‘Zombies and Shit’ follows a group of characters picked out of the poor quadrant of a dystopian future New York, and ditched on a zombie infested island for the televised entertainment of the rich masses. Escape is limited to one seat in a helicopter that will carry the winner to the rich sector as their prize, but who’s going to make it to the chopper?
The book is written in third person present tense. This isn’t a narrative choice I come across often and I’m not overly keen on present tense in general, but I have to say it worked very well for this book, keeping the action moving, and dragging the reader along in the story’s destructive wake.
The ‘Battle Royale with zombies’ plot was instantly appealing and it didn’t disappoint. With a few great twists and some jaw-dropping surprises, this was an awesomely entertaining read, amusing and disturbing in equal measures. I’m not sure I can say much more without dropping stinkin’ huge spoilers so the only other thing I’ll say is this – this book contains two of the rankest sex scenes you’ll ever read, back to back! Depending on your sense of humour, I suppose you might find them more amusing than gross – and they were admittedly kind of funny – but I really could have done without the first one – yuck.
The dystopian backdrop with rich and poor divided into different quadrants was well developed and believable. There are a lot of characters, but this never got confusing as they were all distinctive and came with their own memorable back stories. For some bizarre reason I was picturing Alicia Silverstone as Rainbow Cat, the whole way through. I don’t know if it was something about the drawing of her character, or what, but there you go. I also thought the pacing of the book was pretty much spot on, keeping the tension high while infilling the different character back stories, which in themselves were all interesting.
I would highly recommend this book to fans of horror, zombie fiction fans looking for something new, and your typical garden-variety deviants. Best read with a sense of humour and maybe a sick bag, just to be on the safe side.