Book Review: Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! ed. by Otto Pensler

Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!  The Most Complete Collection of ZOMBIE Stories Ever Published edited with an introduction by Otto Pensler

This 800-page tome contains dozens upon dozens of stories about the living dead, the unspeakable horrors that rise from their graves and shamble around. The first excerpt is from W. B. Seabrook, who describes practices in Haiti where the dead are brought back to life and made to work on the plantations. The only way for these zombies to return to their graves is if they eat food with salt, then they realize that they are dead and return to the cemetery where they belong. These people are not insatiable cannibals, nor do they have any intellect or will. This first concept of zombiehood dominated the culture until the 1960s, when George Romero introduced a new type of risen dead--the ravenously hungry who had a taste only for human flesh. The whole "brains" thing didn't start until the 1980s with Return of the Living Dead, an uneven horror-comedy with one zombie who explains why they have an insatiable hunger. In the 2000s, the virus/high-speed zombies showed up in movies like 28 Days Later and Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead. This book reflects the cinematic history of zombies, with stories from the 1800s (pre-dating the term "zombie" with stories from Edgar Allan Poe and Guy de Maupassant--the undead was a thing long before the z-word came along) up to the 2000s.

Like any anthology, the collection is a mixed bag. Some stories are strictly gory (which I don't find interesting), one or two were borderline pornographic (which is also not to my taste). Most were more palatable, focusing on horror and dread. A few were comic, like Robert Bloch's "Maternal Instinct." Some classics are in there, like H. P. Lovecraft's "Herbert West--Reanimator" and Henry Kuttner's "Graveyard Rats." Other famous authors like Stephen King and Harlan Ellison have contributions. My favorite stories were F. Marion Crawford's "Upper Berth" and Hug B. Cave's "Mission to Margal," with at least twenty other ones that I really liked. The book ends with the short novel "Z Is For Zombie" by Theodore Roscoe, which will be reviewed separately. The mixed bag definitely favors stories that I enjoyed. I am hanging on to this volume!

Recommended for a scattershot of zombie goodness and badness, but mostly goodness.