Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Book Review: Zombies Vs Unicorns Justine Larbalestier and Holly Black (eds)


ISBN: 9781742375502

Australian Pub.: November 2010

Edition: 1

Publisher: ALLEN & UNWIN

Imprint: A & U CHILDREN

Subject: Young adult fiction

Edition Number: 1



Edited by Holly Black (Team Unicorn) and Justine Larbalestier (Team Zombie). Zombies Vs Unicorns is a unique short story feud that pits horned beasts against the shuffling undead.

Description

It's a question as old as time itself: which reigns supreme, the zombie or the unicorn?

'For too long, the zombie has dominated the public consciousness, but the reign of the unicorn is at hand!' Holly Black - Team Unicorn

'I think that posterity will look upon this as the moment when zombies took their rightful place at the top of the food chain.' Justine Larbalestier - Team Zombie

Contributors to this unique collection include bestselling teen and YA authors, Garth Nix, Meg Cabot, Scott Westerfeld, Cassandra Clare, Libba Bray, Maureen Johnson and Margo Lanagan.

Zombie vs Unicorns challenges you to pick a team, and stick to it. But be warned, these are stellar story-tellers, and they can be very convincing...

About Justine Larbalestier and Holly Black (eds)

Team Zombie

Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Maureen Johnson, Carrie Ryan, Scott Westerfeld and captained by Justine Larbalestier, the author of Liar, How to Ditch Your Fairy and The Magic or Madness trilogy. She has been a zombie enthusiast ever since she first saw George Romero's Night of the Living Dead as a tiny tot. She lives in Sydney, Australia + New York City, USA.

Team Unicorn

Meg Cabot, Kathleen Duey, Margo Lanagan, Garth Nix, Naomi Novik, Diana Peterfreund are captained by Holly Black, the bestselling author of the Spiderwick series and other novels for teens including, Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale, Valiant and Ironside, (the Tithe sequel) which was a New York Times bestseller. Her new novel, White Cat, is to be published in the US Summer 2010. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.



Review

The concept and debate behind this book is a rather interesting story in itself, with blog fuelling the argument between the Zombie and Unicorn fans.

As a Zombie fiction fan, I was looking forward to getting my teeth into the zombie short stories and probably just skimming over the unicorn tales. There were many stories from both camps that were well worth the read I’m afraid to say, with a hilarious running commentary from Black and Larbalestier to egg the reader on.

The collection opens with a spectacular story by Garth Nix that actually has both unicorns and zombies in it. There are other great authors gracing the pages of this collection that will keep most readers entertained and satisfied, regardless of their inclination.

Another particularly good story was Inoculata by Scott Westerfeld. A story about your typical brain-eating zombies and a small group of humans surviving in the wilderness. This story has a bit of a twist to it that makes it a bit more interesting.

Be warned though, even though it is marketed as a young adult anthology, there is quite a lot of profanity and implied bestiality in one story. I suppose that if you are going to buy your son/daughter any fiction with zombies in it then this probably won’t bother you, but I did want to point it out.

Overall, this is a great collection of stories and worth a look in.

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