Thin Them Out by Kim Paffenroth, R.J. Sevin, & Julia Sevin

I've been a Kim Paffenroth fan for a few years now, so when I saw the Thin Them Out, a novellete written with R.J. & Julia Sevin available for $.99 on Kindle, I snapped it up.

The story follows a group of zombie apocalypse survivors as things go from bad to worse intercut with scenes from a zombie's POV--and the zombie is starting to remember pieces of its life. The survivors must make unpleasant choices about who should live and who should die given their predicament and limited food supply. At one point I wanted to slap some sense into one of the characters, but they all acted within their constraints, displaying very real human weaknesses.

I don't know what is scarier: fearing your fellow humans when faced with limited resources or thinking from a zombie's perspective on what it must be to realize you've become a monster.

The ebook edition contains an extra story by R.J. Sevin. It's a brief read, but well worth the buck.

Buy Thin Them Out for Kindle.

"Orpheus and the Pearl" by Kim Paffenroth

This is one of two novellas that appear in the first volume of Belfire Press's "Duel" Novella Series. You can learn more about this series by visiting Belfire Press. Look for my review of David Dunwoody's Nevermore tomorrow.

Whenever I hear tell of Kim Paffenroth, it's usually in the context of the zombie genre. The man knows zombies. And given this was the first time I've had a chance to read his work, I was fully expecting some gruesome undead fare. And while there is a character risen from the dead in Orpheus and the Pearl, she is not a zombie--at least it's not explicitly stated that she is.

Set in the backdrop of Massachusetts during the early twentieth century, Dr. Catherine MacGuire is called to the residence of Dr. Percy Wallston on an urgent matter concerning one of his patients, a woman in dire need of psychoanalysis. MacGuire is versed in the teaching of Freud and the workings of the mind, a relatively new form of the science, which is exactly why she was chosen by Wallston. To her dismay, she learns the patient is Wallston's wife, Victoria. All the more unsettling is that Victoria died--or was at least said to have died. In fact, Dr. Wallston has resurrected Victoria with startling, violent results, and he desperately needs Dr. MacGuire to find a way to have his old wife back rather than the ravenous and malicious creature he has sequestered in his home.

Paffenroth's story evokes some of that old world charm, as a horrific affliction is shown against a quaint backdrop. It's the whole juxtaposition of the prim and proper engaging in macabre acts. But it's not an entirely gruesome story, and rather relies more on the tensions between Dr. MacGuire and the Wallstons, both in their interactions with each other and MacGuire's past creeping into the back of her mind. And the ending is not at all what I initially expected, which is good in one sense, but on the other hand the end result felt a bit too--I don't want to say chipper, so let's go with neat and tidy.

All in all, it's a good little story. Something off the beaten path from the onslaught of gory depictions of the undead, and the historical setting resonated much better with me than when I read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. If you like tales of the undead with a strong emotional core, this might be the kind of story you'll want to check out.

Valley of the Dead by Kim Paffenroth

Zombies are to horror fiction what mosquitoes are to my backyard in August (i.e., everywhere). Some fans gobble the latest zombie novels and wash it all down with undead anthologies and poetry from beyond the grave. I'm not that fan. I have nothing bad to say about the shambling meat-bags; they just don't poke my brain in the right places. And face it: a good portion of zombie fiction these days is pretty derivative. (and derivative is boring in my book)

So yeah, I don't usually read much involving zombies.

Unless Kim Paffenroth writes it.

See, Paffenroth has a way of exposing the selfish, greedy, lecherous horrors of the living as even worse than the mindless hunger of the undead. Valley of the Dead asks "What if Dante Alighieri witnessed a zombie plague and based his Inferno on the horrors of said plague?"

But Valley of the Dead is more than a zombie book. It's more than a "travel story", too. (The episodic nature of Dante's experiences with different groups reminds me of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.) Yes, it is both of these things, but a lot of "big questions" about human nature arise through the narrative. Dante and his companions (a pregnant woman, a monk of sorts, and an AWOL soldier) run across a rather sorry lot of (living) human examples of the seven deadly sins and more. He ponders the big questions about suffering, evil, and God while trying to escape a valley of pain, sickness, and death. All too soon, the reader is aware zombies are the least of Dante's problems.

Grab a copy. Give it a go. If you like to think along with your gut-munching horror, this is for you.

Next in the reading que: At the End of Church Street by Gregory L. Hall.

Back from the Dead

...and I'm reading about the dead.



Currently: Valley of the Dead by Kim Paffenroth--and I'm loving it. More later.