‘The Dishonored Dead’ Potentially Intriguing Inversion of the Anti-Zombie Genre
Well this sounds very promising and is definitely going on the ZRC’s Amazon wishlist:
If you’re expecting the traditional zombie genre canon, you won’t find it here.
Robert Swartwood’s Dishonored Dead describes a world in which zombies roam the relatively undead inhabited planet, live in cities, have families, drive cars and human’s, those that remain, are in hiding from the Hunters. Hunters are specially trained undead units whose sole purpose is to track down the living, whom they call ‘zombies’ and eliminate them.
The central part of the plot revolves around Conrad, the son of the most famous Hunter, who lives by the Hunter’s Code in all that he does essentially making him the last zombie boy scout. One night on a hunt he hesitates and doesn’t kill a human. Seen as a sign of cowardice, he is transferred to a secret agency that works with the living to better understand them. Tossed into the mix are marital issues, office politics, living sympathizers and Conrad’s son who is fast approaching his 10th birthday, Animation Day, which is a special time for all of the dead.
A world where Zombies run the show and Living people are hunted? Where Zombies have jobs, kids, governments and ordinary Unlives and the Living minority are under siege?
Don’t get me wrong; what’s wrong for the goose is wrong for the gander, so to speak. This is a nightmarish dystopia, but in the tradition of classic dystopian fiction it may be trying to tell us truths about contemporary society that MOST people (not ZRC readers clearly) are unready to hear.
I’m totally buying this and will eventually put up a ZRC review. For now, think of it as a promising and potentially Zombie Friendly novel to be aware of, one that attempts to put the shoe on the other foot and really make people *think* about the way our society mistreats the Differently Animated… or so I hope.
Unfortunately it’s Kindle only, so it’ll have to wait until I have one myself. Sigh. Technology; always having to get the next platform, evaluate the cutting edge for the ZRC.
About The Author
Thanks for mentioning The Dishonored Dead, John! Yes, the novel is only available right now as an e-book for Kindle and Nook and a few other formats, but hopefully within the next couple of months it will be available as a trade paperback. If you would like to review it, I’d be happy to send you a PDF.
We would be very interested in reviewing it, yes! Feel free to send a file to my ZRC-related email, zrc – at- jsears.xidus.net (slight spammer obfuscation).
(I should really get that made into an image to post, but I believe the spambots have OCR now anyway. Blasted technological arms race!)