Book Review: STORIES OF THE DEAD: A tribute to George A. Romero. By various writers.
Stories Of The Dead is a collection of zombie short stories all inspired by George A. Romero and his movies, particularly his Dead trilogy which were and remain the catalyst for so many zombie movies, novels, comics and TV shows over these past decades. It contains 18 different stories from every possible perspective of a zombie apocalypse.
Some of them even go so far as to provide a backstory or follow on of characters from Romeros movies. Beekman’s Diner by Jeff C. Stevenson brings us the possible lead up to how the Coopers from Night Of The Living Dead had ended up in that farmhouse. Fuel by Jason Whittle follows Peter and Francine after they had fled the mall in the helicopter in Dawn Of The Dead. Whereas, Safe Zone Of The Dead by David Owain Hughes gives us the backstory of Steel from Day Of The Dead just as he joins Capt Rhodes at the bunker. Others come in the form of carefully thought out poems, tragic stories of people dealing with infected family members, tales of soldiers on suicide missions or humorous parables from the zombies point of view. Some of the other authors involved are Duncan P. Bradshaw, Dan Howarth, Tony Earnshaw, James Jobling and Emma Dehaney amongst others. The great thing about this book is that after each story there is a brief bio about the author then they have each written a short tribute to Romero, sharing their love of his movies, how he inspired them to do what they do now and treasured memories of meeting the man himself. It also contains some forewords by David Crawford and Jim Krut both actors in Dawn Of The Dead, and an afterword by Jonathan Maberry who worked closely with Romero right up until the end. The illustration is a great tribute and a very fitting cover to the book by Kevin Enhart. I really enjoyed this book I found every story entertaining in different ways, I especially enjoyed the stories on the different characters from the movies. The tributes from the authors were very heartfelt and enhanced the whole experience of reading this even more. A great read from cover to cover.
Review by Sarah Budd