An increasingly authoritarian government has decided to celebrate the essence of British-ness by holding a party, all across London.
Much like the ill-fated Millenium Dome project, this party is designed to increase morale and bring employment levels up to a new standard.
Sadly, to complete this project, older areas of the city have to be unearthed and removed to make way for new construction...one of these areas is a church dating back to the years of the Bubonic Plague, surrounded by pits of the dead.
In digging up this ground, the British Government has unknowingly released what will soon become known as The Death, but is more commonly known as the...
So, yeah, that's the basic premise of Stephen Jones' Zombie Apocalypse.
It all sounds great on paper, and this is the main reason why I decided to buy the book when I found it going cheap in Waterstones. My love for Zombies, and my inability to find myself a copy of Mira Grant's Feed set me on a hunt for a similarly styled Zombie book.
Zombie Apocalypse came highly recommended by the staff at the store, and a quick flick through the pages lead to me to believe it was worth the price.
At this point, I'm probably giving off the impression that I was severely unimpressed by the book...but on the contrary, I found much of it to be an interesting read.
The book is written in a "mosaic" style, with various authors giving varying accounts on how the zombie apocalypse is spreading across the globe.
The interesting thing about it, and something that lead me to assosciate it with Feed, is that we don't just get to read the usual Diary entries, Police Reports, and medical Notes, we also get access to new social media. There are numerous accounts written in the style of a blog, or a twitter feed, and we even gain access to text message conversations.
The accounts start off in London, and then slowly spread out to the rest of the world; though it must be said that a good 3/4 of the book remain on British soil.
But sadly there are a few things that stop this book from being as great as it could have been.
First off, everything remains a bit haphazard as to just how these Zombies are created. Now, I know Romero gets away with that all the time in his films, but Romero never really tried to explain it. In Zombie Apocalypse, we're treated to numerous ways the virus is spread.
At first it appears as if it's fleas that are infected with the plague (and, quite possibly, something else), and these fleas remain with the corpses and keep them animated, but soon the fleas are completely forgotten and it is back to the traditional Bites, Scratches, and Blood. There are also numerous hints towards a more supernatural element to the contamination. It's all a little too confused to make it stick properly.
Secondly we have the differences in writing style. It is great that each author was able to give an individual voice to the various survivors, but at times it can feel a bit forced as characters begin to relate things to the reader that wouldn't naturally be brought into the conversation.
Some texts continue when they wouldn't, some entries give details in the wrong places, and it sometimes comes across as a bit forced, as if the writers knew they needed to reveal a specific plot point, but could think of no other way than pushing it onto the stage and letting it stand there awkwardly, out of place and in view of everybody.
And finally we get to the most depressing problem of them all.
I read this book in about three days, because I just could not put it down. It was great, it had such a serious tone. The book had managed to set up a type of Zombie that came across as truly scary at times, giving us the often ignored breed of the Intelligent Zombie. It felt very contemporary, with social commentary on everything from the current Economic Crisis, to the power & sway that Religion holds over certain countries. For hours I was enthralled by the possibility of reading a mildly more realistic Zombie book where umanity doesn't automatically win but is nearly (if not completely) wiped off of the face of the Earth.
Whilst, yes, the book had slipped in a few moments of humour it had done so without the loss of message or darkness. But then the ending came.
The final two entries in this book completely ruin the mood set up by all prior entries by introducing straight-cut comedy and lowering the apparently superior intelligence of the Zombies to that of low-level pun & innuendo.
Perhaps a better ending to the book would have been to leave the reader with small pockets of resistance, leaving us questioning whether the collection of stories was gathered by the now dominant Zombies, or the finally triumphant Human Race.
As it stands, a brilliant build up with a few flaws ultimately fails to make this book reach its full potential.
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