‘The Last Mailman’ and the Larger Trend of ‘Lasts’ with Zombies
Ever wonder what The Postman would be like with less David Brin (or Kevin Costner) and more Zombies (i.e., any)?
Well, wonder no longer, because “The Last Mailman: Neither Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Zombies” by Kevin Burke mixes post-apocalyptic mail service with Zombie scaremongering:
Four-year degree in business.
Trained in hand-to-hand combat.
Works well with zombies.
This is the resume of the last mailman on Earth. It is the near future, and the modern world we knew has been overrun and destroyed by reanimated corpses who hunt humans for food. Mankind has retreated to small pockets of civilization and practically surrendered to these walking dead. But one man routinely leaves behind the safety and comfort of his home in this new world in order to find the people and things we’ve long abandoned. He battles the elements. He battles his own brewing insanity. But mostly, he battles zombies.
This is his story.
Insanity? I’ll say. As the Post Office has had to learn in recent years, when massive demographic shifts disturb a long-held business model, the answer isn’t to stubbornly cling to outmoded ideas (like, say, 1st class letters) but rather to find new ways to be useful (flat rate shipping for e-commerce, for example).
Yet here we have a postman, supposedly the very last, who stubbornly insists on serving only the dwindling percentage of the population that is technically ‘alive’.
I’d wager the Undead Parcel Service is whipping his butt.
More broadly, this brings to mind a larger topic here at the ZRC: the way that Zombies are associated with the ‘Last’ of things, usually by causing an apocalypse, rather than the ‘First’ of other things. This pessimistic framing is rampant in Anti-Zombie media products and fiction, you see it everywhere.
Some handy examples:
“Last Blood“, a once mega-popular webcomic, which as the title hints is fixated on the dwindling supply of blood for Vampires.
“The Last Man on Earth” and “The Omega Man” – Vincent Price and later Charlton Heston focus the attention on the few remaining Living people to the obvious detriment of the quasi-Zombies (vampires in Matheson’s original).
(I’m not putting ‘I Am Legend’ in here because the original story’s not about Zombies and the movie… well, the less said the better, for everyone really)
“Last Night on Earth” – popular Anti-Zombie board game
“The Last Christmas” – new apparently Anti-Zombie fiction by Brian Posehn
You get the idea. In all these cases, even given the ‘Zombie Apocalypse’, the authors and creative minds decide to look at the glass as distinctly half-empty instead of half-full (of Zombie goodness).
I chalk that up to prejudice. Ugly, ugly prejudice. It’s also a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If you want to be the Last Mailman, don’t cater to the postal needs of an emerging Zombie population. If you want it to be the Last Christmas, be that jerk who won’t give presents to Zombies. Last Man on Earth? Well sure, if you don’t want to acknowledge your fellow man just because he’s a bit photophobic and shuffly. Last Blood? Well actually, that one’s all the Vampires’ fault, if you read the comic.
Poor planning. Tsk tsk, vampires.
The ZRC would like to see a greater emphasis on the positive and INNOVATIVE aspects of Zombification. ‘Dead Eyes Open‘ does a great job on this score, looking at the impacts on entertainment, videogames, social life, population distribution and politics. Why can’t more authors be so forward thinking?
We’ll keep a look out and let you know when we find more, naturally.
(The Last Mailman is available from Amazon for the Kindle here)
About The Author
If you read through to the very end, The Last Mailman hints at the possibility of a world where the living and the undead live in harmony. You definitely check it out.
*you should definitely check it out*
I wrote The Last Mailman and came to defend myself… though I see “Zombie Shakespeare” already came to my defense. By the end of the story, humankind has taken a progressive step toward co-existing with zombies. You shouldn’t review something without reading it. However, I do greatly appreciate you providing the link to my book, so thank you very much. :)
Greetings, Mr. Burke!
Although our esteemed president posted the entry, this is a good opportunity to clarify for the record. This was not an actual review of the book nor does it claim to be at any point in the text (which is why most of the entry instead focuses merely on the concept of a last mailman who, it’s implied, is not delivering to the differently animated, and a larger cultural trend). Basically it’s a news item which uses the book as a starting point for a train of thought, which of course is common in blogging, essays, and news media.
It would take a little more browsing of the blogsite to notice, but actual reviews are labeled “ZRC Reviews” and indeed only occur after the work in question has been read, viewed, played, or otherwise appraised, and most often after enough time has lapsed for appropriate response. You can find these tagged. http://zombierightscampaign.org/blog/?tag=zrc-reviews
And to sum up, while we appreciate and welcome author correspondence, including disagreement, there generally isn’t need for “defense” as such, outside of reviews which actively *do* condemn the authors for their zombophobia (and on occasions, for their aesthetic crimes as well; “Resident Evil” movies, if I weren’t shielding my eyes, I’d be looking in your direction) or on other occasions, simple academic sloppiness and factual misinformation (something which is one of my personal banes).
That said, the inklings of progressiveness in the book’s resolution, beyond the blurb, certainly are heartening to us here at the ZRC. Thanks again for entering into the discourse.
I admit, I did not know about your cause before my wife Googled my book and found your site. I was aware that this wasn’t an actual review and my self-defense was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Really, as a guy who just recently uploaded a book he wrote to the Kindle store and had no expectations, I was blown away just to see it mentioned on a website prestigious enough to be a .org. Keep up the good work and good luck.
Aha! While the ZRC is not unacquainted with the tongue’s proximity to that portion of the facial interior, I confess I misunderstood, perhaps because just the other day we did indeed have someone take to the ZRC to task for a “review.”
Thanks for dropping by and the same to you, my good fellow. We wish authors all the best (even the zombophobic [well most of them anyway], a label which happily does not seem to apply to yourself, as we strive for an open dialogue and, just perhaps, an awakened awareness, to assess alliteratively).