Vegan Zombie Apocalypse by Wol-Vriey

I’m not even going to try to summarise this book – or, rather, summary will be part of the review. It’s just so random and bizarre as to defy description.

I think I am not the targeted audience for this book. In fact, I think I’m pretty far from the targeted audience for this book.

See, I like odd and I like unique. I love different. I love something that breaks the mould of the tropes we see so often. I love something that can create something completely new and unexpected. I don’t mind if this includes scads of wackiness and weirdness and totally off the wall re-interpretations.

But I’m not a big fan of random stuff bring thrown together for the sake of it being random. A book with oddness works for me, a book that seems to be cobbled together from weird fever dreams is likely to lose me unless it has something underlying it.

This book crossed the line to just being random for the sake of it. But it didn’t do that through the story. There was a story there – a truly bizarre story of a post-zombie apocalypse. A story of humans gets as living fields in which potatoes the zombies rely on to keep themselves conscious and capable – humans little more than cattle, slowly dying without names – that’s amazingly original. Zombies that actually explode on contact with human brains – I love it. The strange post-apocalyptic cult of humans that consume zombies in accordance to the bizarre tenets of their gods. Both zombies and the cultists hunt the ever-dwindling supply of the free humans

We have an escapee from one of the human farms and a heretic from the zombie-eating cult, meeting up in the wilderness, both hunted by their respective groups but perhaps, together, able to create a new future.

Hey, that actually sounds pretty awesome

Then we get the Lemon Tree to the misspelt heavens, a meat deity and zombie-eating brains (no, really, that isn’t a mistake) and super dinosaurs and werezombies and super heroes and the Sun doing something even more odd and terminator zombie and… ye gods I have no idea. It’s at this point where a potentially awesome story is well and truly drowned under all the extra wackiness that is shoe-horned in whichever way possible. I feel the author tried too hard to make this story so different that throwing in weird stuff took precedence over everything else. It was less a story to be told and more a public declaration of how very weird and quirky it (and the author) is.

But, while that would have disappointed me, it wouldn’t have been all bad. What did break this book for me is the attempt not to be quirky – but to be “edgy” as well. Which means lots of gratuitous language and scenes in an attempt to… what? Disgust me? Offend me? Outrage me? Shock me? Impress me? I don’t know

Whether it’s the multiple sex scenes while wallowing in pits of rotting meat, the anal sex using a femur and blood as lubricant, the faeces-eating ceremony, the zombie meat needing marinating in menstrual blood – and the women collecting that by breaking the backs of “sponge rats” and inserting them – the continual use of the word “c*nt”, the gates to hell being called c*nt doors – and the metal rockets that blocked them “cockrockets”. The human women the potatoes are grown in have their genitals turned into storage referred to as “c*nt bags”.

Continuum, Season 2, Episode 13: Second Time

Starting in the future, Kiera is investigating the murder she was expressly told to leave alone – because her supervisor appears to be burying the murder rather than trying to solve it.

Her takes her suspicions to his boss since he works for Sadtech and it was a Sadtech technician who was murdered. His boss mollifies him – and assures him that Kiera will be kept out of danger during the execution

Hah, shows how much his guarantees are worth.

His boss goes and talks to Old Alec, worried about Kiera digging deeper. Alec is impressed by Kiera’s dedication and tells the supervisor to leave it with him – then goes and looks up Kiera’s file. Once pulled up he uses it to transfer information – at home, in bed, Kiera jerks awake in sudden pain. She tells her husband it’s her CMR and he looks out at the satellite.

The next day, the day of the Liber8 executions, Kiera goes down to breakfast and sees her husband working on the very device she was examining connected to her murder inquiry. He closes it and calls it a work thing. Her husband clearly has something on his mind but in the end doesn’t tell her

In a meeting of important people, Alec convinces them that it’s necessary to let the Liber8 plot to escape progress as far as possible so they can use it to expose their conspirators. When the meeting breaks up, Alec turns to one of the women and asks for an explanation (presumably of the murder of the Sadtech technician). The woman claims the murder victim was approached by outsiders – a sect that knew of Alec’s research and felt they had to intervene; Old Alec realises she was contacted by the Freelancers. When she leaves someone else approaches –someone Alec called in expressly to stop the Freelancer threat. It’s Jason – a much much younger Jason.

Jason, Alec’s father, Elderly Alec and young Jason. Time travel makes my head hurt.

In the present, young Alec goes to see Escher. Escher tries to convince Alec that he set Emily on him to try and protect him. Alec came to tell Escher he holds him responsible for Emily’s death; Escher asks him to tell him what happened.

At the police station, Carlos tells Dillon about Emily’s murder (using her real name) and connects it to Gardiner’s death – but Dillon sees Carlos trying to protect Kiera and reminds Carlos that CSIS thinks he’s involved especially since he didn’t bring her in. Carlos asks for some breathing room and gets a call from Kiera and tells her about Emily’s death – Dillon goes to Betty and asks Betty to trace Carlos’s call. With an address Dillon sets off and, call ended, Carlos then calls someone in Internal Affairs. And Betty texts someone…

At Liber8 HQ, Sonya want Kellog (who they have graciously invited to visit with lots of implied violence) why Kiera, Alec and Escher are meeting – she got a text from her friendly contact in the police (Betty?). Kellog talks quickly and tells them that Escher is behind the kidnapping of Garza (she was kidnapped by Freelancers who Escher may or may not be involved with). Kellog also tells them that Escher may have a working time travel device – or be preparing for one. Sonya and Kellog see how very dangerous the device could be in Escher’s hands.

Escher keeps trying to establish a connection and friendship with Alec, but Alec’s not having it. So Escher claims to be his father – which is dubious since Alec already has a DNA match to Jason. Escher pulls up a photograph showing him and Alec’s mother together when Alec was a baby. Alec, I’m sure future tech includes photoshop.

Alec actually seems to fall for it (he takes a photograph over an actual DNA test? Really? I thought the guy was supposed to be intelligent). And Kiera arrives to tell Alec how sorry she is about Emily. Alec has plenty of blame for Kiera as well, for chasing after the device and leaving Emily.

Then Dillon arrives with a small army of police to arrest Kiera. Alec tells Kiera dramatically how much he hates Kiera and how he will never ever ever forgive her, ever! And Escher is her father and he’s totally on his family’s side and how mean is she!

Oh you have no idea the angry, furious rant I made about how ridiculous this whole twist was! It was EPIC. And then I had to delete the whole damn thing because the minute Kiera’s taken away Alec steps aside and talks to her through her CMR making it clear it’s all an act, he doesn’t trust Escher and he still supports Kiera. He tells her that Escher has an anti-matter machine and if Kiera can get out of her mess and bring him the device he can send her home.

Falling Skies, Season 3, Episode 10: Brazil

Weaver, Anthony, Lyle and Pope (who isn’t dead) are in a train heading to the target. Also chained up in the train is Lourdes – who is sweating and suffering and almost animalistic. They’re going to use her and her eye worms as bait for Karen.

Tom, Kadar and Cochise try to figure out how to work the Volm weapon. Thankfully the completely alien language developed by a culture unimaginably different from ours is very intuitive to human understanding. Uh-huh. They’re sure the gun will work and take out the tower – and when the tower is down the Volm ship will see it and be able to land.

Hal’s all buzzing because he thinks the war is nearly over and he’s making plans about what to do in the aftermath – though Maggie thinks he’s being a bit hasty by assuming the Volm landing means the war will just end. She’s also a little disturbed by Hal’s white picket fence dreams especially since she knows her strength is as a warrior and if this battle is won, she intends to keep on fighting.

The train is ambushed by mechs and Weaver & co open fire and start fighting. They’re on the way to Chicago

Tom, the Volm weapon et al are on a boat though – and not heading to Chicago. They aren’t ambushed and believe they’ve tricked Karen (and Tom doesn’t have an eye worm) into focusing on Weaver’s diversion with Lourdes. Jeanne is also with them (why? Is she a combatant now? Or just there to angst about Weaver?) They fire the Volm weapon, it sucks in some of the net the towers are producing and fire a projectile at the tower

Which mildly damages one of the legs. It looks pretty weak – then the whole tower collapses, utterly destroyed. Many cheers and celebrations!

That was AWFULLY easy and AWFULLY early. The other shoe is definitely going to drop. The net over the world disappears without the tower. From the skies a massive space ship lands, bigger than the Tower, in the ruins of Boston.

That night there’s lots of partying – drums and music and Tom inside his tent preparing to meet with the Volm commander. Ben joins him and Tom’s excited to introduce the Volm commander to the rebel skitters since they’ve never heard of the like – though the Skitters aren’t really eager to meet the Volm. Tom is just trying to grasp the enormity of what they’ve achieved when the celebration sparks up again – Weaver & co arrive, apparently bailed out by Cochise and his soldiers (Cochise explained the distraction to the Volm commander who dispatched a squad to intervene). Lourdes is still restrained, they meet the Volm commander in the morning – and the Espheni are rapidly retreating to the north.

Lots more celebrations and toasts and triumph.

The next day Weaver and Tom head to see the Volm commander leader by Cochise. The commander greets them with great respect and honour – and it turns our Cochise is his son. After which the commander tries to get rid of tom and weaver so they can deploy their defences – it seems the commander isn’t super-eager to involve Tom and Weaver in the war planning. Cochise tries to be nice about it, but the Volm commander outright says that they’ve been fighting the Espheni for a long time and the humans aren’t really necessary at this point. The Volm can take on the Espheni, the humans will only be in the way. The Volm want to relocate humanity to a place away from the fighting – Brazil – while they get on with the warefare.

Hey, sounds good – aliens show up and decide to fight and die for you. Sign me up!

Of course Tom is not interested in not being able to fight – the Volm don’t present it as a choice. They will be relocated (the commander speaks to Tom like he’s a naughty child). Tom continues to protest, the Commander refuses to listen and starts to leave. Tom grabs his arm and the commander smacks him, knocking him to the floor. DRAMA! (Or, perhaps, proof that grabbing leaders of major forces is a bad idea).

Weaver storms back into camp telling everyone to pack up and be ready to move in an hour and that Tom has been detained by the Volm. He wants them to move before the Volm arrive to relocate them to safety, supported by everyone, of course. Pope declares the Volm are no better than the Espheni – ummm, no?

Weaver goes into his tent – and seems to have a heart attack and Jeanne hurries in to help him with his pills – pills he’s been taking for a couple of months unknown to her. He tells her she can’t tell anyone and she suggests going to Brazil – but the Volm’s offer to take them out of the fighting has now evolved into a “concentration camp”.

Cochise and a squad of Volm approach the humans and are greeted as happily as you’d expect. Weaver asks Cochise why he’s doing it – but Cochise is a soldier, even if he disagrees with what’s happening, it’s not his choice to make and he won’t disobey orders. Weaver asks the humans to disarm and Pope starts whining and complaining about how he knew better than Tom and Weaver (so they should have left the security net up and not used Volm weapons? Good idea Pope!)

On the ship, the commander tells Tom how big a breach of etiquette it was to touch the Volm commander and how Cochise should have told him that (or Tom could have guessed – you grab the arm of any national leader today and see how many times you bounce). The Commander is also confused – every planet they have liberated so far consisted of dull and pliant species who not only were happy to relocate to safety while the Volm fought – but were eager to do so. Tom tells him of humanity’s will to fight. The commander tells Tom how, as a warrior, as a warlord, he has never had need to question his orders or protocol; it’s disorientating that Tom is now doing so. The Commander leaves, troubled, to think.

At the camp, Lourdes is still tied up. Hal goes to see her and she screams, desperate to get the worms out of her. Hal reassures her, tells her they will get the worms out and she trusts him – always have. They have a brief jaunt down memory lane and a brief reminder that once Hal and Lourdes looked like they were going to be love interest (especially when you consider how unhappy Maggie was with Hal’s white picket fence aspirations). When Hal leaves the tent, Maggie talks about putting Lourdes out of her misery – since Karen to track her. That conversation doesn’t have to continue because it’s time for the camp to move out.

Curses! FOILED AGAIN!

So we free Renee from the hospital after a death defying escape involving a thrilling moose chase, and we were already to start the podcast again!

After such a battle we were more excited than a CW character getting her first love triangle, we were more energised than a student in a coffee plantation, we were more eager than a HBO character getting her kit off! It was time!

And then the technology failed us

For some reason Talkshoe is splitting Renee's account in an awkward technical thing that means her computer and phone are logged on as separate people and neither of them can start the show.

This is more annoying than Switch being cancelled.

We blame Sister Demon Nun and Renee will battle with it. As soon as she is victorious, the podcast will return.

True Blood, Season 6, Episode 8: Dead Meat

Eric stares at the remains of Nora. Sorry, Eric, you’re going to have to bin those bed linens, there’s no way that mess is going to come clean. Eric is not a happy vampire. He’s furious at Billith for not foreseeing Nora’s death, furious that Billith didn’t save her and get Warlow, furious that Billith is demanding Eric help him before the blood is even try and pretty damn angry that Billith didn’t get Warlow because he didn’t want to argue with precious Sookie.

All pretty reasonable points actually.

At which point Eric stops having good points and positively loses it while Billith floats him round the room with his telekinesis. After Eric’s ranting gets on his nerves, Billith cracks through it by insulting Godric and kicks Eric out.

In Vampire prison, Tara wisely tells Willa not to mess with big boss vampire lady who has claimed Jason. Especially since she seems to be only talking to Jason. She asks what he did to be thrown in (he says “the governor’s girl”) but while she’s nice and not savage she also makes it clear that her claiming him wasn’t just altruism. She meant it. Really meant it – forever ever meant it (she’s Catholic after all – and not modern fluffy Catholic but serious medieval Catholic).

Elsewhere in prison, Jessica and James are all lovey dovey until the guards split them up and return them to the general population cells. They also pick up Pam who just had sex with the psychiatrist – she describes it as “oozy, but productive”. A brief break there while everyone removes “oozy but productive” mental images from their minds.

They return to general prison population – and the guards start handing out bottles of True Blood. And in the male vampire population, Steve Newlin complains about being unpopular to James and James, being either a fool or a compassionate soul, tells Steve not to drink the infected True Blood.

In the female ward, Violet, the chief vamp, is enjoying Jason’s blood while Willa, Jessica, Tara and (reluctantly), Pam discuss how to save him. Being munched on, Jason begs Violet not to rape him (a special trigger for him) and she makes it clear that WHEN they have sex, it will be consensual and she has very strong ideas as to how that’s going to happen.

Sarah Newlin arrives at the camp and is told that some of the vampires are not eating the tainted True Blood. To find out why she puts pressure on her ex-husband Steve – who can’t even run in a treadmill? No, this is ridiculous, I know he’s set up to be the pathetic comic relief, but it is ridiculous that any vampire is that freaking slow. He quickly cracks and tells Sarah about them knowing about the Hep V and quickly gives up James.

Both James and Steve are moved into a room – a white room – where Sarah says anyone else who doesn’t want to drink will also join them. Steve cries and snivels.

Elsewhere, Ms. Suzuki, the spokesperson for the corporation that makes True Blood is furious and storms to the facility demanding to speak to the Governor. She rages through the factory and runs into Sarah Newlin. Sarah Newlin tries to raise the banner of eternal sisterhood to which Ms. Suzuki knees her to cut off the patronising speech and charges through to see them adding Hep V to her company’s True Blood. She rings to call the FDA and parent company in Osaka – and Sarah Newlin attacks her.

Ms. Suzuki runs into the vampire prison, chased by Sarah Newlin. Sarah catches her when Ms. Suzuki is shocked to see one of the vampire sex experiments – but Suzuki kicks Sarah in the stomach and keeps going. She runs out onto the walkway above the general male vampire population – but there’s a problem. The walkway is a grill and Ms. Suzuki is wearing high heels, she falls and breaks her ankle – when her head hits the grill, Sarah continues to slam her head into the metal grating. A vampire from below leaps up and bites her face through the grill while Sarah murders her with her high heel shoe. Sarah praises Jesus.

Fangs for the Fantasy Book of the Week

The Podcast returns! 

Every week on the Fangs for the Fantasy podcast (archives here) we read a book and discuss it on the show. The review for the book of the week always goes up on a Monday

Our podcast broadcasts at 6:00pm EST, which is 11:00pm GMT

To give people a chance to read along with us, every Monday we’re also going to include a list of our planned books of the week for the next few shows, so people can get the books, read them and join in the conversation

5th August - 12th August: Biting Bad by Chloe Neill

12th August - 19th August: Grave Visions by Kalayna Price

19th August - 26th August: Dance of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin

26th August - 2nd September: Dark Reunion by L.J. Smith

Kitty in the Underworld (Kitty Norville #12) by Carrie Vaughn

Kitty has another book to write – one on legends and history, one that looks back over the past and considers how many of the beast related mythological figures and heroes that feature so highly in history are actually wereanimals.

In particular Regina Luporum, the wolf who raised the infants Romulus and Remus who went on to found the city of Rome. A figure Kitty herself has been identified with

Perhaps too much, especially when a gang of rather odd kidnappers seize Kitty for this very reason. While Kitty thinks of escape, she can’t help but wonder if maybe this odd group has the key to defeating Roman.

So, I started typing this review, changed my mind and deleted it and started again. Then I did the same thing again. And again. And again. I’m now stream of consciousing while I stare at the screen and say “hmmmm”.

I’ve said this before when reading the Kitty Norville series and, to a degree, when reading any long series of books – you need to look at this book in two ways. Once as a book in its own rightand once as part of an ongoing series.

Looking at it as the former, I’m kind of lost. The beginning of the book and set up of the story is odd… after being kidnapped Kitty spends 90% of the book thinking and internal monolguing. There are attempts at escape but… well there are THOUGHTS of escape. I don’t particularly blame Kitty for not working day and night on her escape (except for one incident which I will get to) since there were so few avenues for her to escape – but it meant that most of the book was her generally trying to question her captors about why they’ve actually captured her, quickly becoming extremely sympathetic with one of them in a very rapid and never really labelled as such Stockholm-syndrome manner, until the end when there’s a fight scene and she leaves.

Basically, looking at it separately:

Kitty is kidnapped

Kitty spends a long time considering her imprisonment while kidnappers refuse to talk to her

Kitty: Let me out!

Kidnappers: No

Kitty: Tell me why you kidnapped me!

Kidnappers: No

Kitty thinks about how she’s imprisoned and can’t get out

Kitty: Let me out!

Kidnappers: No.

Kitty: Then tell me why you’ve kidnapped me!

Kidnappers: Here’s some vague clues

Kitty thinks about stories and said vague clues.

Kitty: Let me out!

Kidnappers: No…

Fangs for the Fantasy Podcast Returns!

After many epic conflicts, surpassing hardship beyond measure, defeating terrible foes and creating an eternal enemy we have dubbed Sister Demon Nun, Renee has escaped from hospital. I do not know how many nuns, nurses, passing doctors, orderlies, patients or polar bears she had to slay to do this but I’m sure it’s considerable.

It does mean she is ensconced back home (with decent food at last!) and we will be resuming the podcast! (Unless Sister Demon Nun catches up with Renee, in which case she may be too busy loading the shotgun)

So tomorrow (Monday 5^th August) at 6:30pm EST (11:30pm BST) we will resume our Fangs for the Fantasy Podcast

And here is the link to join us.

As ever, all of our previous podcasts are available through our archive.