2012; 285 pages. Full Title: Mad
About Undead You: A Zombie Apocalypse Love Story. New Author? : Yes. Genres : Humorous Dark Comedy, Zombie
Apocalypse, Paranormal Romance. Overall
Rating : 4*/10.
There’s something strange about the people out
and about on the streets of San Francisco.
Donovan Codell is sure of it.
They stink to high heaven. They
have mega-zits. They growl at people and
gnash their teeth a lot. If they see
you, they shuffle towards you. Not very
fast, but very persistently.
Maybe the waiter at the
coffeehouse was right. He said you can’t
drink the city’s water right now, although he didn’t say why. But his coffeehouse will only serve you juice
or natural soda.
Oh well, Donovan’s not going
to let the locals spoil his day. He woke
up feeling great, in no small part because he had a beautiful girl sleeping
beside him. Nothing short of a zombie
apocalypse is going to ruin his mood.
Funny thing about that,
Donovan.
What’s To Like...
The setting for Mad About Undead
You is the greater San Francisco area, including everything from
the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood to several of the islands in the San Francisco
Bay. Donovan and his love interest,
Cathren, run all over the place, trying to avoid getting torn to pieces by hungry
brain-eaters, deranged scientists, and paranoid geezers. The subtitle is accurate, this is a Zombie
Apocalypse Love Story, but the emphasis leans heavily on the Undead, not the Romance.
The action is nonstop, and
loaded with plenty of dei ex machina and Hulk-like abilities to keep our
two protagonists from being sliced and diced and chomped and stomped. For the most part, anyway. There aren’t a lot of characters to keep
track of, and along the way you’ll learn a little bit of French, a little bit
of Spanish, and a smidgen of Anglo-Saxon English.
Being a chemist, I always like
it when science works its way into a story.
So the rotten-eggs “sulfur odor” was neat, although for me, it triggers
a “money to be made” reflex. The
“fertilizer bomb” is indeed powerfully real – it’s what was used in the
Oklahoma City bombing. IIRC, cryogenic
“frozen heads” are also a real thing; I vaguely recall reading about a scandal
involving cryogenic employees allegedly kicking one of those like a soccer
ball, maybe even the one belonging to MLB Hall-of-Famer Ted Williams.
The music references to the Dead Kennedys, Prince’s “Purple Rain”, and Bob Marley’s “No Woman No Cry” were neat; Carl
S. Plumer obviously has fine musical tastes.
You’ll learn the value of knowing how to drive a stick shift and what
the verb “jonesing” means. And
if you think zombie humans are scary, just wait till you come face-to-face with
zombie sharks.
Mad About Undead You is
a standalone novel, with short chapters: 77 of them covering the 285 pages of
the e-book version. I didn’t find a sequel, but in looking at Carl S. Plumer’s author’s page on Amazon it
appears the book was re-issued with a new title, Zombie
Ever After – A Satire, in 2015.
The first four chapters, shown in the “Look Inside” section on the Amazon page looked identical to Mad About Undead You.
Kewlest New Word ...
Klatch (n.) : a social gathering, especially
for coffee and conversation. (a Yankeeism)
Things that Sound Dirty But Aren’t…
“Let
me get your tongue and put it on ice.” (loc. 855)
Ratings…
Amazon:
3.5/5
based on 29 ratings and 29 reviews.
Goodreads: 3.42/5 based on 91
ratings and 19 reviews
Excerpts...
A large group of people formed a circle in
the middle of the road, their backs to Donovan and Cathren. The couple stopped, transfixed, and studied
the people in the crowd. Oozing wounds
dotted the beings’ flesh. Open sores
pocked their necks, arms, backs. Rotting
skin dripped to the ground. A couple of
them had bits of bright white bone showing through, like headlights in a
tunnel.
“What’s going on?” said Cathren. “Who are they? They look so sick. Are they lepers? Are they hurt? Should we help them?”
“Water drinkers,” Donovan said darkly. “Unfiltered tap water drinkers.” (loc. 236)
The brain-eaters were more than halfway
down the stairs now. Donovan aimed and
squeezed the trigger.
Nothing.
The safety was on. Who would
leave the safety on in the middle of a zombie apocalypse?
He released the safety and tried again.
Click.
The zombies were almost upon him.
Who would leave an unloaded shotgun in the
middle of a zombie apocalypse? (loc.
2745)
Kindle Details…
Mad
About Undead You is presently unavailable as an e-book in Amazon, but Carl S. Plumer has three other e-books at Amazon, all in the paranormal genre, and ranging in price from free to $3.99.
“Money is no
object. (…) In other words, I have no money.”
(loc. 4811)
Sadly, there is a lot to
quibble about regarding Mad About Undead You,
which accounts for the low ratings at both Amazon and Goodreads. The book screams for a better backstory (what the heck is the military doing while zombies are
running amok?) and the storytelling has way too many dei ex
machina to be believable. Other weaknesses include:
Cussing. There’s a lot of it. I counted 20 instances in the first 10% of
the e-book. There’s nothing wrong with some well-placed cusswords, but excessive use of them is usually a cheap substitute for better writing.
Similes. They get used ad nauseam here. In the six pages comprising Chapter 17, for
example, the phrase “as if” gets used seven times. Similes using “like” (“the heat of the doorknob stung her fingers like a
serpent bite”) are also overused.
Science Errors. “HO2”
is not hydrogen peroxide. “H2O2” is. And there aren’t “over
2,000 trace elements”. There may
be thousands of compounds or molecules, but elements are limited to the 100+
that are listed in the Periodic Table.
Yes, this is nitpicky. But I’m a
chemist.
The Ending. It’s unsatisfying. The story ends abruptly with our heroes conveniently finding a haven that’s too good to be believable, and is temporary at best. Neither the zombie apocalypse nor the health of our protagonists are resolved. But to be fair, at least it wasn’t a cliffhanger.
Despite all this, I still enjoyed this book. Donovan and
Cathren are interesting characters, and any scenario with hordes of zombies running all over San Francisco is going to be entertaining.
But Mad About Undead You is in bad need of a major rewrite. And don’t tell me that I’m missing the point, that
it’s supposed to be a satire that’s not to be taken seriously. Satires still need to be coherent and
well-written.
4 Stars. One last thing. The book cover shown in my Kindle shows a girl’s face with a raven (or crow) in the background. A google search failed to come up with a single hit for this image. Instead, the book cover shown above come up, and IMHO, it gives a much better idea about the tone of Mad About Undead You. But it amazes me that the original Kindle cover image has completely disappeared from the Internet.
