Skin and Bones is the second installment in Permuted Press‘ series of zombie anthologies, The Undead. It’s very much a case of what you see is what you get–which, of course, isn’t necessarily a bad thing, providing you like zombies.

The anthology opens with one of the strongest tales, David Wellington’s Cyclopean. The over-used ‘zombies working 9 to 5, no one even realizes they’re zombies’ theme is employed, but only lightly. Cyclopean is a fast-paced, entertaining and original zombie tale with Lovecraftian overtones.

Review by Leah Clarke

I’m a Gibson fan. I came up through the whole Cyberpunk thing – part of the reason I embraced the internet so readily – and followed onwards through the rest of his books as he became a publicly acceptable ‘important author’ rather than ‘just’ a science fiction author. Aside from a few short stories and things here and there I’ve read everything he’s put out from Burning Chrome to this, Spook Country.

Spook Country follows several different threads of stories and picks up on and carries along with a few bits and pieces from his previous novel, Pattern Recognition, which I loved and which suggests this may be part of a loose ‘trilogy’ much like his Cyberpunk trilogy (Neuromancer/Count Zero/Mona Lisa Overdrive) and his near-future trilogy (Virtual Light/Idoru/All Tomorrow’s Parties). This would seem to follow several patterns you can see in Gibson’s work…

Review by James ‘Grim’ Desborough

A Vampire Tale by David Wellington

After having read Monster Island, I was pleased to hear that Wellington was writing a vampire story. 13 Bullets is a modern action adventure with deadly vampires, great writing and a few clever plot twists.

The vampires in 13 Bullets are as inhuman as they get. Usually sometime after they’ve been turned they begin to lose all of their hair and mutate into their new, monstrous forms. They are incredibly strong, difficult to damage and often have an array of other powers at their disposal.

House of Leaves is a peculiar novel, not precisely one thing and not quite another. It isn’t quite a dark fantasy novel, it isn’t quite a horror novel, it isn’t quite a piece of kafkaesque surrealism and isn’t quite a cohesive work of fiction. It is at once pretentious and deep, confusing and captivating, disturbing and curious. The thrust of the story, which is really several stories, is the discovery of a peculiar manuscript by ‘Johnny Truant’ a no good tattoo artist and deadbeat who, thanks to the manuscript, seems to start a slow descent into madness. The manuscript came to him via Zampano, a crazy old man who died and from whom Johnny effectively stole it. The manuscript itself is an examination, investigation and critique into a strange film called The Navidson Record which records the peculiar happenings at the titular ‘House of Leaves’ a place owned by Navidson, his wife and their children and where the house takes on a sinister aspect as it shifts shape and time and seems to try and swallow them up, all of which is supposedly documented on a peculiar film that is doing the rounds.

Review by James ‘Grim’ Desborough

The subtitle of this 2007 Permuted Press offering is ‘A novel about zombies.’ This isn’t entirely true. Ross fills his days with selling bootleg horror movies, cheating on his two-timing girlfriend and hating life in general. He feels trapped in a vicious circle of uselessness.

Just as he begins to resign himself to the mid-twenties twilight he seems unable to escape, he starts to notice men in radiation suits, following him. Filming him.

Review by Leah Clarke

I am an unabashed Peter F Hamilton fan. I was initially introduced to his work by my great friend (and co-writer on The Munchkin’s Guide to Powergaming) Steve Mortimer through his Mindstar series (a bio-modified psychic detective of sorts in a post-warming, post flood, post ‘socialist’ Britain) and then followed on through the brick-like Night’s Dawn series and on into Pandora’s Star. Most of his books I have liked I great deal (apart from Misspent Youth) to the point where I even negotiated, and held for a year, the RPG rights to Mindstar and Night’s Dawn – but nobody was interested in pursuing it.

Review by James ‘Grim’ Desborough

As the last of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the finishing touch to a series full of magic, mystery and friendship. Having read all of the books, I’m sure that fans of the series have either already picked up this book or will shortly. Still, there are interesting things to point out here that have left many readers feeling a little bit unsatisfied with the events that have happened here.

Sometimes, as an author, you might have it in your head that you’re going to write a very long story. Instead of writing an “epic novel” in one book, you break it up into smaller pieces so that when the end is in sight, the pieces fall together neatly like a stack of dominoes. Small Favor was, to me, one of the dominoes of the over-arching plot. While it tied up a lot of previous plots, it also opened the door to a host of questions for Thomas, Murphy, Michael and, of course, Dresden.

Review by Monica Valentinelli

Written by Patricia A. McKillip
Reviewed by Alana Abbott

Secrets weave upon secrets in McKillip’s tale of weaving witches who bind their neighboring fairies, keeping the otherworld at bay. When Sylvia’s grandfather dies and she becomes the heir to Lynn Hall, one of the places where this world and the other intersect, secrets she’s been trying to hide for years start coming to the surface. She never knew the identity of her father–her mother kept it secret until her death–but she knows that he wasn’t human.

Half mystery, half teen drama, Vampire Academy introduces a dying world of tradition: the Moroi can do magic, but must be protected from the evil, undead Stirgoi by their Dhampir guardians. The Stirgoi feed on the blood of innocents, and if they can drink from a Moroi, so much the better. So when Rose suspects that Lissa is being hunted, the danger of losing her is very real.

If you’re in your car on the way to work, you might do as I do and invest in audiobooks. This particular audiobook was a rare find; I managed to get my hands on a copy of two plays for voices without ever knowing it existed. In fact, when I picked this up I had no idea what it was about, I just bought it on blind faith, hoping that Gaiman’s work would not disappoint me. I was pleasantly surprised.

Billed as a “young adult” novel, Ironside is the conclusion to a three-part series written in the modern fantasy genre. I’ve chosen to write this review without providing spoilers, for those of you who enjoy being surprised. Although this is officially a “YA” novel, with several awards to boot, there are a lot of adult themes that are appropriate for mature readers. For those that make the distinction between happy fairy tales and dark fantasy, Ironside definitely falls within the realm of dark fantasy and, at times, is full of horrific scenes. I feel that these distinctions are important to make, simply because as a reader you should know that this novel is not a light and airy tale, fraught with happy brownies and delightful pixies. The fae within this series are akin to the tales of old; beautiful yet cruel, terrifying yet bound by their own set of rules.

Kitty Norville didn’t mean to become a popular radio personality. In fact, she could remember when she didn’t even enjoy having the night shift. But as a werewolf, her habits have gotten more and more nocturnal, and one bored night at the microphone discussing the paranormal becomes a talk-show phenomenon. Suddenly syndicated at two hundred stations, Kitty is the center of attention, and not all good. From a professional werewolf hunter named Cormac, to Arturo, head of the local vampire Family, to her own Pack, Kitty’s meeting opposition on all sides.

The first in a series of ten novels for Mirrorstone, the young adult imprint of Wizards of the Coast, In the Serpent’s Coils launches readers straight into the larger story. Corrine’s father disappeared during the Civil War, and her mother died while she had the swamp fever. She finds herself alone in the world except for an uncle who would rather not be responsible for her wellfare. Until, that is, she discovers people living in the hawthorn tree who promise to cure her in exchange for a small stone.

The plot is exactly like the movie. The movie is good, so the book is good by default. It’s definitely a page turner. De Candido’s style is largely free of literary flourishes. It’s as if he literally transcribed Joss Whedon’s screenplay verbatim while tossing in only a few extras. Story-wise, I thought that the book could have gone into a little more depth than it does. However, it does elaborate a bit on the battle of Serenity.

Scar Night is the debut novel from Alan Campbell who, previously, has worked as a designer and coder on the Grand Theft Auto games. It forms, apparently, the first novel in a series to come called The Deepgate Codex. A good, even great first effort Scar Night would seem to (hopefully) establish Campbell as another of the active British fantasists and SF authors that seem to be keeping the innovative side of those genres bubbling along a bit

Flesh Feast as an anthology of zombie-oriented horror fiction, currently available from Permuted Press, the third in a series apparently. The volume is presented much in keeping with the current, and ongoing, resurgent zombie fad but isn’t truly and entirely a zombie-oriented collection. While the stories do all follow the undead theme, zombie purists (those who foam at the mouth about 28 Days Later) are going to be a little disappointed and, to be honest, they have a point. The stories that stray the most from the more classic zombie fare are the weakest.

Departure is the second book in the Redemption Trilogy set in the world of the Chronicles of Ramlar Role Playing Game, which is also known as Eranon. This book picks up where Into the Reach left off, continuing the adventures of Kennerly, Lydia, Nara and Taru as they build new lives for themselves away from their homes and events in their individual pasts that brought them to the Reach.

Monster Island opens sometime after the rise of zombies across the world. Most of the civilized nations have already been overrun and there are only a few survivors left. Not surprisingly, larger population centers are early victims of the zombie menace and, as a result, the more developed countries fall more quickly. For example, the sheer population size of a city like New York makes the epidemic difficult to contain. Too many people, coupled with poor “epidemic” containment, prove to be the city’s downfall in Monster Island.

Erin McCarthy’s Bled Dry, falls into the vampire chick-litesque category of paranormal romance. It chronicles the relationship between Brittany Baldizzi, a dentist, and Corbin Jean Michel Atelier, a french vampire DNA scientist who was turned in the 19th century, and has spent the last century or so looking for a cure to his vampirism. The novel is set in Las Vegas, a good choice for those with a nocturnal lifestyle, but McCarthy could have taken more advantage of her setting.