cover image Goliath and the Killer Zombie

Goliath and the Killer Zombie

Ian Cant. CreateSpace, $10.99 paper (302p) ISBN 978-1-4791-2925-6

Part locked-room mystery, part metafictional narrative, this engaging futuristic adventure isn%E2%80%99t quite sure what it wants to be. On the surface, it%E2%80%99s about an unnamed narrator, a 25th-century investigator for the Bureau Veritas, who, nearing the end of a relatively quiet career, is assigned a bizarre case involving a murder-suicide. The book is also the tale of Goliath, one of the prime suspects, who dwells far from civilization and spins yarns about time travel and cloning. As the two threads intertwine, the narrative takes on an increasingly self-aware, unreliable air, culminating in an appropriately convoluted fashion. Cant%E2%80%99s style is leisurely, even tongue-in-cheek, with a prim sensibility, e.g., %E2%80%9CThe climate is hot except in the places where it is cold.%E2%80%9D The plot is stretched and twisted considerably via numerous digressions and expository passages. Nonetheless, the mystery at the heart of the novel and the book%E2%80%99s underlying sense of wonder will appeal to fans of the genre.