especially scary but there were a couple that did have me thinking about them days later.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very nice anthology

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the stories were amazing. Some, not so much.

[Mkittysamom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazingly zomsatisfied!