I confess that I started reading GR reviews for this anthology only a few stories in. Most of the reviews were describing the stories as terrible, which surprised me. Terrible? Not really. They were mediocre, but not the bottom-of-the-bargain-bin-at-the-second-hand-book-fair terrible like some of the books I've sampled. These people, I mused, were clearly soft. But they're not. There are some stories in here that are truly terrible. They need to be removed from reality. Potentially even the author too. Just... bad. The majority of the stories are cliched and generally dull. But some are just awful. Humans running away from zombies. Yawn. A man wandering around weeping outside the gates of heaven, because he was a zombie and heaven won't let him in? Ergh. A zombie gigolo? Yeech. "semi-tumescent wang"? No. No. Bad book, bad. No dinner for you. 3.5 rounded upHalf of these are must reads. the other half were a mixture of creative stuff that I just couldn't jive with or total garbage.I do believe however that there is something in here for everyone. I think most people who like horror, survival, history, humor, death, sex, and sci-fi are going to be served by this collection in some capacity. there is just such a spectrum of quality and depth here that people are never going to agree on what's bad and what's good. it's all subjective to what you've read or not read before you tackled this beast.I say, give it a whirl.the first 22 stories had a better batting average for me than the last 22 stories. Maybe because the publisher knew to keep collections like these front-loaded and heavy with the good stuff because some people read these type of book chronologically. I did skim or skip 10 of these. not gonna lie.I'd recommend this monsterous book over all the following zombie fiction which I consider poop or just above poop:David Moody's "Autumn"John Maberry's "Patient Zero"David Wellington's "Monster Island"Brian Keene's "The Rising"If someone put a gun to your head... saying "pick one"... eh, read "Autumn." Unless you like Jack Bauer, read "Patient Zero".... unless you like sloppy storytelling and giving yourself stomach ulcers, then read "Monster Island"... unless you like possession stories with corpses of fish and people coming back and talking, then look in a mirror, call yourself an idiot, and read "The Rising."4/5MH
What do You think about The Living Dead 2 (2010)?
Love reading different types of zombie scenarios and world ending apocalypse stories :) :)
—leuname
i only stole two stories from this one, "rural dead" and "who we used to be."
—smritihamal1
