Dead That Walk, The (Book)

Reviewed by Elaine Lamkin

Edited by Stephen Jones

Published by Ulysses Press

Just recently I reviewed the enormous anthology from John Skipp Zombies: Encounters with the Hungry Dead, and now here is another excellent zombie anthology that doesn’t seem to have any crossover stories from Skipp’s book. Granted it is much smaller tha, Zombies…, but the stories contained here are ones I haven’t seen anthologized for a long time: Stephen King’s gruesome "Home Delivery", which was originally published in Skipp and Craig Spector’s seminal Book of the Dead, "Black Canaan" from Robert E. Howard, Clive Barker’s "Haeckel’s Tale", which went on to become an episode of Masters of Horror, and, of course, the requisite Lovecraft story - this time "Cool Air", originally published in Weird Tales back in 1928.

There are also stories, some new for this anthology, others not, from such authors as Joe Hill, Michael Marshall Smith, David J. Schow, Lisa Morton, Joe R.Lansdale, Brian Keene, and many more.

What can I say? If you love zombies and missed ANY of the reprinted stories such as King’s or Barker’s, this book is a must-have!! Editor Stephen Jones is a master anthologist, editing the Mammoth Book of Best New Horror series as well as the Mammoth series for zombies, Frankenstein, Dracula, werewolves, vampires, vampire women, monsters, and SO many more (all of his anthologies are listed in his bio at the back of this book). He also authored the brief but informative introduction to this book wherein he discusses the zombie’s pop culture beginnings and where he see things going. And each short story has a brief intro about the author, which is helpful for the up-and-coming writers who are debuting here.

Just get a copy before…nom, nom, nom, nom…

4 out of 5

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