Flip this Zombie by Jesse Petersen

 It's a bit disappointing when an author begins with a good gimmick, but fails to follow through. Some of the Pratchett Discworld novels have lost their sense of humor at the midpoint, and Tom Kratman's very intriguing use of the final sentence of each chapter to set the scene for the first sentence in the next chapter was fun to dissect, until he abruptly stopped doing it. In the Living with the dead series, the really cute bit was the motivational saying at the beginning of each chapter; in Married with Zombies they were about marriage counseling and relationships, and this one started out with business slogans, but the connection to zombies became very tenuous after the first chapter, which had the heading, "Do what you love, and the zombies will follow."

Sarah and Dave have shifted south, just like the snowbirds, to Arizona to avoid the cold winters of the Northwest, and have established a reputation as very good zombie killers. They begin to hear rumors of "bionic" zombies, which are much more aware of their surroundings than ordinary shamblers, and faster, too. The pair are contacted by a scientist, Dr. Kevin Barnes, a survivor living in a pre-Apocalypse military facility and asked to help him by capturing zombies instead of killing them, they are initially reluctant to help, even though he shows them his serum which can restore zombie guinea pigs (I know, right?) back to normal life.

The clinching argument, however, turns out to be a hot shower for Sarah. Electricity and hot and cold running water have gotten scarce since the zombie plague, and the chance to get clean and smell good trumps all. During their first outing to capture a fresh zombie for Kevin, the duo rescue a 12 year old boy, Robby, who is being chased by a pair of zombies, and keep him from being eaten. He is so grateful to them that...Naw, he's actually a rotten little conniving brat who demands a share of the proceeds from the captured zombie which he "led to them." They end up dragging him back to the secret underground lair of the mad scientist, and he tags along on their next excursion as well.

Again, some fun zombie killing action, some snarky dialogue, and a believable protagonist duo make this an entertaining and very quick read - took me about three hours from start to finish.

And there's a sequel.

To Sail a Darkling Sea by John Ringo

 I don't know what anyone else's beef with John Ringo is, but my major complaint is that reading his novels always leaves me short on sleep, after I keep pushing myself past my bedtime - they're just that much fun! Listen, there's nothing earthshattering in the second book in his Black Tide Rising series, it's mostly more of the same, focusing on the next steps in rescuing survivors of the zombie plague on the high seas, and sending the zombies themselves to Davy Jones' Locker (no, not the guy from the Partridge Family, kids).

The POV in this book bounces around a little bit, as we get to know a few new characters, but mostly remains focused on the Smith family, especially Faith, then Sophia, Captain Steve, and very little about Mom Stacey. The flotilla makes its way to the Canary Islands to avoid hurricane season in the Caribbean, and proceeds to liberate a number of boats, destroy massive zombie hordes, and rescue plague survivors. Once hurricane season is over, Smith plans to take the fleet back to Guantanamo and try to clear all zombies from the area, so he can take over the old U.S. Marine base facilities to try to manufacture vaccines for the plague.

He has the full backing, for what it's worth, of the remaining U.S. command authority holed up in the Rockies somewhere, and the full attention of the submarine crews in the Atlantic, who have so far been isolated from the mutated virus which caused the plague, and dare not leave their boats until a vaccine is widely available.

One of the points that Ringo seems to be making here is that there are some people who are simply natural born killers. They are simply not affected by the same sort of weakening emotions as other people, are somewhat sociopathic in certain areas, and are simply able to turn off their fear and wade right into battle. I think he gives the subject some play in the Paladin of Shadows series, as well. Faith is seriously a warrior woman, even at age 13, and her sister Sophia is not all that far behind. Both of the girls are given (earn, really) commissions as officers for the duration of the crisis, and have to learn the skills to lead others who aren't stone cold trigger tigers.

There are some frank discussions of rank and discipline issues regarding any armed forces, post-plague economics, and strategies and tactics for saving the world. We've seen some of this in the Troy Rising series, so this particular series is very much a wedding of two of Ringo's favorite themes.

Lots of battle, some serious partying, and mostly just good clean, though bloody fun!

Under a Graveyard Sky by John Ringo

 A typical Ringo caper, aside from the lack of graphic sex, but there's plenty of grue and gore to make up for it. A synthetic virus has been released worldwide by malefactors unknown, which begins with flu-like symptoms, highly contagious, and proceeds to neurological effects, turning people into naked, shambling, ravening hulks, whose bites are also very contagious, and rapidly the world is facing the big ZA. One family of preppers gets early warning about the onslaught of zombies and rapidly evacuates from the mainland to a sailboat they have purchased in a hurry. The father, Steve, is an ex-special forces Aussie expat, and his wife, Stacey, is a competent engineer (shades of Heinlein's female characters). Their elder daughter, Sophia (knowledge) is a bit on the geeky side, and does a stint as a lab tech for a private entity creating a vaccine for its executives and their families and key personnel, while the younger daughter, Faith, is more of a gun geek, and turns into a zombie killing machine extraordinaire.

I feel like Ringo spends far too much time simply setting the scene for this tale. It starts fast, but then bogs down for a while while he recounts what's happening at the semi-evil megacorporation, the CDC, NYPD, and so forth. Of course, if Steve and his family didn't hang around the harbor and allow Sophia to work with the ex-CDC scientist developing the vaccine, they might not have the information about the methodology to trade later on in the book. There's also a great scene when the family and some security folks go out for dinner at a mafia hangout for one last Italian meal in NYC and end up doing a big Escape from New York routine, cutting their way through the hordes with full and semi-auto weaponry.

Once they're on the high seas, the "meat" of the tale begins to unfold, and we get a glimpse of where Ringo intends to take the series. Not sure why he's taking a hiatus from the science fiction Troy Rising series he was writing, but perhaps he's just cashing in on the zombie craze while it's hot and will get back to it when things cool down. We'll see how the zombie killing action holds up over time before rendering judgement on this one.

No Way!!

Unbelievable! Ringo does Zombies! eARC available on baen.com for Under a Graveyard Sky. I'll probably wait for the official Nook version, but I just had to share it with y'all.

Xombies Apocalypse Blues by Walter Greatshell

I'm not a huge fan of zombie books or flicks, but the price was right on a couple of books by Greatshell, so I figured I'd pick them up and give them a try. The premise of Xombies is that the government has inadvertently released a virus into the environment that turns women, primarily, into blue-skinned ravening monsters. Nearly all of the women on the North American continent succumb immediately, while the men can only be infected by being attacked by one of the xombies.

The protagonist of the story is Lulu, who is spared being infected by a rare medical condition which has prevented her menses. She has lived alone with her nutty mother for some time, and when her mother turns into a xombie, she joins with a man who may or may not be her father trying to escape to someplace where the monsters have not overwhelmed the rest of the populace. He is a retired naval officer, and they make their way to a shipyard on the east coast where he has some old friends and bully their way onto a nuclear submarine that is transporting whatever military technology the government believes must not be lost.

The story really didn't do much for me, and broke no new ground in the field, as far as I could tell. If you're a zombie fan and can get it cheap, go ahead. Otherwise, give it a pass.

Married with Zombies by Jesse Petersen

Crap. I don't know whether to list Zombie fiction as SF or Fantasy. Ah well. This book just had too hokey of a title for me to read it right away, after my friend Law bought it for the collection. The mood struck the other night, and it turned out I actually rather enjoyed it.

Sarah and David's marriage is on the rocks. They've been seeing a counselor, but making no progress. Just like Brangelina in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, they needed something earth shattering to motivate them to communicate, and they finally get it in the form of a zombie apocalypse. It seems that some researchers at the University of Washington near Seattle have allowed a zombie virus to escape, and it rapidly infects nearly the whole population - contagion by being bitten, of course.

First, they find their therapist busy chewing on the bodies of the couple that had the appointment just ahead of them. After they dispatch her with the weapons at hand, that couple comes to un-life and attacks Dave and Sarah, as well. They have to fight with the zombie security guard on the way out, and a zombie receptionist, too.

One of their neighbors from the apartment complex has gone undead on them, but his girlfriend remains unbitten, so they ally with her and grab all the guns and ammo out of the boyfriend's safe after dispatching him, and set out to find Dave's sister in Longview (hey, I've been there!). Plenty of typical zombie mayhem along the way, and I doubt there's anything new here for Z-afficionados.

However, the really clever thing about this book is that each chapter begins with a heading drawn from a marriage counseling book, such as:

"Balance the workload in your relationship. No one person should be responsible for killing all the zombies."

"Don't discuss your relationship problems with friends. Your zombie problems are another story entirely."

"Never go to bed angry. Terrified is OK."

I really have to post some of these on my fridge.

Fun. Quick. And there's a sequel.