Wildside Press, ‎ 295 pages. ISBN 978-1479463312

(US Amazon prices: $3.99 Kindle/ $15.00 Paperback/  $29.99 Hardcover)

Zombies! Available now for your Halloween needs!

In 2015, Douglas Draa resurrected Weirdbook with issue #31 (the weird fiction magazine had been dormant since 1997). Fast forward to 2021, and issue #44 is now available. In addition to the core issues, there are themed anthologies spawning. Annual #1 Witches came out in 2017; and Annual #2: Cthulhu appeared in 2019 (discussed on Black Gate).

This year, for Annual #3, Weirdbook challenged authors to come up with memorable takes on zombies. The result is this fantastic collection of 34 new stories. Draa looked for tales that were fun, entertaining and scary. He also wanted fresh meat (i.e., he didn’t want to serve up a bunch of Romeroesque, plague zombies).

Love zombies? Want some of the less-rotten, more fresh stuff?

Have a go at this menu.

Table of Contents

Short Stories

• “The Meddler,” by Matthew John
• “Tiger Girls vs. the Zombies,” by Lucy A. Snyder
• “Dead Between the Eyes,” by Adrian Cole
• “Alive Again,” by Franklyn Searight
• “The Night Hans Kroeger Came Back,” by Kenneth Bykerk
• “The Marching Dead,” by Andrew Darlington
• “I Wished for Zombies,” by D.C. Lozar
• “O Mary Don’t You Mourn,” by Mike Chinn
• “To Die, To Sleep, No More,” by Erica Ruppert
• “Run, Monster, Run,” by Teasha Seitz
• “Another Night in Bayou Sauvage,” by Chad Hensley
• “Kifaro,” by Dilman Dila
• “But I Love Him,” by Scott Wheelock
• “Who Wants to Live Forever?” by Angela Yuriko Smith
• “The Dead Are Always Hungry,” by Christopher Alex Ray
• “Zen Zombies,” by R. A. Smith
• “Cassius Max,” by KT Morley
• “A Nanotech Samsara,” by J.N. Cameron
• “Pine in the Soul,” by John Linwood Grant
• “Welcome Home,” by Craig E. Sawyer
• “Papa Hanco,” by Ed Reyes
• “They Shall Eat Dust,” by Josh Reynolds
• “In Shadow Valley,” by Nick Swain
• “Devil’s Bargain,” by J.F. Le Roux
• “Right for You Now,” by Andrew Jennings
• “E’Zunguth, the Zombie God,” by Maxwell I. Gold
• “Lazy River,” by Kelly Piner
• “The New Human,” by Shayne K. Keen
• “This Little Piggy,” by EV Knight
• “Life Unworthy of Life,” by Stephanie Ellis
• “More Blood,” by Carson Ray
• “This Creeping Cold,” by Kevin Rees
• “The Body I Used to Be,” by Scott Edelman
• “Queen of Hearts,” by S.E. Lindberg

Poetry

• Ashley Dioses
• Avra Margariti
• Josh Maybrook
• Darrell Schweitzer
• Lori R. Lopez
• Allan Rozinski
• K.A. Opperman
• Gregg Chamberlain
• Robert Borski
• David C. Kopaska-Merkel
• Colleen Anderson

Previous Weirdbook annuals

Order copies of Weirdbook here.