Science Fiction Books - Page 2

The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream

Paulo Coelho

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1290 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Actually life-changing 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I know a million other people have already talked about how great this book is, but I had to add my own review too. (I just started reviewing things on Amazon and now I can't stop!) Read this book. It's really good, and really uplifting.

Editorial Review:

Paulo Coelho's enchanting novel has inspired a devoted following around the world, and this tenth anniversary edition, with a new introduction from the author, will only increase that following. This story, dazzling in its powerful simplicity and inspiring wisdom, is about an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the Pyramids. Along the way he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an alchemist, all of whom point Santiago in the direction of his quest. No one knows what the treasure is, or if Santiago will be able to surmount the obstacles along the way. But what starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a discovery of the treasures found within. Lush, evocative, and deeply humane, the story of Santiago is an eternal testament to the transforming power of our dreams and the importance of listening to our hearts.

Harry, A History: The True Story of a Boy Wizard, His Fans, and Life Inside the Harry Potter Phenomenon

Melissa Anelli

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Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Harry Potter Books Were Just The Beginning of the Story...

During the brief span of just one decade, hundreds of millions of perfectly ordinary people made history: they became the only ones who would remember what it was like when the Harry Potter saga was still unfinished. What it was like to seek out friends, families, online forums, fan fiction, and podcasts to get a fix between novels. When the potential death of a character was a hotter bet than the World Series. When the unfolding story of a boy wizard changed the way books are read for all time.

And as webmistress of the Leaky Cauldron, one of the most popular Harry Potter sites on the Internet, Melissa Anelli had a front row seat to it all. Whether it was helping Scholastic stop leaks and track down counterfeiters, hosting live PotterCasts at bookstores across the country, touring with the wizard rock band Harry and the Potters, or traveling to Edinburgh to interview J. K. Rowling personally, Melissa was at the center of the Harry Potter tornado, and nothing about her life would ever be the same.

The Harry Potter books are a triumph of the imagination that did far more than break sales records for all time. They restored the world's sense of wonder and took on a magical life of their own. Now the series has ended, but the story is not over. With remembrances from J. K. Rowling's editors, agents, publicists, fans, and Rowling herself, Melissa Anelli takes us on a personal journey through every aspect of the Harry Potter phenomenon -- from his very first spell to his lasting impact on the way we live and dream.

Anathem

Neal Stephenson

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Total reviews: 94 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Anathem, the latest invention by the New York Times bestselling author of Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle, is a magnificent creation: a work of great scope, intelligence, and imagination that ushers readers into a recognizable—yet strangely inverted—world.

Fraa Erasmas is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the outside "saecular" world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent's walls. Three times during history's darkest epochs violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community. Yet the avout have always managed to adapt in the wake of catastrophe, becoming out of necessity even more austere and less dependent on technology and material things. And Erasmas has no fear of the outside—the Extramuros—for the last of the terrible times was long, long ago.

Now, in celebration of the week-long, once-in-a-decade rite of Apert, the fraas and suurs prepare to venture beyond the concent's gates—at the same time opening them wide to welcome the curious "extras" in. During his first Apert as a fraa, Erasmas eagerly anticipates reconnecting with the landmarks and family he hasn't seen since he was "collected." But before the week is out, both the existence he abandoned and the one he embraced will stand poised on the brink of cataclysmic change.

Powerful unforeseen forces jeopardize the peaceful stability of mathic life and the established ennui of the Extramuros—a threat that only an unsteady alliance of saecular and avout can oppose—as, one by one, Erasmas and his colleagues, teachers, and friends are summoned forth from the safety of the concent in hopes of warding off global disaster. Suddenly burdened with a staggering responsibility, Erasmas finds himself a major player in a drama that will determine the future of his world—as he sets out on an extraordinary odyssey that will carry him to the most dangerous, inhospitable corners of the planet . . . and beyond.

Princeps' Fury (Codex Alera, Book 5)

Jim Butcher

Amazon Price: $32.97 List Price: $49.95 Not yet published By: Penguin Audio

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Editorial Review:

From the New York Times bestselling author of Captain’s Fury and the Dresden Files novels.

Tavi of Calderon, now recognized as Princeps Gaius Octavian and heir to the crown, has achieved a fragile alliance with Alera’s oldest foes, the savage Canim. But when Tavi and his legions guide the Canim safely to their lands, his worst fears are realized.

The dreaded Vord—the enemy of Aleran and Cane alike—have spent the last three years laying waste to the Canim homeland. And when the Alerans are cut off from their ships, they find themselves with no choice but to fight shoulder to shoulder if they are to survive.

For a thousand years, Alera and her furies have withstood every enemy, and survived every foe.

The thousand years are over…

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

Max Brooks

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Total reviews: 455 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

“The end was near.” —Voices from the Zombie War

The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.

Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War.

Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, “By excluding the human factor, aren’t we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn’t the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as ‘the living dead’?”

Note: Some of the numerical and factual material contained in this edition was previously published under the auspices of the United Nations Postwar Commission.


Eyewitness reports from the first truly global war

“I found ‘Patient Zero’ behind the locked door of an abandoned apartment across town. . . . His wrists and feet were bound with plastic packing twine. Although he’d rubbed off the skin around his bonds, there was no blood. There was also no blood on his other wounds. . . . He was writhing like an animal; a gag muffled his growls. At first the villagers tried to hold me back. They warned me not to touch him, that he was ‘cursed.’ I shrugged them off and reached for my mask and gloves. The boy’s skin was . . . cold and gray . . . I could find neither his heartbeat nor his pulse.” —Dr. Kwang Jingshu, Greater Chongqing, United Federation of China


“‘Shock and Awe’? Perfect name. . . . But what if the enemy can’t be shocked and awed? Not just won’t, but biologically can’t! That’s what happened that day outside New York City, that’s the failure that almost lost us the whole damn war. The fact that we couldn’t shock and awe Zack boomeranged right back in our faces and actually allowed Zack to shock and awe us! They’re not afraid! No matter what we do, no matter how many we kill, they will never, ever be afraid!” —Todd Wainio, former U.S. Army infantryman and veteran of the Battle of Yonkers


“Two hundred million zombies. Who can even visualize that type of number, let alone combat it? . . . For the first time in history, we faced an enemy that was actively waging total war. They had no limits of endurance. They would never negotiate, never surrender. They would fight until the very end because, unlike us, every single one of them, every second of every day, was devoted to consuming all life on Earth.” —General Travis D’Ambrosia, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe


From the Hardcover edition.

Dark City: A Novel (Dark City)

Frank Lauria (Adapter), Lem Dobbs, David S. Goyer, Alex Proyas

List Price: $5.99 By: St. Martin's Press Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $1.12

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 493 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

No more spoiler narration! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This movie is my favorite of all time; however Keifer Sutherland's spilling of the beans within the first two minutes was always devastating to me. So, if you are a fan of the movie, then your number one question regarding the director's cut should be, "it there a voice over?" and the answer is, thank goodness, "No!!"

Dark City [Director's Cut] 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

At last! A director's cut that actually improves on the original!

The 1998 version of Dark City was a fantastic film (apart from the studio enforced opening narration), very inventive plot with lots of good 'reveals' throughout, also, the cuts were very fast (I don't think a single 'shot' lasted longer than five seconds) which propelled the story along at a blistering pace.

The new edit has an improved 5.1 soundtrack and the re-cut has slowed the film down - which actually improves it. There are extensions to lots of scenes that round off each character's involvement in the plot, and the opening narration has been removed (hurrah!). The picture has also had a major clean up that reveals plot as well as detail.
The new extras are also very interesting and a welcome change from the usual, boring, "This is how we did the effects" documentaries.

All in all, a better version of an already outstanding film. 10/10.

Editorial Review:

John Murdoch is accused of murder and believed to be mentally disturbed, but he is the only salvation from the violent killings that are happening, as long as he can remain alive. Original. Movie tie-in."

Icarus at the Edge of Time

Brian Greene

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Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

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Product Description
From one of America's leading physicists--a moving and visually stunning futuristic re-imagining of the Icarus fable written for kids and those journeying with them toward a deeper appreciation of the cosmos.

With a minimum of words set on 34 full color boardbook pages, Icarus travels not to the sun, but to a black hole, and in so doing poignantly dramatizes one of Einstein's greatest insights.

Unlike anything Brian Greene has previously written, Icarus at the Edge of Time uses the power of story, not pedagogy, to communicate viscerally one small part of the strange reality that has emerged from modern physics. Designed by Chip Kidd, with spectacular images from the Hubble Space Telescope, it's a short story that speaks to curiosity and wisdom in a universe we've only begun to fathom.

Unlike anything Brian Greene has previously written, Icarus at the Edge of Time uses the power of story, not pedagogy, to communicate viscerally one small part of the strange reality that has emerged from modern physics. Designed by Chip Kidd, with spectacular images from the Hubble Space Telescope, it's a short story that speaks to curiosity and wisdom in a universe we've only begun to fathom.

An Interview with Author Brian Greene

Q: After writing two big four-hundred-plus page bestselling books, what made you decide to write an illustrated book for all ages?
A: There's an emotional side to science which the general public rarely experiences. When Einstein's calculations in 1916 showed that his new general theory of relativity could explain strange aspects of the planet Mercury's motion, he experienced--by his own description--heart palpitations. He'd revealed a fundamental cosmic truth and it filled him with awe and reverie. Yet, by contrast, in the public sphere science is still largely viewed as merely a cold body of knowledge. To many people, science is aloof, distant, abstract. I remember, some years back, reading a poem of Whitman’s about an astronomy student who grows tired and frustrated by his professor's teachings, and blissfully leaves the class to go outside, look skyward, and simply experience the wonderment of the star filled heavens. There are many for whom this poem would resonate. This highlights for me the need for people to connect with science in a new way--outside of the classroom and beyond the textbooks. My two previous books tried to make some heady ideas of modern physics widely available, and they did this through straightforward exposition. In Icarus At The Edge Of Time, my intention is to open a different kind of avenue onto science--a more visceral, more emotional side that a fictional narrative more readily accesses.

Q: Where did the idea to re-imagine the Icarus legend (set in outer space and involving black holes!) come from?
A: I recently told my two and a half year old son a bedtime story that involved space travelers moving near the speed of light. Within days he was telling his own animated stories of dinosaurs and monsters outrunning a new and wonderful concept--"the speed of dark." Which got me thinking. Storytelling is our most basic and powerful means of communication. We listen with a different kind of intensity--and open ourselves most fully--to a gripping tale. So why not allow some of science’s greatest wonders to be experienced not through pedagogy but through the force of narrative? Science in fiction, as opposed to science fiction. Scientific insights that are absorbed rather than studied. Icarus At The Edge Of Time is my first attempt to explore this terrain. Instead of a journey near the sun--a "light" star--Icarus heads to a black hole--a "dark" star. And then the wonders of Einstein's relativity kick in, warping the more familiar ending into a painful conclusion, to be sure, but perhaps one that's more hopeful than the original.

Q: The story of Icarus is a cautionary tale, what do you think it has to say when applied (as it is here) to the nature of scientific exploration of the universe?
A: Great scientists are great adventurers, boldly exploring unknown terrain--"anxiously searching" as Einstein once put it "for a truth one feels but cannot find, until final emergence into the light." Icarus's fearlessness fits this profile to a "T". But there's another side to scientific exploration. Scientific research has the capacity to reveal realms that turn the status quo on its head. And when this happens, we're often not prepared--as a society we're often not sufficiently mature--to take on the responsibility that such new realms can require.

From nuclear knowledge to stem cells, from global climate change to cloning, science not only opens up new vistas but confronts us with profound challenges. In this new version of the Icarus tale, Icarus's unrestrained explorations take him, literally, to a startling new realm--one in which the universe as he knew it becomes forever beyond his reach. We can imagine him maturing into his new life and experience, but we also feel the wrenching pain of his being torn from his familiar reality--and from his family--and entering a completely new world--the very process of maturation we collectively navigate as science rewrites the rules of what's possible.

Q: Who do you see as the audience for this book?
A: The intended audience is broad. While I've found that science-enthusiasts get a big kick out of the story (it's not often that general relativity is the lynch pin in a narrative!), I wrote the story with two kinds of imaginary readers looking over my shoulder--adults who don't generally have much contact with science, and kids who love a short adventure story.

Q: Since the writing of your last book you have become a father. How has fatherhood impacted you as a writer?
A: I feel a stronger urge to go beyond a connection with readers that's purely intellectual. The intellectual side is critical of course. But I think you communicate far more effectively if you can engage the reader on multiple levels. I've always felt this way. But I now experience it everyday--all the time--with my son, and also my one-year-old daughter. Fatherhood has heightened my recognition that to communicate you need an emotional link.

Q: Your passion for science and making it come alive for people of all ages is well known--as evidenced through your founding of The World Science Festival and also in a recent New York Times op-ed in which you wrote about "the powerful role science can play in giving life context and meaning," and stated, "It's the birthright of every child, it's a necessity for every adult, to look out on the world . . . and see that the wonder of the cosmos transcends everything that divides us." How do you feel about the way Science is taught in most schools today and what would be the biggest changes you would recommend?
A: We need to get beyond the urge--however important--of merely teaching kids the results of science, the methods of science. We need to communicate the stories of science. If a kid thinks of science as a subject taught in a classroom, we've failed. Kids need to think of science as the greatest of adventure stories as we've sought to understand ourselves and the universe around us. Kids need to recognize that science is a perspective, a way of life--it's something you hold with you long, long after you leave the classroom.

Q: What were some of the books that most inspired your passion for Science?
A: When I was really young, it wasn't actually books that inspired me. It was great teachers. From my dad (a self-educated high-school drop-out) to a couple of public school teachers where I grew up in New York City, I was fortunate to be surrounded by people who knew how to nurture and excite a young mind.

Q: So do you think anyone will ever actually find out what happens at the center of a black hole?
A: Absolutely. But not by jumping in.

Q: Is it a challenge, as a physicist and mathematician to write in a way that everyone understands?
A: It is a challenge, but for me its both a useful and exciting one. I find that translating cutting-edge research into more familiar language forces me to strip away extraneous details and zero in on the core ideas. Often, this helps me to organize my own thoughts and has even suggested research directions. And it's exciting to see ideas that are close to my heart and those of other researchers in the field reach a wider audience. The questions we are tackling are universal, and everyone deserves the right to enjoy the progress we're making.

Q: What are black holes and what do they tell us about the nature of universe?
A: Black holes are regions of space filled with such intense gravity that anything which gets too close, even light, is unable to escape. Although Albert Einstein’s insights led to the idea of black holes, he remained skeptical about their existence. Yet, in the decades since, a wealth of astronomical observations have provided strong evidence that black holes not only exist in the cosmos, they’re commonplace.

Black holes have a profound effect on time: their gravitational force pulls on time itself, slowing its rate of passage ever more as one gets ever nearer a black hole’s edge. Because of this, black holes provide for a specific kind of time travel. Were you to hover near the edge of a black hole, time for you would pass more slowly than for everyone else who remained far away. On returning to Earth you would thus find that hundreds or even thousands of years had elapsed, depending on the size of the black hole and how close you ventured to its edge.

Scientists still haven’t figured out what happens at the very center of a black hole. Einstein’s mathematics breaks down and so provides no insight. Some scientists have suggested that a black hole’s center is where time comes to an end while others have proposed that it’s a portal to another universe. Finding the definitive answer is widely recognized as one of the great remaining challenges in our continuing quest to understand space, time and the cosmos.

Q: How close are we to really understanding the nature of the universe?
A: Sometimes I think the final theory is just around the corner. Sometimes I think such thoughts are naive. The bottom line is I don't know, but what we're learning is so startling, that in a way it doesn't matter. When or if we reach the deepest understanding, it will be a major moment for our species. But until then, making progress at unraveling the cosmos is its own reward.

Q: Where did you get the idea to illustrate this book with photos from the Hubble Space Telescope?
A: That was Chip Kidd's idea. On reading the story he immediately felt that an abstract, as opposed to literal, visual treatment would be most effective. I agreed completely. And was kind of blown away when he came up with this design. It is so simple, but so powerful.

(Photo Credit: Andrea Cross)

Designer Chip Kidd Discusses His Vision for Icarus at the Edge of Time

Q: So Chip, where did the inspiration for this design come from?
A: The genesis, if you will, of the design and art direction of Icarus at the Edge of Time represents (for me), a prime example of design challenges at its purest and most exhilarating. In the spring of 2007, Marty Asher (Brian Greene's editor at Knopf) brought me Brian's manuscript of a fable of a teenage boy-genius (Icarus) who lives on a starship heading back to Earth after a generations-long mission and, against the stern warnings of his scientist father, commandeers a sort of pod-ship to go explore a black hole. When he returns from doing so, he finds that everything he knew has changed, and he learns a devastating lesson.

The story takes place in deep space, and as I was reading it, my mind instantly flashed to those incredible images that have been beamed back from the Hubble telescope. A quick investigation into the Hubble website bore out the fact that a) these images are in the public domain, and b) you can literally download good hi-resolution files of them from the site. Honestly, this discovery made me feel good about paying my taxes for the first time in decades. Anyway, the idea was born to illustrate the text metaphorically rather than literally. Although it is a fantastic tale, Brian grounds it in very real science, so the most appropriate thing was to show actual pictures of space (which happen to be jaw-droppingly gorgeous) as opposed to having someone draw or paint them.

In that sense it became like designing the cover of Jurassic Park all over again--you start with something concrete and real (a diagram of an existing T-Rex skeleton) and apply it to a fictional conceit. So you end up with what just might be outside Icarus's window as he hurtles through space. Added to that is a graphic element that represents the approaching and receding black hole, which is literally that--a small black circle appears smack dab in the center of the second spread and slowly grows as you read the book. Then, when it's so relatively large it threatens to completely consume everything, it slowly starts shrink (as Icarus pulls the pod-craft back away from it), until by the end of the book it disappears and is replaced by the Earth. If you have trouble picturing that, you'll just have to see the book! I thank Brian for the opportunity to work on it, and urge you all to check it out. Learning scientific space-physics was never so beautiful. –CK

(Photo Courtesy of Chip Kidd)

A Look Inside Icarus at the Edge of Time
(Click on Images to Enlarge)

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Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy

Matthew Reinhart

Amazon Price: $23.09 List Price: $34.99 By: Orchard Books Amazon Marketplace: 55 new & used starting at $22.93

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 184 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Best Star Wars product ever 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

There isn't much else to be said that the other reviews don't say - clearly this is a winner. There is something magical about a non techie item that reveres the tech filled star wars universe. During Hurricane Ike in Tx, we had no power for nearly a week and my kids loved this book. There were so many delightful surprises in it, its a wonder of papercraft engineering that will delight for years to come.

Editorial Review:

Sabuda and Reinhart Studios have created another spectacular pop-up book for George Lucas's epic STAR WARS movies! Bestselling pop-up artist and engineer Matthew Reinhart has designed a thirtieth anniversary commemorative edition that comes packed with a variety of novelty features -- pop-ups, working light sabers, pull tabs, and other interactive looks at the exciting and popular movies. This beautiful book will impress all fans of STAR WARS and gives a whole new perspective to the films.

MATTHEW REINHART is a renowned paper engineer and bona fide STARS WARS aficionado. He has worked with Robert Sabuda on many wonderful pop-up titles such as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, A B C Disney, Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Dinosaurs, and Movable Mother Goose. He also created Mommy? by Maurice Sendak, The Pop-Up Book of Nightmares, and The Pop-Up Book of Phobias. He lives in New York City.

The Time Traveler's Wife

Audrey Niffenegger

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Total reviews: 1676 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

I'm am SOOO disappointed! 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I can't say I had high expectations for this book, but I was looking forward to reading it. Unfortunately I can't count the times I nearly threw it against the wall in despair and almost gave up. I don't give up easily though, and continued to torture myself with finishing this awful book. I read quite a bit, and was sooo disappointed that this book ended up rising to the very top of my 'never recommend/never read again' list.

As some others have said, the characters were so out of well..'character' with their useage of the "f" word and even the "C" word. I was completely put off, and I'm no prude....However, nothing felt loving or romantic about this book AT ALL. I was under the impression that this was a love story that spands time,etc..But I only felt slightly sickened by the two main characters interactions. He always came off a tad bit pervy...and she seemed naive and manipulated....when she wasn't using the 'f' or 'c' word or having sex....which they had lots of. Too bad we never had a chance to see what the rest of their world may have been like. There were no romantic encounters....the most sentimental moments happened when Clare was a child...and even those were a bit ruined by the fact that Henry is NUDE a majority of the time. I couldn't quite figure out what the author was trying to get across. The premise of the story is a unique and interesting one, but the actual story was not worth reading. I felt it could have been written so much better. It's a shame.

Editorial Review:

A dazzling novel in the most untraditional fashion, this is the remarkable story of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate love affair endures across a sea of time and captures the two lovers in an impossibly romantic trap, and it is Audrey Niffenegger's cinematic storytelling that makes the novel's unconventional chronology so vibrantly triumphant.

An enchanting debut and a spellbinding tale of fate and belief in the bonds of love, The Time Traveler's Wife is destined to captivate readers for years to come.

The Living Dead

Stephen King, Joe Hill, George R. R. Martin, Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Laurell K. Hamilton, Joe R. Lansdale, Poppy Z. Brite, Harlan Ellison

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Excellent Zombie anthology 5 out of 5 stars.
14 of 14 people found this review helpful.

What could be more enjoyable than a Zombie story anthology? How about enjoying one during and after Hurricane Ike, with no power and candlelight?? How about one that includes three of my all-time fav authors (Dan Simmons, George R. R. Martin and Stephen King)? How about one nearly 500 pages long (at least the ARC is)? How about one edited by John Joseph Adams, who also brought us the anthologies Seeds of Change and Wastelands (which, yes, I need to finish).

Many of these stories have been previously published, but almost all were new to me. One obvious component: sex angles and zombies seem to mix. Not all include that perspective, but this is certainly not PG-13.

My favorites from this LARGE collection were Ghost Dance by Sherman Alexie, The Third Dead Body by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Malthusian's Zombie by Jeffrey Ford, Home Delivery by Stephen King, Deadman's Road by Joe R. Lansdale, The Song the Zombie Sang by Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg.

This review originally appeared on duskbeforethedawn.net.Thoughts on each story:

* This Year's Class Picture by Dan Simmons: the author of the Hyperion series plus the Illiad/Olympus duology tells the tale of Ms. Geiss, teacher extraordinaire, continuing to teach her class and recruit new students even though they and most of the rest in the city are dead and zombies. The repetition of the lessons and Ms. Geiss persistence are well told.
* Some Zombie Contingency Plans by Kelly Link: interestingly written and well paced story of Soap the ex-con with a painting, who always has a contingency plan against zombies and several other possibilities; the ending threw me (re-read the final paragraph until my eyes hurt), but the journey to the end was enjoyable, as Soap crashes Carly's party and cons her.
* Death and Suffrage by Dale Bailey; zombies dig their way out to vote, based on a presidential campaign manager's repressed memories being brought to the fore after a little girl's accidental shooting. If only the dead would vote this November...
* Ghost Dance by Sherman Alexie; one of my favorites, though I wish it were longer. Custer's army arises from the dead, drawn by murdered Indian blood, and an FBI agent named Edgar (not Mulder) has visions of their lives and the damage/murder that they do.
* Blossom by David J. Schow; okey-dokey! A little kinky sex gone awry turns a beautiful girl into a dead girl and then into a man-eating zombie. Descriptive, to say the least!
* The Third Dead Body by Nina Kiriki Hoffman; a zombie story from the zombie's point of view; a murdered hooker, cursed by her voodoo grandma, must love the man that killed her and rises from the grave to find him. Very well written and entertaining.
* The Dead by Michael Swanwick; the third zombie + sex story in a row, interesting grouping, Mr. Adams. The business side of using cheap zombies for everything - factory workers, stunt doubles...and, yes, as call girls/guys. Good character work in this story.
* The Dead Kid by Darrell Schweitzer; school age bullies who keep `the dead kid' in their forest fort put one young man through a right of passage; should he abuse the zombie dead kid like the other gang members or save him?
* Malthusian's Zombie by Jeffrey Ford; Mr. Ford bases this on a book by Julian Jaynes (which I actually have in my possession, and have always thought it would be a great basis for a story). A well written slight of hand, featuring mind programming that turned soldiers to zombies in a secret government project, following the theories of Dr. Jaynes.
* Beautiful Stuff by Susan Palwick; a 9/11-ish story about what the dead would say to the living about revenge and death. Nicely done.
* Sex, Death and Starshine by Clive Barker; the upcoming death of a theater motivates it's dead patrons and stars to gather for one last performance and viewing, taking some of the living with them;
* Stockholm Syndrome by David Tallerman; surviving human gets sympathetic with a semi-intelligent zombie who reminds him of his dead son...even though the zombie is trying to break into other humans houses.
* Bobby Conroy Comes Back from the Dead by Joe Hill; two former lovers, one now married, on the set of Dawn of the Dead as extras. No real zombies, just remembrances of how things used to be and wishful thinking of how things could have been.
* Those Who Seek Forgiveness by Laurell K. Hamilton; I enjoyed the first few Anita Blake novels, before they became overly porno. This story hearkens back to her early work, where she deftly describes Anita the animator, the woman doing a job that she is bound to do, explaining zombies and how they work to the living and raising the dead.
* In Beauty, Like the Night by Norman Partridge; hmmm...a porn mag star on an island where he'd planned to weather any disaster with his centerfold girls turns into...you guess it...night of the living porn queen.
* Prairie by Brian Evenson; a poetically written parable of exploration in the new world, but instead of indians we find the walking dead;
* Everything Is Better with Zombies by Hannah Wolf Bowen; an enjoyable tale of high school kids, imagining zombies at every grave of their small town cemetery, to take their minds off of their other problems.
* Home Delivery by Stephen King; a excellent tale from the master, an isolated Maine (of course) island community, that bands together when a zombie plague from space attacks the rest of the world. The characterization and back story are indicative of King's other great works.
* Less Than Zombie by Douglas E. Winter; from the intro, this is a mod of another story by Bret Easton Ellis, a tale of people in LA, getting high, and believing if they kill their friends in gruesome ways, they will come back as zombies. Not one of my favs of the collection.
* Sparks Fly Upward by Lisa Morton; the politics of over population and abortion in an isolated colony after a zombie outbreak told from the diary of the mother. An unique zombie story for this and any other collection, and exceptionally well written.
* Meathouse Man by George R. R. Martin; a sad short story by one of my favorite authors, featuring a young man who can run corpses to do multiple jobs, but all he wants his to find his true love. His search takes him to many jobs, many worlds, and to the meathouse, where corpses respond to his needs. A sad tale, but as always well paced with a well brought out leading character.
* Deadman's Road by Joe R. Lansdale; a Texas western zombie tale, with the resolute Reverend Jebidiah Rains, part gunslinger, part warrior of God, always fighter of evil. He helps a deputy escort a prisoner down Deadman's Road, in search of an evil zombie who was a killer and bully when alive.
* The Skull-Faced Boy by David Barr Kirtley; superbly written from the point of view of an intelligent zombie (his brain wasn't eaten) who has to decide if he is on the side of the living (his father) or the dead (his friend). The zombies organize behind the intelligent zombies!
* The Age of Sorrow by Nancy Kilpatrick; instead of being the last man on earth, what about being the last woman on earth? well-imagined, nicely written, a sad downward spiral, as one would realistically expect.
* Bitter Grounds by Neil Gaiman; a fantasy of drifting, where the people that you meet you are supposed to meet, leading you on a path to voodoo lovers and zombie powder taking a professor's place at a conference in New Orleans.
* She's Taking Her Tits to the Grave by Catherine Cheek; a lively tale of a blonde L.A. barbie, called back from the dead but she doesn't know who did it. She stumbles from lover to husband trying to find out who, decaying all the way (except for the silicone).
* Dead Like Me by Adam by Troy Castro; if you want to live amidst a zombie plague, pretend to be dead. A somewhat lackluster self-help manual.
* Zora and the Zombie by Andy Duncan; voodoo and zombies in Haiti around Roosevelt's time. Zora seeks to solve the puzzle of Felicia, a woman found after she was thought dead 30 years, and of the voodoo gods that surround Haiti. The same coffee girls as in Gaiman's story are mentioned here as well!.
* Calcutta, Lord of Nerves by Poppy Z. Brite; "It seemed to me that the dead were among the best-fed citizens of Calcutta." A great line from a lyrically written tour through Calcutta after the zombies came. The goddess Kali worshiped by the living and the dead.
* Followed by Will McIntosh; corpses follow around the well off, or people who have used or invested in something that causes other people to suffer. One of the shortest, but sweet.
* The Song the Zombie Sang by Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg; one of the best of the bunch. A skilled musician kept animated after his death to perform, his music technically accurate but not passionate, encounters a live equal as a musician who sees through his charade and pain.
* Passion Play by Nancy Holder; we've been to Oberammerau and seen the Passionspielhaus. I haven't seen the play but the way Ms. Holder describes the event of having zombies in the play portraying Christ crucified on the cross is outstanding. The play has been done since the time of the plague....the plague returns when the zombies are treated inhumanely, even though given the sacrement from a sympathetic priest. Well done.
* Almost the Last Story by Almost the Last Man by Scott Edelman; stories of a writer locked in a library as the world around him deteriorates overrun by zombies.
* How the Day Runs Down by John Langan; the "Our Town" Stage Manager narrates the zombie invasion of the town, and shoots a few zombies of his own. Explanation, characters with stories, a well written parallel.

Editorial Review:

"When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth!" From White Zombie to Dawn of the Dead, Resident Evil to World War Z, zombies have invaded popular culture, becoming the monsters that best express the fears and anxieties of the modern west. Gathering together the best zombie literature of the last three decades from many of today's most renowned authors of fantasy, speculative fiction, and horror, including Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, George R. R. Martin, Clive Barker, Poppy Z. Brite, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Joe R. Lansdale, The Living Dead covers the broad spectrum of zombie fiction.