Emails of the Dead: A Zombie Anthology

by Anthony Giangregorio (Editor)

Phone service is down, the electricity is fading, and the living dead are pounding at the door. What do you do when there is no hope left? That is the question answered in this book, where people from all walks of life, attacked on all sides by zombies, use their only means of communication to say goodbye one last time to loved ones-their computer. Found in the rubble of an internet provider's collapsed building, the data retrieved was a cache of lost emails. Heartbreaking, comical, and some that are just plain mean, these are the last thoughts of human beings who are no longer with us. Though they are lost to us, their last words are not. These are Emails of the Dead.

198 pages, Paperback

First published September 14, 2010

About the author

Anthony Giangregorio is the author and editor of more than 25 novels, almost all of them about zombies. His work has appeared in Dead Science by Coscomentertainment, Dead Worlds: Undead Stories Volumes 1, 2, 3, and 4, and an upcoming anthology (Zombology) by Library of the Living Dead Press and their werewolf anthology titled War Wolves. He also has stories in End of Days: An Apocalyptic Anthology Volumes 1 & 2. Check out his website at www.undeadpress.com.

Reviews

[Tammy Salyer]

A creative new twist on the zombie genre.

[Andy Phillips]

The idea of this book is pretty original for zombie fiction. It contains copies of e-mails that were sent during a zombie apocalypse but that never arrived due to a server failure. Most of them are only a page or two long, so there are quite a lot of them and I was expecting at least a few clever ideas in there somewhere. Unfortunately, there are only a few really good ones, with the majority being quite mediocre. They typical e-mail goes along these lines:

-The phones aren't working so I have to e-mail you
-I'm in a shelter but surrounded by zombies so can't get out
-I just wanted to tell you that I love/hate you
-Oh no, they're breaking down the door
-I'm going to keep writing even though they are eating me

Fine, I guess, but this gets a bit boring and I can't believe that anyone could carry on typing while being eaten alive (and this happens many times). On top of that the style of the e-mails isn't realistic in quite a few cases, and they just don't sound genuine as the authors often write strange things in order to tell the reader something without being able to outright say it. For example, when writing to your spouse it's not necessary to say things like "my son, Bob" as they know who Bob is. You might also mention fairly early on in the e-mail that they are dead, not waffle on and mention it in passing after a few paragraphs.

That said, there are few really good e-mails that made it worth reading this book. I particularly liked a spoof spam e-mail, a series of e-mails from a naïve mother to her son, and a set about a grandfather going to his grandson's rescue. A few great bits, no many terrible bit, but pretty average overall.