This week I had
the feeling. I know you’ve had it, all
readers have. When you read a book that
is so cool and so everything you love, you are practically vibrating with
excitement. Several times I had to
consciously stop myself from writing a one line review. “Go get this book now.”
The Pied Piper of the Undead by Michael Whetzel is a book
seemingly based on the principal of going back in time and undoing some of the features
that have becomes staples in the zombie apocalypse genre in order to give us a
fresh start. He leaves out the armies of
survivalist psychos. He takes out zombies that are more powerful than humans. He leaves out the drawn out predictable
description of the end of the world. He
leaves out the religious dogma.
So you are
wondering, what’s left? Glad you asked. There is a sense of mystery that drew me in
as I was confronted with a world inhabited by only one human survivor, a
thirteen year old boy named Peter. He
lives on top of a water tower at the edge of his small town, and the horde of
the living dead ambles below. As he looked
down at them, waiting for him, in some cases signaling for him to climb down
the ladder they do not have the motor control to climb, I was reminded of I AM Legend. The undead calling to Robert Neville is my
most enduring memory from reading the 1954 classic, and I felt that again. Just like in the classic, we don’t know why
Peter is there. We don’t know any of the
circumstances, and Micjael shows us instead of telling us boring back story.
The novella
also delivers a young protagonist that offers a totally different emotional
backdrop than the twenty to forty something plot of fighting for survival in
order to reach the haven. Peter is in
that puberty time of immortal thinking.
He doesn’t fear his circumstances because in his simple, non developed
mind he has figured out the system of how to get supplies and how the zombies “work”. His view of the zombie apocalypse allows for different
interactions with the undead.
It is pretty
standard for characters in these stories to struggle with one of their loved
ones becoming a corpse and having to go through the mental anguish of killing
them. However, Michael Whetzel goes beyond
that struggle with Peter’s interaction and feelings about the dead. And the reason he was able to make this
emotional landscape so rich is that he zooms in a small fragment of Romero’s description
of mall zombies in Dawn of the Dead. It all wraps up into a nice coming of age
zombie story.
I will say that
if you like the caravan quests of zombie killers driving around in endless
search of bullets, gas, and other supplies you might not be into this
story. It’s a small scale character
experience that I thoroughly enjoyed. If
I had a genie wish, I would have wanted the big ending to slow down just a
touch, but that is mainly because I didn’t want the great read to come to an
end.
I happily give The
Pied Piper of the Undead by Michael Whetzel five rotten severed heads. Because I loved Michaels work so much, here is
a link for you to check out all his fiction.
Heads Will
Roll,
Everette
Bell
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